Gut Feelings

A photo of the Louisa Street Bombing



 Rachel’s post about gut feelings held a certain resonance with me today.
I wouldn’t be here today, if my Grandmother had not listened to her gut feeling during an air raid over Liverpool in 1940, Nor would another 20 or so members of my family.
One gut feeling meant that two dozen others plus would exist.
She used to tell a good tale of it. 
So did my mother who was a girl of fifteen at the time,
But there they were in 1940 running through the Liverpool streets during an air raid. My grandmother, my mother and my uncle Jim who was around ten years old at the time
My family had three choices. 
They could either go to the public shelter which was furthest away or run to the family shelter in Louisa Street Everton where my grandmother’s in laws had congregated, their last choose was to make  for the nearby school.
The school was slightly further, but my grandmother had been promised a single “ reinforced” room just for her own use in it, so she was torn between the choices.
My mother remembered than the bombers were already turning at St George’s Church, the highest point of that part of the city when my grandmother stopped in the road unsure of which shelter to make for.
She prayed and her gut feeling made her turn for the school.
The bombs were falling when they flung themselves onto the school floor, and nearby explosions brought in windows and doors as the Louisa Street Shelter suffered a direct hit which brought the roof in onto my paternal family fatally injuring  my great grandfather  and killing seven others. 

Just tonight I found my great grandfather’s name James Samual Fry in the official Liverpool and Merseyside Bombings Blogsites on line


My grandmother followed her gut feeling that night and soon after, with family dead and no home to go back to , she followed that little voice in her head and took her family to wales where she settled in the back of a small shop, in the village of Gwaenysgor, just a mile or so from Trelawnyd.

I will leave you with this lovely song



78 comments:

  1. What a strange feeling that must be to encounter your great grandfather's name and to see those photos.

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  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM

    Thought I remembered her :)

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    1. I loved jar of hearts, she looks very different now , very natural

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  3. Thank you for sharing that video. It led to an hour of pleasure trawling youtube listening to those kids. I just love their expressive faces and their beautiful voices.

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    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9qp0FNEzU

      This is my favourite x

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  4. Loved the video and the story! Wow!

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  5. What a terrifying experience.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. It haunted my Grandmother for life . She could never cope with any loud bang and thunderstorms scared her silly

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  6. Terrible memory but at least it got your remaining family out of danger.

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    1. They escaped the rest of the bombing for sure

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  7. What a wonderful lady.

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  8. My people lived in a small Surrey village, where, unfortunately, the German bombers would offload any unused bombs on their way back home from bombing London. One such bomb, which exploded not far from their home, completely destroyed the outside wall of their bedroom. They suddenly found themselves in bed with an open view of the garden. Sadly, on the same bombing mission, a young teacher from the village school was killed, and my sister was named after her, as a tribute.

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  9. Barbara Anne4:33 am

    Lovely music and what a family story!
    I've always called it 'listening to the little voice' that has helped me make choices all of my life - and I'm not nuts.

    Hugs!

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    1. Yes, instinct? A part of the brain only used in those times? Who knows

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  10. How frightening that time must have been for all. Yes, thank goodness your Grandmother listened to her gut feelings. Always trust your gut.

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    1. Yes how many of you are not in tune with it

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  11. That's an amazing story and your grandmother such a wonderful lady! Life or death choices in an instant, and then the bravery of having to relocate her family.
    Beautiful video.

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    1. She was an amazing lady in many ways . A big boned big hearted character

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  12. Yorkshire Liz6:42 am

    Makes the past very real and very much part of the present. Experience tells me to never ignore that little inner voice.And we all have one.

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    1. Yes…I’m trying to think when I last followed mine

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  13. Thank goodness for her instincts.

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    1. She used to infer that the voice in her head was from on high

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  14. Amazing and brave lady...if she hadn't followed her inner voice you wouldn't be here today.
    A friend of mine followed his gut instinct and didn't go on the flight he was booked on, Pan Am 103...which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie.

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    1. My grandmother always claimed she wa s psychic

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  15. I always listen to my gut instincts. They've never let me down. Your gran did well to listen to hers on that fateful day.

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  16. These little snippets of family history bring the past to life. A split-second decision that can change lives for ever. xx

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  17. What a great story. And a lovely video. Those kids looked as though they were really enjoying the song and the visit.

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    1. Have a look at the other videos in the series very moving

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  18. Anonymous7:53 am

    A story well told and you have connections to your area since the early 40s.

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  19. I wish I'd listened to my gut more in the past, instead of doing the 'right' thing.

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    1. I think we’ve all been guilty of this

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  20. That heartbreaking, heartwarming, powerful story followed by such beautiful music. You left me smiling.

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  21. Beautiful song and I only realised afterwards that the singer - Christina Perri was also the writer of the song. The accompanying children were all totally "into" the song - no self-consciousness or silliness. Rest in peace James Samuel Fry. 81 years later you are not entirely forgotten my friend.

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    1. Mary fry, his wife survived the attack though she was dreadfully injured. Before the war she was a maid in a big house up in the hills in Denbigh 18 miles to the north of Trelawnyd

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  22. Gut instinct or intuition definitely needs to be followed.
    Good to find records

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  23. Beautiful video, I just howled all over my knitting, but the pure joy and authenticity of the children at the end more than made up for it :) (I'm just glad you didn't post Jar of Hearts lol)

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    1. I could write screeds about gut feelings and heart v head, but I shall spare you ;)

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    2. Please don’t I’m loving readers stories

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  24. Anonymous9:42 am

    My Grandmother also left war torn Liverpool with her family, for the safety of Llandudno, after being trapped in a property which collapsed during a bombing raid. My mother used to have nightmares about it even when she was in her 90's. Lizziex

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    1. Lizzie how weird
      My grandmother and mother were trapped in their home by a bomb which went under the kitchen floor but didn’t explode

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  25. Amazingly I have a relative killed in that raid. My mother was one of 3 girls each night they took it in turns to go into the next street to spend the evening in the shelter in their grandmother's street. That night it was Edna's turn. The shelter took a direct hit and she was killed instantly. If it had been my mother's turn.......

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  26. What a wonderful story, John. In 1944, my mother was a student lodging at the YWCA in Earls Court, London. She was revising for finals, so she didn't join her friends going to the Guards' Chapel. They never came back; it was hit by a V1 during morning service.

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    1. I never realised and probably will never, understand the fear my mother and grandmother went through

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    2. My first book was on the Guards' Chapel incident, so my Mum's experience led me to become a writer.

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  27. A powerful family history. There's a lot to say about gut feelings...

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  28. The reports need to be kept alive, to be retold, as a reminder of the horrors. When we visited my great grandmothers home town, trying to find where she was born (I have her birth certificate) the answer was that the neighborhood was bombed into oblivion in WWII - she was in Detroit.

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    1. They are. The stories of the German air raids are well documented in Great Britain and names remembered in cities throughout.

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    2. Yes I found my great grandfathers name easily . That was unexpected

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    3. We suffered great losses in Norwich and Yarmouth in 1942.

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    4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Blitz

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    5. I published a book last year on the Baedeker raids of 1942. It includes a number of first hand accounts of the raids.Not to mention the story of Buddy the sea lion, who was performing at the Norwich Hippodrome that week. "The Terror Raids of 1942: the Baedeker Blitz" by Jan Gore. Happy to try to help anyone looking for information on the Home Front in WW2.

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  29. How interesting John. My first husband's mother came from Crosby - part of Liverpool - and her brother and his wife (I think their name was Boakes) were killed when the air raid shelter they were in took a direct hit. They left two children, brought up by the rest of the large family - the girl Vera by my husband's mother. Small world.

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    1. http://www.lancashireatwar.co.uk/crosby-blitz-beach/4594401808

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  30. Great post, John! Your family story and those talented kids! Thanks so much! xx

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  31. I wish it wouldn't but I feel tense and my heart beats fast and experience an uncomfortable sense of something imminent with a panic feeling in my gut and then wretch x

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    1. I don't know John-all I remember hearing somewhere and I think it may be from my reiki man or yoga teacher-way back in time human beings used an extra power there for intuition-a chakra which we should listen to more x

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  32. countrygal7:21 pm

    My gut feeling was not to marry the man I loved and adored: I made the right choice but still have deep feelings for him and we stay in contact on an occasional basis.

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    1. Can u tell us more , this sounds an amazing and moving story

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. countrygal4:45 pm

      Please send me your e mail address. x

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    4. jgsheffield@hotmail.com

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  33. A real life and death decision by your Grandmother's gut feeling. Just amazing. I do believe some people are more in touch with their gut feeling than others.

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  34. I would love to know if my mother followed her gut instincts to leave Germany just after the war to come to England to marry her British soldier boyfriend. Her reasons must have been so strong for her to leave, that she left her son behind. I wish I had questioned her more about it.

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  35. What a wonderful story John !!!

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  36. Thank you for sharing that song, John. The voices were gorgeous. My husband loved it, too.
    And we loved the story of your family. We have been reading a lot of WWII UK stories lately and we have been amazed by the courage and persistence of the people there during an awful time in history.

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  37. The song makes me think of Twilight

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