Following publication of the Globe's VE Day Supplement in last week's paper, 86-year-old Vi Breen wrote us a letter, remembering her life in Rock Ferry during World War II.

All the TV and newspaper look-backs at VE Day and WW2 have revived so many memories for me that I wondered if your readers would be interested if I shared my memories with them?

I am 86 years old and for 29 years of my life I lived in Rock Ferry, and for a few years in New Ferry.

We lived in Peel Street and when I was six years old my whole school was evacuated to South Wales.

Wirral Globe: Vi Breen, as she was aged sixVi Breen, as she was aged six

It was a scary experience at that age and my sister, and I were herded like sheep at Rock Ferry Station, not understanding what was happening and why all the Mum’s were crying as they waved us off.

We went to live in Newtown, and I don’t think the lady of the house liked me very much because I was always crying to go home.

We didn’t stay as long as the other children because Dad smuggled us home. We were the only house in the street that had a cellar which Dad had propped up the ceiling with railway sleepers in case the house was bombed.

Wirral Globe: Vi's mother and her Auntie Epp on Peel Street, by the cellar they would head to when the siren went offVi's mother and her Auntie Epp on Peel Street, by the cellar they would head to when the siren went off

We spent many hours down there, as soon as the siren went my cousins and some neighbours would join us.

Dad and my Aunt were 'Home Guard' and we had a grid at the front step that the coal would be put down and during a raid my Dad would lift it and and shout “Everybody all right down there” and we would shout back and ask what was happening in the area.

We knew the difference between the German planes and our spit fires by the sound of them. The Germans did their best to bomb Cammell Laird’s, which was quite near us, but they never succeeded.

Every Saturday hordes of us kids would land at the Gas Works, near Cammell Lairds to get a bag of coke (not drugs) to keep a fire in the hearth, houses were cold, we would have old prams to carry it in.

Our area consisted of Peel Street, Broughan Street and Cobden Street and St Paul’s Road was one end and Union Street the other end (lovely bungalows there now but last time I visited I missed the old familiar streets).

Wirral Globe: Brougham StreetBrougham Street

Florrie Hurd had a grocery shop on the corner of Gladstone Road which was very popular for any groceries you could get with the ration books. Lupton’s was on the other corner which sold milk and eggs.

Mr & Mrs Lupton were childless but every year they hired a double decker bus and took all the children in the area to Moreton where we picnicked and gathered shells.

A few of us went to St Paul’s Road Mission Sunday School and each year we went on a “treat” to Raby Mere where we could row boats and feast on paste sandwiches and NHS orange juice.

VE day was fantastic, flags everywhere, trestle tables all down the street. Mum’s had baked and scrimped and saved to feed us.

In the evening there was a bonfire in the street, old doors propping up windows so the heat wouldn’t break the glass. We toasted spuds on the end of toasty forks, the heat burnt our knuckles.

Gramophones would be brought to front doors and our parents danced the night away. I remember someone saying to my Mum, “There’s your Jim”, my Uncle, he was captured at Dunkirk aged 19 and became a prisoner of war, and this was the first time we had seen him since he went away.

Wirral Globe: Celebrating the Queen's coronationCelebrating the Queen's coronation

I went to Ionic Street School and then moved to Well Lane Primary and Kirkland’s Secondary School. We used to pick our way through the rubble of houses that had been bombed and gathered shrapnel that we would compete with others to see who got the most.

Our sweets were none existent, we used to put cocoa and sugar on a piece of paper and lick our finger and dip it in, and we used to call in a chip shop and ask for free batter that they had shook off the fish, that was our treat!

Most of our clothes would be bought with a Sturla’s cheque which would be payed for by weekly instalments, this was after the war because Cammel Laird had to pay off men, the ship building wasn’t needed anymore. There were no benefits, we had to sell some of our furniture.

Mersey Park and Victoria Park were great places to play in. There were air raid shelters in the streets, and we used to run in and out of them playing Kiss chase or Truth and Dare.

Wirral Globe: Queen's coronation partyQueen's coronation party

What happy memories, our parent must have been worried sick, but we were shielded from all that. We still had Birthday Parties and a Caravan holiday in Gronant or Talacre, most of the neighbours would be there, no bills or rent paid that week.

We used to have to walk for miles from Prestatyn Station, across a golf course, carrying heavy suitcases (no wheels on them then) to reach the caravan site, but we loved it.

Well I hope I haven’t bored you, I just thought that some of your readers my age (86) might like their memories jogged.

If I go from one room to another, I forget what I went for but my memories of 80 years ago are as fresh as if it was yesterday.

I just wish my parents were still alive so I could thank them for all the sacrifices they made for us. Dad made toys out of wood and Mum knitted dolls clothes, and they kept all their worries to themselves.

I do hope that someone my age will read this and be reminded of how it was.

Wirral Globe: Vi Breen as she is today, in Northern IrelandVi Breen as she is today, in Northern Ireland

I have been living here in Northern Ireland for 57 years, but I have never forgotten my roots.

May God keep his loving hand upon us so that the young ones of today will never have to experience the horror of war again.

Yours sincerely

Mrs Vi Breen

(nee Vi Jones)