During the war my Mum lived in Beckwith St, almost at the junction with Livingstone St. Their house was bombed out and they moved a couple of doors up, to the second house along (with the white door). The land where her original house was was never built on again and throughout the sixties was just mud and rubble. Now, it's a patch of green with a few trees.
She told me some stories about air raids but never mentioned how much warning they had.
Apparently St James' Church was the landmark that German pilots flying in from the Irish Sea would look for.
From there they had a straight run down Laird/Conway St to Cammel Lairds.
Mum told me how the bombers would fly at rooftop height down Conway St, sometimes with machine guns peppering the shops.
On one occasion she was late getting to a shelter and was running up Conway St, a bomber must have let his bombs go early and the explosion blew my Mum through the air. She woke up in a shop doorway, shaken but otherwise unharmed.
Another time she was walking home from a dance at the Kingsland on Borough Rd when the air raid sirens started.
They both ran into Birkenhead Park and took cover with a few other people in one of the shelters there.
They all remarked on how loud and near the bombing seemed.
When the all clear sounded she looked up to see the roof of the shelter was gone