AN 89-YEAR-OLD woman has recalled the moment a bomb stuck the back of her home during the Second World War - 80 years ago.

On September 6 1940, five bombs were dropped on St Helens.

The third of those dropped on Charles Street, tragically claiming the life of 14-year-old Vera Cassidy who was in number 69.

Next door, the Knowles family were in their front room and witnessed the bomb hitting the back of their home.

Dorothy Evan (nee Knowles) was only nine when a bomb struck, but she remembers what happened that day.

She said: "My mum was nursing my youngest sister and me and my sister were sat on the settee when we heard this loud noise of the siren.

"I said 'Come on mum lets go to the shelter' because we didn't have one in the garden and had to go to a communal one in a church.

"Then the next thing was the back door shot off and into the house and then I said 'come on mum I'm not stopping here'

"We went there and that was that, but when we went back the house was in bits.

"We went back in but everything was destroyed, everything except the piano, which the blast had blown into the back garden and my younger sister just went over to it and started playing it.

"We had nowhere to go and no possessions, but luckily the community really looked after us.

"A Mrs Albon took us all in, and there was five of us, and we got clothes donated by the community.

"We still got sent to the school the next day, life went on.

"I remember my sister picked me up and we went on a double decker bus after school a few days later and she took me to our new house in Parr, a council one which got sorted for us after what happened.

"All our furniture was donated by other people, we would have been lost without their kindness.

"Our neighbour died, and we would have too if we didn't leave when we did."

Do you have any memories of the day St Helens was struck with bombs during the Second World War?

If so let us know by emailing news@sthelensstar.co.uk