Evacuee John's memoir of growing up in Whitchurch of yesteryear

"I would be five. I didn't know what was going on, except there were hundreds and hundreds of people in the street, and people dancing and singing. That's my first real memory," said John, who was an evacuee from Liverpool.

He had arrived in the Shropshire town at 18 months old, with his mother Molly, and older brothers Jimmy and George, while his dad Jim stayed behind in the city, where he was a full-time fireman fighting the Blitz.

In 1942 the only Shropshire-born member of the Wilson family came along in the form of his sister Eleanor, known to the family as Mickey.

That move to Shropshire was to changed John's life, and now he has written about it and his formative years in the north Shropshire town in a new booklet called "My Whitchurch."

"This one has been in the back of my mind for quite some time, about growing up in Whitchurch in the 1950s and 1960s," said John, who is 79, and lives in Meole Brace, Shrewsbury – he wrote a book called "My Shrewsbury" a few years ago.

Initially the evacuees lived on a farm at Woodhouses, before moving into the town.

"Originally we were in Newtown, then in Station Road – there's a picture of that on the front cover of the black and white cottages opposite the police station – and finally in Brownlow Street.

"I lived in Whitchurch until I was 21 when I left to move to Shrewsbury and get married. One of those decisions was the best thing I have ever done."

John has returned to the town regularly lately to top up the various outlets where his booklet is on sale – the Heritage Centre, the Lettuce Leaf Cafe in Bredwood Arcade, and the Bradbury Day Centre attached to the hospital.

Priced £5, it is also available direct from him – phone 01743 364337.

"The town has very much changed. There is not a shop the same there as when we were growing up as kids.

"It's nice to go back and with this book it's amazing how many people say 'I remember you.'

"Until recently my sister lived in Whitchurch and we go back quite often. She has moved to Shrewsbury now.

"A lot of the book is about the characters of Whitchurch at the time."

He writes in the book that when he was growing up there seemed to be a lot of what would nowadays be regarded as oddballs.

"To our eyes as teenagers we viewed them as 'characters,' and still remember them with great affection.'"

John recalls in the book that the cattle market was his playground, but says in retrospect he saw some unbelievable cruelty, with animals subject to awful beatings.

"At the time I suppose I just accepted that that was the way things were, but I wonder now if that is the reason I have been a proud vegetarian all my life."

In the book John remembers his teenager haunts, one of which was the Lord Hill, which became Hatton & Williams' furniture store, and also the town cinema, the Palladium, run by Miss Wilkinson, where his movie star favourite was Doris Day.

After the war his father worked as a painter and decorator at an old camp near Iscoyd, and later started up on his own as J S Wilson Painter and Decorator.

With Percy Viner, he was instrumental in starting the OAP (Old Age Pensioners) Club in Whitchurch in 1947, which was originally in an old hut behind the fire station in Brownlow Street, later raising enough for a new venue in the Pearl Yard and changing the name to Whitchurch Senior Citizens' Club.

"He also resurrected the town band in Whitchurch, which indulged his passion for brass bands."