«Sing Us A Song Ma, Before We Say Goodbye» by Carol Wainwright,Johnny Slater

Sing Us A Song Ma, Before We Say Goodbye is a lively, vividly rendered and extremely moving memoir of Johnny Slater's childhood in war-torn Liverpool. Written by his daughter Carol, it follows Johnny from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, right up until his period of National Service from 1954-1956. It tracks the progress of Johnny, his brother Jimmy, sister Cath, Ma, Da, Aunty Julia and his four-legged friends, Punch and Judy - through the devastation of the Liverpool Blitz, their evacuation to a country farm (and the first sight of cows for the children), Johnny's school years, D-Day, first love, and the devastating tragedy that befalls the family during Johnny's time in the army. It is full of detail and colour, painting an exuberant and loving picture of working class life in Kirkdale, on the banks of the Mersey, where life was often hard and money in short supply, but where communities pulled together, family was everything and it only took a chippy dinner or a bonfire to send a small boy into paroxysms of joy. The dialect-driven dialogue creates a rich sense of place, and the characters are full of life and love, so that the untimely death of one of them at the end of the narrative is profoundly moving and tragic.