About Arthur, Stella, their letters and their family

The letters
The archive of letters that Arthur and Stella wrote to each other includes some from other people and also some written to and from their children. The website will include as many of these as possible to build up a picture of the couple, their family, and their life during wartime.

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Arthur’s Liverpool Blitz diaries
During the early part of the second world war, Arthur Johnson was Blitz Correspondent for the ‘Liverpool Echo’ newspaper. He kept meticulous records of where bombs had landed, which streets and buildings were hit, and how many people had been injured or killed. But because of the censorship laws in place during the war, much of this information was not published in the paper. Instead, he typed up his notes at home in a ‘secret’ diary.

In 2005 these extraordinary air raid records were published in a book as ‘Merseyside’s Secret Blitz Diary’, alongside many contemporary photographs of wartime Liverpool. Then in 2010 they were featured in a BBC Radio 4 documentary as part of a series commemorating 70 years since the Blitz. This is the BBC’s description of the programme:
In the second of a series of programmes telling stories of the Blitz from around the UK, Peter Sissons is in his home town of Liverpool to find out about the Blitz on Merseyside.

Peter starts by exploring the ‘secret diary’ kept by one of Liverpool’s newspaper journalists during the city’s Blitz. Arthur Johnson was the Blitz Correspondent for Liverpool’s ‘Daily Post and Echo’ newspapers. Throughout the bombing he reported for the papers. But once he got home, he would also type up his own detailed accounts of the bombing and the deaths and damage caused. At a time when all newspaper reports had to be censored, this was his own personal record which told exactly what was happening during the Blitz.

Arthur Johnson died towards the end of the War, but Peter meets his son – also Arthur Johnson – who takes him through some of the diary entries and tells him more about his father and how he gathered this remarkable account.

Liverpool’s importance as a port made it an obvious target for the Luftwaffe, but it was also home to the command centre for the Battle of the Atlantic. Local historian Ken Pye takes Peter to see the underground complex where that crucial campaign was co-ordinated.

During the programme, Peter also talks to some of the men and women who lived through Merseyside’s May Blitz in 1941. One of these is Sophie Griffiths, whose home was destroyed by the bombers on her 21st birthday. She gives Peter a vivid account of what it was like to face up to the German bombers and how her family survived a direct hit on their street.

Producer: Louise Adamson. A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10:45am Mon 6 Sep 2010.
Duration 15 minutes.

Listen to ‘The Liverpool Blitz’ broadcast here:

On 3 May 2016, BBC Radio Merseyside presented ‘Merseyside Blitz: an Unconquered People‘ at Liverpool Cathedral. This was an extraordinary event to mark the 75th anniversary of the May Blitz, celebrating through words and music the resilience of the people and commemorating those who died. Arthur’s Blitz diaries were used as the spine of the production, with readings throughout from it by Craig Charles. Among several other performers, Frank Cottrell Boyce and Roger McGough also read their own contributions. Although Radio Merseyside subsequently broadcast the event (on 8 May 2016), it is, at the time of writing, no longer available on iPlayer.

In the build up to the event, it was discussed on Radio Merseyside in the Sean Styles show, during which he spoke to Arthur’s son, also Arthur Johnson. It was broadcast on 20 April 2016 and you can listen to it here (9 minutes):

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Stella’s fascinating family
Stella Gregson was part of an extraordinary family. She herself trained to be a journalist, married Arthur in secret before the war, and went on to be a broadcaster and novelist (under a pen name).

One of her sisters, Mollie, turned down the opportunity to be one of the first women to go to university in favour of being a Carmelite nun, a very strict order.
Her brother Harold also worked under an assumed name – John Gregson – as a famous stage and film actor. One of Harold’s sons, John, maintains a website about his father.

Stella’s other sister, Chris Bird (née Gregson), had outlived them all when she died in 2010 aged 103.

Shortly before the latter’s funeral, Arthur and Stella’s son – also Arthur Johnson – was invited to discuss his Aunty Chris and his remarkable family on BBC Radio Merseyside. You can hear the interview by Linda McDermott, broadcast on 11 August 2010, here:

Introduction
Interview