Hi All
Interesting chat this as I lived next door to Maggies and knew the Shemalts very well. During my time there were two brothers and they also owned the other cinema, later a bingo hall, in Victoria Street. They lived in a 1930s style bungalow in Red Street.
We didn't move into Heathcote Street until November 1959, but the aftermath of the bomb was still evident. My understanding is that a bomb was off loaded by a German on his way home from a raid on Liverpool (hearsay). The damage in John Street also demolished the "pop" factory in Sandford Street, plus the roof of our outbuilding (probably the size of a double garage) the canopy over the driveway, plus the first floor and part of the roof of our house. The latter two never got reinstated, but my father, in the early 60s, removed all the accumulation or bomb debris from the building which attached to the cinema and made a double garage out of it, under a flat roof.
During the war, legend has it that people would take shelter in our cellar and, during "safe periods" hold meetings in a kind of hall which we never used other than to explore. The hall had a stage type raised area at one end but was difficult to access as the external staircase was also damaged by the bomb (possibly just rotted away, but we blamed the German bomber for just about everything that was wrong with that property!).
We moved out in the Spring of 1974 when our properties, Maggies, plus others in London Road (including the pub in Dragon Square) were compulsory purchased for redevelopment and now we have the eye sore that's there now, no soul or character to the area, which is sad to see.
Cheers
Bookend69