Memories Brian Saville

I took all photographs between 1959 and 1962. Almost all were taken around the city centre of Liverpool and even more especially in the Exchange area.

I used to get up and out early on Sunday mornings, not all of them mind you, and go into town whilst the streets were quiet in whatever company vehicle I had at the time. The company was our own families business founded by my Dad in about 1955.

The use of a street guide for Liverpool will probably enable the viewer to find where they are or if they still exist. I still, in the year 2004, think that the old Sissons café shop front in Castle Street/Sweeting Lane to be most interesting and intriguing. It has surely come from a much earlier building; to me it appears to belong to the15th century at the earliest.

The photograph of Silkhouse Lane leading to George Street and Windsor Buildings means a lot to me as this is where in 1953 my Father rented a third floor office for the new branch of the Alba Flooring Company that he opened for them. I spent many a boring hour in that office 'holding the fort'. On the corner of Silkhouse Lane and Tithebarn Street was a gent's barber's shop where I had my hair cut in those days. If I was going out to a special place or 'date' that evening I would go to see Jim and get 'the works' a cut, shampoo and a very close shave with an open razor! The shop was one of those half cellar type shops and the man who owned it had only one arm. I think that both he and Jim were ex servicemen.

The photograph of the Flooring Northern office building in Vauxhall Road is where my Father set up his own company. He began this company in 24 Wapping when I was in the RAF doing my National Service in 1956. He later moved to this building at the invitation of one of his largest clients Threlfalls Breweries. The company was situated there for a good number of years until it moved back to the Dock Road area at Carpenters Row. Later on in years when I started documenting my family's history I thought it quite a coincidence that my Dad should have started up and finished in the same area as one of his earliest ancestors John Folds, a carver by trade, had a business and workshop. It is also something of a coincidence that after taking so many photographs around the Old Hall Street area that I should discover that Thomas Armett Saville who came to Liverpool from Macclesfield should have lived in one of those awful closes in Lumber Street and Lad Lane. I think Lumber Street disappeared under the development of Exchange Station?
The Union Court photo means a lot to me too as this is where I had my first job, working as a 'runner' for the shipping agents W. A. Sparrow. (I was awaiting an apprenticeship with W. Watson of Liverpool, and that's another story!) I raced around the business quarter of the city delivering and collecting shipping notes, bills of lading etc to and from various shipping companies. There were a lot of them in those days and I loved the bigger offices where they had on display large-scale models of their ships, some of them huge liners. I recall wangling my way up into the cupola on the top of the Cunard Building where I with one or two others watched the launch of vessel 1119 from Camell Lairds. This ship an aircraft carrier became HMS Ark Royal and both my Dad's company and I worked on her for several years. I came to the conclusion that this ship would never actually sail as she was almost constantly being modified in the light of the latest developments like steam catapults etc. Sharing the same building as Sparrows was a company called Stewart Bale a firm of very successful commercial photographers. Against the front wall of the building was a railed off flight of steps and at the bottom of these was a toilet intended for likes of myself, a lowly runner! As I went to work from Longview to Union Court every day by bicycle I used this handy place to lock up my bike and keep it safe!
My wages then was thirty-five shillings a week and when I got my apprenticeship it went down to 26 shillings! Later when working away from Liverpool for my father I earned up to ninety pounds per week in 1954! I then went to do my National Service and ended up back on 28 shillings per week. I thought that I was doomed to spend the rest of my life earning less than 30 shillings!