Memories One

Ron Jones writes...........
Liverpool as I knew it in the1930s/1940s first written 18\06\06 updated 10\07\07.

John your web site photos have given me a great deal of pleasure I have sent your Web address to my older cousin in Canadian who attended the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. A few comments if I may, about a city that I came to love when I worked there. I have come to understand its history in greater depth since using the internet. I live in Auckland New Zealand.

I was born 1929 in Much Wenlock Salop. I was a watchmaker apprentice working for three years in Cooper's Buildings Church St. For Thos Russell & Son a very well known up market Liverpool firm selling watches under their own name.

I left for New Zealand in 1948 age 19 with my parents, today’s youth cannot understand how at that age one had no options even if one did not want to leave the country. Apart from working in Liverpool my connections are many.

My grandfather Alfred Harris was born in Old Swan. There may even be some older folk alive that remember he became known as the Caravan Bishop in Moreton in the 1920s. He made headlines in the main newspapers when he appealed to the King and many other important persons for assistance when the local council condemned his bungalow and despite all his efforts they demolished it. My mother Vera Harris was born in Miranda Rd. Bootle, both sets of my Grandparents were married in St Mary's Walton they lived in Grove St. All the old houses in this street were blitzed in the war and horrid dwellings replaced them, a Google aerial search now shows these post war houses have also vanished and the street appears to be all industrial.

I have fond memories of going on the Overhead railway during the war now vanished to visit the Grove St old home then empty and deserted but one was able to walk through it. Then we have St Nicholas church blitzed in WW2 my Harris great grandparents took their married vows in this ancient building. While my great grandfather William Moores made his living carrying freight in at least three Mersey sailing flats from Liverpool to Widnes.

Old St Peters pro cathedral the site in my day was occupied by the firm C&A Modes. I had to take up genealogy in NZ to learn some of my Harris ancestors were christened in the old church. I recall one of the senior watchmakers Mr Arthur Neil a Great War soldier that had lost a leg in the trenches, he wore old fashioned wing collars and looked like Neville Chamberlain told us apprentices of about how workmen put up screens around the old church site perimeter. The purpose was to keep the public from seeing the workmen digging up the old graves and removing the remains when the church was demolished in 1922 they had a birds eye view of all these events from the 3^rd floor as they worked.

There will be generations of present day Liverpool folk that do not know that at Prescot there was once a company called the Lancashire Watch Company it manufactured pocket and wrist watches. It was forced to close down for it could not compete with Switzerland. Three of our leading watchmakers used to work there. Mr Fred Green, Mr William Heaps foreman, and Mr Ted Prescott who turned and made balance staffs and fitted jewels. These were the days that all men in the firm were address by apprentices and junior office staff as Mister at all times.

We apprentices purchased watch material in 1945 from a business house close to Paradise St. That is they sold watch parts fitted glasses and sold tools which were very very scarce at this time. Another one was close to the Blue Coat School. On the bomb site near by used as a car park they held a photographic exhibition showing the horrors of the then recently found concentration camps, by the army in Germany. We bought our night school books and stationary from Philip Son & Nephew in Whitechapel.

As an apprentice starting on 17 shillings and sixpence, Men were on about £5+. Thos Russell & Son who I might add were once watchmakers to Queen Victoria. It was one of my jobs weekly to listen for the 1 O'clock gun that was fired daily, to assist the ships in the River Mersey to check their ship's chronometers. Having noted the time using my own bench watch I then was required to check and correct if necessary the firm's regulator clocks both at the shop in Church Alley and the workshop. (I nowadays collect Internet images of the firm's watches now classed as collector's items for sale, that makes me feel old, many are the same models I used to repair).

A little genealogical background on the firm. A brief review of my findings. The founder of the firm was a Thos Russell born 1780 in Eskdale a small village in Cumberland (he died in 1830). He served his time in watchmaking in New St. Broughton-in-Furness Lancs. under William Bellman, he then served his journeyman time with William Wakefield in Market St Lancaster. Thos married, he started his own business also in Market St Lancaster. He had two sons, one son, Thomas born in Lancaster in 1832 (Little is know of the second boy). Thomas junior married 1831, his eldest son Thomas Robert was born November 1833 in Lancaster. About 10 years after his father Thomas died he moved with his wife Mary and family to Halifax setting up a watchmaking business in Lord St. It was here his second son Alfred Holgate Russell was born in 1840.

By 1847 Thos Russell, his wife Mary with youngsters Thos Robert and Alfred had left Halifax and started a business in Liverpool 20 Slater Street. This expanded and he moved to 30,32 Slater St (this is still referred to as the 'former watchmaker’s factory'). By 1858 Thomas Senior and his oldest son Thomas Robert were granted a Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria indicating their rapid progress in watch manufacturing. From Slater St, Thos Robert built Cathedral Works which was blitzed in December 1940, what was left standing was cleared and turned into a car park a mentioned earlier.

The Liverpool firm after the boy’s father died in 1867, became eventually two firms one trade and the other retail Russels Ltd. The former Thos Russell & Son, was run by Alfred until his death in 1893 aged just 53. Brother Thos Robert died a year later he was 60years old. Thomas Robert and his family lived in upmarket 26 Abercromby Square. His brother Alfred in 43 Catharine St. Prior to this both families lived in Huyton.

It was Thos Russell & Son in Cooper’s Building that I was apprenticed to. Alfred’s son Bernard Holgate Russell with Thos Townsend Russell his cousin took over the firm. Bernard married and had a son Thomas Graham he was born in 1906 He was our ‘Boss’ always known as Mr. Tom. In 1915 Bernard and Thos Townsend Russell invited the experienced Joseph Wright to become a fellow director of Thos Russell & Son. Joseph had extensive trade knowledge, travelled extensively and had business contacts in Switzerland and working experience with the famous American Illinois Watch Case Co. A step that was to have great bearing on the two Russell firms when WW2 started.

WW2 caused disruption like any other firm in the city. 1939 Major Thomas Graham Russell RASC was already serving in the Territorial Army and was called to active service he with members of his regiment were taken prisoner and remained so until the end of the war. His father Bernard died in 1940 leaving the Liverpool business without a Russell at the helm. To add to the firm’s grief the London Holborn offices in London were bombed and destroyed, and the firm as a result lost all their valuable stocks of brand new watches.

Director Joseph Wright’s two director sons were also called to the colours Captain William J. Wright RASC went to France then onto the Western Desert and in 1941 was taken prisoner and remained so until the end of the war. Major Thomas John Wright Royal Signals served 6years in the UK, Italy and Austria (now the last of the firm’s Directors lives in London). I know of one bench watchmaker who served in the services there may have been more.

At his London home father Joseph Wright kept the firm going with wartime shortages he set up an office at home and throughout the war kept the firm running with many long train trips to Liverpool coping with the staff available to him, until finally the soldier serving directors returned home to once again take up the running of the firm.

Sadly around 1994 both the retail Liverpool Russells Ltd and the workshops and offices at 12 Church St. finally closed their doors for the last time.

My boss Thomas G. Russell died in 1999 aged 93. Two of my apprentice mates, Alan F. Sarsfield died 1995,and Bert F.Allen later in 1999.

Now returning back to apprenticeship days brings me to one of the lunch time occupations, that went on for a short time one I swear I was not involved in, was dropping paper water bombs onto folk in School Lane. The culprits must have been poor shots as no complaint reached the foreman or Mr Tom. The other was watching in the dinner hour happenings around the city. There was lots of building rocks piled up on cleared bomb sites around Church St and Lord St. There was a chap that had a large sledge hammer who encouraged men in the audience to break a large stone he put on his bare chest all for the few coppers thrown in his hat.

Another chap sold a special bottled mixture he swore the tram companies applied it to replace the chrome worn off the entry and exit hand rails. We apprentices fell for this hook line and sinker and carefully doctored our brass tools even coins with the mixture only to find they soon lost their ‘chrome’ like finish quicker than we put it on! Another in the lunch hour was running all the way to Cornwallis Street Public Baths a brief swim then run all the way back in one hour. We spent more lunch time going to Woolworths and choosing our sweet ration which was still rationed. Our friendship continued outside of work and we were keen cyclists and our holidays were spent staying in YHA hostels because it was cheap.

Your Empire Theatre picture John brought back memories of seeing George Formby in my first and only Pantomime with my cousin now deceased.

Thank goodness they have not turned the Victoria Monument I passed daily into a car park I'm amazed the amount of greenery now around it, in my day of course a lot of sites around the monument were wide open spaces due to the bombing. I never knew it was the site of the old castle so you have taught me something there John. It was also the site of St George’s Church which was demolished.

One of the things working in Liverpool in the 1940s was the various and interesting smells and constant sounds of ships and commerce, the tang of the sea, the bustle of ferry boats on their continues comings and goings, the pushing and shoving on the landing stages a never ending place of excitement and movement. The shunting trains the rattling trams, horse drawn brewery carts the horse dropping they produced, (one kept a constant eye out for them). while walking to work. Men with caps with hand carts coming and going moving goods.

Some one mentioned in ‘Memories’ the parades I too recall the Liverpool Irish marching up Church St., I cannot remember which religious group but it was always an amusing time, my bench mate on the right was a gentlemen that then was ancient to me he in his 70s a Mr Ted Prescott who worked for the above mentioned factory, he also was a bandmaster for his local brass band and played the cornet. He always found fault with any band marching and commented on any parade member that dared to make a mistake.

We apprentices bought ‘Lloyds Shipping List’ which listed the numerous shipping movements in and out of port of Liverpool recommend to us by Mr Neil it made crossing over the Mersey from over from the Seacombe Landing stage even more interesting as we paced around the top deck.

Old timers will remember the HMS Conway training ship moored in the Mersey there is a brilliant web sites about the sad ending of this old ship not pleasant to read if you love old war ships.

I will not continue further with family connections to Liverpool, I might just slip in I lived in New Ferry 132 Bebington Rd to be exact, Dad A.R. Jones was also a watchmaker and jeweller and had a shop at this address in the late 1930s. I recall at the height of the blitz coming out of the cellar with my parents and local shop keepers out of the Liberal Club next door as the only youngster I had a table to sleep on. When the all clear had sounded we looked over to Liverpool the sky was like a sunset as the fires burnt over the city.

A small (we were told 25lb bomb) blew out all the windows in our house and shop right past the Rialto picture theatre towards the Bebington railway station. Later we had a shop at 85 Mill Lane Liscard Wallasey, so from both addresses the Mersey with its ferry boats became part of my life from the age of 7. If I recall rightly the fare by bus to Woodside then the ferry boat was 6d.

We appreciate the memories that others have shared of their Liverpool past experiences. Past may be in the past but certainly not forgotten in the present.

A. Ron Jones Auckland New Zealand.

Jim Reardon writes.
I was born in Liverpool in 1931 Went to Chatsworth Road school then to Clint Road Left at age 13 years 10 months. Lived in 43 Byford Street, not there any more. Worked as an order boy for the Magnet Stores Wavertree Road. Then went to work as a coal porter for the Liverpool Cooperative Society. Stayed there until 1949 came to Australia sponsored by the Big Brother Movement. Worked on several properties in the bush doing every thing from planting crops, shearing, boundary rider, carting wheat to the silos and also fencing. Have done most chores on the land. Joined the Australian Navy. Came to the UK and commissioned the HMAS Melbourne aircraft carrier.
Was a butcher manager for large supermarket. Then joined the Department of Agriculture as reporter. Reported on all livestock at the sale yards, also reported on Fruit and Vegetables. Had weekly consumer column in the Sydney Morning Herald and Land Newspaper. Broadcast daily over the A.B.C. informing producers of what their produce was selling at. Also twice weekly on Radio 2 BL consumer program.
I still have a sister in Liverpool also relatives. I correspond regularly.

Kindest regards Jim

Baz from the UK wrote to me with the memory below, prompted by comments of my own history found under 'About Me'.
My bit
I would add that my dad actually worked on the Deltic (A locomotive using a modified Napier marine engine). I worked at the Netherton English Electric works in the late 50's. The tradesmen (I was an apprentice) I worked with were tempted to the factory by a promise of a house on the new Netherton housing estate built on that agricultural area.
I have since found that I also worked at the same location as Stan Hayes, when working for the 'Gas Board'.
Baz writes
A few short years younger than yourself, I was brought up in Netherton in its days as an agricultural area (remember Napiers being built and the noise of 'Deltic' being tested there), & went to Bootle Grammar which in those days used the Bootle Tech. buildings. (We had the colourful badge where yours was just yellow if I remember rightly!).
My late brother-in-law, Stan Hayes was security man at a gas works not far from the Swan...to much of a coincidence that you may have known him?
Baz UK

Do you remember the black and white sail boat berthed in the Salthouse Dock. HMS EAGLET. Home of the Liverpool Royal Naval Reserve. Inside the warehouses, long since pulled down to rename the area 'Albert Dock; I remember being trained in Naval gunnery. How many German planes could you shot down in one day? I managed 200! But I was only 10 years old and spending a school holiday with my dad who was the Head Shipkeeper at that time. I had an aunty who lived near Everton Valley. I remember well the whine of the AEC Liverpool Corporation Bus, on the 30 route climbing the hill near to her home on it's way to the Pier Head. After one visit to see her, I was walking home with my mum. We were at the very top of the Valley Crest and were able to look across to Birkenhead, my home town. Just to the right of Birkenhead town centre there was a great fire, which light up the sky. It was the Spillers Flour Mills fire. I remember mum telling me if you think that looks frightening, you should have seen what Liverpool and Birkenhead Docks look like during the Blitz!

From: Trevor Williams

My name is Dave Weldon, I now live in Canada, brought here partly because of my own HNC in Mechanical Engineering. I was born at Mill Road Hospital, Liverpool. The family lived at 53 Botanic Road, Liverpool 7. I believe the house is still there, although I was told that the Botanic Pub looked like it was being demolished earlier this year.

53 Botanic Road was bought for something like 900 pounds in the mid 1950s. Arthur Weldon and Dorothy Weldon (nee Edwards) lived there and had two sons, David (the good looking one) and Robert. In the early 1960s Dorothy's father, John (Jack) Edwards moved in after his wife Betsey died. At some point around then the Cuban missile crisis went unnoticed as Arthur tried to carry David’s concrete filled Noddy tricycle up the steps at dusk, days seemed to be spent eating rissoles, drinking dandelion and burdock, watching the coalman drop the heavy sacks into the hole in the front path and accidentally burning our best knitted cardigans on three bar electric fires while playing with our Bayko construction sets. Not forgetting "bum-bum-bum-bum-Esso blue" and stinky paraffin heaters. It really doesn't get better than that. In 1966, England won the World cup and David and Robert went to Botanic park with the baseball bats that their Grandad had bought for them, David hit Robert on the foot with his. A while later, Pickles the dog found the Jules Rimet cup in a hedge somewhere in London. The country breathed a sigh of relief.........

Dave recently made a return visit to Liverpool.............. It was a strange feeling being back at Botanic after all these years (40) especially as I had not seen the development behind the road. I knew that Ridgeway Street and the subsequent streets had been demolished but I had not prepared myself for the state of decay over the years. Time (and tenants) have done a number on the entire area.
The railings on Botanic Park, once intimidating and twice my height are now level with my shoulders, I walked up to 53 Botanic, originally with the thought that I'd ask the inhabitants if I could have a photo taken in front of my old front door, to be shocked that the door was a sheet of galvanised steel with writing scrawled all over it. The houses felt smaller, because I was taller, but also because of the ugly wheelie bins and satellite dishes everywhere.
But it was a very warm feeling to stand in Botanic park, to have a flood of childhood memories and to take a few (well positioned) photo's of the area. I'll be publishing some on the web on my website which is just a shell at the moment, but if you take a look you'll see a photoshop version in the centre of the main page of 53 Botanic Road with litter, bins, cars and dishes removed.
I know you told me that the Church had gone from Beech Street, but I just didn't believe it. Of course, it was gone, replaced by a vanilla block of low rise flats. How can they do things like that?. They've erased my primary school (Clint Road), my dads shop (179 Wavertree Road, The Magnet, Toys and Fancy Goods) my church and my secondary school (Whiston County) and by the looks of things Botanic Road won't be that far away from the wrecking ball.
Botanic Park has lost it's sandpit and clubhouse, which when I was a youngster was a safe place to shelter during thunderstorms, the old toilets at the park entrance have long since gone, my mum always warned me away from that area. The dogs home has been dismantled and the bus repair depot, where we used to go on raids to grab ball-bearings, has long gone. It was a happy moment however, to still find one of the fountains standing, albeit in decay, the memories of climbing over the pristine cast iron monster as a boy were rekindled.
As for other areas, well, Huyton was a confused mass for me, seems like the whole sense of the village has been destroyed by a large supermarket and car park.
Liverpool town centre had a lot of familiar things about it, although Saint Johns Market was not the grand meat market I remember and Yates was a great letdown.

I think it is a good idea including "memories" and would be glad to offer what dregs my memory can recover but your site can certainly jog long dormant memories for me and ex-pat Liverpudlians scattered all over the world. May I add one suggestion? Since the Pool has it's unique, self-deprecating sense of humour, it might be nice to reflect it if possible.

The pictures are of interest to non-tourist people like myself. Such places like Broadway and the local library that I spent many days in. It is nice to see it there as I remember it. It is the little things in the pictures that jog the memory so much such as a roundabout or a railway bridge that won't mean much to some people.
I can still recall part of the words of a song, circa 60s called, I think, My Liverpool Home, here goes:
"We meet under a statue, that’s totally bare,
We speak with an accent, exceedingly rare,
If you want a religion, we've got one to spare,
In my Liverpool home".
So on and so on, that’s all I remember for now.
This, along with other so called folk songs were popular amongst the pubs on the Dock Road which used to be known for the folksingers that performed there. Other shanties that refer toLiverpool that I recall were "Liverpool Lou" recorded by Domenic Behan (brother of Brendan) and "Leaving of Liverpool". I recall some of the words but maybe others could fill in.

Liverpool pubs.
The Grapes was also called or referred to as "the big house" almost opposite Lewis’s and on a west corner of Lime Street right next to the Adelphi. It used to be an early meeting place for the Beatles and Brian Epstein since I believe it was close to Nems. It employed, in about 1965, a couple of outrageously gay bartenders. The older one preferred to be called "Sadie" otherwise it would be difficult to get service at the bar on a busy Saturday night! Further west on Lime St. there was a Yate's wine bar which used to serve a concoction called Australian White which was guaranteed to wipe clear all memory of an evening out. During my student days I unfortunately worked at a pub where after closing time we would empty all the glasses that had anything left in them into two pails. One was marked white and the other red, the contents of which were then returned to the top of the big barrels. Of course, it was strained through a cheesecloth to remove any debris such as cigarette butts etc. Only the highest standards were maintained!
Further along, before the station, was another place called "American Bar" which had the ambience of a typical New York bar with lots of neon and a juke box. There were a few others such as the "Philharmonic" opposite the auditorium of same name, I'm not sure what was named after what. This was a beautiful Victorian pub for the intellectual crowd and further down the hill was a small, interesting place called "The Hole in the Wall" for the offbeat crowd of late beatnics and early hippies. I believe the street is Brown Low Hill.
Why my interest in pubs? Well, as I remember, when asking for directions in the UK it usually goes something like "just past the "Dog and Gunn" until you get to the "Childwall Fiveways" etc. etc. whilst here it is more like "two blocks north, one east past the Texaco". Which is the more interesting?
Peter Thomas

Following Peter's post Martin Lisa sent me this piece...............

I also frequented the Big House with Sadie, Yates and the American Bar when I was young. Sadie's friend was Della, who worked in the black and gold "Crown", next to Lime Street Station.
In the late sixties, all my pals started work for Plessey on Edge lane, but were sent to work all over England .
It was tradition even at 18, that if you were back in Liverpool on a Saturday morning, then you were expected to show your face at Yates on Lime Street. We would drown a few "Large Whites" and then go next door for a Carlsberg Special(9%abv). Times move on and I now live in Edmonton,Alberta,Canada. I have done a lot of daft things, but nothing was more enjoyable that being 18, on Saturday and in Yates before noon and the World was waiting .....
Lisa Martin

I was most interested to come across your site. I grew up in Birkenhead, Oxton, then went up to Cockermouth to live, ended up, via Yorkshire and North Wales here in Northern Ontario, Canada.
It is great to see pictures of Canning Street. I had Great ( Great-great?) Aunts who lived there from the 1920's till the early 50's. My father, as a child, would go over from Wallasey to stay, and he and his sister would get out onto the roof and drop small paper bags of flour over onto the pavement near passing City Gents!.
I can remember visiting them just before they moved across to Wallasey, Canning street was a terrible place by then, they had split their house into "Rooms" and rented them out to a wierd assortment of people. By the time they left the place had no value and they were destitute.
I do have some of the Liverpool Post Photo Books from during the war and just after, wonderfully interesting in terms of social history; one talks about the new housing to go up after the war out towards Croxteth, where I taught for one whole school year. Folk go on about schools being tough now, then, 1968-70, we used to have a cop car parked outside the school on a regular basis.
Goodnight, or should that be "Tara well you's"
Liz P, Ontario