Memories are Made of This

Making Pictures

2010-09-03T13:12:00.000+01:00

These blocks were in Killerton House, Devon. I used to have some the same when I was little. They make up six different pictures.

A letter opener

2010-07-27T15:36:00.000+01:00

This letter opener was made by Dad. He also made pokers suing the same technique of putting washers on a metal bar and then fashioning them into squares.

Col and Ethel's wedding

2010-02-07T17:03:00.000Z

At Easter 1938 Mum and Dad's friends Col and Ethel were married and Mum was the bridesmaid, Dad the best man.

Dad looked handsome and...

Mum looked beautiful. . Don't they scrub up well!

Mum's necklace

2010-02-05T11:36:00.018Z

Jo and I sorted through the family jewellery recently and one of my main disappointments was being unable to find photos of the items with their original wearers.

This is one exception.

It shows Mum at the age of 12 in 1921 wearing a coral necklace. Prior to finding the photo I had imagined the necklace was Victorian. However, I now suspect that it was Mum's. I think someone posing for a studio photo at that time would more likely have worn their own favourite piece of jewellery rather than a 'hand-me-down' from a mother or aunt.

A Certificate

2010-02-03T11:31:00.002Z

My Mother always reckoned that Nana was a better artist than she was. Sadly I've never seen any works of art that Nana did to be able to take a judgement on the issue. Nana did however, at the age of 20, receive this certificate from the grandly titled Society of Science, Letters and Art of London.

Regrettably, upon investigation I find that the Society whilst sounding grand seems to have been fairly transitory and created primarily for the aggrandisment of its members. It seems that it hoped to have itself confused with the Society of Arts and similar august bodies so that anyone describing themsles as a Fellow of the Society of Science, Letters and Art might be mistaken for a member of one of the more genuine bodies.

I cannot imagine that Nana would have sent off an oil painting to such a body unless she had thought it genuine so it is quite possible that it presented itself to the general public as a valid judge of paintings - possibly even charging a fee for such judgement. It seems quite ironic that Nana kept this certificate all her life and yet not a single painting of hers survives.

Dad on a Motorbike (or two)

2009-11-28T14:20:00.001Z

And Dad's nephews Dudley and Walter Dennison on his bike.

A bargain

2009-10-08T20:53:00.001+01:00

My Dad always said that Mum cost him 18 shillings. I reckon he got a bargain!

Family Spoons

2009-08-24T12:43:00.001+01:00

Having sorted thought the jewellery I undertook to show readers of my Rambles Blog one or two pieces but before I do I thought I would blog about some of the other things I’ve been cataloguing. I have concluded such postings should also be on this blog so today’s little show is family spoons:-

This is my grandmother’s Christening spoon. Her name was Florence Katrine Spencer and she was christened in 1877.

This is my Mum’s Christening spoon. She was christened in 1909.

This is my Christening spoon. I was christened in 1949.

This is a spoon from David’s first Christmas 1986. Sadly. he was not to live long enough to have a Christening spoon.

This is Richard’s christening spoon – a replica of an Edwardian one – from GB. Richard was christened in 1988.

This is a christening spoon given to Richard by his other Godfather, Paul.

This is Uncle Eric's christening spoon. Uncle Eric was Mum's brother and died childless so GB and I inherited his things.

These are just a couple of many spoons and forks that we have which are inscribed HFB being from Nana and Grandpa’s sets – the HFB stands for Henry and Flora Body. We use them on a day to day basis. Apparently Grandpa won a number of sets playing bowls at the Childwall Abbey pub.

This spoon is a cut above the average spoon that you buy in tourist places being heavier and larger. For as long as I can remember it ‘sat’ in one of Mum and Dad’s sugar bowls.

This spoon is from my Great Aunt Maude’s first marriage to Will Noble. Nana’s sister, born Annie Maude Spencer, she married William Thomas Noble in 1897. The spoon is hallmarked London 1896 and inscribed N for Noble.

This was a wedding gift to Mum from – the E representing her new surname – from a girl in the office. There was much of a guessing game about what the gift was to be and one of the clues was that the gift ‘sat’. It turned out that it ‘sat’ in a sugar bowl, being a sugar spoon.

Caddy spoon used on a day to day basis by Mum until tea bags became the norm. It is of foreign silver.

This spoon belonged to my Great Great Great Grandmother who was born Ann Gomm Young (1819-1916). Note the number 4 beneath the initials AGY suggesting it was one of a set of six and it was obviously a gift prior to 1822 when she married James Spencer and therefore changed her initials.

And a caddy spoon which is hallmarked 1810/1 – late George III. It was a wedding gift to William Lane and Caroline Hows upon their wedding in 1813 and is inscribed WC. They were my great, great, great grandparents. The spoon was passed on to my great grandmother, Louisa Sophia Lane (later known as “Grandma Spencer”) when she was an hour old on 29th August 1849. The idea being that it should be passed on through the eldest girl in the family. She in turn gave it to her eldest daughter, my great aunt Maude, who passed it to Mum. Mum gave it to me to keep safe for Bryony and it was passed on to her some years ago. So this little spoon has come down through six generations; long may it continue to do so.

Things my Grandmother said

2009-04-27T08:26:00.000+01:00

I have thought of a couple more things that Nana used to say that rarely get a mention in our house:-

Up the little wooden hills to bed.

This and better might do. This and worse will never do!

I love the second of those two. So often appropriate to my lifestyle nowadays.

46 Queens Drive

2009-04-17T05:49:00.006+01:00

When my grandparents first moved into the house where my Mum was brought up the address was 32 Priory Road. This later changed to 32 Queens Drive and then the number changed again – to 46 Queens Drive.

The house was on the corner of Heywood Road and this is the view down Priory Road towards Childwall View and the Rocket.

It was taken around 1908 and if you peer closely you can just about make out the cows in the field on the right. Mum could look out of the front bedroom window and see over fields all the way to the Runcorn transporter bridge.

After Nana left the house in the mid 1960s the house was demolished and the site became a petrol filling station, known to us as The Garage.

(Thanks to jamese for reminding me that I hadn't posted these pictures before.)

Keepsakes

2009-04-09T00:13:00.002+01:00

A couple of Mum’s keepsakes.

This little shoe – about an inch high – was presumably on her Wedding cake. Mum and Dad were married at Childwall Parish Church on 6th August 1938.

This was presumably on a cake on their wedding anniversary in 1963.

And was this from when GB was born or was it to commemorate my arrival? Either way, this little chap is around 60 years old! Doesn’t look a day over One.

Firsts

2009-04-03T20:55:00.000+01:00

Some notes made around 1990:-

Mum's Firsts
First memory - At age 21/2 Being taken into mother's bedroom and being shown newly-born Eric.
First disaster - The day Barry started school - turning around to let him go and falling over a woman bending down to tie her child's shoelaces - consequently tearing a ligament in her hand.
First Wage Packet - 2s 6d for writing an article for the Liverpool Echo and then 15s a week for her first job.
First love - Arthur Mason who lived next door and was older than Mum and \pa. He took her skating (chaperoned of course) at the age of eighteen.
First success - Writing an article for The Guide magazine and getting a nature book for it. Aged about 12 years.

Dad's Firsts
First memory - Walking down Larch road, Birkenhead.
First disaster - Eating apples off a tree in the Birkenhead garden of a man named Cumsty (who was subsequently murdered) and being very ill. Or on a Sunday school treat to Leasowe Embankment, falling into the sea and hearing his brother Frank say "Oh, look. He's swimming." Being rescued and carried to Leasowe Lighthouse.
First wage packet - Miss Sharples newspaper shop delivering newspapers. Then Furness Withy Office but cannot recall the sum.
First love - Myself! Or Rita Nichol later to become Rita Blaycock, financial adviser to Birkenhead Operatic Society.
First success - Lord Knows! Playing for the school rugby team.

GB's Firsts
First memory - The winter of '47, aged 2 1/2, lots and lots of snow.
First disaster - Sticking fingers in a plug (the round 15 amp plugs of those days). (Judging by the ensuing debate about where this took place it occurred more than once - including at Dorothy Penningon's at Moels and in our living room where he shot across the room and nearly reached the other wall.)
First wage packet - Ayrton Saunders - 19s 6d a week which became 19s 11d after five weeks; left after six weeks when told he wasn't paid to think.
First love - Dorothy S******n, from age 5 to 11.
First success - Dorothy S******n....

Eric Spencer Body

2009-03-17T06:09:00.008Z

St Patrick’s Day is the birthday of my Uncle Eric who died a couple of years ago in his 90s. He was born at 6pm on 17th March 1912.

This is Uncle Eric as cheeky-looking schoolboy at Prescot Grammar.

After school he worked for Meccano where his picture was used in an advertising poster.

Like Dad, Uncle Eric was a motorbike enthusiast.

He then moved to Vauxhall Motors in Luton before the War interrupted his employment and sent him to N Africa and Italy.

After the War he returned to Vauxhall where he continued to work until his retirement.

He kept a diary for part of the war years and I have spent many a ‘happy’ hour translating them from his notorious scribble to English. So far I am about two thirds of the way through but as the war went on and paper got in shorter supply his writing got smaller and smaller and even more unintelligible. This sample is from the early ‘ easy’ days.

In Mum’s eyes Eric and his wife Doris were notorious for moving house though they probably didn’t move much more than many people. Mum, having only lived in two houses her whole life, could not understand their desire to find pastures new. His last few months were spent in the Hebrides where GB looked after him but prior to that he had lived on Anglesey and he is pictured above in his ninetieth year with Mum.

A number of younger folk knew Mum and Dad and will remember them after GB and I have gone but it seems a real shame to me that once GB and I have passed on there will remain no one who really knew Uncle Eric. Such is life....

The Rocket

2009-02-23T08:11:00.002Z

Here is another photo of the shops at the Rocket, Liverpool, that I have mentioned in a few previous posts. It was taken in the late 1960s.

Hawkshead again

2009-02-11T05:11:00.004Z

I featured this spinning loft in an earlier post from the 1930s.

This is how it looked in August 1967, two days after I got my A Level results. I had been in the Lake District on my own on foot, youth hostelling for a week and on the Thursday evening had phoned home to get my A Level results which Mum had picked up from school. She seeemed far more anxious about them than I was and had been waiting all afternoon for my call. Indeed, she thought it strange that I should even think of going away that week. The resuts as I had anticipated were OK but not spectacular. On the Saturday we had agreed to meet up in Hawkshead and then I had a week's holiday with them and Phil at Grange-in-Borrowdale.

A Rucksack and a Scarf

2009-02-05T00:03:00.004Z

Two important things I owned in 1970 – my rucksack (which went all over the Lake District) and my college scarf of which I was suitably proud. (Actually the scarf was not as good as it had been the first year of my studentship but I made the mistake of not buying one that year and then it changed to include blue which had connotations of Everton FC – the biggest rivals of my own team Liverpool FC.)

GB's cars

2009-02-03T23:13:00.001Z

Here is another of GB's cars from the late 1960s. Although it looks like a Singer Vogue I have a feeling there was actually something different about it. No doubt GB will comment and confirm or deny.

How much did your wife cost?

2009-02-02T19:44:00.003Z

Dad always reckoned Mum cost him 18 shillings. This is why:-

I reckon most wives cost a fair bit more than that. (We won’t go down the road of mentioning what happens when you marry twice....)

Going to the Cinema

2009-01-21T21:05:00.003Z

When I was young, the film at the cinema was usually preceded by a ‘short’ – this was either a newscast, a brief documentary (“Today we take a look at the manufacture of glass...”) or occasionally a second, short, film.

Sometimes the cinemas had programmes, something which was apparently far more common before the War.

And, of course, the ice cream girls appeared at the bottom of the aisles at the half-time break. Apparently in some cinemas in the 1930s ice creams were only supplied during children’s matinee films. Evening performances (which at 9d were more expensive) included a tray of tea and fancy biscuits.

The above photo of the Abbey Cinema in Wavertree was taken when I was in my teens and Cinerama had just recently been introduced.

Things I remember

2009-01-21T08:51:00.001Z

Things I remember that don’t happen nowadays – at least not to me!

Taking a can to the hardware store to get it filled with paraffin for the paraffin heather.

The rag and bone man with his horse and cart and later just a handcart coming down the road shouting ‘Any Old Iron’ though it sounded like ‘Neeien’ . The shout and clip clop of the horse’s hooves are probably the most evocative sound of the road in the 1950s. By the time the 1960s came the horses had disappeared and vans from Hunter’s Handy Hams hurtled down the road at great speed to the real annoyance of the residents.

Elasticated belts of red and green stripes with an s-shaped metal snake clip.

The knife sharpener wheeling his bicycle to the door to sharpen Dad’s shears.

The black burned bits on the top of a rice pudding floating around one’s bowl in a most off-putting manner.

The chimney sweep (Mr Downs) with all his brushes on his bike. Putting a great dustsheet over the fireplace and slowly feeding his brush through, screwing each successive section onto the handle.

We didn't have school trips from prep school - the furthest we went was occasionally across the road to King George V playing fields where a grumpy groundsman would watch the girls tucking their skirts up into their knickers and rolling down the hill or making daisy chains. I can't recall what we boys did (apart from watching the girls!) - I suppose it was catching a tennis ball or handstands or something, we weren't allowed to kick a football there.

Mr Judson driving his Morris Traveller up to the gate and unloading the groceries on the rare occasions we had them delivered.

The fish van coming around and the neighbours looking in the back to choose some fresh fish. I can’t recall Mum ever buying from him.

Standing around, hopping from one foot to the other, as Mum talked to some neighbour or other on the way to the shops.

Being caned by Miss Twomey who had a strong right arm and used it to good effect. She also used a thick cane which bruised your hand and made it throb. Mr Illingworth - who only caned me once - used a thin whippy cane that momentarily stung but the pain of which was gone in a few minutes.

Mum working from home doing jobs like making hares for the race track. Her boss would drop off wire frames and loads of calico and she would sew the hares. Special occasions demanded posh hares and these were of a gold plush material which was awful to sew because it kept slipping.

The attic room at Nana’s with thousands of locks and keys from Grandpa's case-making days.

When a horse (presumably pulling the coal cart, milk cart or rag and bone cart) deposited its droppings outside our house one time Dad went out with a brush and shovel to get the manure for his roses.

Fish and chips served in newspaper.

Sugar butties with plenty of butter – how’s that for healthy eating! (I should point out they were an exceptional treat!)

Collected Sayings of a Big Brother

2009-01-19T05:59:00.001Z

Here are some of GB’s more frequent sayings -

“Completely, utterly, absolutely..."
"That's not an issue"
"I have to say..."
"In actual fact...."
"Nothing on the face of the earth...".
"Really..." and "Really, really...."
“The answer to your question is – I don’t know.”
“Success to temperance”. (This was our grandmother’s toast on those rare occasions she had a sherry or a cherry brandy).

21 plus

2009-01-17T05:56:00.003Z

I have, with GB’s help, mentioned a few of Dad’s phrases recently and I thought I should balance it up by recalling some of Mum’s but I’ve had problems remembering many special things that she said.

Apart from always giving her age as “21 plus” (until she was about eighty and allowed her age to be mentioned), the only catchphrases we could recall was the answer to the question ‘What's for dinner?’

Mum's answer was sometimes "Asquith" or "Asquith Pudding". (In 1916 PM Herbert Asquith was much criticised for his 'Wait and see' policies in relation to the Easter Rising and, indeed, despite introducing liberal reforms much of his time in office was one of a ‘Wait and see’ attitude and a lack of positive leadership in a crisis. )

The Lune

2009-01-15T00:12:00.004Z

Do you know what this number (E22b) is on the corner of a tablecloth? I suspect many folk of the younger generations do not. It is a laundry mark. Each week the laundry would be collected from the house by a laundry firm like The Lune and every household had its own laundry mark so that the items could be identified when they came out of the wash. Some of the laundry marks were on tags whilst others were written in indelible ink in the corner of the item. Both Mum and Nana used The Lune.

Stan Kelly’s Liverpool Lullaby – as sung by The Spinners - celebrates The Lune in this verse –

"Although you have no silver spoon,
Better days are coming soon,
Our Nelly's working at the Lune,
And she gets paid on Friday."

The Lune Laundry was on the north side of Lawrence Road, Wavertree, beside the railway embankment. It was demolished in 1987 to make way for the Rose Court housing development.

I Did It

2009-01-13T05:14:00.004Z

When I was very little Mum read me a story about Trotty the pony who succeeded in jumping a fence. Forever after, the words “I did it,” (said as a sense of achievement rather than an admission of guilt!) would be marked by another member of the household saying '“I did it, I jumped the fence,” cried Trotty'.

A few years ago – after much searching – I found the book on the Internet and bought it. It turned out the story of Trotty was in a book called Farm Babies and was not an isolated story. That had made my search that much harder but persistence paid off. Once I saw the other stories I recalled most of them as well: stories like Woolly Lamb’s white wool, Dan Duck learns to swim; and Pooky gets a curly tail.

I tried to get hold of a copy of Farm Babies and eventually I did it. “I did it, I jumped the fence,” cried Trotty.

Wash Day

2009-01-11T00:57:00.002Z

When I was young Wash Day was traditionally Monday. At that time the laundry was not done by shoving the lot in a machine and pressing a button. It was a lengthy process involving a lot of hard work.

There was no need to nip down to the gym to get fit – by the time the housewife had swilled a few wet sheets around the tub and wrung them out she had biceps like a Chippendale.

Then the wash went through the mangle and had to be hung out to dry. Rain at this time was a darned nuisance and resulted in items hanging by the fire on a wooden drier or over the bath. In larger kitchens a contraption of wooden rails and ropes that lowered on pulleys from the ceiling helped to some extent. Nana had one of those.

Then there was the pressing and ironing and airing – virtually everything seemed to need ironing in those days.

Leaving the washing until later in the week was said to be the sign of a sloppy housewife and
“They that wash on Monday, have all the week to dry
They that wash on Tuesday, are not so much awry
They that wash on Wednesday, are not so much to blame
They that wash on Thursday, wash for shame
They that wash on Friday, wash in need
They that wash on Saturday, Oh! They're sluts indeed.”

A Present

2009-01-08T00:52:00.000Z

Dad once bought me a present. That may seem a strange statement but presents, other than at birthdays and Christmas, were very unusual. Sending us to private school took a lot of Dad’s salary. Having money left over for an extra ounce of tobacco (for him) or an ice cream in Calderstones Park (for GB and I) was about the limit of the financial largesse for some years.

One time when Dad and I were going down Holt Road (I don’t recall why) we passed a sweet shop with a wagon in the window. I was about eight years old and I stopped to admire it . Totally out of the blue Dad asked if I would like it and almost without waiting for an answer he went in and bought it. Even at that age I knew money was tight and for ever afterwards that wagon was one of my favourite toys – not just because it fitted in so well with my cowboys and indians (no Native Americans in those days) – but because I appreciated the generosity of his purchase. (The one illustrated above looks just like the one Dad bought me except that the wagon body was brown not green.)

Sadly (in a way) because of the increased disposable income in the household nowadays my son has never had such an experience.

To the woods to pick Bluebells

2009-01-05T00:01:00.000Z

My father was not a great drinker but he did like his occasional pint and a game of darts. Traditionally, Thursday night was his dart’s night and he and a friend would head out to one of the local pubs or the RNA Club and have a game of darts and a pint or two. When I was tiny, if Dad was going out and I didn’t know where I would ask. The answer, on a Thursday night would be ‘Off to the woods to pick Bluebells’. Even at that age I knew I was being given the brush off but what a super way of doing it! Definitely beats ‘Mind your own business you nosy child!’

The Doughnut Shop

2009-01-03T15:42:00.004Z

When I was about nine there was a shop down some steps on the opposite side of the main road (Bowring Park Road, Liverpool) at end of our road. I cannot recall what it was before that time or afterwards (though GB may remember) but for a brief, heavenly period it was a The Doughnut Shop.

It contained a couple of deep-fat fryers like a chip shop and sold only doughnuts. You went in and they cooked the doughnuts to order in the space of moments. Sprinkled with sugar, the hot doughnuts were a real delight to a young boy, fresh from a day’s schooling.

The original doughnut is said to have been a solid sphere of deep-fried dough with no hole in the middle. Allegedly first thought of in Germany, the idea was taken to America by the Dutch settlers. In the early 19th Century Washington Irvine described a Dutch table in New Amsterdam as being set with “an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough nuts or oly keks.” (In Scouse Oly Keks would mean marble trousers but I assume that is an irrelevancy!)

Spherical doughnuts often have jam in the centre while the Doughnut Shop used to have various alternatives for the ring-shaped ones. My favourite was the one sprinkled with caster sugar but they also had ones with a sugar glaze; a pink icing coating; icing and hundreds and thousands; and, I think, a chocolate coating...

Sufferin’ Taters

2008-12-28T21:50:00.002Z

Does every family have its unique sayings? Dad, who never, ever swore at home used to say ‘Sufferin’ taters’ with great regularity. It was a way of sort of bemoaning his fate or expressing misery. Needless to say he was ragged about it on occasion. I have never heard it anywhere else and as a phrase it doesn’t Google so I assume it was unique to Dad. Heaven knows where he got it from.

I wonder what phrase will my children recall me regularly using.

Matchbox Series - Those were the days

2008-12-13T02:57:00.011Z

When we were little GB had mainly Dinky cars and I had mainly Matchbox Series. Appropriate really – Dinky being bigger and older than Matchbox...

I used to play ‘The Archers’ with them. Each character in The Archers had a car that I thought suited their personality.

I can recall the following:-

John Tregoran had a triumph sports car (the TR4?)

Jack Woolley had a bluey silver Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.

Someone else who was basically an offcomer (can’t recall his name) had a Citreon but I’m sure mine wasn’t yellow. I'm sure it was white or cream.

Carol whatever her name was – the girl that all the menfolk were chasing – had an older Triumph MGTD sports car. I think this indicated that I thought she was better matched with John Tregoran than with Jack Woolley who didn't really 'belong'.

Sometimes I’d let her have a big pink Ford Zodiac convertible but I wasn’t really very fond of that.

Tom Forrest, the gamekeeper, had a Landrover.

Dan Archer had a Morris Minor – unless I needed Walter Gabriel, in which case he had it.

Nelson Gabriel had a flashy Vauxhall Cresta.

Phil Archer had a Wolseley and Jack had a Ford Anglia.

My other cars were scattered around the village (made of Airfix houses which I had bought as kits and put together). The only building I can recall properly is the pub of which I was quite proud because it had been hard to do.

(Photos of most of the cars are by kind permission of Marco. )
(A timeline for The Archers can be found at timeline.)

Morris Thompson Edwards

2008-12-10T06:08:00.010Z

Dad would have been 101 today. I'm not feeling moody or anything; I just happened to register the date as I was blogging. So I thought I would post a few pictures of him -

That's Dad in the middle between his brother Frank and his Mum, Ada. They put little boys in skirts in those days!

27th July 1916 aged 8 - into cricket.

1921 aged 13 - standing behind his Mum with his nephew, Frank Dennison to the right.

As a Birkenhead school boy

His school mates - I think he is bottom right corner but wouldn't swear to it. (Any ideas GB?)

The walker / cyclist and camper - in his twenties.

The footballer - in the centre of the back row - goalie for Furness Withy's football team. I have always thought all goalkeepers were mad. Fancy standing there having people hit a hard lump of leather at you; having to dive in the mud and risking life and limb taking the ball from the boot of a ferocious attacker. The funny thing is he always seemed quite sane to me.

Vauxhall Heritage Centre

2008-12-05T21:29:00.006Z

Flog It visited the Vauxhall Heritage Centre this week. In the Centre there is the oldest Vauxhall in existence - a 5 horse power single cylinder four seater. It’s used every year on the London to Brighton run.

The most valuable is the 30-98 E-type Velox Tourer– the supercar of its day – tested at speeds of over 100mph in 1926. Bearing in mind the poverty of the brakes that’s pretty incredible. The right hand lever on the steering wheel was the throttle. The car would probably cost £¼ m nowadays.

As they rolled through old photos of new cars running off the production line I kept my eyes open for signs of Uncle Eric (Eric Spencer Body). He worked at Vauxhall from the 1930s. He was the head of advertising at Vauxhall when he retired and would almost certainly have been involved in such celebrations. Hey presto – there, rolling off the line was an Astra in 1981. At first I thought it was Uncle Eric driving - the face wasn’t that clear but the large ears suggested it could be him! However, working it out he probably retired in 1976 so it wasn’t him.

Instead I’ve settled for showing you a picture of Uncle Eric advertising Meccano when he worked there – a little younger!!!

A Tin of Molasses

2008-11-17T06:53:00.003Z

Jo has recently been looking for Molasses but it seems our local supermarkets do not stock it. Black Strap Molasses is made from Sugar Cane. The roots of the sugar cane grow as deep as 15 feet and therefore are able to receive a broad spectrum of minerals and trace elements normally lacking in the top soils. The sugar is removed, leaving behind the exceptionally rich mineral/trace element cocktail, with a good selection of vitamins. It a great source of iron and calcium, but it's also a source of potassium, magnesium, copper, and manganese. People are said to have overcome all sorts of serious, seemingly intractable health problems with molasses alone! This includes cases of various types of Cancer, Osteo-arthritis, Rheumatoid arthritis, strokes, poor nervous system, skin disorders; the list goes on and on. Many people claim to have reversed their grey hair with it. This may be at least partly due to the copper content, as copper deficiency can lead to prematurely grey hair.

Dad used to take a heaped teaspoon of molasses every day. It was a daily routine – one of those little rituals that go to make a household memorable. (Along with, in Dad’s case, rubbing olive oil into his scalp). Whether his tin of molasses or his bottle of olive oil contributed to him keeping his hair or living into his nineties will never be known but they certainly didn’t do him any harm.

Dennis

2008-11-08T18:24:00.002Z

I’m still scanning the photos from my photo albums – I don’t know why I bother mentioning that since I’ll be doing it for the next twenty years at this rate... However, this is a fascinating process because I keep coming across things I’d forgotten. For example, in 1996 I had a trip over to Leeds. I cannot recall it at all. But while I was there I took a couple of photos to remind myself of my student days. This is “The Vic”, a second home to Anne, Gill and I for most of the three years (with friends like Judy, Ann and Anne H. regularly joining us).

And this is the house in Victoria Road where I lived (in a great attic flat) for eighteen months. Initially I had moved into the flat on a shared basis with a chap called Dennis who worked for Associated Dairies but who had advertised for someone to share and said “Must be student to fit in”. This despite the fact that he wasn't a student. Typical Dennis.

Dennis was a great character and about as reliable as a chocolate washing machine. We rarely met up during the week as he was usually out and left me in possession of the lounge which meant that I could entertain anyone whenever I wanted. His girlfriend lived in London so I didn’t have to reciprocate. But on Sunday we had a regular Sunday lunch. He was quite a good cook and we alternated the cooking of this traditional meal. One Sunday morning, on a day when it was my turn to cook, he said he was nipping out to the launderette before the meal. Knowing how unreliable he was and how totally unable to keep to time, I gave him the sternest of warnings about the time the meal would be served.

About an hour after the mealtime I ate, on my own. It was eight days later that he returned... He arrived back in the middle of Monday evening while I had a friend, Sue, around. “Hi,” he said, as he dumped his bag of washing in the living room, “I’ll leave you to it, I won’t disturb you, ” and he headed out to the kitchen.

I called him back and asked him what on earth had happened to Sunday lunch the week before. “Oh yes, sorry about that,” he said, “I was watching my washing go round in the machine and I thought I might pop down to see Tess. So I went off to the bus station... Sorry about that. The only problem is my washing’s all dirty again.”

It was about an hour later that Sue and stopped laughing!

About a fortnight later he disappeared again – never to return. I don’t know what happened to him but I inherited his dart-board and various other things, along with his half of the rent. The flat was so good that I couldn’t bear to leave it or share it and went on living there on my own for the next year. It was well worth the double rent.

Muriel Lane

2008-11-04T21:44:00.004Z

One of my mother's many cousins (a first cousin once removed) was Muriel Irene Lane who was born in 1908, a year before Mum. She and Mum got on well and corresponded right until Mum's death a couple of years ago. Then Muriel continued swapping Christmas cards and brief notes with Jo and I each year. Muriel had the most beautiful and distinctive handwriting and even on last year's Christmas card it was far more legible than mine has ever been.

Muriel married John Pearce and lived in Poole, Dorset, before moving to Stourport-on-Severn. They had one son and two daughters and after John died in 1996 Muriel lived with her elder daughter, Moira.

This morning I e-mailed Geoffrey Lane, another cousin, to check whether Muriel was still at Stourport-on-Severn (and effectively to check she was still with us) because her hundredth birthday was coming up nest week. Sadly it was to find out that she died a few days ago. She did not quite make it to 100, but from what Moira tells us, she was beginning to weary of life, and was rather less impressed than some of her relatives by the prospect of reaching such a great age. By sheer chance I caught Geoffrey as he was about to set off to the funeral - just six days before she would have been 100.

Our sincere commiserations go to Moira, Stuart and Hilary and their families.

Despite her marriage she was always known in our household as Muriel Lane. I met John a few times when he passed through Liverpool on his way to Ireland but so far as I can recall I never met Muriel, yet she will be missed. She was the last of a generation of real ladies and gentlemen.

Early Jo

2008-10-31T07:38:00.002Z

A couple of my favourite ‘early’ photos of Jo, taken at Skelwith Bridge in the Lake District when we had a week-end there in February 1986. I say ‘early’. because there were, no doubt, photos of Jo before that but I wasn’t around to take them. I do not use 'early' in the dictionary sense of 'before the usual or expected time'. Such a use would not fit well with her personality!

AMDP16

2008-10-31T07:19:00.002Z

I’ve been scanning in a load of photos from our albums for Jo’s photo frame. And now GB has given me a photo frame as well so the incentive is doubled.
This is a photo from our first album which began a year after I had left Formby and set up home in a modern flat in Croxteth. It shows my regional group from AMDP (Advanced Management Development Programme) 16 at Wast Hills near Kings Norton, Birmingham. AMDP was a brilliant experience – designed for up and coming local government officers – and I learned a lot; not just about management but about myself.
This photo was taken on Burns Night 1986 and reminds me of an event that took place a week later. Jo and I had just started going out and Jo had decided to borrow the flat key and cook me a meal upon my return from Birmingham. Unfortunately she didn’t know me that well in those days and timed the meal for when I said I would arrive. I was, of course, early. Normally that wouldn’t matter but she had intended to produce ‘all her own work’ (at least initially) so as to impress me. Sadly, I arrived before all the Marks and Spencer instant meal packets had been put into the bin! It took a while for her to forgive me.... In fact, I’m not sure she’s ever forgiven the fact that I’m always early.
The folk in the photo are Jeff Brown, Mike Robinson, CJE, John Keeley, Alan Peake and Dave Davison. Jeff and I still swap Christmas cards with news (at least news on his part, I’ve been very poor at sending mine the last few years)..

Morris Thomspon Edwards

2008-10-13T03:39:00.004+01:00

Dad died seven years ago today. In many ways it was a release. At the age of 93 he was physically unable to do too much for himself and mentally he had been unhappy for a few years. A man used to being always active he became too weak to do very much over the last couple of years. This, and his diminishing eyesight, made him fretful.

As a result I tend not to think of him as he was during those last few years, or as he would be now (100!) but as he was during the 1960s and ‘70s – pipe in mouth, and either sitting with the Liverpool Echo in his hands or walking in the Lake District.

And that, I am sure, is also how he would wish to be remembered.

Old Photos

2008-10-04T00:29:00.007+01:00

Around the end of the Nineteenth / beginning of the Twentieth century it was far more likely that you would have a studio photo of yourself than a family snap. Family owned cameras were abnormal and consequently shots like those of Dad’s Dad and Mum outside their Larkhill Lane Police Station around 1907 were fairly unusual.

Studios flourished wherever people of society lived and in holiday spots all over the country. Studios used different backgrounds and techniques for making their photos unique and they would provide photos for display, for cartes-de-visites and for lockets.

A standard set of studio props was a table, books and a fancy chair. This is my Great, Great Grandfather, James Spencer, Great Great Grandma Coombes first husband.

Some photographers risked the British weather and offered a service at scenic beauty spots when the sun was shining. This is my Great, Great Grandma Coombes, Great Grandma Spencer and two of Nana’s siblings – Uncle Wardie (looking thoroughly fed up) and Auntie Maude. I suspect the beauty spot is Swallow Falls near Bettws-y-Coed.

This one is of THS (Thomas Henry Spencer) Nana’s eldest brother, about to depart to sea, and has been framed accordingly.

This is also of THS – at two different ages, put onto stamp-like mounts.

Of all the ones I have seen this has to be the strangest. It is Auntie Annie Shemmonds – Nana’s Mum’s sister. I think the effect makes her look like a one woman witches’ coven! Presumably it was what she asked for!

Mum

2008-10-03T06:35:00.001+01:00

This is one of my favourite photos of Mum. I took it in 1968 when she was 58 – the same age as I am now!

David H Jones

2008-10-02T00:55:00.001+01:00

This is David Henry Jones – Dad’s Mum’s Dad’s brother. i.e. my Great, Great Uncle. The picture was taken in 1917 and the back of the post card simply says “I am at Bristol, David H Jones”. Were it not for his age one would have been tempted to think he was returning on a troopship from the Continent.

The only thing I know about this character is that he lived on the North Wales coast, somewhere near Rhyl, whence he had retired from the quarries of the Bettws-y-Coed area. Dad told me story of visiting him on one occasion and helping him with the purchase of his house. Dad was not a great one for paperwork but it seems he didn’t need to be. They didn’t bother with lawyers and the like and Uncle David paid for his bungalow by handing over a big bag of gold sovereigns. Ah, those were the days!

Post card from Hawkshead

2008-09-29T00:42:00.000+01:00

This postcard was sent by Mum and Dad to Nana and Grandpa during one of their visits to the Lake District – possibly on their honeymoon.

The Lake District weather was obviously on its usual form!

M G Midget

2008-09-27T21:31:00.003+01:00

GB has had a fair number of cars over the years but this is my favourite of them - his M G Midget. I recall the first ride I had in it. We drove out to Freshfield and had a walk along the Fisherman's Path. This photo was presumably taken by Dad - the location is Renville Road.

FIANCÉS galore

2008-07-02T17:35:00.002+01:00

My grandmother is alleged (according to my mother) to have had a few fiancés prior to meeting my grandfather and settling down. One of these was a chap called Bob Rayner who went out to South Africa around 1900. It was intended that Nana would follow him out there but her mother would not let her. She kept mementoes of him in her personal case until the day she died.

Icicle

2008-07-02T17:28:00.003+01:00

They don't make icicles like this any more. I took this photo in early 1963.

Four-leaved Clover

2008-05-29T21:02:00.002+01:00

We don’t have clover in our lawn at Pensby. I suppose whether you have clover or not depends both upon where one’s turf came from (or the lawn mixture that was used if the grass was seeded) and the nature of the soil. Here at GB’s there is clover in the back lawn and I was sitting outside picking through it the other night in the hope of finding a four-leaved clover.

This four leaved clover was found last May by Rob Rieder, an aspiring structural engineer, who is currently an undergraduate at The University of Bath.

The four leaf clover is a universally accepted symbol of good luck with its origin ages old. According to legend, Eve carried a four leaf clover from the Garden of Eden. I think she would have been better off using a fig-leaf like Adam! Druids held the four leaf clover in high esteem and considered them a sign of luck.

In 1620, Sir John Melton wrote: "If a man walking in the fields find any four-leaved grass, he shall in a small while after find some good thing."

The leaves of the ordinary clover (Trifolium repens) are said to symbolise Faith, Hope nd Charity. When it bears a fourth leaf it symbolises Luck. In Irish tradition the Shamrock or Three-leaf Clover represents the Holy Trinity: one leaf for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Spirit. When a Shamrock is found with the fourth leaf, it represents God's Grace.

By the way, it is no use buying a four leaved clover. Even if they are not fakes they lack the good luck since that is said to come only by finding it oneself.

Just to be pedantic I should point out that the term four leaved clover is incorrect since a clover only has one leaf - the individual sections are technically leaflets. Whilst clovers with four leaflets are rare there can be even greater numbers of leaflets - one of eighteen having been recorded.

Why have I put this posting in my nostalgia blog, you might wonder. The answer is that while searching in GB's grass I was reminded of what was probably the last time I looked for a four leaved clover - on the King George V school playing field that we visited when I was at Ryebank. When we were not all rolling down the grassy bank - the girls with their summer dresses tucked into their knickers for propriety - the girls would sit and make daisy chains and some of us boys would search for four leafed clovers. My ambition was to find one to give to Ilona Richardson. I never did find one and if I had I would have needed all the luck it could bring to have the courage to give it to her!

Liverpool FC

2008-05-06T21:26:00.001+01:00

GB and I went to the butchers at Carr Farm yesterday. Not only were the sausages enjoyable but the visit yielded a photo of the 1961/2 Liverpool team. Haven’t been able to find a decent picture of this team on the net and I gave all my football memorabilia away years ago so this delighted me.

“Old” Friends

2008-04-25T04:55:00.005+01:00

It is a shame when we lose touch with people who we have befriended and with whom we have shared some really good times. However, it does enable us to experience the joy of ‘rediscovering’ them. The computer age makes that so much easier to do and the intervening years just disappear as one resumes a ‘correspondence’ that might have only finished last week despite all the changes in both your lives over the years.

I have, for example, just retraced a former colleague and friend Ray Lonsdale. We last spent any real time together in 1976 when my first wife and I were fortunate enough to visit him at the delightfully named Penbontrhydybeddau for a couple of most hospitable weekends. We explored the area (near Aberystwyth) on foot and by car and I recall a delightful morning spent with a friend of theirs who, besides lecturing at Aberystwyth also acted as the local farrier whilst his wife wove. {Farriery is now so rare that instead of every village having a farrier the spellchecker rejects the word.) On another day we wandered the hedgerows and collected rose hips for making into syrup and came across a Barn Owl that swooped through the pine woods straight at me, silent as a ghost. It is little memories like this that make a life what it is today.

In Ray’s case it was particularly enjoyable to swap news because I had heard that he had died many years ago! “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, as Mark Twain once commented...

He and his wife Sally have invited me to visit and, transport permitting, I shall take him up on it. I know what will happen. We will meet and after a moment assessing the visible damage of thirty two years we will resume conversing as if the intervening time had been a mere six months. The experiences of a lifetime will then be crammed into a couple of days of swapping news but suitably interspersed with philosophising about the world and, more importantly, creating new memories to carry forward to the future. And so life goes on, a seemingly unending addition of experiences until one day the rumours of one’s death are no longer exaggerated.

Having friends is fun!

Rocky Lane

2008-04-20T07:44:00.002+01:00

This is a post card of Rocky Lane, Liverpool as it was in the time of my Mum’s youth. The view is looking downwards from Childwall Priory Road (later Queens Drive) towards Bowring Park Road. It really was rocky and it really was a lane – a typical country lane with hedgerows and sandstone banks. This farm was known to Mum as Pye’s farm and in the 1910s the Pye’s had been there for over seventy years but it’s ‘proper’ name was Rocky Lane Farm. The wall on the left is off Broad Green Hall and the entrance was just beyond Laburnum Cottage which was on the opposite side of the lane. Behind that cottage was Childwall Gas Works with a small gasometer. The manager, George Harding, lived in Laburnum Cottage and Harding laid cast-iron gas pipes behind the hedgerows, made the gas, installed the necessary fittings in the properties served (which included Nana’s house) and read the meters. By-products of the gas industry such as tar and refuse lime were sold to local residents and farmers.
Nowadays all this is houses and asphalt and even the social club which replaced Pye's Farm (CADWA) has itself been demolished.

Innocents

2008-04-16T19:22:00.001+01:00

These little innocents – Eric and Mum - were photographed in 1913. In those days little boys wore dresses when young.

Dad’s Driving licences...

2008-04-11T04:40:00.002+01:00

Dad kept a number of his driving licences. Remember those red backed ones from the good old days?

I knew he had lived in Lothair Road, Anfield at one stage – Lothair Road backs onto the Liverpool FC ground. But I either didn’t know or had forgotten that he lived at Wavertree House in Old Swan. Wavertree House, Old Swan, no longer exists as an address – does anyone know where it is or was?

David Bellamy and friends

2008-04-10T20:20:00.001+01:00

The year 1987 was not a good one for Jo and I – it was the year David died. But one event – possibly the only event that was memorable for good reasons – was most enjoyable. The opening of Pex Hill Visitor Centre in Knowsley. One of my roles at the time was being in charge of Public Relations for the Borough and whilst I usually avoided getting involved in publicity or mayoral events I made an exception in this case because the opening was done by David Bellamy. He was a real hero to Bryony and Helen and as they were members of the Borough’s Chrysalis Club I managed to get them a day off school to meet him.

The girls are pictured to the right of David in this article from the next day’s Liverpool Daily Post (April 15th).

With Helen on his left and Bryony on his right David Bellamy examines the insect life at Pex Hill with the Deputy Mayor, Cllr Eric Jones, looking on.

Bryony and Helen – to the right of David Bellamy – sporting their Chrysalis Club badges.

Samaria

2008-04-10T06:31:00.002+01:00

Dad’s personal record book recorded the day Uncle Frank emigrated to Canada – “June 18th 1953 – Frank sailed Southampton – Samaria.”

Liverpool’s first helicopter ? ?

2008-04-08T07:36:00.001+01:00

This photo was taken by Dad and allegedly shows the first helicopter to land in Liverpool – in June 1953. However, a bit of research shows that British European Airways launched the first commercial helicopter passenger service in June 1950, travelling between Liverpool, England, and Cardiff, Wales, using a Westland-Sikorsky S-51. This is three years later and is not a Westland-Sikorsky S51 – so why were so many people gathered to watch it land in Liverpool city centre. Any one know the answer?

Lane House Farm, Shipton-under-Wychwood

2008-04-07T12:26:00.002+01:00

This is where my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather, John Brookes, lived. Where did our part of the family go wrong???

More about the Jarvis family

2008-04-02T18:44:00.000+01:00

I have previously mentioned Nana’s sister, Auntie Edie, who married captain Robert Jarvis and became Edie Jarvis.
I have also done a posting which showed her congratulatory telegram to Mum and Dad on their wedding. It was sent from Irby post office on the Wirral but I had not realised how near to our present home Aunty Edie lived at one time. I have just seen her address in Nana’s birthday book. The Doctor’s surgery near our house is number 349 Pensby Road, Wirral. Aunty Edie lived at number 322 while her son Claude (Mum’s first cousin) lived at 414 Pensby Road. I wonder if I still have any cousins living just around the corner?

Dad’s Personal Record Book

2008-03-27T03:18:00.003Z

Dad’ kept a sort of diary for about fifty years. The majority of entries were related to deaths and funerals with other major items being family births, christenings, visits from GB and family from the Hebrides, the receipt of letters from Big Frank, the occasions on which Walter called in on holiday from Australia, and so on.

I have just gone though it in its entirety and put the more important entries into chronological order. Gradually I shall add my own entries from my diaries, together with Nana’s birthday book and so on. I don’t know what the ultimate purpose will be but it’s yet another project to keep me out of mishief.

The Ensign

2008-03-18T05:40:00.001Z

More wheels from the past – GB’s first car, a Standard Ensign. It is parked outside the cottage of our first cousin once removed – Flora Scott (née Jarvis) on Anglesey. I wouldn’t mind having the cottage or the car nowadays!

Agnes Rothwell

2008-03-14T05:32:00.002Z

Among the few items of family history interest that Dad possessed was this card. It was a not uncommon practice to provide memorial cards or silk bookmarks as mementos when someone died. But who was Agnes Rothwell?

Dad’s sister Agnes
Dad’s elder sister was baptised Agnes so it was obviously a family name. Often one would be named after a grandparent and Dad’s father’s mother was born Agnes Thompson before becoming Agnes Edwards when she married Edward Edwards, a fruit merchant. Dad’s dad was born in 1874 so his mother could easily have been born around 1847 which was when Agnes Rothwell was born. Did Edward die before her and did she then re-marry to become Agnes Rothwell?

Pension Claim

2008-03-14T04:58:00.001Z

I haven’t quite reached pensionable age but I suspect that when I do the DHSS (or whatever it is called nowadays) will tell me. They will also be able to tell me where and when I was born and anything else that matters with the possible exception of my shoe size. The whole of our life is now computerised and cross-referenced.

In Nana and Grandpa’s day things were a bit different. As a result we are left with copies of a couple of interesting documents that they completed in 1948 when they were aged 70 / 71. The only reason that Uncle Eric managed to keep the forms seems to be that at the first attempt they accidentally signed the backs of the wrong ones (Nana’s signature was on the back of Grandpa’s claim and vice versa).

Miss Smith’s

2008-03-13T18:30:00.001Z

Miss Smith’s – as Priory High school, Broad Green was popularly known – was held in the building mentioned in the last but two blog posting – the Mission Room. This was Mum’s school report at the age of 9. It was the only report she kept – perhaps because it was the only time she got excellent for arithmetic, a subject she loathed.

Global Warming

2008-03-12T18:59:00.001Z

In sorting all the papers, photos and slides in the loft I have come across this piece of schoolwork by Helen when she was aged 8. Now we know who to blame for global warming.

Ration books

2008-03-12T18:15:00.001Z

Some ration books from the Second World War.

Mum’s grocery one named Mrs Judson as her supplier, of course.

Mrs Judson’s

2008-03-11T06:06:00.005Z

All this has changed! It used to be where the Liverpool end of the M62 now meets Queens Drive. My colour photo looking towards the Rocket was taken at the end of the sixties. The former cottages, once known as Childwall View had been shops since my Mum was small and the far end one – Mrs Judson’s – was the local grocers. Not sure whether any of it survives or in what form.

The cottages on the left at the end would really have had a view of Childwall at the end of the Victorian era before the houses opposite were built and the trees planted.

When Mum and Dad moved into Renville Road the Judsons continued to be their grocers with Mum and I walking around there to shop. It was a real ‘corner shop’ and seemed to stock everything despite only being big enough for a three or four customers to stand in it at a time. Later, I would go on my own with a list and a large rucksack to do the shopping on a Saturday morning. That rucksack was heavy by the time it was filled but I would never admit it! Later still Mr Judson Mum used to phone the list in and Mr Judson would deliver the groceries in his Morris Minor Countryman.

On the right of this 1973 picture – looking towards The Fiveways, the opposite way to mine - is The Mission Room. This was Miss Smith’s Preparatory School when Mum was small and she and Uncle Eric went there. When GB and I were small it was the Sunday School room for St David’s Church and he and I went there though my stint was only brief. I recall falling backwards off the bench and banging my head. That was all the excuse I needed to convince Mum to let me stay at home.

At the end of the sixties the shop at the opposite end of the row was briefly a sales outlet for Ron Baker’s paintings. Ron’s painting name was Cazier and I shall show some of his pictures on a future blog when I can find the slides. When I was in the sixth form I would often call in on my way home from school and talk to his attractive wife while deciding how long it would take me to save up for a painting. I bought two and then had a commission painted from my own slide of Great Gable.

Mum and Dad and the Lake District

2008-03-10T05:41:00.006Z

In the 1930s Mum (and later Mum and Dad) stayed at Mrs Ullock’s farm at the head of Wast Water. It was their youthful equivalent of Mrs Roscamps in Grange-in-Borrowdale where we were to stay throughout the 1960s and early 70s. This photo was taken outside Mrs Ullock’s in 1967 but it was assumed she had long since departed this life.

Great Gable from Mrs Ullock's.

That same year – Dad’s 59th and Mum’s 58th – they climbed to the top of Scafell Pike, the highest spot in England at 3209 feet (978 metres). At the time I thought it marvellous that they should accomplish this. Though GB has followed in their footsteps by climbing Clisham (‘only’ 2622 feet but from a lower starting point) recently, I no longer think it marvellous, I think it bloody marvellous. I am so unfit, especially since giving up the caravan and its walks, that two flights of stairs knock me out!

Dad, Phil and Mum at the summit of Blencathra.

And on Haystacks – with Phil in his infamous red socks which were always the subject of much comment!.

Studying

2008-03-09T06:33:00.005Z

A reader of this blog recently asked for more pictures of GB from his schooldays – with the implication that the more embarrassing they were the better. How about this post-school one instead – a serious pose from 1962 at Renville Road.

And the same year on a Scottish hillside.

And with Phil, Dad, and me (now that is embarrassing!) at Killin in the heart of Scotland, also in 1962. (Killin has a wonderful website with thousands of old photos - http://www.killin.co.uk/gallery/)

Snooker

2008-03-07T06:22:00.002Z

Sign of a mis-spent youth?

Tunnel Tickets

2008-03-07T06:19:00.004Z

Sorting through some of Uncle Eric’s memorabilia I came across a couple of Mersey Tunnel tickets. The tunnel hasn’t issued tickets for years! In those days you paid per person not per vehicle – these are two 2d tickets for two adults. Children’s tickets were a different colour. Uncle Eric, Mum’s brother, was a man given to methodical and logical retention of documentation and objects. All his electrical goods were kept in their original boxes! But rarely does the sentimental side show through. Strange through it may seem, these tunnel tickets are one example of it – they are from the day in 1955 that he drove through the tunnel to Nana and Graqndpa’s house in Liverpool for his wedding.

On 3rd September 1955 Uncle Eric (Eric Spencer Body) married Doris at the Registry Office in Brougham Terrace. The reception was held at Nana and Grandpa's - 46 Queens Drive. Dad was the photographer and the photos were taken in the back garden at 46 Queens Drive.

Back Row:- A friend or relative of Doris's, Nana (largely hidden by GB), Eric, Doris, Grandpa, Mum, Aunty Ella, Uncle Wardie; Front Row:- GB, CJ, Roger.

I recall being nervous beforehand because someone had told me that the wedding would involve the happy couple and witnesses signing their names. As I was to witness (my perception of that word) the wedding I imagined I would have to sign my name and the prospect of doing that was a bit daunting as I didn't have a standard signature. It just goes to show how children can misinterpret the explanations of things that adults so blithely give.

Note GB's brand new school uniform - he had just started at Quarry Bank. Roger, although the same age was repeating his top year at Ryebank, to get better results. School uniforms came from Wearings or Wareings just off Smithdown Road and going there was always a major event in the calendar of the school year.

Further down The Lanes

2008-03-07T05:57:00.002Z

Further to my earlier Blog posting which showed a post card from Arthur Lane to Nana I have since found out when he died. I got some information about the Lane family from a cousin (Geoffrey Lane – the son of Thomas Warden Lane) a few years ago and upon checking that I find that Henry Arthur Lane was born 1895 and died whilst serving with the 5th Gloucestershire Regiment on The Somme. Ronald Edward Lane was born in 1899 and died in 1917 whilst in the merchant navy in the Med.

This is a photo of Cyril Lane with Mum on one of the occasions we visited him in the early 1970s. Even then his eyesight was not good and he was pleased to be taken around the Cotswolds for the day - I think the spot is Lower Slaughter.

Competition Winning Photo

2008-03-06T09:34:00.002Z

Another memento of that walking tour in the Lakes in 1930 (see Rambles from my Chair blog). A ‘snapshot’ of Mum, Doris and Joyce taken by Marie and submitted to the Liverpool Echo. It won the princely sum of two guineas.

More Telegrams

2008-03-05T16:53:00.004Z

One day I am determined to ‘publish’ Uncle Eric’s diaries. I have transcribed a number of them to date but have now reached the stage where his minute and horrendous writing have temporarily defeated me. In the meantime I have a folder of all sorts of mementoes of his. It seems a shame that he had no children or grandchildren to leave his memorabilia to. (Yes, I know that paragraph ended in a preposition!) But then if he had been a parent he wouldn’t have been the Uncle Eric that GB and I knew. (And another yes, I know I began the sentence with a ‘but’.) This was a congratulations telegram to him and Doris upon their wedding in 1955.

The telegram was from Nana’s sisters Auntie Edie and Auntie Maud. Note how downmarket the envelope had gone compared to the bright golden one of the pre-war days!

Here’s one for Ron

2008-03-05T10:05:00.002Z

Goalies are mad. I tried to find a photo of this particular goalkeeper picking the ball out of the back of the net - just to embarrass him - but instead the only one I could find was a spectacular save.

I’ve only ever known two people daft enough to voluntarily play ‘goalie’. One was Dad who played in goal for a Birkenhead team in the 1920s and 30s and the other is the person pictured here, Ron Arbuckle. I think the game was the in the Liverpool Zingari League. Ron was GB’s ‘best friend’ at school; person who only really appreciated that he was ‘getting on in years’ when GB’s little brother brought a girlfriend into a pub; and, so far as I know, the only reader of this Blog who lives in Minorca !

Both Dad and Ron kept goal in the days when referees were somewhat less soft than today and being touched by a forward didn’t result in a foul being awarded – it resulted in a bloody big bruise. Yes, goalies were even more mad in those days.

Wedding telegrams

2008-03-05T05:55:00.006Z

Among the few mementoes Mum kept were letters and telegrams sent to her and Dad on the occasion of their wedding in August 1938. I don’t know when telegrams stopped being provided by the Post Office / BT but the whole idea of a telegram became so associated with bad news during the war that their use for happy occasions had declined long before they stopped. Ironically, one of Mum’s jobs at the War Office was to send the telegrams notifying people that their husbands or sons were missing in action or dead. (N.B. They are now available again from http://www.telegramsonline.co.uk/index1.asp).

The fact that the telegram was a greetings one could be determined by the outer envelope.

This telegram was from Jack Wildman ( a second cousin who many folk in the family had thought Mum should marry but who she didn’t like) and his wife who went by the wonderful name of Fuffles!

I don’t know who this one was from – possibly Uncle JPD and Aunty Muriel

For Anne Francoise.

2008-03-05T05:48:00.002Z

This was a poem I wrote at the age of 20 when the first girl I fell in love with went off and got engaged to someone else!

Loneliness
is buying coffee for one...
without you;
is choosing new clothes
without you;
is playing patience, not strip poker
with you;
is wrapping Christmas presents for everyone
but you
is buying my brand of cigarettes
not yours;
is answering the phone knowing it’s
not you
is crying on a shoulder that’s
not yours;
is sitting at a table
without you;
is chatting to friends but thinking
about you;
is drinking and talking and eating and walking and praying and laying...
without you;
is Christmas, New Year, Easter,
Spring,
Summer,
Autumn and
Winter
without you;
loneliness is... without you.

I recognise a degree of ‘poetic’ licence in the above (apart from anything else Anne didn’t smoke) but reading it again after all these years makes me wonder how she is. There is always a special place in a person’s heart for their first love.

Seven Guineas a Term

2008-03-04T21:32:00.003Z

One of the sacrifices that Mum and Dad made for GB and I was to use their very limited resources to send us to a Prep School.

Looked at by today’s standards the fees are laughable – seven guineas a term when I first started at Ryebank. (A combined total of 21 guineas a term for GB, Roger and I). For those not old enough to remember the Great Recoinage of George III the guinea was the major unit of currency until in 1816 it was replaced by the sovereign, a coin with the value of a pound. Even after the coin ceased to circulate, the name guinea was long used to indicate the amount of 21 shillings - £1.05 in decimal currency. The guinea had an aristocratic overtone; professional fees and payment for land, horses and art were often quoted in guineas right up until decimalisation in 1971.

The fees went up to 8 Guineas in 1956 and were 10 Guineas by the time I left.

Note that the receipt for 1958 has no stamp – presumably it was around the end of the 1950s that the requirement to fix a stamp upon receipts disappeared. In the United Kingdom, stamp duty was a form of tax charged on instruments (that is, written documents), and required a physical stamp to be attached to or impressed upon the instrument in question. Like Income Tax, Stamp Duty was supposed to be a temporary tax. It was introduced in 1694, during the reign of William and Mary under "An act for granting to Their Majesties several duties on Vellum, Parchment and Paper for 4 years, towards carrying on the war against France". During the 18th and early 19th centuries, stamp duties were extended to cover newspapers, pamphlets, lottery tickets, apprentices' indentures, advertisements, playing cards, dice, hats, gloves, patent medicines, perfumes, insurance policies, gold and silver plate, hair powder and armorial bearings. Stamp duty was so successful that it continues to this day through a series of Stamp Acts though the only real surviving signs of it are on house sales and shares.

Baptism

2008-03-04T11:10:00.003Z

I was baptised at St David's Church, Childwall, on Boxing Day, 26th December 1949.

My Godparents were Jim Farrell, a workmate of Dad's (pictured above left in 1938); Dad’s sister, Aunty Denny (pictured above middle when somewhat older); and Mum’s brother Uncle Eric (above right).

This is Dad holding me in my Christening shawl. Funnily enough - although this is supposed to be mostly about my memories - I don't recall this event at all!

John Dowd

2008-03-04T08:36:00.004Z

John Dowd was our next door neighbour at Renville Road and a close friend of Mum's. He introduced her to metaphysics and encouraged her artistic talents, he being an artist himself. The photo is circa 1952.

John Dowd at a much younger age!

John's wife was Nelly. They married a few months before I was born,. He had previously been married to Nelly's sister and Nelly had lived with them. Whilst he and Nelly had no great desire to marry it suited them to carry on living together. But in this respect he was caught between the Devil (almost literally) and the deep blue sea of public opinion. Since living in the same house without being married would have been frowned upon it was considered best to get married. Although ecclesiastical law allowed it, marriage to one's deceased wife's sister had only been legal since 1907 and was still considered improper by many people. (The corresponding Deceased Brother’s Widow’s Act didn’t get passed until 1921!)

Note in the background the height of the television aerial in someone's garden. It had yet to become standard to affix them to chimneys.

When I was tiny Aunty Nelly used to take me places to give Mum a break occasionally. I recall being taken to the Panto by her and being so scared that we left before it was finished. Barry and I are pictured here with Aunty Nelly (probably in 1952) in their back garden and I have a Dinky Toy in my hand.

It was a cream and maroon Hudson Sedan. And yes, they did produce the real car in that colour scheme despite black being the standard colour for almost all cars at that time.

John Dowd's son by his first marriage, Ernie and his wife Dolly had a daughter Olga. Olga was my babysitter.

Alder Centre Fundraising

2008-03-04T06:23:00.002Z

Jo and I were involved in the establishment of the Alder Centre – a ground-breaking support service, based at the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, Alder Hey, Liverpool, for anyone affected by the death of a child. One of our jobs in the early stages was that of publicity including going around collecting cheques from fundraisers. Here we are seen with a young Richard as he meets his first Liverpool FC players – Ronnie Whelan and Barry Venison. He was a bit young to appreciate the dual importance of the occasion but it adds two names to the list of Liverpool footballers he has met and been photographed or filmed with!

Quarry Bank

2008-03-04T06:14:00.005Z

I am such a squirrel that I have great difficulty throwing anything away. I am now getting a bit better at it because I can scan things into the computer and then dispose of the original. Even then there is a bit of me (the old librarian part?) that says the original ephemera should be kept for posterity! By contrast, Mum managed to get her paper keepsakes down to a couple of file folders before she died - and she'd lived a lot longer than I have! Sorting through those folders I came across this card from GB.

I suspect he was about twelve when he gave it to her. I wish my handwriting had been that legible at twelve (or any age!).

Auntie Edie

2008-02-28T19:07:00.003Z

I collect bookmarks. (“No accounting for tastes!” think my readers). With the exception of a couple I have never bought any and only a few have been given to me as presents and yet I seem to have acquired dozens and dozens. Sometimes they just turn up in old books that have been in the family a while. This one appeared when I picked up Mum’s old Bible.

The Bible was given to her upon her christening by her Auntie Edie. The state of Mum’s Bible comes from her having used it her whole life. It was still in use when visiting St David’s Church, Childwall, each Sunday in her nineties.

Auntie Edie with her children Claude, Gladys, Flora, and Muriel c. 1904
The Christening was on August 8th 1909 and it was upon that day that my grandfather fell out with Auntie Edie and never spoke to her again. As one of the Godparents, Nana’s sister, Edie, was holding the baby and was the one asked by the vicar what name was being given to this child. Instead of the agreed “Flora Irene” she handed the baby to the vicar saying “Flora Edith Irene” . Thus was my Mum christened and my Grandfather never forgave Auntie Edie.

A 21st Cake

2008-02-24T06:01:00.005Z

I had two 21st Birthday parties – one in Leeds with my college friends and one in Liverpool with library and school friends. The one at college was little better than a drunken orgy without the orgy bit because I was too drunk! Sad really as there were about thirty people crowded into our usual room in the Vic and only two of those were male – myself and my school-friend Paul who had come over from Liverpool for a couple of days. One advantage of doing a course in Librarianship was that my fellow students were all girls – a situation I thoroughly enjoyed because I generally prefer female company. That was the last time I was ever inebriated - enough was enough, I decided! At the time I had no camera because I had been forced to sell it to make ends meet while a student.

My celebration in Liverpool a few days later was a far more sedate affair, partly because it was held at home. Although Mum and Dad went out for the evening I wasn’t the sort to take too much advantage of that. Before they went Dad took a photo of my friend Babs and I.

He also photographed my cake which was made by a chef on one of the boats that Dad had contact with and was a real work of art. It was in the form of a book with the Leeds coat of arms on it. (The photo is worth clicking on to enlarge it as the fruit bowl makes a perfect still life.)

The Irish Coast

2008-02-22T17:51:00.003Z

More loft clearing revealed a Liverpool Echo photo of our visit to Irish Coast (http://memoriamea.blogspot.com/2008/02/holt-school-societies.html). I can only recognise four people other than myself... I haven't seen two, Geoff Rowley and Ray Lever since leaving school. Geoff is on Friends Re-united which tells me he is married, living in Derbyshire and working for a Housing Association. I think Ray's motorbike was the first one I ever rode - he lived next to a useful little unmade cul-de-sac. One of the others was Jim Moore who was a close friend at one time and I have a photo of him in his back garden; which I'll not embarrass him by showing. He helped me destroy some of my model planes and things by fire so as to make realistic photos! He was last heard of living in West Kirby in the same road as my brother in the early 1970s and at the time was a Police sergeant.
The fourth, Iain Muir, not only followed me over to Leeds (sleeping on my floor for a night or two when flat hunting) but married Julie, a friend of mine who had worked at Childwall Library with me. Julie is one of my e-mail friends to this day even though she and Iain have deserted their native city and live in London.

Rydal Water

2008-02-21T19:01:00.006Z

In the 1970s and early 1980s I had a few walks around Rydal Water in the winter – usually February. One of those days was brilliantly sunny and cold and resulted in some great pictures.

Sorting through the photos in the loft I have comes across some of Dad’s including this one of Mum and I on Nab Scar during one of our round Rydal water walks in February 1984.

The Three Shire Stones

2008-02-21T06:28:00.006Z

In 1965 I toured the Cotswold area on my bike. Part of the route was along the Fosse Way and a few miles south west of Bath I came across the Three Shire Stones. OS Ref (GB): ST795700 / Sheet: 172. The stones are just off the Bannerdown road ('Holy Hill'). Looking far more ancient than it really is, the structure was erected in February 1859 and the 'opening' was given wide publicity in local newspapers and national journals. These reports added that in the hole excavated for the upright stone on the Gloucestershire side three skeletons and a coin of James II were found. The stones that were used are thought to have been from a nearby ancient chambered cairn. There are three small dressed stones inside, each dated 1736 and with the initial of one of the three counties whose boundary they mark - Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire. These smaller internal stones were described in 1859 as - "three Stones of the dimensions ordinarily used for mere stones in Common field lands; and they were in such a position that travellers could not possibly be attracted by them; and that even those, who knew of their existence, could not at once discover them." The total cost of erecting the cromlech was £34 5s and 8d. a "Dinner to the Workmen" was listed as one of the expenses.

As can be seen from my picture, when I visited it in 1965 the spot was clean and tidy but a recent report commented - "As usual at such places there was litter everywhere - this despite it being apparently miles out, and not all of it could have blown in from the road. Rather fortunately some of the rubbish was plastic bags, so I collected two whole bagfuls and took them back to the car. People eh. It is bound to be the haunt of pissed teenagers but I wonder what they think they're sitting under."

Tiffany stained-glass window of St. Augustine, in the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida. (Detail)
Tradition has it that St.Augustine met the British Bishops at this spot.

A patchwork cushion

2008-02-20T21:38:00.001Z

This patchwork cushion was created by my Grandmother from scraps of material used in her sewing. I can recognise bits of dress material and curtains, cushion covers and dressing case linings. I think it is a lovely idea making not only an attractive cushion cover but also a memento of times gone by. Sadly, although it is not too obvious from the photo, the cover is now too delicate and worn to be used. I had thought of creating a cushion cover of my own to match this but once my thumb ‘went’ I had to stop all my embroidery and cross-stitch.

My Rucksack

2008-02-19T17:58:00.002Z

My rucksack has just given up the ghost. It was one of those cheap ones from the market and lasted about four years which is not bad considering how much I’ve used it. But it does not compare with the rucksack shown above; pictured on Steel Fell, overlooking Greenburn Bottom in the Lake District. Dad bought this for me, second-hand, when I was about thirteen. It had a big metal frame and weighed a ton even without its contents. The inside space was comparable to a Volvo Estate and it had half a dozen extra pockets and various straps leather for carrying tripod, etc. It had been up virtually every Lakeland fell that I have climbed and around North Wales, Scotland, the West Country, and various other parts of England. Eventually, after about twenty years, I swapped it for a camera gadget bag

Water Mills

2008-02-19T11:52:00.008Z

We used to holiday some years at a wonderful farmhouse in Dolwyddelan set above the River Lledr on the lower slopes of Moel Siabod. Part of the farmhouse included an old water mill but unlike the rest of the buildings it was a ruin.

One of the reasons that comparatively few water mills survive is that the tremendous vibration of the turning wheels would gradually damage the walls meaning that a lot of them fell down quite soon after they stopped being used. This is the water mill at Rosset in Cheshire, photographed in the 1960s or 1970s.

One of the holidays GB and I had with Phil Moss, Mum and Dad in the mid 1960s was in Mid-Wales but I don’t remember much about it. The area was pretty enough but at the time I was so in love with the Lake District that a week spent anywhere else was a waste. This was the water mill on the Afon Teifi near Cenarth.

On the river nearby was a chap in a coracle. I’m not sure whether pulling on one’s ear helps it to go round in circles or not?

Lower Slaughter Mill

The 1974 Cup Final

2008-02-18T20:23:00.004Z

And I was there!

One of my most memorable days. I had been to plenty of football matches over the years but this was my first (and only) trip to Wembley to the Cup Final. I got the ticket from a friend in Leeds as a result of which it was supposed to be in among the Newcastle supporters. As I was waiting outside the ground in my Liverpool scarf and colours a lad came up with a Newcastle scarf and a ticket for a Liverpool area of the ground. Being a trusting sort I agreed to his idea of swapping tickets provided we got a policeman to check they were genuine. An obliging bobby did that for us and I set of for the Liverpool end. (Note these were the good old days when managers were called "Mr." and weren't sacked every two minutes.)

One of the main things that Liverpool supporters wanted out of the match was for Supermac – Malcolm MacDonald, a big-mouthed Newcastle player – to be humbled. And he was. We won 3-0. (Actually it was 4-0 but Alec Lindsay’s perfectly legitimate goal was disallowed!) Kevin Keegan scored two and Heighway one. Just about every Liverpool player made a major contribution to the game under the captaincy of Emlyn Hughes. One of the players who kept Malcolm MacDonald out of the game was Tommy Smith who in those days was the Liverpool 'hard man' (something every team had one of). A match report in The Times of 21st August 1972 had read as follows - "A minute into the second half Wall collided with Smith, an involuntary exercise as discouarging as trying to chop down trees with the bare hands. Lengthy repairs."

The goals from the Final can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtX_-m_TypE

On the way back to the station we saw a car painted in black and white stripes and actually felt sorry for the occupants driving so sheepishly through the crowds of joyous Liverpool supporters. I got the train back, jumped off at Aigburth station and ran all the way home to arrive in time to watch the highlights programme on TV. What a glorious day.

Chain Bridge

2008-02-18T14:16:00.007Z

This is the Chain Bridge Hotel near Llangollen, taken in the 1970s. This spot has one of the oldest roads in the country (the A5), one of the oldest canals, one of the oldest steam railway lines, one of the most famous bridges to cross the river Dee and the river Dee itself. The original chain bridge was built in 1814 and later strengethened but in 1928 it was swept away when floods rose four feet above the level of the bridge. A new and stronger bridge was built in 1929 and survives to this day.

For many years we would drive out to park in the trees above the Hotel, feed the birds and walk along the canal towpath – either to Llangollen or in the other direction to the nearby Horseshoe Falls.

A couple of years ago GB and I had lunch at the Chain Bridge Hotel and a pleasant walk along the canal.

We were accompanied at one stage by a Mummy Duck and her little ducklets.

A few years earlier Mum and Dad had a trip on the boat along the canal while I walked alongsied. On another occasion we had a trip along the valley in the steam train but those photos are still hiding in the loft at the moment.

Liverpool Show and other events

2008-02-15T06:41:00.011Z

When I was little visiting the Liverpool Show was one of my favourite days out. It occurred once a year in mid-July and lasted three days. Initially Dad and I only went once a year but in later years thanks to complimentary tickets from Phil Moss (who got them through his business) and GB (who organised the Show for the Council) we would often go two or three times. We would try to be there at the end of the third day when the plants were sold off cheaply in the flower tents.

Some of my first photos were taken at the Show as I attempted to catch the horses going over the jumps. Slow shutter speeds, a fairly primitive camera and dull days made for photos which by modern standards were pretty poor but I was pleased with them at the time.

Once colour films came in I enjoyed capturing the different coloured horses and the red or black coats of the riders – even if slower film speeds meant even poorer photos!

Although show jumping was the perennial favourite in the show’s arena other events were regularly held and I would wait for ages to capture shots of these. Nowadays we would reel off dozens of digital photos in the hope of getting one decent one but in the days when film had to be bought and developing paid for it was important to waste as few as possible.

The result, of course, would not be known for a couple of weeks until the film came back from the processors and one would go through the box of 36 slides with some trepidation hoping for that one shot that made it all worthwhile.

Another event that Dad and I went to each year was the Police Show at Mather Avenue police training school. Watching the dogs chase and bring down the villains was my favourite part of that show with the dog obstacle course coming second.

But it was the police band and the police horses that provided the best pictures.

The Commonwealth Arts Festival of 1965 was another event in which GB was heavily involved and for which he got me a free ticket. I took quite a few photos but with little success. This pair of Fijians in national costume were one of the few triumphs.

A College Scrapbook

2008-02-14T12:31:00.003Z

I have kept a diary for much of my life and while I was at college (1969-1972) I supplemented it with scraps of news cuttings, adverts, and anything else which was of interest. In those days, before I hid my politics behind a mask of Local Government neutrality, I was exceedingly left-wing. “Private Eye” was an essential and enjoyable part of my weekly reading and Ian Smith of Rhodesia was my Public Enemy No 1..

Public Enemy no 2 who also who made it into the scrap book part of the diary was Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Education and Science who had just scrapped school milk and was attacking the student unions.

Fortunately the scrap book had its positive side as well and then, as now, horses were favourite topic. From my earliest teens I have loved photos of horse’s heads that could be sketched or painted. Whereas I only bet a couple of weeks a year now – the National meeting and the Gold Cup meeting – I supplemented my income rather well whilst at college. Most notable success came with the 1970 Gold Cup where I backed the winner L’Escargot at 33/1 and then the following year when I predicted and backed the winner, second and third – L’Escargot,, Leap Frog and The Dikler. In the 1970 Grand National I backed the winner, Gay Trip at 15/1. and the third, Miss Hunter, at 33/1. I cannot recall much about my flat race successes – they were mostly in minor races but I was great fan of Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef.

Nowadays, I cannot tell one car from another but in those days I was interested enough to put the new Citreon DS in the scrapbook.

Cigarette adverts were a major contributor to magazine revenues in those days and the best were by Benson and Hedges, John Player Special and Marlboro.

Holt School societies

2008-02-13T13:14:00.005Z

So far as I can recall I was in three school societies at one time or another – the chess club, the rambling club, and the transport society. This latter enabled us to visit places and means of transport which were otherwise not available to the public.

One of our trips was to see over the Coast Line ship “Irish Coast”. Irish Coast was launched in 1953 and sold in 1968 to Epirotiki Lines. She received the names Orpheus, Semiramis II and Achilleus in quick succession, before settling with Apollon XI. This was rendered as Apollon 11 in 1980. She was sold in 1981, and was lost in a typhoon in 1989.

I think it was the Captain of the Irish Coast who gave the society its life belt.

The rambling club took me to the Lake District a couple of times, including a trip up Jack’s Rake on Pavey Ark which is graded an easy rock climb and led to me joining the climbing club at Leeds. A perennial trip for the club was up Tryfan and the Glyders in Snowdonia and this photo was taken on one of those occasions.

On another occasion, on the same mountains in 1965, our party got split up in the mist and for a while we were missing my friend Keith Foddy and a couple of others. Fortunately Keith was never without his radio and he played it full blast to give the teachers a clue as to where they were. The tune, a top ten hit for Dusty Springfield at the time, "In the Middle of Nowhere".

Richard's first match

2008-02-13T12:50:00.001Z

This was Richard’s first football match. I took him to Anfield to watch Liverpool play Sheffield Wednesday. Sadly we lost

Inside the programme was a report of Liverpool’s latest youth cup win. Among the youth team players were Stephen Gerrard and Michael Owen (who scored a hat-trick!).

Phil Moss and Queens Square, Liverpool

2008-02-13T05:19:00.013Z

This is Phil Moss with Mum and Dad. Phil was a close family friend of the Edwards family for many years. Brought up in New Zealand his family moved to England and he joined the army for World War II and it was there he adopted the name Phil – his real given names of Clarence Albert being the sort that would have led to too much ribbing in the forces.

The family were part owners of a fruit wholesalers – Leeman and Moss – which for many years was based just off Queens Square in the centre of Liverpool where all the major fruit merchants could be found.

This photo from a book about Liverpool shows Queens Square with all its fruit merchants – I would guess it was from the 1940s. In the late 1960s all the firms moved to the new Fruit Market on Edge Lane and I worked there at Leeman and Moss for some of my college holidays. During one of those I went from office junior to office manager in the space of two months as crisis after crisis hit the firm. I was offered a full time job but everyone there warned me it was a real cut-throat business so I went back to college and finished my degree instead. (And then entered local government which makes any business seem gentile by comparison!)

Phil came on holiday with the family for many years, often providing or hiring the car, and with him we stayed at various places in the Lake District, once in mid-Wales and toured Scotland. Later, after GB and I had left home, Mum and Dad continued to holiday with him and I joined them for a holiday in North Wales and a tour of Southern England.

Queens Square nowadays is hardly recognisable from the days when it housed the fruit merchants and amongst the many buildings demolished was the Stork Hotel.

The Union Cold Storage, another landmark building in old Liverpool, also disappeared.

Fortunately the Playhouse is untouched from the early Queens Square days and remains one of the main theatres in Liverpool.

It was Phil who introduced me to his bank – Midland in Queens Square – just seen to the right of the Magic Clock (a noted gay pub in those days). The pub and bank went years ago and now the Midland isn’t even the Midland anymore – it’s the HSBC. It seems strange to say I’ve had an account at the same bank for over 40 years when the building has moved and the name has changed!

GB, Nana, Dad, Mum, Phil in the early 1960s

Uncle Jack, Tia Maria and the Seacombe Ferry

2008-02-12T05:51:00.000Z

My Mum’s dad was born in the East End of London and his father re-married when he was quite young. His step-mother was, apparently, the archetypal step-mother and when he was still a teenager he ran away to Liverpool. Nothing particularly remarkable about that except that he brought his two younger sisters (Alice and May) with him and looked after them in his new home town. Later his sister Janey also moved up to Liverpool. Aunty Alice never married and when I knew her she lived with Aunty May and her husband – Jack Pepper.

Uncle Jack was a pub landlord at various pubs around Liverpool including the Blue Anchor at Aintree and a pub in Commutation Row in the city centre which was subsequently named after him. When I first knew Uncle Jack and Aunty May they lived over a pub in Borough Road, Birkenhead, and I recall being there one evening and trying to convince him that what the Beatles were pushing out really was music. A similar evening over there I had my first alcoholic drink (apart from the odd medicinal brandy for a queasy stomach which I hated). It was a Tia Maria with cream – a drink I have loved from that day onwards.

Tia Maria is one of the world's most legendary liqueur spirits. The history of the drink can be traced back over 300 years to Jamaica in the Caribbean. In the mid 17th century when the island was in the grip of the brutal Colonial Wars, a beautiful Spanish noblewoman was forced to flee her home. In the chaotic flight, her maid had just enough time to safely snatch one of her mistress's most important family possessions - a tiny treasure box containing a pair of black pearl earrings and an old manuscript for a secret family recipe for a cordial. In her gratitude, the noblewoman named the rich dark drink 'Tia Maria' after her faithful maid. The legend came to light in the 1940s when Dr Kenneth Leigh Evans, a prominent scientist and gourmet was given the cordial to drink at dinner with friends. He fell in love with the intriguing taste and persuaded the family that it should be produced commercially. The lady of the house agreed provided the recipe remained a closely guarded secret. Produced by the industry giant Pernod Ricard through their Malibu-Kahlúa International subsidiary, Tia Maria is a "liqueur spirit" made in Jamaica using Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee beans. The main flavor ingredients are coffee beans, cane spirit, vanilla, and sugar.

Later in life, Uncle Jack, Aunty May and Aunty Alice retired to Magazine Brow in New Brighton. I used to cycle down to the Pier Head, get the Seacombe Ferry over the Mersey and ride along to New Brighton to visit them. By the time I was old enough to be doing that the New Brighton ferry had stopped running.

Away from Knowsley

2008-02-11T08:13:00.000Z

Unlike some of my local government colleagues I was not a great one for grabbing every opportunity to escape from Knowsley and go off on courses, seminars, and meetings all over the place. I only had two meetings in London during my whole time there and this photo of Piccadilly was taken during one of them. I was due to go to a third meeting in London on October 16th 1987 but the trains didn’t run because the South of England had been devastated by the hurricane overnight.

One course I did go on was a lengthy one – the Advanced Management Development Programme run by INLOGOV at Birmingham university. Great fun and I learned a lot – not just about Local Government and management but also about myself. I cannot recall why I went to Bristol in November 1984 but it may have been an Emergency Planning study of some sort. Whatever the reason I recall wandering up to the Clifton suspension bridge to take this photo.

Liverpool University

2008-02-11T06:17:00.000Z

Did you know that the term redbrick university was first coined by a Liverpool professor to describe the red brick built civic universities that were built in the UK’s industrial cities, mostly in the latter part of the 19th century, up to the outbreak of World War II. These were characterised by Victorian buildings of red brick, such as the Victoria Building of Liverpool University seen above. Historically this was the administrative heart of the University.
The University was established in 1881 as University College Liverpool, admitting its first 45 students in 1882 in a building on Brownlow Hill. In 1884, it became part of the federal Victoria University. From the start, it recruited notable scholars and received generous financial support from the people of Liverpool. A high proportion of the original students came from Merseyside; for poor yet able students there were scholarships and fellowships. The University grew quickly, and the famous Victoria Building, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, was opened in 1892. Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university with the right to confer its own degrees called the University of Liverpool. From its origins as one of the first civic universities to its place as a groundbreaking Russell Group university which excels at teaching, learning and research, the University of Liverpool has remained committed to the 'advancement of learning and ennoblement of life'. Today, the University has over 230 first-degree courses offered across 103 subjects, over 19,000 registered students and an annual income of £219 million, which includes £75 million for research.

The University attracted the pioneers of the day, including Professor Oliver Lodge, who made the world's first public radio transmission in 1894. Two years later, Lodge demonstrated the use of X-ray photography by taking an image of a bullet in a boy's wrist. It was the first time an X-ray had been used for surgical purposes in the UK. The University has produced eight Nobel Prize winners, including the first British Novel Laureate, from the fields of science, medicine and peace.

This is the student union building. I spent a fair bit of time in there in the late 60s, early 70s as it was one of the best places in my home town to play snooker. I recall my first visit was with Tony Hall, a former school friend who was a super artist and who was, I think, doing an art course of some sort at the university. I was always amazed that he could not only draw a perfect circle freehand but could do so both anti-clockwise and clockwise..

A wedding in the early 60s

2008-02-10T08:05:00.000Z

This blog posting should be called “Memories are not made of this”. I went to a wedding around 1962 and took a dozen or so pictures. Now I’m flummoxed. I don’t recognise the bride or groom, I don’t recognise a single guest and I cannot even place the church despite three good shots of its surroundings.

I took a self-portrait while I was there (presumably while waiting for the bride and groom to emerge from the church) by holding the camera at arm's length. Judging by my collar I obviously wasn’t a guest at the wedding. {Both Mum and I always stuck our tongues out when concentrating on throwing darts as well!}

Cleaning up Liverpool

2008-02-09T21:12:00.001Z

The most noticeable thing I have come across when sorting through my photos of Liverpool is the change that was wrought by cleaning some of the city centre buildings. I cannot recall when exactly they were done but the top of these two photos of the Walker Art Gallery was taken around 1963 or 1964 and the bottom one around 1969 so I assume they were all done in the late 1960s.

The Lanes

2008-02-08T18:53:00.000Z

William Henry Lane (standing left) and Adeline (seated with cap) with Cyril, Ronald and Arthur and relatives from the Dee family.

My maternal grandmother’s mother was born Louisa Sophia Lane in 1849. One of her brothers was William Henry Lane who married Adeline Dee. W.H. Lane was the proprietor and headmaster of Northampton House School. They had five children – Arthur; Cyril Albert born 1897; Ronald; Thomas Warden; and Muriel Irene born 1908. These five were therefore my Mum’s second cousins (and my second cousins once removed) and two of them – Cyril and Muriel - were in regular contact until Cyril died in the 1990s.

Muriel, who later became Muriel Pearce is still going strong and exchanges Christmas cards and good wishes with us each year – not bad for someone in their hundredth year. She lived for many years in Poole, Dorset, and more recently in Worcestershire.

Cyril, one-time house master at Radley college, was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1990 for environmental services for his work as a voluntary warden at Wychwood National Nature Reserve. He had been wounded in World War 1 and that same war had taken the lives of his brothers Ronald and Arthur.

I don’t know in which engagement Arthur died but this post card was sent by him to my grandmother on 21st June 1915 and was his last communication with her. It reads “Dear Auntie, Thought you might like one of the crowds of patriotic p.c.’s that are sold out here. Everywhere you go you always come across these cards; even hawkers selling them. We are now back at -----; for Divisional rest. Yesterday we had a Church Parade and H. C. {Holy Communion?}. This morning we have been out practising attacking. Love from Arthur.”