Mum grew up in the district around Hale Road in Wallasey, near the Mersey and river promenade, and in my own childhood we would often cross Wallasey from its west side in order to explore this area. I thus got to know parts of the area in which she had spent much holiday time in her childhood. This account combines her own account, from differing sections, with memories of my own childhood.
Mum’s memoir focuses partly on family holidays to distant places, but this is preceded by a long section that details some of her local activities in childhood holidays:
“One of the greatest changes that has occurred since the 1920s and 1930s is the way that children spend their school holidays in the Nineties. In my youth there was little danger in children going out to play. I spent most of my spare time skating on the Promenade (one memorable time my cousin Frank and I skated from Egremont to Meols and back arriving home in the pitch dark) and bathing in the Mersey, or, when the tide was out, digging sandcastles and drawing pictures in the sand. Everyone around the Seabank Road area knew the times of the tides and as the tide came in, many towelling caped figures could be seen going towards the disappearing beach. However, we were distinctly told that we should not bathe when the tide started to go out for that is when the sewers were opened. One awful day my sister fell off the Slipway into the river and I managed to get her out – her coat had shrunk four inches.
The summers appeared to be much warmer when I was a child and I can’t remember owning a cardigan. Much of my childhood was spent on shore activities – watching Punch and Judy Shows, taking part in Sand competitions and listening to the seaside missionaries singing their jolly hymns. Other activities included hop scotch, playing cricket down the side passage and, when I was older, “tracking” which comprised a “quarry” hiding and leaving tracking arrows to mark the journey to their hiding place (all this was to end when it became illegal to draw arrows which would confuse those people employed by putting adverts through doors – this practice was not popular and many houses sported such plaques as “no hawkers or circulars” or “beware of the dog”, as a deterrent).”
To deal with the last point, I recall Mum talking about the game of “tracking” in childhood, along the minor maze of passages between North Egremont and the Tower Grounds (q.v.). I have traced “no hawkers or circulars” back to 1909 in London, while an article in Pearsons Weekly of 27 October 1910 treats enamelled signs that bore this missive as something novel.
She did not recount oft-told stories of the dangers of the sands – once when she was trapped, no doubt briefly, in sinking sands, and another time when she was on a flat sandbank and realised that the tides had come in behind her and cut her off from the promenade. Since drafting this I have found her later account of this incident, and this will go in separately.
The story of skating to Meols is intriguing, because there was no clear paved way there until 1939, when Kings Parade was completed. Mum would then be 14, and perhaps that is when she and Frank, who was a year or so older, made the trip. Before then, work had started on the new promenade in 1931, and the whole area must have been an engineering site for most of the 1930s. Perhaps she went as far as the point where today the sea wall, a replacement for the “temporary” one of the 1930s, runs out, from which one can see Meols in the distance. The reactions of her mother, who was very protective, were surprising. As Mum recalled in a later interview, she made no comment – it seemed to be sufficient that she was with her cousin Frank.
She might have caught gastro-enteritis from immersion in the river, but definitely caught diphtheria, then a very serious disease, from human contact. She was in hospital, in isolation, for quite some time. This may have been in 1934, when there was a “spike” in cases in Wallasey, and the Medical Officer of Health was considering immunisation.
Her account makes no mention of the Tower Grounds, which, despite financial problems and the removal of the main Tower (the tallest building in Britain during its existence) remained a popular draw for visitors. She did appear in a show at the Tivoli Theatre (q.v.), and the Floral Pavilion was much improved after 1925 by the roofing in of what had been an open-air theatre.
Mum’s grasp of geography was never great, but she did know the area around Vale Park, and this played a part in my own childhood. I can recall many walks along the river promenade past the half-timbered “Mother Redcaps” building, for which historic antecedents were claimed (although it was largely rebuilt in the 1880s) and which became steadily more derelict after 1967, until it was finally demolished in 1974. Mum used to relay versions of the legend of Mother Redcaps, including tunnels reputed to run to the Red Noses and Wallasey church. We would often walk this section of promenade towards the corner from which one could see the site of Egremont Ferry, which Mum had used in the 1930s.
Mum’s account relates that “Most of my young days, up to the age of fifteen were spent in the Seabank Road area. It was a district I loved – the quaint houses, the old battery, Vale Park – where we played endless games of hide and seek and running from the Park Keeper, also listening to the military and brass bands on a Sunday and of course, as mentioned before the Promenade and Shore. We sometimes played tennis with my cousin Frank and the Barnes boys – Billy and John – and when we were older we went to the Barnes House on a Sunday to play card games and Monopoly with Billy, John, Teddy and Betty. Alternatively, we went to Aunty May’s and played similar games. The Barnes family lived on one side of Denton Drive and Aunty May lived on the other side. The Barnes family had smashing parties and at one of them I had a competition with one of their friends as to how many jellies we could eat – I lost having consumed 32 jellies, he gave up at 34. They used to ask us over for Bonfire Night and I can remember one time when one of the boys threw a banger into the fire which exploded sending sparks and coal all over the carpet. I did not like bangers but I certainly enjoyed the food. Mrs Barnes was a lavish provider and she used to buy in iced buns and cakes by the large tray load. She was a lovely person and so were all the family. Unfortunately John, who joined the Guards, was killed in action during the war. Teddy, who was younger than me, contracted cancer of the leg and died and Billy went a bit crazy. It was a very sad end to a wonderful period of our adolescent lives.”
This is an example of Mum’s way of writing and speaking, sometimes going straight on from amusing stories to accounts of tragedies. I recall the story of the banger in the fire! The US-originated game of Monopoly was not produced in Britain (by Waddingtons) until 1935, so her memories of this must be after this time and before 1941, when her home in Hale Road was blitzed. The 1939 Register records William Barnes as an “incorporated accountant”, and Mrs Hilda Barnes, both born in 1894, but only John B Barnes (b 1922) and William H Barnes (b 1924), at 48 Denton Drive. I would speculate that the Liverpool Echo, recording the marriage on August 4 1945 of Elizabeth Barnes, of Wallasey, daughter of Mr Barnes and the late Mrs Barnes, at St Johns Church, Egremont, refers to “Betty”, but I will need to check this.
The stepped passage which led from the Promenade to the street at the back of Marine Terrace (by the 1960s, looking very tired, but popular today) was a favourite, and Mum would tell of playing hide and seek in the area with a group of boys and girls. The Battery had been owned by the Liverpool Yacht Club until 1934, and presumably it had been vacated or children were tolerated; it would be developed for semi-detached houses, although much of the walls were retained. Mum often pointed out the Battery.
Vale Park was another childhood favourite, although some of the attractions there – the Tree Walk and Joytime in the band stand there – only started in the 1950s. The bandstand itself had been built in 1926, and in my 1960s childhood Mum and I (and my sisters, I think) would go to sit in deckchairs and watch the Joytime talent show. There were glasshouses which displayed various plants in the northern part of the Park, although I am uncertain whether they were there in the 1930s. The passage through to Dalmorton Road from Woodland Drive and the Park was certainly there, and Mum and I often explored this in the 1960s.
Vale House, in the centre of the Park, then had a display area with a glazed roof, which is now part of the cafe. I think that Mum would continue visits with the next generation – especially with visits to the cafe in Vale House, in the 1980s and 1990s.
Begun 14 June 2020, more on 19 September 2020, 10 April 2021 and 4 September 2021
Joan Boughey Recalled 