New Brighton
Introduction
Holidays for us in the early 1950’s consisted of several day trips to the seaside, more than many children enjoyed. The country was still recovering from the Second World War, sweets were still on ration, but to us, this was as good as it got.
Dad was a bus driver and not on a great wage, mum was a housewife, the norm for that post war period. Money, therefore, was in short supply for most working class families, but to us, as pre teenage children, any journey away from home was an adventure to be savoured and remembered.
Our annual holidays consisted of a day coach trip to Rhyl in North Wales, a short trip by today’s standards, but to us any coach trip over two hours was a long journey. Not only did we see mountains but also we were in a different country. Our second day trip out was always to Blackpool, Mecca of the north to day-trippers at that time. The one most looked forward to was our annual trip to New Brighton on Wirral.
We always looked forward with excitement to the day to New Brighton because it always included bus, tram and ferry rides, time spent on the fair and a cooked lunch at Auntie Agnes and Uncle Bob’s house in Liverpool.
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Starting Out
Together with both parents and my sister Barbara we would walk to the top of Link Avenue to await the arrival of the Local trolley bus. The buses were cream on the top half with the exception of a thin red line just below the top window. The bottom half was red with ‘’St Helens Transport’ emblazed along the side together with the town crest and motto ‘ex terra lucem’ (Out of the earth light) a motto which was to have a feature in my life 50 years in the future when I became involved in the ‘Dream’ project with Channel 4. The front of the bus also had the town crest and motto.
As I stated earlier, my dad was a driver so invariably he would know the conductor on the bus and we did not pay (always felt guilty about that). After a ten minute ride we arrived in Corporation Street, St Helens, were we would walk down wooden steps leading to Shaw Street Station (since renamed St Helens Central ), The renaming (as far as I understand) was to prevent the frustration of passengers who often travelled from Liverpool to St Helens Junction to find themselves three miles from the town centre and only a limited bus service linking the two.
Old Shaw Street Station
St Helens Corporation bus ticket
Train Ride
The current station is the third to be built on this site. Originally opened in 1871 and named St Helens Central, it was renamed ‘Shaw Street’ in 1949 to prevent confusion as there was another Central Station in the town. End of the history lesson and back to our journey to New Brighton. We entered the station from Shaw Street, walking across a bare wooden floor to the small pay kiosk built into the far wall.(I can still remember the sound of that floor) ‘Two adults and two children return to Liverpool, please’ tickets bought, check train time once again on the large board to the right of the kiosk, then out onto the platform. Down the steps, under the track, to platform 2, eagerly awaiting the train. Shaw Street had a third platform in those days platform 3 went to St Helens Junction, Earletown and Manchester.
The steam train could be heard from a distance as it approached the station. The sound ‘chug chug’ as smoke came from its chimneystack, also the sound of the steam from the pistons on the wheels. Our excitement grew as the train arrived, the engine with the driver and engineer looking down as we got on board. The engine was painted in the livery of London, Midland and Scottish Railways (LMS) with the lion of British Railways. The train would be about six carriages long each made up of separate compartments and each marked with a ‘1’ or ‘3’ to show First or Third Class. The compartments consisted of two long seats facing each other. Above each seat was a luggage area made of string netting.
The guard sounded his whistle and we were on our way. The distinctive sound of the wheels being turned by giant pistons as steam is forced through the cylinders. As the train picks up speed every child repeated the words in their mind ‘I think I can, I know I can’ in time with the carriage wheels passing over the joints in the rail track. (Rails were laid in set lengths with a gap between each pair of rails to allow for expansion.)
We are on our way and we have memorised the names of each station as we pass through. (Thatto Heath, Eccleston Park, Prescot, Huyton, Roby, Broad Green, Edge Hill ) My favourite was always Eccleston Park with its quaint waiting rooms, hanging baskets and well tended flower gardens.
Liverpool
Some forty minutes after leaving St Helens we are arriving at Liverpool Lime Street station. A busy bustling station, larger than anything this young boy has seen before, with its twin identical arched roof, each with a giant clock with roman numerals set in the centre of each facing wall. Lots of people with cases are hurrying along the concourse to catch the many trains leaving Liverpool.
Leaving the station we get the first sight of the magnificent St George’s Hall and the hustle and bustle of Lime Street and to me, many large buildings fill the skyline.
Crossing Lime Street we wait at a bus stop outside St George’s Hall for the number 3 Kirkdale bus to take us to Auntie Agnes’s house. As the bus travels along Scotland Road I am aghast at the number of houses still lying derelict after the bombings over eight years previous. Children can be seen playing among the rubble, and I think how lucky we were in St Helens that emerged from the bombing virtually unscathed.
‘It’s the stop after the Garrick’ I heard my dad say. The Garrick was an old Victorian cinema now long demolished which stood at what is now Westminster Road, corner of Foley Street..
Alighting from the bus we walked along Fountains Road, then across into Orwell Road
Orwell Street Post Office
Auntie Agnes and Uncle Bob lived at 170 Orwell Road. These were old Victorian terrace houses (that had at one time been badly damaged during the blitz) with a long hallway with an aspidistra in a large vase. A front ‘parlour’ was off to the right that had an upright piano in it. (Dad always went in to play his version of ‘Bread of Heaven’ the only tune he knew) This piano later came to our house in St Helens (Can’t remember how it got there because it was very heavy). Further down the hall were the stairs leading up to two bedrooms, and at the bottom of the stairs, the living room. Auntie Agnes never had much money because Uncle Bob had been of poor health. When he did work he was on the docks as a docker, which could be irregular work, having to rely on the ships coming in. Their accommodation, therefore, though sparse was always welcoming and warm. The centrepiece of the living room was a large black-leaded range with a fire in the centre, a stove to the right (used for cooking), and a ‘hob’ to the left that had a large kettle boiling throughout the day. A small kitchen completed the house apart from a dark cellar used for storing coal, and which we young children were afraid of.
The back door led out into a small yard, the bottom of which was the toilet, consisting of a long board with a hole in it. From the yard we could hear the sound of the tugboats on the Mersey about half a mile away. I always remember that there were always several cats on her window sill, Auntie Agnes fed all the stray cats in the neighbourhood..
The smells of the house still stay, the smell in the front room of mothballs, and the smell of hot food in the living room. During her younger days, Auntie Agnes had been ‘in service’ as a cook for priests. She was therefore, an accomplished cook and despite her limited rations she always prepared a hot meal and sweet for each of us.
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Journey to New Brighton
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With lunch completed we set out for the next part of our adventure. The first part was by tram from Kirkdale to Liverpool Pier Head. In those days all the Liverpool trams converged at the Pier Head. The trams were green and white, double decked with (as far as I remember) wooden seats that were reversible because the tram could be driven from either end.
As the tram approached the pier head it passed under the overhead railway (known as the ‘docker’s umbrella’ which ran the full length of Liverpool docks from Seaforth in the north to Dingle in the south of the city. The Pier head bore little resemblance to the present day with the exception of the three graces. In those days it was part of a bustling port, but we were here to catch the ferry to New Brighton.
We all went down the landing stage to await the ferry to New Brighton. In those days there were three separate landing stages for ferries at the Pier Head. One went across to Birkenhead, a second to Seaforth and the third to New Brighton. The New Brighton journey took around 25 minutes, but to us youngsters it may have been a long sea voyage.
The main ferries on the crossings were the Royal Iris and Royal Daffodil. We were all told of the original Iris and Daffodil being called up during the First World War to assist with the first commando attack on Zeebrugge in 1918 when the Royal Navy put the port of Bruges out of action. For their part the ferries were given the prefix ‘Royal’ that their successors carry to this day. Each ferry was crammed with day-trippers, to many like us; it would be the only time they had been on a boat. As we crossed the Mersey we could see, on the Liverpool side, large ships from lots of different countries. With Uncle Bob working on the docks, he could tell us about the various ships, their possible cargo and were they had come from. The river was alive with the sounds of the cranes and the tugboats and other crafts. Dad would leave us at this point to go below for a ‘swift half’ in the bar. Very soon the floating landing stage came into view.
In the 1950’s New Brighton was a bustling seaside resort visited by thousands of holidaymakers. To many working class people like us, a day out in New Brighton was the pinnacle of our year.
Making our way ashore, we walked to the left to approach the fairground (now long gone). Our first stop was always a café opposite the fairground, then several rides on the fair. Later we would have sandwiches on the beach and walk round to the open-air swimming baths or along the promenade.
Too soon it was time to leave, we would join the throngs of people waiting on the pier and down to the landing stage for the ferries, Too soon we were heading back to Liverpool were we would say our goodbyes to Auntie Agnes and Uncle Bob and make our way back to Lime Street Station and home.
New Brighton in the 1950’s
