March/April 2013

Issue 1 • March 2013

The local interest magazine for West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and Caldy

The Beatles connection • RAF West Kirby • Photography by Steve Deer • Plus much more

Issue 1 • March 2013

The local interest magazine for West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and Caldy

Welcome to the first issue of The Lake, a new local interest magazine for West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and Caldy.

The Lake will provide local interest and historical stories on a bi-monthly basis. Our aim is for The Lake to become an important part of your community and, therefore, we welcome relevant contributions.

The Beatles connection • RAF West Kirby • Photography by Steve Deer • Plus much more

CONTENTS

We invite you to send your stories and photographs to us:* By email: jon@lakemagazine.co.uk or by post to: Jon Bion, Editor, The Lake, 42 Price Street Business Centre, Price Street, Birkenhead CH41 4JQ. Telephone 07796 945745.

Our team has years of experience in design, production and distribution. The magazine will be delivered door-to-door to 12,500 homes and businesses in the area and copies will be available from various outlets.

If you feel that advertising in The Lake would benefit your business, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you. Please contact Alan Strange on 07788 510868 or email: alan@lakemagazine.co.uk www.lakemagazine.co.uk

@lakewirral

* Photographs and original material are submitted at the sender’s risk and must be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope if you wish them to be returned. The publishers will not accept responsibility for loss or damage.

07 The Beatles Connection

30 Olaf Stapledon

Local connections with the ‘Fab Four’

British philosopher and author who lived locally

14 Friends of Meols Park

32 The Dee Estuary

The voluntary and not-for-profit community group

Chiffchaff Alley by Matt Thomas

15 RAF West Kirby

34 West Kirby Museum

The base in Saughall Massie Road opened in 1940

The Charles Dawson Brown Museum is a hidden gem

18 West Kirby Sailing Club

35 Images of yesteryear

By Vice Commodore Phil Shepherd

Meols Parade Gardens and North Parade

22 Almost an Island

36 What’s Cooking?

Photography by Steve Deer

Salmon Wellington by Julian Davies

24 Kirby Park Station

38 Royal Liverpool Golf Club

The station on the Hooton to West Kirby line

The history of Wirral’s leading golf course

26 Hoylake and West Kirby Gasworks

41 Your Legal

Years ago Hoylake was serviced by its own gasworks

Divorce settlements and hidden assets

04 The Lake

Jackson’s Column

At last The Lake lives! Excuse me if I make a big deal out of this, but I’ve been hearing about this publication for some time now. When you see it for real, in the flesh, so to speak, it’s a bit like a baby being born. Now I know how Dr Frankenstein must have felt.

Anyway, it’s high time the area had its own local interest magazine. As places in Britain go, it’s pretty good. Indeed, within a couple of miles you’ll find two genuinely world-class institutions. And indulge me if I betray my own pet interests a little here – I’m sure Mr Editor would love to hear yours too.

First, world class golf. Many may claim this, but usually it’s tosh. Eighteen bog standard holes, punctuated by bunkers shallower than a child’s sandpit. Not us. In Royal Liverpool, we have a real gem. A test to humble the world’s finest, now restored to its rightful position in the Open roster. No parking indeed! We showed them back in 2006, when the welcome back tournament was fittingly won by the world’s best golfer. Also, arguably the greatest player ever to walk a fairway. Unlike the other greatest-ever golfer, the blonde one, he didn’t make disparaging comments about the opening hole either.

So that’s the golf. For me, the other jewel in our crown is located roughly at t’other end of Meols Drive. The marvellous, magnificent marine lake. Now, if you’re not into watersports you probably appreciate the splendidly scenic dog-walking opportunities, but may not realise quite how unique this facility is. Well, I’ll explain. Unless you’re powered by one of those smelly, noisy devices called engines, which aren’t really the thing anyway, speed on the briny is largely a function of those two familiar factors – wind and water. By this I mean, plentiful wind and flat water. Normally, you get one or the other, not both. For the former, you need a marine location, for the latter, a lake. So a ‘marine lake’ is a speed-freak’s dream. A veritable aquatic drag-racing course. Proof being that some years back a windsurfer clocked the second fastest time anywhere in the world, ever. Faster than your Maui’s and Bondi’s, and definitely faster than anywhere the South coast can offer. In truth, with its flat water and location open to the prevailing south westerlies, the lake is a freak.

And God bless her – and all who sail in her.

Of course, there’s much more to the area than birdies and boards. There’s history stretching back to the Vikings – ever wondered why so many villages end in ‘by’? There are superb seascapes, assuming one can shut those damned turbines out of one’s mind. You’ll also find the high streets still featuring plenty of that critically endangered species – the independent shop.

I’m starting to sound like the tourist board now, so I’ll shut up. Suffice to say enjoy The Lake. But watch that high tide or you may get your feet wet!

Rob Jackson

The only golfing themed tea room located on the Wirral Specialising in home baked cakes, leaf tea, freshly ground coffee, traditional breakfasts, home cooked lunches and classic afternoon tea all set in a golfing themed environment.

172 Banks Road in West Kirby • Tel: 0151 625 1887

The Lake 05

Did you know?

Some interesting facts about the local area.

The name West Kirby is of Viking origin, originally Kirkjubyr, meaning ‘village with a church’. The form with the modifier ‘West’ exists to distinguish it from the other town of the same name in Wirral: Kirkby-in-Walea (now the modern town of Wallasey). The earliest usage given of this form is ‘West Kyrkeby in Wirhale’ in 1285.

FREE ADVICE & DESIGN IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME

The Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial is a notable local landmark, designed in 1922 by the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger, who was responsible for a number of war memorials around the world, including the Royal Artillery Memorial in London.

In 1690, William III set sail from Hoylake to Ireland with a 10,000-strong army to take part in the Battle of the Boyne.

FREE HANG & DRESS

The present day Hoylake grew up in the 19th century around the small fishing village of Hoose. The name Hoylake was derived from Hoyle Lake, a channel of water between Hilbre Island and Dove Point. Protected by a wide sandbank known as Hoyle Bank and with a water depth of about 20 feet, it provided a safe anchorage for ships too large to sail up the Dee to Chester.

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The Royal Hotel was built by Sir John Stanley in 1792, with the intention of developing the area as a holiday resort. The numerous steam packet vessels sailing between Liverpool and North Wales which called at the hotel provided valuable patronage. By the mid-19th century a racecourse was laid out in the grounds of the hotel. The hotel building was demolished in the 1950s.

Hoylake’s lido, located on the promenade, was opened in June 1913 and rebuilt in the late 1920s. In 1976, the Hoylake Pool and Community Trust took over the running of the facility from Wirral Borough Council. The baths finally closed in 1981.

In 1940, comedian Eric Morecambe won a local amateur talent contest, held at Hoylake’s Kingsway Cinema. His prize was an audition before impresario Jack Hylton at a venue where he subsequently first met his future comedy partner Ernie Wise.

Caldy was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as being owned by Hugh of Mere.

Caldy railway station was situated on the Hooton to West Kirby branch of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway. The station closed in 1954 and the trackbed is now the Wirral Way. Meols was named as such by the Vikings; its original name from the Old Norse for ‘sand dunes’ was melr, becoming melas by the time of the Domesday Survey.

Meols was formerly called Great Meols. It was a township in West Kirby Parish of the Wirral Hundred, becoming part of Hoylake cum West Kirby civil parish in 1894.

Andy McCluskey of the electronic music band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) is from Meols. OMD had a track called ‘Red Frame/White Light’ which referred to the public telephone box between the church and the Railway Inn in Meols. Hidden within the lyrics was the telephone number of the telephone box (6323003). It is claimed that fans would call that telephone number from all over the world.

• Bespoke curtains, blinds & accessories • Beautiful spring/summer collection • Free home consultation, design & measure • Professional fitting/hanging & dressing • Upholstery service available “Designacurtain took the hassle out of our buying soft furnishings. In the comfort of our own home, we could choose from a wide range of high quality fabrics and benefit from Denise’s creative eye for interior design.

Thanks to her advice we now have a beautiful set of roman blinds in our lounge, which have made a real feature of the windows and are always admired by visitors. A professional and reliable service that we’ll be using again.”

Carys, West Kirby

Contact Denise on 0845 644 7771 info@designacurtain.com

www.designacurtain.com

* does not include fitting, poles, tracks or pelmets

Senior citizens discounts on Monday & 20% off on Thursday in the hair salon.

What’s Cutting Hair & Beauty is a family run business and has been in West Kirby for over 35 years.

Daughter Toni Roberts, fully qualified beauty and holistic therapist runs Beauty Rehab, three luxurious treatment rooms offering specialized beauty treatments such as Hot Stone aroma massage, facials, waxing, microderm and C.A.C.I non surgical face-lift facials, reflexology and spray tanning plus much more.

Owner Tony Roberts has been in the Hairdressing trade for over 40 years and has trained a lot of Wirral’s top stylists. He has a young, vibrant creative team of stylists working with him to ensure clients receive up to date trends and styling.

The salon has been awarded 5 stars by The Good Salon Guide and The Good Beauty Guide – the only independent guide to quality standards in hairdressing and beauty in the UK and Ireland and are members of the National Hairdressing Federation

1/2 price colour when accompanied by a Cut and Blow dry.

Tony’s wife Lesley runs Topknots a wig and hair piece department inside the salon. It has a private consultation room and provides a discrete and personal professional wig fitting service. Lesley works closely with the NHS providing wigs to clients undergoing medical treatments.

Both hi-fashion and classic designer collections are available, including top Brands such as Noriko, Rene of Paris, Natural Image and Dimples.

Special offer for readers Book a facial during March or April and receive a FREE back, neck and shoulders massage Please quote The Lake offer when booking.

Gift vouchers can be purchased for Easter (this offer is extended in gift voucher form to six months).

1st Floor, 34-38 Banks Road, West Kirby, Wirral CH48 0RD

Tel: 0151 625 1778 / 625 9600

www.whatscutting.com

The Lake 07

The Lake takes a look at local connections with the ‘Fab Four’

The Beatles Connection Two gigs in 1962 Other local links

Tourism plaque in Banks Road

It was a generous offer, and one the Beatles were unable to turn down. Tranter had previously asked them to perform on 8 September 1961 but they were already booked to play at St John’s Hall in Liverpool.

Sadly for Tranter - and indeed the Beatles - the audience at the YMCA were less enthusiastic about their live shows.

Having grown restless at their lengthy between-song banter, they booed the group off stage.

Following the aborted YMCA show, the Beatles travelled back to Liverpool where they played an all-night show at the Cavern Club. They took to the stage there after midnight.

The YMCA was originally called the Hoylake Institute. It was situated on the corner of Hoyle Road and Market Street, but was later demolished and retirement apartments were built on the site.

1 February 1962 Macdonna Hall, Banks Road West Kirby This was the Beatles’ only live show at Macdonna Hall a dance hall, above the Thistle Cafe on Banks Road. The building is now occupied by What’s Cutting Hair and Beauty.

The booking was the first for which the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein took a commission; he received 10 per cent of the group’s fee of £18, a relatively large amount for them at the time.

Live music was a rarity there, so Epstein managed to persuade the venue owner to rename it ‘The Beatle Club’ (see poster), This was apparently the ‘Grand Opening’, although they never returned for another show.

Tickets cost four shillings and sixpence, and support was from Steve Day and the Drifters. The show took place from 7.30-11.30pm.

24 February 1962 YMCA, Birkenhead Road Hoylake This was the Beatles’ only live appearance at the YMCA in Hoylake.

It was booked not by the group’s manager Brian Epstein, but by the enthusiastic and tenacious club organiser Charles Tranter, who turned up one day at the Casbah Coffee Bar, owned by Pete Best’s mother Mona, and offered the Beatles £30 for a single performance.

The Beatles early 1962 with Pete Best as drummer

08 The Lake

Brian Epstein Brian Samuel Epstein, born 19 September 1934, is best known for being the manager of the Beatles until his death in 1967. He had also served as manager for Cilla Black, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Remo Four, and the Cyrkle. Brian started to work at the family furniture store at Walton Road in 1950 at the age of 16. Two years later he was conscripted for National Service, but he was discharged from his two-year stint after ten months as being emotionally and mentally unfit. Upon his return in 1954 he was put in charge of another branch of the family business, Clarendon Furnishing in Hoylake, and was a very successful salesman.

Cynthia Lennon Cynthia Lillian Lennon (née Powell, born 10 September 1939) grew up in Trinity Road, Hoylake, having moved there with her family from Liverpool.

She married John Lennon on 23 August 1962 when she was pregnant.

During her pregnancy, Epstein offered the couple the use of his flat at 36 Falkner Street, Liverpool and later paid for a private hospital room. Although still unknown outside Liverpool, the Beatles had a fanatical following among girls within the city. Epstein had one condition which the Lennons had to follow: the marriage and the baby were to be kept a close secret, so as not to upset any of these fans. One time when news of the wedding leaked out, the group denied it. Cynthia was happy to keep a low profile, not wanting to be the subject of public attention.

The Lennons’ son, John Charles Julian Lennon, was born at 7.45am on 8 April 1963, in Sefton Hospital. Lennon, being on tour at the time, did not see his son until three days later, The press heard rumours about Lennon’s wife and child at the end of 1963 — after Beatlemania had already swept the UK and Europe — and descended on her mother’s house in Hoylake (where mother and son were staying), in November and December.

Friends and neighbours protected their anonymity, but she was often approached by journalists. In November she had her son christened at the Hoylake Parish Church, but didn’t tell John (who was on tour at the time), because she feared a media circus.

She told him two days after, and he was angry as he hadn’t wanted his son to be christened. Not long after the christening, every newspaper was full of the story about Lennon’s secret wife and baby boy.

Julian Lennon was a pupil at Kingsmead School on Bertram Drive, Hoylake, for a brief period in the 1970s.

Back in Liverpool, his father put his son in charge of the record department of the family’s newly-opened NEMS music store on Great Charlotte Street. Epstein worked ‘day and night’ at the store to make it a success, and it became one of the biggest musical retail outlets in the North of England. The Epsteins opened a second store at 12–14 Whitechapel and Epstein was put in charge of the entire operation.

The Beatles were first noticed by Epstein in issues of Mersey Beat which were sold at NEMS and on numerous posters around Liverpool. The Beatles played regularly at The Cavern and Epstein was often there to watch them.

In a meeting with the group at NEMS on 3 December 1961, Epstein proposed the idea of managing the Beatles. John Lennon, Harrison and Pete Best arrived late for the meeting as they had been drinking at the Grapes pub in Mathew Street but McCartney arrived even later, because, as Harrison explained, he had just got up and was “taking a bath”. Epstein was upset, but was placated by Harrison, who said, “He may be late, but he’ll be very clean”.

After further meetings the Beatles finally signed a five-year contract on 24 January 1962, which gave Epstein 25% of their gross income.

December 1961 Brian Epstein meets the Beatles to discuss becoming their manager.

1 January 1962 The Beatles audition at Decca - alas, unsuccessfully.

1 February 1962 The band plays at Macdonna Hall, Banks Road, West Kirby

24 February 1962 The band plays at YMCA, Birkenhead Road, Hoylake

7 March 1962 Debut broadcast - on BBC radio in Manchester.

24 March 1962 First outing for the now famous Beno Dorn suits in a gig at Barnston WI.

April - May 1962 The boys play shows in Hamburg.

24 May 1962 Final recording on Polydor, using the name ‘The Beat Boys’ and backing Tony Sheridan on ‘Sweet Georgia Brown/Swanee River’ (Yes, Swanee River! Al Jolson eat ya heart out!)

6 June 1962 Audition at EMI - successful this time.

Recording starts on ‘Love Me Do’ - altogether it needed three sessions and three drummers!

16 August 1962 Drummer Pete Best is sacked, to be replaced by Ringo Starr.

5 October 1962 ‘Love Me Do’ (B side - ‘PS I Love You’) released. The Beatles’ first single on EMI’s Parlophone label.

Reaches No.17 in the UK charts.

22 February 1963 Second single ‘Please Please Me’ reaches Number One.

And the rest is history.

The Lake 09 Tony Booth worked in Liverpool City Centre during the early 60s, just round the corner from The Cavern Club and close to Brian Epstein’s office in Whitechapel. He did a lot of business with Brian, even before he signed up the Beatles producing hand-painted posters, printed leaflets and other publicity material.

Tony produced hand-painted posters for The Beatles and many other up and coming groups during the early 60s. He provided the service for many other promoters including Sam Leach, Allan Williams and Cavern Club DJ Bob Wooler.

Tony Roberts, whose family own What’s Cutting Hair & Beauty, the site of The Beatles only gig in West Kirby, is determined to make sure the occasion is not forgotten.

Tony explains: “The Beatles played in the location where our salon is now, formerly called Macdonna Hall. We have a tourism brass plaque outside and a copy of the original gig poster for their ‘Beatles Club’ night here, as the original artist Tony Booth is a client of ours.”

During the late 50s the artist hand-painted many posters for The Cavern Club at 10 Mathew Street, Liverpool. When it first opened as a jazz club in 1957 The Merseysippi Jazz Band were the big attraction on the opening night, supported

by The Wall City Jazz Men. ‘The Cavern Club’ always had plenty of Tony’s posters pasted on the walls outside, when the Beatles and other big name groups were playing there.

Tony would hand-paint up to 10 of the same poster using one-stroke brushes and liners with oil-based colours, mostly on white machine glazed ‘double-crown’ 30” x 20” poster paper. If the promoter required a larger number of posters for a specific event, then the original artwork would be sent to a local silk-screen printer for bulk printing and distribution and the same artwork was often used for leaflets and press adverts.

Most of Tony’s original hand-painted posters were either thrown away after the event or destroyed during the silk-screen printing process, but today at auction, the printed posters that have survived are sold to collectors for £6,000 or more. Christie’s of London sold one of Tony’s original handpainted Cavern Club posters to an American collector in 2012, for £27,500, which was double Christie’s valuation.

The salon has also been given a copy of the first ever drawing of the band by the

same artist and signed by all four members, which is framed and hangs above the staircase. This is probably Tony Booth’s most famous work. It was painted in August 1962 just five days after Brian Epstein signed up Ringo Starr to complete the newly formed group. It is actually the first-known artistic image of The Beatles.

The original painting is not for sale but Tony has raised many thousands of pounds for charity by donating framed, signed limited edition prints for auction at Liverpool charity dinners and other events.

In 1996 the salon commissioned a painting of The Beatles – Four Lads That Shook West Kirby, by acclaimed local artist Simon Birtall, which takes pride of place in reception.

What’s Cutting is a long established family run salon which has been in the heart of West Kirby for over 30 years.

Four Lads That Shook West Kirby by Simon Birtall

A shower for every occasion Bathrooms & Wetrooms of Prenton feature digital showers and bath fillers in most of the rooms they design and install because there are few circumstances where it is inappropriate.

They are ideal in equal measure for young families, the elderly and for the less able.

“Digital and wireless technology has been featured in bathrooms for more than a decade and yet the concept is still relatively little known and appreciated, even within the industry itself.”

The concept is very simple. A ‘processing box’ concealed in the loft or cupboard space collects hot and cold water, and delivers a mixed stream of water at a temperature and flow rate chosen by the user. This is done via a wall mounted control panel positioned at the entrance to the shower, or above the bath, and connected to the ‘box’ via a digital cable hidden in the wall.

With each new advance they seem to improve.

For example, Aqualisa have relaunched their Ilux range for which Bathrooms & Wetrooms is the sole Wirral based dealer, to include a digital diverter replacing a mechanical valve.

Most people prefer the ability to have a drencher type shower head as well as a small handset, or a hand shower on the bath, and the digital diverter allows for the switch to be made at the processing unit. A wireless remote control completes the product, enabling both a preset temperature and flow rates to be set and the depth of water in a bath.

The Identity range from Vado also includes a digital diverter, with the range complemented by matching digitally operated basin and bath fillers. Whilst there have been many other entrants to this field none of the others have been without reliability problems.

As a sole dealer, Bathrooms & Wetrooms have a number of working examples of the Aqualisa ranges in their showrooms at Prenton Road West opposite Tranmere Rovers, where visitors are always welcome.

Alternatively visit the gallery section on www.bathroomsandwetrooms.co.uk to see a selection of finished customers’ bathrooms, en suite rooms or cloakrooms.

12 The Lake

The longest established auction house in Wirral having held regular weekly auctions in Hoylake every Tuesday since 1972

“It’s Not Just Antiques” We sell Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, inter and post war, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as well as near new items every weekl

Spring schedule of auctions March 19th March 26th April 2nd April 9th April 16th April 23rd April 30th

Details of our weekly sales are posted on our web site every Friday night www.kingsleyauctions.blogspot.com

A Bassett Lowke Gauge O LMS Royal Scot (sold for £250)

Viewing every Saturday from 9.30am to 3pm Monday from 9.00am to 5.00pm Tuesday from 9.00am to 10am

Items accepted every Wednesday and Thursday from 9.00 a.m. to 5pm

• Kingsley offer a free without obligation valuation service including house visits.

• A collection service can quickly be arranged.

• Highly competitive charges and fees Antique collectors and desirables sale to be held on St. George’s Day, Tuesday, April 23rd 112-118 Market Street, Hoylake. CH47 3BG Tel: 0151 632 5821 • Email: kingsleyauctions@gmail.com

HoylakeJunction.com

A Modern corner leather suit (sold for £350)

The local interest magazine for West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and Caldy

Visit the number one site for everything Hoylake!

Join thousands of readers from Hoylake and around the world (yes really!) and keep up-to-date with what’s happening in Hoylake.

Read about issues that are important to Hoylake residents and join in and have your say.

Enjoy fabulous photos of Hoylake old and new featured in the ever-popular Friday Photo.

Send in your local news, photos, reports and event details and have them published on the site.

Read hoylakejunction.com for free - today!

Printing Business Cards, Letterheads, Flyers & much more!

We will be happy to provide you with a free, no-obligation quote whatever your print requirements Design service also available.

Contact alan@lakemagazine.co.uk or telephone Alan Strange on 07788 510868. www.lakemagazine.co.uk

The Lake 13

The Lake People

By Ken Bidwell Available at Le Bizz “It is rare to find a local image that is both iconic and contemporary.”

Many people have fond memories of walking around West Kirby Marine Lake and the stunning views over to the Welsh hills.

Buyers have shipped the image all over the world, nearly always to remind them of a friend or relative of home. We recently had a lady drive past and saw the large canvas in the shop window. Flying to Denmark in a couple of hours and with no idea how she was going to get it on the plane, she was absolutely determined to get it home by any means possible.”

The Lake People – Ken Bidwell

The Lake People is a unique and stunning example of digital art from a series of photographs taken by Ken Bidwell from West Kirby. The completed image has become very popular locally and has been reproduced on a range of quality merchandise at Le Bizz in Banks Road.

Steve Ramsay, co-owner of Le Bizz with his wife Caroline, became aware of Ken’s reputation during a visit to the local barbers.

During his haircut the hairdresser boldly claimed that she knew of much better photographs than those displayed in the Le Bizz shop window. Intrigued by the claim, Steve invited an introduction and a few weeks later Ken came into the shop with some examples of his work.

Steve says: “We were immediately impressed

by Ken’s remarkable talent. There was an image that stood out from the rest as being extra special, ‘The Lake People’. However, some of the people were recognisable so we asked Ken to make them anonymous and suggested some other digital modifications.

Ken worked his magic and after many hours of work created the ‘Lowryesque’ representation we see today.”

Christmas Steve produced glass baubles with the image internally painted by hand.

Framed prints, canvases and souvenirs are all available to buy at Le Bizz and Dee Fine Arts in Heswall.

But why is the image so popular? Caroline says: “I think it’s something to do with the pastel shades, people appearing to walk on water and the sun setting behind the Hilbre Islands – scene of calm and tranquillity.

Sue Webster from Dee Fine Arts comments:

Le Bizz aims to supply gift ranges to suit everyone - with quality branded gifts by Steiff, Gisela Graham, Coeur de Lion jewellery, Spaceform glass keepsakes and Bomb cosmetics. They stock a great range of children’s gifts - Depesche Top Model, and Ty soft toys.

Steve says: ‘‘It’s great that we are located right in the heart of West Kirby. We have a great range of local souvenirs – many have been designed by us and are exclusive to Le Bizz. We have a reputation for stocking gifts with a difference – we always have fun and novelty gifts that can bring a smile to your face.”

What is your favourite memory of West Kirby Lake?

The Lake are giving readers the chance to win a set of four placemats and coasters, courtesy of Le Bizz.

For your chance to win, simply send us your memory of West Kirby Lake by email to: jon@lakemagazine.co.uk or by post to: The Lake People Competition, The Lake, 42 Price Street Business Centre, Price Street, Birkenhead CH41 4JQ. Telephone 07796 945745.

Simply send in your favourite memory of West Kirby Lake in less than 200 words. We will publish the best entries in our May edition.

Remember to include your full address and contact number.

Closing date for entries Friday 12th April 2013. The winner will be determined by the editor. There will be no cash or other alternatives to the prize offered. The Lake reserves the right to publish the entries and name of the winner.

No correspondence will be entered into.

The image is available to buy as a print and canvas as well as being printed on mugs, placemats, chopping boards, cards, postcards, fridge magnets and bags. Last

The Lake People original

4 Banks Road, West Kirby • Tel: 0151 625 4646 www.lebizz.co.uk • Email: info@lebizz.co.uk Follow us on Twitter @LeBizzWestKirby or Facebook – Lebizz westkirby

14 The Lake

Friends of Meols Park Formed October 2007 Doing it for the children Friends of Meols Park is a voluntary and not-for-profit community group whose objective is to help preserve and improve the Play Area and the Lower and Upper Greens. The group membership is drawn mainly from the local community and a small Executive Committee. They also maintain contact with the Park authorities and with the Friends of the other Wirral Parks.

Over the years people had watched the steady decline of the park and in July 2007 the play area was stripped of its slide and climbing frame on the grounds of health and safety issues. The rumour was that the swings would be the next to go as they were in disrepair, which would have meant that there would only be two wooden animals left, together with some old and rotten park benches This prompted action and a public meeting was organised at St Andrews Church Hall with the Principal Officer of Wirral Parks and Countryside on 6th October 2007. It was confirmed then that the decline of the park was ongoing and the council did not have the funds to invest in play areas such as this.

A small group along with local resident and business woman Esther McVey decided to form a local community group, namely “The Friends of Meols Park”. They were formed and constituted on the 16th October and were officially recognised by Wirral Council as a Friends of The Park group. The formation of the group allowed them to fundraise, work in partnership with the Local Authority and more importantly the users of the park, and the local surrounding community.

Secretary, Roy Shuttleworth said: “The more people that get involved the more we

are going to achieve, hopefully, a park that will form the heart of the local community life for many years to come. Of course we all had dreams, ambitions, and ideas of what could be done, some big, in fact very big, others small but with big impact.”

The formation of ‘The Friends’ was that first step on what would be very likely a long ladder. Roy continues: “We were under no illusions about upgrading the park or to change attitudes or perceptions overnight, but what we did was to ‘have a go’ and we worked together to start the process of making the park a safe, clean and enjoyable experience for every generation.”

The first fundraising was held in December 2007 in the form of a Christmas Attic Sale at St Andrews Church Hall, which raised £300. Many more fundraisers were organised such as attic sales, an Easter fair, disco party night, Christmas fayre, abseiling, Wirral coastal walk and children’s parties at Halloween, Christmas and Valentines. They even hosted a gig at Jack Rabbits in Hoylake when the Liverpool band China Crisis performed along with singer Rachel Wright and comedian Brendan Riley.

Local residents supported the project with donations from parents and businesses and even from young children who sold biscuits and sweets.

All this, together with some successful funding applications to Wirral Partnership Homes, Your Wirral Fund, Community Initiative funding, Big Lottery Groundworks funding and Wirral Council’s play strategy funding award, meant that they had not only succeeded in the quest for a better and larger play area for the local children, but had done so in record time.

The new Park Play Area was opened for the first time on 1st July 2009 which

meant that they had completed their task in just 21 months.

Friends of Meols Park did not rest on their laurels and further work has been done in the shape of additional play equipment, seating, park mosaic and a people’s pathway.

In July 2012, Meols Park was recognised as being among the best in the country and has won a Green Flag Award. The Green Flag Award is a sign that the park is wellmaintained, well-managed and has excellent facilities. Roy said: “With our park providing the perfect location for families during the school holidays, I am really pleased that we won this award and it just shows what can be done with a run down park by sheer commitment and enthusiasm along with great community involvement and pride.”

To celebrate the arrival of a Viking Longship in 2014 they hope to fund a statue of Ingimund the Viking.

Their website www.friendsofmeolspark.co.uk was just one of the first initiatives to promote, inform and facilitate debate on some of the key issues and has been a great success with many thousands of visitors.

Since October 2007 they have raised over £71,000. The fundraising efforts have been very successful and Roy would like to thank everyone who has helped at the events along with everyone who has donated cash to the fund, no matter how big or small.

Thanks must also go to Wirral Council’s Parks and Countryside department for their part in helping to carry out the project, along with assistance from the Big Lottery Community Spaces Fund, the Wirral Partnership Homes Your Wirral Fund, the Wirral Primary Care Trust, the Wirral Community Initiative Fund and finally the Merseyside Community Foundation for Merseyside.

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Opened in 1940, RAF West Kirby was a basic training camp to train new recruits in the Royal Air Force

RAF West Kirby Saughall Massie Road 1940 – 1960

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world.

The RAF has taken a significant role in British military history, playing a large part in the Second World War as well as in more recent conflicts.

The RAF Camp at West Kirby existed from 1940 until 1960. According to official records the final passing out parade took place on 20 December 1957. Since then the camp has passed into oblivion and the area is now a mix of farm land and Country Park.

The camp was actually located three miles from West Kirby, the entrance was on Saughall Massie Road, almost opposite Oldfield Lane. It was set up at the beginning of the Second World War as a basic training camp to train new recruits in the Royal Air Force. It was the very first base for most personnel, most of whom were newly called up in the rank of AC2 (the very lowest rank in the RAF) for their two years’ National Service in the British armed forces, known in the vernacular as a “square bashing camp”.

In excess of 150,000 young men passed through the camp, either en route to foreign parts in its early days as a transit camp, or as recruits to be trained by the various drill instructors. There was of course also a core of permanent staff to cater for all the various needs of those young men. Recruits normally spent a period of eight weeks on their training at West Kirby before being posted on to their ‘trade training’ camp elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

At RAF West Kirby, the men were given their initial training on their first entry into RAF, which included first learning of parade ground drill with rifles, intensive physical fitness training, training in ground combat and defence under Non Commissioned Officers of the RAF Regiment and some education about the RAF and its history.

While undergoing basic training at West Kirby, their accommodation was in wooden barrack huts, each one housing about 20 men.

Map of base and surrounding area

Main entrance to base

Because West Kirby was a basic training camp with no airfield, discipline was very much stricter than in any normal RAF operational or trade training camp.

In 1960 the camp was demolished and the land converted back into farming fields. A dedication plaque was installed where the camp entrance used to be in 2006.

Photographs reproduced by kind permission of Les Haines - www.rafwka.co.uk

RAF West Kirby Band 1956

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Off-duty troops trying to keep warm 1956

Coupon card from 1947

Certificate of Merit

Hut ready for inspection

In addition to the School of Recruit Training, RAF West Kirby included a second unit, the General Hospital. This hospital was not intended solely for the needs of this station. It had accommodation for about 200 and drew its patients from RAF units throughout the country.

Cartoon July 1949 by R. Geary

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Parade front covers

E Squadron Jan - April 1947

Dedication plaque installed in 2006.

Memories of RAF West Kirby by David Tennant

The above photo, shows an ex-RAF West Kirby hut that has been re-sited and recycled into a Church Hall. It is in the grounds surrounding St John The Divine Church in Frankby

18 The Lake

West Kirby Sailing Club

By Phil Shepherd Vice Commodore The Marine Lake in West Kirby, with its walkway around the sea wall and beautiful views of the Dee estuary, is one of Wirral’s most visited attractions. West Kirby Sailing Club, situated at the south end of the lake, is lucky to be able to use the lake to sail and teach sailing all the time, and equally fortunate to be able to launch onto the sea for tidal sailing (racing and cruising) when the moon sees fit to grant us water.

The club’s members and activities are, to say the least, diverse, and this catch-all opportunity to learn and take part in sailing makes us one of the largest and busiest sailing clubs in Britain. In recent years members have seen a large influx of new faces who are eager to get involved with sailing and enjoying the fabulous opportunities and facilities that are available. A tremendous effort is being made to ensure that we help them with an easy pathway into the sport.

In the autumn and winter period tidal sailing stops. The boats are brought ashore for some TLC and prepared for a new season starting each April. Meanwhile sailing continues on the lake in dinghies. We organise coaching for our junior sailors in boats such as Optimists, Cadets and Fevas along with some club racing on Sundays.

We are also fortunate to have Liverpool and Manchester Universities as members.

They are busiest during the autumn through winter period teaching new students to sail and for the more experienced, training and practising Team Racing, that fast and furious element of the sport that the club is famous for.

Earlier this month we hosted their combined university team racing event, the BIG Lash, in which 24 teams of six competed. We are also pleased to host the RYA’s prestigious UK Team Racing Championship which is sailed by all the country’s top teams, including our own World Champions, the West Kirby Hawks, and another WKSC team. In May we hold the annual Wilson Trophy, the top team racing event in the World and something for which the Club and the town of West Kirby are justifiably proud. These are the short, sharp, tactical races in coloured boats that turn the lake into a wonderful arena for both audience and participants.

In April, the full sailing season starts properly with fleet racing on the lake every weekday evening and tidal series at the weekend. There are also some enjoyable long distance races when tides permit.

Our Sailing Secretary, Paul Jenkins, has made a huge effort to ensure the club is accessible to everyone of any age or experience. We will be offering beginners RYA courses for adults interested in

learning to sail. In the case of youngsters, they have plenty of opportunities such as Whit Week coaching and may take part in the massively successful RYA Onboard scheme on Saturday mornings which offers opportunities to try out sailing for a few fun packed sessions to see if they want to continue further. This scheme has already been taken up by large numbers of local children and some schools. It culminates in a festival with other regional groups.

On Monday evenings there will be coaching in club boats for beginners of all ages, to help them progress and reach a standard where they may start to race, should they wish.

Another route into sailing is to get involved with one of the classes’ ‘try crewing’ days.

So, as you can see, it’s easy, we offer plenty of ways to get into the sport, including taster sessions to see if it is something that is of interest and an easy route to membership if a person wants to take up the sport properly.

Alternatively you could continue to enjoy the fun as a spectator walking around the lake wall, talk to some of our members who will be around at weekends and who will be happy to explain what is going on.

Contact Phil Shepherd (Vice Commodore) www.wksc.org.uk Telephone 0151 625 9957

Learning to sail on the lake at West Kirby Sailing Club

20 The Lake

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Professor Kerrigan and his expert team of clinicians and dietitians have relocated their service from Spire Murrayfield Hospital on the Wirral to the new ‘supercentres’ at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester and Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool.

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The aim of the new ‘supercentres’ is to focus on what goes on inside patients’ heads as well as their stomachs, Professor David Kerrigan as Phoenix Health believes that to be truly effective weight loss surgery needs to be linked to changes in lifestyle and behaviour.

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22 The Lake

The Lake 23

24 The Lake

Kirby Park Station Opened 1894 Demolished 1964 Kirby Park was opened by the GWR and LNWR to cater for growing residential development on the 1st October 1894. The station was situated on the Hooton to West Kirby branch which had opened north of Parkgate in 1886.

Kirby Park Station was situated on the north side of Sandy Lane which crossed the line by a road overbridge. The station was provided with one wooden platform, the line being a single track branch, on the east side of the line. A ramp connected the platform to Sandy Lane. The station had a very simple single storey waiting room which was also a wooden construction. A goods siding was provided on the west side of the line.

At the time of opening, passenger services mostly ran between Hooton and West Kirby with some services continuing on to Birkenhead Woodside. In the early days some long distance passenger services used the connection and excursion traffic used the connection at West Kirby onto the Wirral line. In later years the only significant through service was once a day when one or two coaches ran from New Brighton via Bidston to Hooton and Chester, where it was attached to a London Euston train: this ran until 1939.

One of the major users of the line were scholars travelling from stations along the route to the secondary schools in West Kirby. The line became uneconomical after WW1 with a further reduction in passenger traffic in 1927 when Neston Colliery closed but the line remained open serving a largely agricultural community and also day trippers visiting the towns of Parkgate and West Kirby.

In 1923 the line became GWR and LMS Joint, but things continued as they had done previously. In 1948 the line became part of the British Railways (London Midland Region). In 1950 nine trains operated in each direction on weekdays with four on a Saturday. The Hooton to West Kirby line suffered from increasing road competition in

the 1950s and Kirby Park lost its passenger service on the 5th May 1954 although it was still used by school children until the 17th of September 1956 when the branch closed completely to passenger services.

In 1961, newly introduced diesel multiple units (DMUs) passed through Kirby Park station. However they were not for the use of passengers. The line was being used to train drivers in the use of the DMUs. The siding at Kirby Park station continued to be used for goods until the 7th May 1962 although from 5th July 1954 Kirby

Park was downgraded to an unstaffed public siding. The last goods train called at Kirby Park to collect any remaining fixtures and fittings that were of any value. Early in 1964 the demolition gangs began their work and the line was lifted.

In 1968 the route of the Hooton - West Kirby Branch was chosen to create Britain’s first country park the Wirral Country Park opening in 1973. The park forms the central section of Wirral Way, a 12 mile cycleway and footpath that follows the course of the railway between West Kirby and Hooton.

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Wirral Map Reproductions Bespoke Map Service

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This photograph shows West Kirby Station before electrification which did not take place until 1938.The large three storey building on the right was used during the Second World war as a canteen for airmen recovering from their injuries who were convalescing in the Children’s Convalescent home on Meols Drive.

26 The Lake

Gasworks Carr Lane Industrial Estate 3,319 customers in 1915

Thanks to author Caroyln McCrae (www.carolynmccrae.com) for allowing us to show her photographs of the Hoylake and West Kirby gasworks which were first published on www,hoylakejunction.com Long before we had just a handful of energy companies whose prices keep on going up and up (and up!), Hoylake was serviced by its own gasworks.

The gasworks (pictured above) was located on the Carr Lane Industrial Estate and in 1885 the company provided gas to 125 customers. By 1915 the company had 3,319 customers in the area.

The brochure below was produced in 1927 by the Hoylake & West Kirby Gas and Water Co. An updated system of coal-fired gas production was officially opened on December 14, 1927. Note the logo on the document for the old urban district council.

Fred Banks, mentioned in the document and pictured to the right with Betsy Banks at the official opening of the new gasworks, was Carolyn’s grandfather!

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Advertise in our Local Businesses section for as little as ÂŁ50 per issue

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28 The Lake

Do you have photographs to share with readers?

Each issue The Lake will showcase a selection of your local photography.

As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words� and now is your time to be heard.

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The Lake 29

ADVERTISING FEATURE

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30 The Lake

Olaf Stapledon 1886–1950 Philosopher and author Lived in West Kirby Gavin Chappell tells readers of his interest with William Olaf Stapledon, a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction, who lived in West Kirby and Caldy for much of his life.

Olaf Stapledon

I first became interested in Olaf Stapledon as a writer. He’s hardly a household name, even in the kind of household where science fiction writers are frequently mentioned.

But in his day, he was incredibly influential.

His book Star Maker describes an epic mental journey across the entire cosmos, travelling from planet to planet to planet, which begins and ends on a suburban hillside, and has inspired not only countless science fiction writers, but inventors also.

My interest in him as a man grew, however, when I discovered that I knew that suburban hillside very well. In fact, I now live on its very slopes, and less than ten minute’s walk away is the house in which Stapledon lived for much of his married life. I became increasingly interested in him as a writer, and as a local figure, and so I decided to learn more about him.

Stapledon was born on 10 May 1886, in Wallasey. His full name was William Olaf, but everyone always called him Olaf. Despite spending much of his early life in Port Said, he lived in Wirral for the best part of his life. Even when he became a successful literary figure, Stapledon remained in Wirral, living in West Kirby for many years before building his own house.

As a science fiction writer, he is highly influential, if perhaps not the most accessible.

His two greatest works, Last and First Men

and Star Maker, describe vast epochs of future history or immense expanses of space. Civilisations rise and fall, and the individual is insignificant in the face of infinity. Although individual characters are often blotted out by the vast scope of his imagination, Stapledon’s own somewhat provincial life informs them – including his years in Wirral. Despite the wildness of his imagination, he always drew on personal experience for his inspiration.

Mere paragraphs in both works have been taken as the inspiration for entire science fiction works by other writers and indeed inventors. Freeman Dyson invented the Dyson Sphere after being inspired by Star Maker. Others found Stapledon a source of negative inspiration: CS Lewis cites Stapledon, with his socialist, agnostic (and, it has to be admitted, imperialist) view of the universe as one reason why he wrote his Christian science fiction Space Trilogy, to propagate his contrary Weltanschauung.

Stapledon is said to have been the inspiration for the villain Professor Weston. Lewis, like JRR Tolkien, was a regular visitor to Wirral resident and fellow-Inkling Roger Lancelyn Green, but there is no evidence that Lewis and Stapledon ever met. However, in a talk given in Manchester in 1948, Stapledon mentioned Lewis’s Space Trilogy as one of his favourite works of science fiction.

In The Saturday Review of Literature in 1936, Stapledon gave a brief autobiographical sketch, in which he said that he was: ‘…born in the Wirral, across the water from Liverpool. The Wirral has nearly always been my headquarters. I now live at the opposite corner of the peninsula, across the water from Wales.’

He was born in Poulton-cum-Seacombe, of which he saw little, spending his first six years in Port Said in Egypt, where his father worked as the manager of a shipping firm. After Stapledon’s father returned from Port Said in 1901, they moved into a house in West Kirby, 2 Marine Park. Ten years later, as the family fortunes continued to burgeon, they bought a house named Annery on Caldy Hill. From here an observer could look north across West Kirby and to the sea, and west across the Dee estuary and mountains of Wales. Caldy Hill came to have great significance in Stapledon’s work.

Stapledon was educated in various schools in Liverpool, before going to Abbotsholme School, a utopian private school that emphasised physical fitness as much as intellectual rigour and inspired Stapledon to remain highly active for his entire life.

This was followed by Baliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with an MA in 1913.

After graduation, Stapledon was at a loose end as to a career. His socialist inclinations and the inspiration provided by nearby Port Sunlight made him toy with a career as

an architect. His parents discouraged him, since this would require further schooling.

He worked briefly in shipping and education, with little success, by his own admission, and had his first book published, a collection of poetry entitled Latter-Day Psalms, before the outbreak of World War One. As a conscientious objector, he did not join up, but instead became a driver in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit.

On his return from the war, he married his cousin, Agnes Miller. He had loved her since childhood. However, he was later to carry on affairs with her unenthusiastic acquiescence, and to immortalise her in Star Maker as “merely a useful, but often infuriating adjunct” to his personal life. They had two children, Mary (born 1920) and John (born 1923). As a wedding present Stapledon’s father gave them the house on Grosvenor Avenue that appears in Star Maker, described as a “mean little villa” in the posthumously published early draft known as Nebula Maker. It is in West Kirby, across the road from Ashton Park, on whose lake Stapledon sailed the model boats he enjoyed making for his children.

After the war, Stapledon spent much of his time lecturing extramurally for the University of Liverpool and for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). At the same time he was studying towards the PhD in philosophy that he was awarded in 1925. His next book, A Modern Theory of Ethics (1929), failed to ensure him a regular post at a university, and this lack of academic success may have been one reason why he turned to writing fiction. Ironically, his “speculative fiction” made him the most influential philosopher Merseyside has produced.

His first novel was published in 1930. The initial inspiration for Last and First Men came to him while watching seals from the cliffs of Llanbadrig peninsula during a family outing to Anglesey in 1928. He later compared his Anglesey vision with the experience of “stout Cortez” in Keats’s sonnet: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific - and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise –Silent upon a peak in Darien.

The seals he saw on the rocks below were sunning themselves and squealing when the waves hit and they were drenched in spray, and their vulnerability seemed almost human to Stapledon. According to his later book The Opening of the Eyes, it was then that he “had a sudden fantasy of man’s whole future, aeon upon aeon of strange vicissitudes and gallant endeavours in world after world…”

The resulting work described the future history of the human race until its last days inhabiting Neptune after two billion years of

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“

When he was in his fifties, his neighbours were amazed to see him cracking the ice on the estuary to go for a swim in January.

mutation and evolution, during which it has navigated such hazards and horrors as invasion from Mars and “an Americanized planet”. The Llanbadrig seals directly inspired the “fifth men,” who live on Venus after Earth has become uninhabitable, and adapt to the planet’s watery conditions.

However, their descendants, the flying men who represent the seventh evolution of humanity now living on Venus, were inspired by the seabirds of the Dee estuary, which Olaf, a keen ornithologist, studied and watched for much of his life.

Stapledon wrote Last and First Men in West Kirby, in an attic study at his house in Grosvenor Avenue. He would write until 11 in the morning, when he had tea with his wife and daughter, sometimes telling them about his labours. Agnes also worked as proofreader and critic, looking through his many drafts with “devastating sanity”.

The book was hailed as a “masterpiece”

by JB Priestley. Its sequel, Last Men in London, was a semi-autobiographical work examining the condition of modern man.

This was followed by Odd John, a story of a mutant superhuman, John Wainwright, who establishes a utopian colony of other superhumans which is ultimately destroyed by normal society. This theme is reiterated yet reversed in his later work Sirius (1944) where a dog appears as the superior being. However, this book was preceded

by Stapledon’s magnum opus.

Star Maker, which takes its reader on a journey away from Earth, out across the entire universe and back again, begins with its narrator, after a domestic argument, going up onto the hill behind his house. The bleakness of the scene echoes Dante at the beginning of the Divine Comedy, “midway through the journey of our life”. The narrator describes the heather-clad hilltop, the suburb below, the “curtained windows” of his home, the hills, the sea. Thus far, it is autobiographical: the hill is Caldy Hill; the house is 7 Grosvenor Avenue in West Kirby. The surrounding landscape consists of Wirral, Wales, and the Irish Sea. From the hilltop the narrator travels outwards on a mental journey across the limitless wastes of space, encountering world after world, alien race after alien race, galactic empires and worlds at war. One place he reaches is the “other Earth,” a world very much like our own at the time of writing, the late 1930s. The place where he lands on this other Earth is described as “a maritime

”

country in the temperate zone, a brilliantly green peninsula”: in fact, a parallel Wirral: perhaps the only such example in all the annals of science fiction. On his eventual return from the immensity of infinity to the littleness of Caldy Hill, following his encounter with the super-divine Star Maker, the narrator experiences a vision of the entire world on the brink of global war. The novel ends with a description of the land below him, West Kirby and the surrounding area.

While Last and First Men had been hailed as a masterpiece, Star Maker, as Stapledon had predicted, raised “thunder on the Left and on the Right”. On the political and religious right, CS Lewis was quick to disapprove of the book, whose depiction of an entirely amoral deity was “sheer devil-worship” to his mind.

Later works included the previously mentioned Sirius, and Darkness and the Light, which shows two alternative futures for the human race. Stapledon also wrote Death into Life, The Flames and A Man Divided, while The Opening of the Eyes and Encounters were published posthumously.

The Opening of the Eyes includes a chapter where the narrator goes up onto Caldy Hill, echoing the beginning of Star Maker, but its title “The Heavens Declare – Nothing” suggests a bleak and entirely godless universe.

Caldy Hill was very dear to Stapledon, and he, along with Sir AV Paton and other local benefactors, was one of the people who “had the imagination and the courage to save this natural beauty spot from the builder as a heritage for the people for all time”.

(Norman Ellison, The Wirral Peninsula).

In 1940, Stapledon built his own house at Simon’s Field on Barton Hey Road in Caldy, where he lived until his death. In 1949 he reached international prominence, even notoriety, when his socialist convictions led to his participation in the Soviet backed Cultural and Scientific Conference for Peace, in New York.

According to Patrick A McCarthy, to his neighbours he seemed “a friendly fellow, rather eccentric” who apparently “swam in the lake at all times of year”. Lakes are in short supply in West Kirby: if he swam in the lake in Ashton Park (or the Marine Lake, for that matter), it is no wonder he was considered an eccentric. When he was in his fifties, his neighbours were amazed to see him cracking the ice on the estuary to go for a swim in January. One of his short

stories, (East is West written in 1934) set in a parallel West Kirby in a world where the Chinese and Japanese have become the dominant culture, also describes him swimming in the estuary.

The Dee certainly was important to him; as a keen birdwatcher, like fellow West Kirby writer Norman ‘Nomad’ Ellison, the ornithology of the area fascinated him, and as mentioned previously, the estuary birds provided the inspiration for his avian race of humans in Last and First Men. His reputation for eccentricity and extravagant ‘keep-fit’ was a legacy of his Abbotsholme education, and in his diary (5th Jan 1914), Stapledon records that he “Ran in storm & hail to Oxton & back, being paced part way back by a cyclist. It was about 13 miles. All the while I could have shouted for joy”.

Despite this, at the age of 64 he suffered a coronary heart occlusion that led to his death.

He was cremated at Landican Crematorium, where the vice-chancellor of Liverpool University gave the eulogy. After his death, in accordance with his will, his family took his ashes from Simon’s Field, over the railway bridge, across the golf course and scattered them on the low cliffs overlooking the Dee, where the birds Stapledon had loved in life still soared, like the fantastic seventh race of humanity he had prophesied in Last and First Men. Many thanks to Gavin Chappell for permission to publish the article. After studying English at the University of Wales, Gavin has worked variously as a business analyst and a college lecturer.

He is the author of numerous short stories, articles, poems and several books. He is currently writing a book on the folklore of Wirral and is available for local history talks. www.gavinchappell.com

32 The Lake

The Dee Estuary Chiffchaff Alley

By Matt Thomas February might be the shortest month in terms of number of days, but sometimes it seems to last forever. Don’t get me wrong – I do like winter and all of the wildlife it brings to the Dee estuary, but the nagging cold and long hours of darkness soon have me yearning for spring.

From the second week of March I start to look for signs that Nature’s winter hiatus is finally drawing to an end. One of the first places I look for spring is on a walk along the Wirral Way and this particular adventure starts there early one misty morning. The air is still stubbornly cold, chilling unprotected ears so a woolly hat is still a necessity. The sound of my footsteps crunching through the gravel path is interrupted first by a Robin: then a Song Thrush: both are singing to mark their prospective territories. Then in the distance I think I hear it. I stop and listen again. Yes, there it is, my sound of spring: “schllit-schlatt, schllit-schlatt”.

I walk on a little further, slower this time, straining to hear it again. It calls once more, closer than before and to my left. I start to scan the treetops that periodically rise from the hedgerow like turrets on a castle wall.

Soon I’m rewarded with a welcome sight of spring. A calling male Chiffchaff.

He is the first but more will follow hot on his heels, arriving around the middle of the month.

They will soon settle in and become part of the fixtures and fittings of the hedgerow. I once mapped the number of singing males along the whole of the Wirral Way and worked out that if each one attracted a mate and bred successfully with two broods in the summer you could expect around 450 Chiffchaffs on the Wirral Way by the start of September! In light of these sums I have renamed this path ‘Chiffchaff Alley’.

All too often these birds get overlooked for more ‘traditional’ signs of spring, and while I am excited by my first sighting of a Swallow, frogspawn or an Orange Tip butterfly, for me seeing a singing Chiffchaff is a sure sign that winter is gradually releasing us from the stasis brought on by those shorter days and lower temperatures.

Soon I find more of these charming little Warblers, the mist burns away to reveal the sun shining and Chiffchaffs chiffing on a perfect spring morning. There are plenty of walkers out on the Wirral Way and the birds aren’t in the least bit bothered, this is because they are far too busy singing, displaying and establishing territories to pay passers-by much attention. This makes

“

Sharp eyes examine every crease in the trunk and thin bills extract prey with dexterity and skill.

”

it possible to take photographs without causing them any undue disturbance.

To my left there are three of them in one Hawthorn. They run almost rodent-like along the twigs, flit up to a higher bough then drop down to a lower one. It looks like the branches are dripping Chiffchaffs.

The hedgerows of the Wirral Way are a fantastic place to find and appreciate them. The tangled hawthorns, just coming into leaf, provide safe nesting sites with an abundance of food to grow a hungry brood of chicks. The majority of these birds are migratory and spend our winter under African skies. The folds of bark contain still hibernating flies, grubs and caterpillars, tasty treats for tired migrants. Sharp eyes examine every crease in the trunk and thin bills extract prey with dexterity and skill.

I am getting plenty of pictures but I am searching for that one, so far elusive, image that says spring to me. In the meantime I content myself with photographing them hiding behind leaves, peering under them, calling from the highest twiggy treetops and gobbling up insects. Then I get it, the shot I’m after, close to what I had pictured in my mind.

One individual has dropped down from a singing perch into the body of a hawthorn where it is now just about at eye-level with me. It is checking the crinkles in the bark for food, darting in and out of view.

The fields leading up to the Dungeon Woods form a blurry background to the shot. The sun is still low and its light is coming over my right shoulder illuminating the scene perfectly.

At first the Chiffchaff is obscured by some breaking buds, but then moves into shadows cast by higher branches. As it hops along the twig, getting closer to a recently broken bud, it starts to emerge from these shadows into the sun, its tail still in the dark, its face lit up. This is what I was looking for, this is it, I trigger the shutter capturing my spring picture.

I look at the image I have just taken. In it I see the broken buds, fanlike unfurling of new leaves, the Chiffchaff, the emergence from the shadows of winter into the new season sunshine. That brief moment is captured: this says it is spring to me.

It is then that I realise winter is behind us, in the rear view mirror and getting smaller all the time. I turn my own face to the pale yellow sun, blink my eyes shut and enjoy the first warm rays of sunshine on my skin.

The Chiffchaff calls again.

Yes, spring has arrived.

Read Matt’s blog on adventures in, thoughts on and feelings about this special place and its wildlife – www.fromthemuddybanksofthedee.com

The Lake 33

34 The Lake

West Kirby Museum

Donations can be sent to our Treasurer, Peter Ryan on 625 5158, or if you can volunteer your time to staff the museum or help with research projects, please get in touch with me on 625 7013 or email us: info@westkirbymuseum.co.uk. For continued updates on our progress, please visit our website: www.westkirbymuseum.co.uk and show your support on Facebook: www.

Facebook.com/WKMuseum. You can also Tweet us: @WKMuseum

St Bridget’s Centre

By Heather Chapman The Charles Dawson Brown Museum, West Kirby is a hidden gem within our community and will be opening shortly with advertised regular opening times. It was founded in 1892 in memory of a local historian, antiquarian and benefactor, Charles Dawson Brown. He preserved a number of important artefacts unearthed during Victorian rebuilding work on St Bridget’s Church.

The museum contains objects covering 1,000 years of local history including Anglo-Saxon, Viking and medieval grave markers and Norman masonry.

As part of the redevelopment of St Bridget’s Centre, the old museum room has been refurbished and a new room added to increase space for displays on the church, the old village and the school. We plan to have the first regular opening days in the museum’s history every Friday and one Saturday per month. Previously the museum was only open by appointment and many local people were unaware of its existence.

We recently formed a Friends Group which has now reached 100 members. We need enthusiastic people to get involved with the museum in various ways, including helping to staff the museum on Fridays and Saturdays, researching aspects of local history and preparing small displays. No knowledge or expertise is required so if you are interested, please let us know.

We have raised funds to cover the basic costs of installation through grants, donations and fundraising events. However, we still need to cover the additional expenses necessary to complete the museum displays and to improve the lighting.

11th century Norman grave slab

The Lake 35 These images are used by kind permission of Gill Cottriall.

The first image shows the former bandstand in Meols Parade Gardens. It is thought that the image title of The Pierrots refers to the act that the audience is watching.

According to the National Gallery, Pierrots were a popular form of seaside entertainment, and the word is often associated with the traditional French clown. The sculpture that you see on the way into New Brighton along the prom is also called The Pierrot.

The bottom image shows a view of the jetty which gives a good view of the promenade and the buildings along North Parade.

Images of yesteryear Meols Garden Parade North Parade

What’s Cooking?

By Julian Davies, Julian’s Restaurant, Hoylake

Salmon Wellington Method

Ingredients

Take boneless, skinless fillets of Salmon and slice. Layer together with cream cheese and baby spinach and roll in a puff pastry parcel. Bake for 25–30 mins at 200ºc. Cut into ½ inch slices and present upright exposing the cross section of colour on a butter sauce.

250g Salmon 90g Puff pastry 40g Spinach 40g Philadelphia Cheese 5 oz Whipping Cream Lemon Juice Butter Salt & Pepper

Butter sauce Reduce 1 tablespoon of lemon juice by ½.

Season with salt and pepper and add 5fl oz of whipping cream and reduce until you have a sauce consistency. Finally whisk in a knob of butter and serve. Do not boil sauce after adding butter, as it will separate.

The Lake 37 Spex4less has been providing great value prescription glasses online since 2004. In 2009, the company moved to Hoylake where it now provides jobs for ten local workers. It’s a small, family-owned business, with over 70 years combined experience in the industry, and is the best online provider of glasses in the UK. It is rated 5 out of 5 by the independent Review Centre, www.reviewcentre.com Buying your glasses online at Spex4less has many advantages to buying on the high street:

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Spex4less would like to offer The Lake readers a massive 20% discount on top of its already amazing-value spectacles. Just enter the code ‘LAKE’ in the coupon code box when placing your order and the price of your glasses will automatically be reduced by 20%!

We’ll keep this discount available for at least the next month for our online customers.

To buy your glasses from Spex4less, simply have your prescription to hand and type www.spex4less.com/lake into your browser. Or call us on 0151 632 6611 to place an order over the telephone.

38 The Lake

Royal Liverpool Golf Club Founded 1869 Hosts Open in 2014 Built in 1869, on what was then the racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt Club, Hoylake is the oldest of all the English seaside courses with the exception of Westward Ho! in Devon, which was established just a few years earlier.

Robert Chambers and George Morris were commissioned to lay out the original Hoylake course, which was extended to 18 holes in 1871. This was also the year in which the Club was granted its Royal patronage by His Royal Highness The Duke of Connaught.

Early years For the first seven years of its life the land still performed its original function, doubling as a golf course and a horse racing track – indeed, echoes of this heritage can be found today in the names of the first and eighteenth holes, Course and Stand, while the original saddling bell still hangs in the club house. Once the horses had been dispatched to pastures new Hoylake began to take its place in the history of golf.

In 1885 the links hosted the first Amateur Championship; in 1902 the first international match between England and Scotland; and, in 1921, the first international match between Great Britain and the United States of America, which we now know as The Walker Cup. In fact, it is Royal Liverpool Golf Club’s contribution to the amateur game that has set it apart from all other clubs in England. Although, at the end of the 19th century, it was the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews that took on the role of the governing body in golf as the game developed, it was at Hoylake that the rules of amateur status were laid down. Ironically it was John Ball, who was to become the Club’s greatest player, who almost fell foul of them.

John Ball In 1878, when he was just 16 years old, Ball had finished tied for fourth place in the Open Championship with Bob Martin of St Andrews. Although Ball lost the play-off for fourth place the following day there was still a money prize due to him from the purse.

The sum involved was only one pound but John Morris advised the young John Ball

to put the money in his pocket. It was this incident, recalled seven years later, that came back to haunt Ball when he wanted to enter the Amateur Championship. Ball had accepted prize money and, therefore, was technically a ‘professional’. The rules were, however, diplomatically and conveniently adjusted to enable Ball to play.

John Ball’s influence on amateur golf, together with that of Harold Hilton who was also a Hoylake player, cannot be over emphasised. Between them they dominated the amateur game of that era and the pair were also a major influence on the professional game, each of them winning the Open Championship as amateurs. John Ball won the Amateur Championship eight times between 1888 and 1912 and was runner-up twice. He won the Open Championship in 1890, the first Englishman and the first amateur to do so, and also took the amateur title the same year.

Harold Hilton Harold Hilton’s record was just as impressive.

He won the Open twice, in l892 (the first year the Open was played over 72 holes) and again five years later, making him the only amateur apart from John Ball and Bobby Jones to win the title. His victory at Hoylake in 1897 was marked 100 years later by the creation of a new annual Harold Hilton Medal tournament open to amateur golfers aged 30 or over and handicap five or under.

Hilton also won the Amateur Championship four times, was runner-up on three occasions and won the US Amateur Championship in 1911, the year in which he also held the British title. The man was obviously no slacker – in the same year he still found time to become the first editor of the new Golf Monthly magazine.

1930 Open championship No history of Hoylake would be complete without mention of the legendary Bobby Jones. In 1930 the club was privileged to host his winning of the Open Championship, a victory that would become the second leg of his remarkable Grand Slam – the winning in the same year of the Amateur and Open Championships of both Great Britain and the United States.

Shortly afterwards, a mere 28 years old, Bobby Jones found himself with no golfing peaks left to conquer and he retired from the game.

The Open Championship In July 2006, after a gap of 39 years, the Open Championship returned to Hoylake.

The fabled mighty winds did not blow but there was no denying that another mighty champion was born... in the shape of one Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods. The tournament is due to return next year for the 12th time.

Hoylake also hosted the Women’s British Open for the first time in 2012, from 13–16 September. It was held seven weeks later than usual, to avoid conflict with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The tournament was won by South Korea’s Jiyai Shin with a dominant display in tough conditions. She won by nine strokes to set a new record for the largest winning margin in this event. In doing this she scored a 64 in her second round to set a new Ladies Course Record and a score that was the lowest seen at Hoylake in a major championship event. The previous record had been held by Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and Chris DiMarco who all scored 65s during the 2006 Open.

Clubhouse The Clubhouse is home to arguably the finest collection of golf memorabilia to be seen outside St Andrews, and visitors should make sure they have time to examine it before they depart.

A redevelopment of the Clubhouse has remained true to the spirit of the original building while ensuring that it can cope with the requirements of major tournaments.

And perhaps the unique feature of its design that connects past, present and future is the double sided clock erected to commemorate victories by the extraordinary John Ball Jr., the Amateur Champion in 1888, 1890, 1892, 1894 and 1899, and the Open Champion in 1890.

Professional John Heggarty celebrated his 25th anniversary at Royal Liverpool in 2007.

He joined Hoylake from Wirral Ladies. An Advanced Fellow of the PGA and one of seven main Board Directors of The Professional Golfers Association, John is at the cutting edge of the golf industry.

John constantly strives to offer the highest quality service combined with the latest in golf equipment and his excellent reputation as coach has seen him coach at both County and International level.

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For advertising contact alan@lakemagazine.co.uk or telephone Alan Strange on 07788 510868.

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The Lake 41

Your Legal Divorce settlements

By Lauren Taylor value of the assets involved. If anybody involved in legal proceedings does not comply with a court order then they can be found in contempt of court. The punishments for being found in contempt range from a fine to committal to prison.”

If you find yourself involved in a court case where the other person is not complying with orders made by the court then, like Michelle Young, you can think about applying to have that person found in contempt and ask for them to be sent to prison. The courts are usually reluctant to send people to prison for a first offence – Scot Young was actually already in possession of a suspended sentence.

Carole adds: “In the case of a first offence, a suspended sentence or fine might be imposed. The spouse making an application for committal needs to be warned about the cost of making this application and what the practical benefit will be.”

The financial issues in the divorce of millionaire property developer Scot Young and his wife Michelle have been the subject of national scrutiny. Michelle claims that her husband has a substantial hidden fortune up to £400 million pounds, whereas Scot claims that he has lost everything, is effectively bankrupt and that his friends are financially supporting him.

Mr Young’s refusal to disclose financial records has seen him jailed for six months for contempt of court.

Recent research by the Co-operative Bank found that 13% of those surveyed had hidden savings. This figure is not surprising, says Carole Atkinson, Head of Head of Family and Wills, Tax, Trusts and Probate at law firm Weightmans: “People who have hidden assets may have deliberately kept them secret in an effort to protect their wealth from being shared with their spouse.

“Married couples may not realise, however, that in divorce proceedings both parties are obliged to provide full disclosure of their financial circumstances, and all assets and liabilities, whether the other party knew about them or not, will be taken into account when considering how the matrimonial finances should be divided.

If such full disclosure is not provided, then there is a risk that any order made could be overturned.”

The Young case shows just how far some parties will go in trying to hide their assets.

If Mr. Young had no money left then he could have demonstrated this by giving the court the information ordered. Carole believes this case is a warning to couples that although the family court will give parties opportunity to disclose everything, if they choose not to the consequences will be severe.

“This ruling is generally welcomed by lawyers and spouses alike. Over recent years there has been a movement in the legal system to ensure that family law is consistent with civil law. The decision to jail Mr Young shows that if you defy the court, you risk going to prison – even in a divorce case.”

Few cases involve such a vast fortune as the Young case so how, if at all, does this case help other people who are going through the court process and trying to reach an agreement regarding their finances as part of their divorce?

Carole explains: “The same rules regarding financial disclosure apply regardless of the

Carole also warns that seeking to hide assets is very unlikely to succeed: “If someone wishes to protect their assets from potentially being divided with their spouse, there are steps that can be taken which are more likely to be effective such as pre or post nuptial agreements or setting up appropriate trusts.

“If pre nuptial agreements are not in place, most legal advisors will try to reach a settlement through mediation and negotiation where possible and court proceedings are generally considered a last resort.

“If this last resort is reached, your family lawyer should keep you updated with your options every step of the way. Whether you are the spouse seeking further information or the spouse considering how best to disclose your assets, it’s always important to remember that in the family courts, honesty is the most effective policy.”

42 The Lake

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