'Liverpool Memories'

Liverpool Memories

Writing on the Wall Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre 4, Princes Road, Liverpool L8 1TH Published by Writing on the Wall 2013 Copyright Š remains with the authors, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-9928323-0-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

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Liverpool Memories

Contents Prologue 1 Family Origins, distant childhood memories 1925 - 1934 2 Formative years, coming of a terrible war 1935 - 1944/45 3 Eventful family changes 1945 - 1948 4 Civvy Street, Wedding, Honeymoon & Scouse life 1948/49 - 1950 5 Married life, children and business changes 1950 - 1954 6 Challenges, Changes, fears, fun and laughter 1955 - 1965 7 Time marching on! The herald of a new generation 1955 - 1965 Post Script

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PROLOGUE This, my story, is an attempt to try and put together as much and as many of my life’s memories, good and bad, hoping that it conveys to future readers and generations how life in Liverpool and the Merseyside area was for a ‘normal’ small family, between the years of 1925 and 1975, as seen through my eyes.

I am now aged 88 years and I wish to dedicate this work to my dear daughter Gwendoline, and tender my grateful thanks to her with love.

Thomas Drever Kendrick August 2013

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CHAPTER ONE 1925 – 1934 OUR FAMILY ORIGINS AND MY DISTANT CHILDHOOD MEMORIES The first home that I can remember was a tiny semi-detached two bed roomed house, 57 Chester Road, Tuebrook, Liverpool. My earliest memory being of playing with our dog, a black one called “Nettle”, and climbing in and out of his kennel, in the backyard. There was a farm at the end of the road where we got our milk, and the other end of the road joined Tuebrook, right opposite the local Bridewell close to the gates of Newsham Park.

My father was Thomas Drever Kendrick, a butcher by trade, managing a shop (a new one) for Mr D Higgins & Sons Ltd, shipping butchers of Liverpool. My mother was Alice Maud Mary Kendrick (nee Lunt), a greengrocery shop manageress for Waterworth Bros Ltd of Liverpool.

Mum and Dad were married on 9th June 1924 at Holy Trinity Church, Walton Breck, Liverpool. They had their honeymoon in Llandudno, North Wales, travelling there by train.

My dad was a keen amateur carpenter, making all kinds of wooden household gadgets, cupboards, shelves etc., and when I was expected, so I am told, he proceeded to make a lovely substantial drop-side cot ready for my arrival, which was late evening on 29th March 1925. I was born in the annexe of Liverpool Maternity Hospital, which was then in Brownlow Hill, Liverpool close to the university. My parents had planned a home birth, but unfortunately my mother developed severe kidney problems and at the last minute was admitted to hospital. I was told that my father carried my expectant mother down our very narrow staircase to assist the ambulance crew.

As regards my parental backgrounds, my dad’s parents, Thomas Drever Kendrick and Amelia (nee Hodginson), lived in Ludwig Road, Anfield, Liverpool. Dad had one sister, called Elsie, known later by all affectionately as Aunty Elsie.

My mother’s parents, John William Lunt and Isabella (nee Benson Graham), lived in Pringle Street, Tuebrook, Liverpool. Mum had two sisters called Isabella and Elizabeth and as far as I can remember one brother (who at the time of writing – I have been unable to find any 10

information about). Her father was a foreman/ manager in The Liverpool Corporation.

To assist my readers in the appreciation of the importance and size of The Port of Liverpool and the city, I’d like to include a few details of my memories of the port, the town, The River Mersey, and all the humdrum comings and goings of such a port, as I proceed with each chapter of this life’s story. Suffice it to say now, that there were then in the 1920/1930s ferry services to Birkenhead, Wallasey, Rock Ferry, New Brighton, The Isle of Man, Ireland - both North and South, and to North Wales. The service to Eastham Locks for the Manchester Ship Canal was always subject to tidal conditions and generally was only once a day at high tide.

Then there were passenger services to most parts of the world, including USA, South Africa, India, the Far East and South America, to name a few, and also a huge merchant fleet service to virtually everywhere in the world.

In our house at 57 Chester Road we didn’t have any electricity, at that time, only gas lights and a little gas cooker. We did have a cold water tap in the kitchen sink and an outside toilet with a water flush and a creaking door.

In 1927 my mother announced that were going to have a little baby come to live with us, and in due course mother gave birth to my brother, John Roy Kendrick. He was a small baby and was not considered at that time to be very strong, and for a time he was very thin and not well. My mother had a very good friend in a near neighbour who lived around the corner in July Road, Tuebrook. Her name was Molly. We called her Aunty Molly and she used to take both Roy and I out for walks with the pram for shopping and to Newsham Park to see the duck pond, the boats and the birds in the aviary. Aunt Molly’s name was Mrs Squires and her husband’s name was George. He had taken part in the 1914/1918 Great War, coming home badly wounded with serious back injuries. But he was able to work as a tram driver on Liverpool Trams. By a strange stroke of fate, readers will note that I mention Mr & Mrs Squires once again in a later chapter many years further on.

The Liverpool City Main Tramway Services operated mainly from the Liverpool Pier Head, outwards through the various suburbs of the city to what in those days were the surrounding villages of Garston, Walton, Wavertree, Woolton, Knotty Ash, Old Swan, West Derby and Prescot, to name a few. In due course as the years went by and the boundaries 11

gradually altered outwards, these became included in the City of Liverpool.

In the 1930s into the 1940s there was still a lot of horse drawn transport in use. Names I remember using horse drawn vehicles include L Marr & Son – Cooperative Society (coal, bread, milk etc.), many local coal dealers – W Faulkner, Arthur Dodd (Ken Dodd’s father), A N Atkins (Fruit and Vegetables) Waterworth’s (Fruit and Vegetables), and also many removal firms and Funeral/Undertakers too. The Liverpool Corporation Bin Department still used horse drawn bin carts as well as many other horse drawn trucks of various types. But the steam roller and steam traction engine were well in evidence for very heavy jobs, and steam wagons were in regular use between the docks and out to the British Insulated Calendar Cables (BICC) works at Prescot. I used to watch these steam wagons on the East Prescot Road, carrying huge ingots of copper out to the Prescot Cable Works. There were special water hydrants on route for the steam wagons; one at the top of Prescot Street – in the city and another in Old Swan outside the Midland Bank (now known as the HSBC bank).

To return again to the river and the port, I clearly remember the sound of the one o’clock gun which was fired at the Morpeth Dock, Birkenhead, in the middle of each working day. A custom from the old sailing ship days that acted as a time keeping device for dock workers, stevedores and shippers. It was discontinued when the war broke out in 1939 and after the end of war started again for a few years, but finally finished altogether in the early 1960s.

My dad always went to work on his bike and as a family, if we travelled any distance, it was always by tram. In 1929 it was an excitement for us when we moved house to Thomas Lane, Knotty Ash, to a brand new three bed roomed semi-detached home with inside toilet, modern kitchen, and front, back and side gardens. I vaguely remember the moving day. We had a large horse drawn removal van, and I was allowed to sit on the front seat with the driver, with our canary in his cage next to me. Our new home seemed so large to me, and we were right out in the country then with a farm on the opposite side of the road to us, and plenty of fields with cows, horses and sheep. A lot of houses near us were not yet completed, so I had a most happy time being friends with all the workmen doing the house building.

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In the fullness of time I was enrolled at the Knotty Ash Church Infants School in the village opposite St Johns Church. When I think back now, what a primitive little place it was, but we had a good time there, Miss Hill being the then head mistress. The Arthur Dodd Coal Yard was just local, behind the infant school and the Dodd children too became scholars with me; Billy (William) Dodd the eldest, Ken (Kenneth) Dodd his brother and June Dodd their sister, and when Roy my brother became old enough he too attended the infant’s school. I have happy memories of many teatimes spent in the Dodd household at Mrs Dodd’s request, and of course with my mother’s permission.

Early in 1931 mum told us she was going to have baby and in due course my sister, Alice Joyce Kendrick, was born on May 7th 1931, with much excitement and family celebrations over the new baby being a girl.

During these early days in the 1930s there seemed to be such a lot of family happenings, as well as me spending more and more spare time helping at the shop were my dad worked and helping in the garden. With my little grandma’s family being so large, she was one of seven sisters and one brother (he emigrated to Australia), we always seemed to be taken out at weekends to parties at numerous other family homes. I remember being taken by ferry over to Wallasey to go to Aunt Hannah’s and Uncle Earns. They had a Bakers Shop and lived above it, with a great big living room, ideal for big parties.

We always stayed over on the Sunday night, sleeping four in a bed, and I can still remember waking very early on the Monday morning to the lovely smell of baking bread. I would creep downstairs with the noise of the bakery mixing going on, peep through the bake house door, where I could see Uncle Earn and his helper getting fresh baked produce ready for the shop. He of course saw me (he was a lovely man and very fond of children), came across to me and asked me how many of us where there upstairs. I said four. Whereupon he got four fresh warm scones off the rack for me, opened a huge tin of raspberry jam, sliced the scones through with a big knife spreading loads of jam inside, dropped them into a brown paper bag and putting them in my hands saying “Here yar Drever, take em upstairs be very quiet and DON’T TELL YOUR AUNTY HANNAH” - all in merriment of course. Lovely scones, lovely times and a lovely memory.

About this time too, my little grandma and granddad and Aunty Elsie moved into our old home at 57 Chester Road, we used to go to Sunday 13

night parties there too (everybody had to go home with a jar of Auntie Elsie’s chutney) another one of the standing family jokes.

There were also parties at another of little Grandma’s sisters house , Aunty Nell (Aunty Ellen) and Uncle Jacks at 27 Colwyn Road, Stanley, Liverpool, which we reached by a journey on the 6a tram, dropping us off at what was then the Crosville Bus garage on Edge Lane. Her husband was Uncle Jack, a blind man who too loved company and children, and we loved him. They had a daughter called Maimie and the parties there were very memorable for me too.

As we move towards the mid-1930s, the farm opposite our house in Thomas Lane became empty and was demolished, and the lovely pear and apple trees were felled, much to my disgust as I had been allowed to help with harvesting their fruit each year.

The spare land on the corner of Thingwall Hall Drive and Thomas Lane became shops, seven in all, and new houses began to be built, so we lost our lovely fields of winter snow – where we used to go tobogganing and had snowball fights. A small bungalow on Thomas Lane, almost opposite Thingwall Avenue, which had been jutting out into Thomas Lane causing a narrowing was evacuated and then that too was demolished, enabling the road to be widened.

It was just before this, and outside this bungalow, that my brother Roy had a little road accident, but happily apart from shock and some bruising he wasn’t badly hurt. About this time plans were drawn up by Liverpool Corporation to resurface Thomas Lane, with The Penmaenmawr and Trinidad Lake Asphalt Company patented surface, and for overhead sodium street lighting to be installed. I took a keen interest in watching this being done; we had tar-boilers, steam rollers traction engines and night watchmen too! But no sooner was this finished when we heard news that tramlines may be put down for a new tram route numbered 40, and this is precisely what happened, in spite of a huge planning opposition, and the lovely new modern, drained roadway was torn up once again.

Our immediate next door neighbours at 2 Thingwall Avenue were Mr and Mrs Marks, together with Mrs Mark’s mother, and their young daughter Doreen. As Doreen was a similar age to my sister Joyce they made good friends together and stayed very firm friends throughout their lives. Mr Marks was an employee in the General Post Office Company in 14

the Liverpool Offices. They were excellent neighbours and we all got along happily together throughout the years.

My mother began to trust me more for shopping trips, both locally and into town, and I was doing a lot more helping at my dad’s butcher shop where I used to be given a sixpence piece (6d) for pocket money each Saturday. If I wasn’t needed at the shop I would get on the 6A tram at Broadgreen Station and get a four rides for one penny child ticket, and travel to the Liverpool Pier Head to watch the ferries, the boats, the liners and the comings and goings of the port.

I used to see the RMS Franconia leaving weekly for America, also The Georgic, The Baltic, and The Ascania, and once I saw the Mauretania moored mid-river waiting for the high tide. Many times too I had witnessed the launching of vessels from the Cammel Laird Ship Builders Yard in Birkenhead – almost opposite the Liverpool Pier Head. This was always a grand sight to see, much ado all around the river, hooting and horns going and so marvellous to watch the little tugs taking the new vessel in tow and pulling it into the fitting out basin.

Sometimes too on a Saturday I can remember meeting a corporation workman coming down on his bicycle to a little tin roofed shed in the Pier Head Gardens. I very nosily asked him what the shed was for and he willingly explained how once every day his job was to cycle to the Pier Head at high tide time, start up the little paraffin engine in the shed, open the sluice gates for the city sewers and then to close them again in one hour’s time. I will not labour this memory any further! I regularly too, saw The Lady of Mann, The Manxman, The King Orry and the North Wales Steamers St Tudno and St Seiriol, and the River Ferry boats, Upton, Woodside, Rockferry, Marlowe, Storeton, Burton, Royal Daffodil, Hinderton, Leasowe, Moreton and the Royal Iris.

The landing stage was connected by a floating roadway to the mainland dock road, and at luggage ferry times I would watch the horse drawn carts, the motor lorries and the very few motor cars going down this roadway to the landing stage. Sometimes cattle were carried too! Off course in the fullness of time this was all phased out because the Queensway Mersey Road Tunnel was under construction, which would soon take the carriage of the goods by road from one side of the river to the other.

The Port of Liverpool docks were accessed by a dock road extending from The Liver Building, in the Bootle direction as far as the Gladstone 15

Graving Dock and from The Liver Building in the Widnes direction as far as The Dingle. There was also alongside, and in some instances above this dock road, an overhead Electric Railway, known as The Dockers Umbrella and similar in type to the one in New York. This ran from Gladstone Dock right through to Dingle, with stations for each dock served along the route. This enabled workers and passengers to make reasonably easy access to liners and merchant vessels in the dock. Underneath this railway there was a mineral railway line to access the various docks with goods coming and going by steam train. As this line was not fenced in but running in an open roadway, a red flag man always had to walk in front of the train in order to comply with the Railways Act. This particular piece of legislation still survives to this day wherever a railway track is not fenced off.

Knotty Ash village in those days still had a local post office and shop, a village store that sold almost any type of food, a smithy, two local pubs, and yes even a small brewery and slaughterhouse. There was also a railway goods yard, quite a large one, a little railway station, styled as Knotty Ash and Stanley, and a very nice open piece of parkland called Springfield Park. There was too, an artesian well (borehole) in the low lying land near to the goods yard, which supplied the water for the little brewery, and also water into the local brook, flowing through the village after which the then new road, named Brookfield Avenue took its name.

I used to drink from this brook as a boy, as I did from a small fresh water spring that was in the field alongside Thomas Lane before the road was made up. We had a parish church, St John the Evangelist, the vicar was Canon Powell, and we also had a small Wesleyan Chapel. Canon Powell was quite considerably attached to the village school, paying numerous visits for prayers, occasions such as Empire Days, School functions and Annual Sports Days. Later on both Roy and I became involved in confirmation classes.

The village church in those days was virtually the centre of village life, but I do clearly remember the difference on a Sunday service if the vicar and the curate were going to be absent and the service was conducted by our favourite lay reader, officially titled in the church booklet as the Ruri – Deaconal Lay Reader, but my goodness was he well liked! The congregation was more than doubled when he conducted the service and I too always enjoyed his preaching. He didn’t live in the parish but came on his bicycle from Moscow Drive, Green Lane, Stoneycroft. His name was 16

Mr Pollard, and I now know that his manner of preaching the gospel altered for me my entire life’s beliefs and followings. Although I was confirmed Church of England and married Church of England, from the 1940s onwards I began to favour Wesleyan Methodism and still do to this day.

Family holidays were always a bit difficult for our family because of Dad not being able to be away from our shop for long. However I do well remember a couple of short holidays that Mum and Dad managed to arrange for us. One was to Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula to a boarding house at No 49 Ferndale Road. The bottom end of the road joined the little promenade so it was easy for us to get to the sands and the seaside each day. We travelled there by underground electric train from Liverpool to Birkenhead Park Station, where we then changed trains on to a little steam train that ran to all stations to West Kirby. I mention this particularly because the station before Hoylake was called Meols, and by this station was a lovely big duck pond. Dad used to travel back to work each day and return to us each evening. We were all having a super holiday there until I managed to get a really nasty cut finger, on a clockwork metal tug boat, which Dad had bought for me, so I was a wounded soldier for the rest of the holiday.

Back at home Dad always rode his bicycle to work and on his way home he would pass Knotty Ash Railway Station, and sometimes during the summer months there would be an advertising hoarding, outside the station, advertising Sunday and or Bank Holiday excursion trains to Ainsdale Beach, and Southport. So one weekend Dad announced after breakfast that we would all be going to the seaside at Ainsdale, where we would have a picnic, play on the beach and paddle etc. This was a really fun day out that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Whilst there, my Mum and Dad noticed that there was also a small boating/fishing lake, with some wooden summer holiday chalets around it. They had obviously made enquiries concerning these chalets and soon we were promised a short summer holiday stay in one of them. We duly travelled there by the usual train from Knotty Ash Station. We had, I think, two other family members staying with us (friends of Mum and Dad), as well as Mum, Dad, myself, Roy and Joyce.

But the main memory for me was during one early afternoon. I was paddling in the lake with Roy and another boy when a girl came over to me to ask if I could swim out to a coloured piece of material that was 17

floating on the surface about 20 feet out. I said of course I could, and I did. When I reached it the coloured piece of material turned out to be my own little sister Joyce, floating upside down on the surface!! I grabbed her, putting her over my shoulder and shouted to Roy to go back to the chalet to tell somebody. I then carried her upside down over my back to the chalet. Fortunately she was coughing and spluttering and by the time we reached the chalet she was breathing ok again. Needless to say our Ainsdale holiday ended there and then, and it was some time before we returned to Ainsdale Beach, and we never ever returned to the chalets!!

To conclude this chapter I will relate what became known in the family as The Chorlton –Cum – Hardy Saga!

Dad said one day, we are all going on a Bank Holiday Excursion to Ainsdale Beach from Knotty Ash Station with our Aunty Beth and several of her neighbours who also lived close to the station. We took a small tent, picnic food, towels and costumes and the like. When we arrived at Ainsdale, my dad and several others enquired at the station office for times of the trains back to Knotty Ash Station and were told that there were three trains one at 6.25pm, another at 6.45pm and another at 7.00pm and that all these trains would stop at Knotty Ash Station to pick up water. Dad said we would get the 6.25pm train. So, after a really super Bank Holiday day out; The Ice-cream Hut was open and the St Johns Ambulance tent was there too, we and many others, tired, sunburnt a bit, got to the station for the 6.25pm train.

The train duly arrived, a biggish one, but there was quite a bit of room for us all, and, away we went homeward. The train pulled in at Aintree Central but hardly anyone got off there. Then as it left Aintree, it gathered speed, and made no more stops, not even at Knotty Ash! Consternation of course in our compartment and judging from the number of other compartments shouting to each other through open windows, all was not right. In the meantime the train thundered on, one or two people suggested pulling the communication cord, but nobody did so. As the journey went on, I remember Gateacre station flying by also Padgate, Urmston and many more, of course as a boy I was secretly enjoying such a smashing railway outing, but for the grownups it was obviously a very worrying time. Anyway by the time we had thundered past Trafford Park station, it had started to rain and was now dark. Then the train slowed down and finally drew into a non-lit closed station called Chorlton – Cum –Hardy. Where upon 30 – 40 passengers emptied out onto the platform 18

much to the surprise of the guard, the driver, fireman and the signal box man too!

The station master was brought and after a heated discussion and some phone calls from the signal box, we were told that an empty carriage train would be coming through in 15 minutes, which would take us to Manchester Central were the last Liverpool Express would be held back for us, The Knotty Ash Crowd, in order that we could get back as near home as possible. I’m sure a lot of the grownups that day, aged considerably. I later found out that the 6.25pm train we were put on at Ainsdale was a ‘wakes week’ special from Wakefield on its way home!

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CHAPTER 2 1935 – 1944/45 THE FORMATIVE YEARS AND THE COMING OF A TERRIBLE WAR Life in Knotty Ash carries on, as normal, with school life, village life and the general community helping each other, as they did then. We were now well installed in Thomas Lane in the house which was called Aldrever when we first moved in, but now numbered, 135. My friend and pal John Bostock lived a few doors down in a house originally called Trelawny, but now numbered, 127. I was still at Knotty Ash Village School which was attached to St Johns parish church as was the infant school also.

During these early 1930s years, I distinctly remember St Edwards Orphanage, Thingwall, Broadgreen, which was just around the corner from my house, hosting a special religious feast day celebration (to do with the Roman Catholic Church) and the day was in the summer, a red hot sunny day, and my brother Roy and I spent literally hours on that day, taking hundreds of glasses, cups, mugs, jugs of cold water, to our gate in the lane, for all the thousands of followers flocking to the feast day, as they made their way to the orphanage from Knotty Ash tramcar stop, in the heat. A lot of pennies (Id) were left on our little table by the gate, after that, for our money boxes.

I have clear memories too, of the passing over Knotty Ash, quite low down, of the Airship R101 in about 1937/38. I was extremely afraid of it and ran home from school.

It was about this time that school milk started; previously we had hot Horlicks in the winter. The charge for milk was 1/2d per 1/3 pint bottle, and we used to pay 21/2d per week for this. When I was at infant school I was made a prefect and given the job of coal monitor, which meant before school started in the morning during the winter, I had to bring in two buckets of coal to the fires. But I didn’t mind this as we were always up early in our house, for Dad going to work etc.

My brother Roy took bad and was very poorly. Our Doctor (Dr W.R. Waters an Irishman) said he was concerned and wanted him in hospital, so he was taken to the New Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, In Eaton Road, Liverpool. He was immediately put on the critical list, as they had 20

diagnosed an internal Mastoid Abscess. Fortunately they (the hospital) had been able to find a surgeon who would chance drilling his head, if his parents agreed. Mum and Dad were very sorely tried but agreed to the procedure, which happily drained the abscess and saved his life. But poor little fella, he then contracted four or five children’s complaints whilst still in hospital, i.e. measles, scarlet fever, chicken pox. Which meant he was hospitalised for some weeks, and when he came home he was as thin as a rake and very weak, but nevertheless we got along, all helping when we could. Shortly after this, nearing Christmas, I went down with a very sore throat, I couldn’t swallow properly – I had caught Diphtheria from somewhere; and nobody was allowed in or out of the house, except my dad to work and the Doctor. But it was soon obvious that I too, needed to be hospitalised from the Public Health point of view.

I was admitted to the Liverpool Isolation Hospital in Mill Lane, Wavertree, Liverpool, and was in there over a Christmas but got better fairly quickly, coming home after the New Year. When arrangements were made for me to go to Hereford to little Grandma’s sister in laws (Auntie Cissie) home. I was taken by train from Birkenhead by my Aunty Elsie, for my recuperation out there in the country. I have distant memories of sitting in the back of a horse-drawn milkman’s cart, with three large churns of milk, and ladies coming out to the cart with jugs for their milk, which the milkman ladled out of the big churns.

To return to my education, in 1938, we at Knotty Ash School were given the opportunity to attend for an afternoon in the woodwork room, at a new school at Northway, Wavertree. I really enjoyed this, and learned to make a tea-tray in mahogany wood and a little bedside table also.

I was helping out too, at my dad’s butchers shop and he was obviously teaching me the trade. It was there that I really learnt how to cycle, having to use the shop carrier cycle for deliveries and fetching etc. I soon got myself, my own, second hand full size bike (a Rudge – Whitworth Roadster – with dropped handlebars). This made a huge difference to my life, as I was able to go on messages, to fetch and bring or call on people, without needing to use the tramcars.

About this time my mother had encouraged me to go for piano lessons, as we had at home an upright Rushworth and Draper piano, which I am told had originally been bought for me by Mum and Dad. So I went for piano lessons, with a lady called Miss Lydia Evans, at 16 Ionic Road, Derby Lane, Liverpool (near to dads shop). My lessons were fixed for Saturday 21

morning, as I was already at the shop on Saturdays to help dad, and the staff. All went well with my piano lessons, and in due course I was entered for Trinity College of Music examinations. Which I played for and was awarded two certificates, one presented at Picton Hall – and another at The Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. I still have these two certificates to this day, stored in the top of the wardrobe!

In some respects, looking back, I am bound to wonder, just a little, if I should have carried on in the Piano World, but Roy my brother was ten times better at playing the piano than me, and eventually he became organist at Knotty Ash church. About this time too I learned that I wasn’t good enough for a Junior City Scholarship, so I was offered a place at a central school, either commercial or technical, I chose the commercial, going on to Lister Drive School, which was conveniently situated close to dads shop, and within comfortable cycling distance from home.

I really liked it, we had a woodwork workshop, science and chemistry labs and we had two swimming baths right next door, alongside the Lister Drive Power Station. I was thrilled when I joined the Carnegie Library which was just on the corner of Lister Drive and Green Lane, and this school was very keen on organised school trips and outings. I can vividly remember trips to Port Sunlight for the soap works and to Lever Brothers, to Buxton, Matlock and Bowness in the Lake District.

I can still remember, to this day, being shown a demonstration of the first automatic telephone dialling system, provided at the school, by the Automatic Telephone Company of Edge Lane, Liverpool.

How things and life have changed!

My pal John and I were great Meccano enthusiasts, and we spent many hours constructing numerous models, some working ones too! Our finest hour was when we put all our sets together to make a Blackpool Tower model with a working lift too! John and I joined the scouts at the 16th Wavertree Troop at Wellington Avenue Methodist Church but after a month or two John decided he didn’t like it, so he left. But I enjoyed it and carried on, and have numerous happy scouting memories of valuable camping experiences, in local places such as Childwall Woods, Tawd Vale (Ormskirk) and later on Rowen (Conway) and Llangollen, North Wales.

Whilst at Lister Drive School, I joined the swimming team to learn lifesaving. My dad having taught me to swim at The Harold Davies Swimming Baths at Dovecot. If there is one little tiny regret that I have in life, it is that the war came in the September of 1939, just when my life 22

saving test was booked for, and consequently, it was cancelled, because of evacuation plans, and I never got the opportunity again to do it.

Over many weekends during 1938/39, I used to do a lot of cycling trips, some of my favourite ones being over to North Wales. I used to get up early on a Sunday morning, have a quick breakfast and set off on the bike to the Liverpool Pier Head, to catch the 9am ferry to Birkenhead and them off along the A41 to places in Wales, such as Wrexham, Ruabon, Chester, Talacre and Flint.

In my spare time my real hobby became Radio. I built my first crystal set in 1937 and followed this with a one-valve battery set in 1938. I was able to get books on the subject from the Carnegie Library and I had built a kind of Radio Shack, in the cockloft (attic) of 135 Thomas Lane, were I spent many happy hours. One night, very late I managed to receive a signal from New-York City Radio (obviously a freak reception) for ten minutes or so, but was I thrilled! Little was I to realise, how helpful that bit of hobby knowledge was to become for me.

At school about the middle of the year, the headmaster sent for me, to tell me that my standard was very high and he felt that I would pass an examination for a senior grammar school scholarship. I took his advice and passed the exam and chose to go to The Liverpool Collegiate Grammar School after the summer holidays.

This school was near to the centre of Liverpool, but in fine weather I could still reach it on my bike alright. During the summer holidays I had taken on some farm work in the Llangollen area, where one had board and lodgings for the harvest season. It was during this spell in August/September that I was called from the cow-house one day by Mrs Williams, the farmer’s wife, to tell me that the post lady had come, on horseback, with a telegram for me. It was news that my granddad (my dad’s dad) had died suddenly and would I like to come back to Liverpool to be a bearer and attend the funeral. If so, my rail fare would be wired to me. The post lady took my yes reply for me, my rail fare duly arrived and I went into Llangollen to get my ticket at the station.

My trip to Liverpool was to start with a sad affair, until the early morning Birkenhead train reached Acrefair station, when a church minister got on and sat directly opposite me. I had been alone in the compartment until then. We got into conversation and after a quarter of an hour I felt a lot less sad. The meeting with that stranger, for me, 23

whoever he was, made a huge impression on my future life. The funeral went ahead as planned and I returned to Llangollen in the evening.

We carried on harvesting at Llangollen as the weather permitted and one evening I noticed there was an old battery radio in one of the living room cupboards. The farm was terribly primitive really, no running water, no electricity, it had paraffin lamps, candles and a large range for logs and coal. I mentioned to Mr Williams (the farmer) about this radio, and my hobby, and he let me have a look at it. I corrected a few loose wires and dirty terminals, and then found the accumulator to be flat. I pointed this out to him, it was then a Friday night, and he said perhaps I could take it to the bike shop in Llangollen on the Saturday morning to get another one fully charged.

I saddled the mare on the Saturday morning, after milking was over, and took the accumulator into town about midday. When I got to the bike shop, on Holyhead Road, the man said I’m very sorry lad, all my batteries have gone out, everyone is expecting serious news over this weekend, but if you’ll leave your battery with me now, I’ll have it charged up for you by half past five this evening. So I did just that, taking the mare down to the smithy by the mill, where they would water and feed her and went off alongside the riverside walk until about five o’clock.

When I returned to the bike shop the man was waiting by the door with the accumulator in his hand. I paid him, thanked him and returned to the farm. Later on that evening, I got the old radio working, so Mr Williams said switch it off now and save it for tomorrow, which I did. On the morrow, a Sunday I think, we put the set on again about 11.30am and heard that an announcement was to be made later. That announcement was when I heard the news from London: The Declaration of War. The next fortnight was pretty hectic. I returned to Liverpool to hear that my new school was evacuating to Bangor, North Wales. Roy’s school was evacuating to Shrewsbury and that all sorts of emergency powers were being hurriedly taken, all forces leave cancelled, all available troops called to arms and all reservists and territorials mobilised. News of the blackout being introduced and very sadly, I thought, all foreign nationals in this country being rounded up by the police and re- settled in camps and towns elsewhere, an example being The Isle of Man. There were rumours of food rationing, petrol rationing and of clothing coupons; but at that time a lot of people said ‘Oh it will all be over by Christmas, when our boys get over there!’

24

Our school evacuation to Bangor was very well organised and I have to say, that for me personally, was very little difference to going away to scout camp, but not so for some of the evacuees. Quite a number returned home in the first month and the lad who was billeted with me got homesick and his parents came over and collected him. My foster parents if I may call them that, were kind and helpful to me in as much as they could afford to be, remembering that they lived on a council estate, and he worked down at Port Penrhyn for the quarry slate people. Mr Foster was a tall man, 6ft 6ins, big built with hard hands and a soft kind heart, who obviously dearly loved his wife. Mrs Foster was a kindly loving little Welsh lady who always called me Thomaaaaas, Thomas being my first Christian name, whenever she wanted me.

Mr Foster grew lovely cucumbers in his cold frame, although I didn’t really like cucumbers!! I went to school at Friars School – Bangor, a lovely newly built one, with super sports facilities and gymnasium. But the school was naturally overcrowded so there had to be some considerable reorganisation of timetables etc.

We were taken out into the country at least two days a week, for nature walks and map making, which I found very interesting. As the weeks went by, my bike (from home) was brought out to me, by one of my dad’s meat customers, whose son was in the same class as me, and this enabled me to get quite a few of North Wales bike rides in, over weekend. It was also useful for going on messages for Mrs Foster as the estate we lived on, called, Maes Gerchen Housing Estate, was about 3 miles outside Bangor Town with no near useful bus service then.

National registration took place very quickly by house to house visits and I can still remember my number on my registration card - ZDAN-106-4. Gas masks had been hurriedly issued out at all schools; village halls, etc. and we had practise days at school. Practising wearing our gas masks, just in case they might be needed. Air Raid sirens were being installed all over the country and I can remember them being tested once a month in the countryside near Bangor. I used to cycle down to Garth in Bangor to where the little pier was and sometimes I would see the Liverpool steamer either the St Tudno or the St Seiriol at the MenaiBridge landing stage. Communication with home was by post mainly, although school had a letter service to Liverpool once a week. I relied on the post as did my parents.

25

Prior to me being evacuated and just shortly before the outbreak of war, my Aunty Beth’s husband Uncle Alec was very poorly with pneumonia, after an accident in a works football match. They had just recently moved house to a lovely semi in Hilary Avenue, Roby, Liverpool.

Unfortunately Uncle Alec died, and because their new house purchase papers had not been signed up, they lost the house and had to move out.

So Aunty Beth and her son Gordon came to live with us temporarily at 135. I was more or less entrusted with Gordon’s safe keeping, taking him to school, giving him his meals, etc., as Aunty Beth had to return to her old job at Coopers stores in Liverpool City Centre, as a telephonist.

I still remember the phone number for Coopers, it was ROYAL 6000 (ROYAL being the exchange name then, as we were still on manual telephones at that time). Dads shop in Derby Lane, Old Swan, Liverpool had the telephone number of OLD SWAN 1386. While I was evacuated I wrote a boys letter to Gordon from Bangor, giving him sort of directions that he should follow, to look after my mother (he knew her as Aunty Alice), and such as morning cup of tea, breakfast, etc. Many years ago, Gordon visited me and surprised me by producing the very same letter that I had written to him, together with a photocopy of it (and the envelope), telling me how much he had treasured it all through the years.

I know he still has it today. It brought back many war time memories for me.

By the Easter of 1940 my class and two others had been moved from Bangor along the coast to Llanfairfechan, to different billets and schooling taking place in The Staffordshire Heath Homes Residence. This was not for long however, for we were soon all moved back to Liverpool and to the college in Shaw Street, Liverpool once again. On my return to home, it seemed to me an enormous amount of changes had taken place. Many households had been given Anderson Air Raid Shelters, installed by Liverpool Corporation. Schools and colleges had air raid shelters built in the school yards and the city had some barrage balloons flying above the docks and industrial areas. The new power station at Clarence Dock was opened and running and my friend John’s dad took us down to it, to show us around. I was very keenly interested, not then realising of course, that my life future would have some electrical generating aspects to happen for me, albeit during my naval services.

There were also air raid shelters being built on spare land in parks, close to railway stations, tram terminals, cinemas and football grounds.

26

The blackout was being introduced as fast as possible, and a lot of people were putting sticky tape across their exterior glass windows to reduce flying glass from bomb blasts. On reflection though I truly think my dad was glad to have me home as my interest in our shop and the butchery trade was keen. I enjoyed it and for my age I have to admit I was quite good at it.

The call up for military service was really taking its toll of all young men under 25 years of age, many businesses were running short-handed, some just had to close down; and this is the time when I used to go down to Broadgreen Station at weekends and evenings to voluntarily help out there. The staff at the station had been reduced to just two and the signalman, due to military call up. Some weekends there was only the signalman and me to run the station. On a Sunday afternoon/evening the signalman was a terror for his coal fire in the signal box. He used to stop a goods train at the signal outside his box, shout out to the fireman for a bucket of coal, and then send me down to the locomotive with the bucket for it.

Although we had an otherwise good relationship working together, he was upset when it came for my time to go to the Navy. As I was leaving, he shook my hand, wished me good luck, then to my surprise took his keys out of his pocket, saying ‘here yar lad, have my whistle in case your shipwrecked and in the water in the dark, they’ll know then where yar’. I have treasured that whistle all my life. Fortunately I never needed it, but all my grandchildren and great grandchildren know of it and often ask me can I blow your whistle granddad please?

Food rationing came pretty quickly, and meat registration for meat, which involved me mainly, in making up a legal register book, of our shops registered customers. The information being obtained from food ration books, held by the customers. These books had been issued by the Ministry of Food local offices. All butchers meats were on strict ration that is: Beef, Lamb, Mutton, Pork, Veal and tinned meats such as corned beef, corned mutton etc. Offal, sausages, tripe and pigs feet were not on the ration, but were not always available.

Once or twice a week, usually during the day, the air raid sirens would sound, and the sound of aircraft would be faintly heard and sometimes the sound of ack-ack fire, but usually the alarms then were only of short duration of approximately 45 minutes.

27

About this time too, my mother confided in me that dad’s butchery firm D. Higgins & Sons had gone bust, and dad had to arrange hurried mortgage funds. He’d done this through our Uncle Jack, who was blind, who was in the Insurance Industry and fortunately for us had connections. So that dad was able to buy the shop property and business.

Mum asked me not to worry dad about it just then, so I didn’t. However during the coming months of 1940, dad eventually talked to me about it all. A rather nasty business, so I was told. None of the Liverpool shop managers were warned or told of the firm’s bankruptcy, until one of the other managers heard a rumour at the Liverpool Meat Market, and he telephoned my dad to tell him.

However I feel that I can say, all’s well that ends well, as in spite of the war, the shop and our business survived and prospered for both my father and for me too, following in his footsteps.

Regarding the war, 1940 was happily quietest in our neck of the woods. We got a new bigger fridge in the shop, it was badly needed as the little old one had been there since 1921! The shop staff was considerably reduced, due to call up, and I was doing much more behind the scenes help work, in order to assist. My Aunty Beth and cousin Gordon had moved to a terraced property at No 4 Renville Road, Broadgreen, Liverpool which was barely a stone’s throw from our house in Thomas Lane, and I spent many nights, sleeping over at that address, to help with Gordon and his meals and schooling.

Although I say it myself, from the butchery point of view, there was not a lot I didn’t know about the trade, meat or poultry. I could cut up carcasses, split lambs and pigs, bone-out and dress all poultry (turkeys, ducks, geese and chickens) and rabbits too, and make sausages and beef dripping.

My pal John Bostock was learning to drive in his dads car and he asked me if I would like to do so as well. I said I would, so Mr Bostock used to take us both out for lessons. We both soon got the hang of it, so that about a year later when my dad got a car, I could drive alright. This car, a 1936 Hillman Minx registration CKA 948, was a real help to our family, in many ways, and I will refer to it several times later on.

Dad had become an air raid warden, together with half a dozen other local neighbours of a similar age. I had become an air raid messenger, by virtue of my scout group membership and cycling ability, in case 28

telephone lines were blown down and messages had to be delivered by hand (which later on they had to be sadly).

A lot of our shop customers had connections or attachments with shipping and/or the docks. We kept getting sad news via these people.

We received news that the Rawalpindi an armed merchant cruiser was sunk on convoy duty north of the Faroe Islands on 23rd November 1939, leaving only 48 survivors and killing 238 men, including her captain, Captain Kennedy who was the father of the now well-known broadcaster and author Ludovic Kennedy. This was one of many merchant ships that were sunk. Also in June 1940 we heard of the sinking of RMS Lancastria with the loss of 4000 lives.

My brother Roy, back home from evacuation, was busying himself with his music life and his duties finally got him involved at the Knotty Ash Parish Church as their organist. My sister Joyce, now attending Childwall Valley High School, had made numerous friends, especially Doreen Marks, our next door neighbour, and their friendship became a lifelong one.

I was still enjoying my radio hobby whenever possible, and one day when I was buying some batteries at a local cycle/radio shop in Green Lane, Liverpool opposite the tram sheds, the owner Mr Ted Hughes, was working on a battery set chassis on the counter. After a short conversation between us, he realised just how au-fait I was with radio sets, and he told me how much radio repair work he had to turn away because he was too old to travel far. He said most of the people who lived out Dovecot way (this was the area out towards Knotty Ash – where I lived) had nowhere to go for repairs. I said I would go out to these addresses by bike, hence the beginning of my part time radio repair work, and although I say it myself, I became quite well known for radio repairs in the Dovecot, West Derby, Knotty Ash, Page Moss, Huyton and Roby areas.

My scout troop was still managing to survive, despite the shortage of officers due to the call-up. I became group scoutmaster (GSM) and three of my scout pals, who had helped the troop along for many years, became troop scoutmaster and assistant scout masters. Namely Mr Bill Stothart, Mr George Hughes and Mr Ken Jones (nicknamed Ginger for obvious reasons). The four of us i.e. Bill, George, Ken and me, decided to keep in touch for the rest of our lives, and this we did, in fact to this day. I have 29

just recently visited Bill and his lady wife (in retirement), the other two pals having passed on.

Around Thomas Lane, various large war time changes were underway.

Anti-tank defences were constructed at the junction of Thomas Lane, Edge Lane Drive and Thingwall Hall Drive, an air aid wardens post built on the corner of Edge Lane Drive and Thomas Lane on wasteland and the Broadgreen Sanatorium patients, transferred to elsewhere and its buildings converted to a General Hospital, with five new ground floor wards added, locally known as the military wards. I soon began to realise the need for all this, as we were warned at Broadgreen station, that wounded servicemen may be brought to us for transfer to Broadgreen General Hospital, and I did help, during the night on several occasions, with wounded men on stretchers, getting them off the ambulance trains and on to the waiting army ambulances outside the station.

The Dunkirk evacuation of the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force) in May 1940 came as a dreadful shock to everybody, and brought home to all, the dire situation our country was then in. Two of the Liverpool Mersey Ferry boats had taken part in the evacuation (as did thousands of brave men and women). They were The Royal Daffodil and The Royal Iris.

Both fortunately survived the event, and, so I was told, both had quite a few bullet holes which had to be repaired.

The air raid warnings kept occurring quite regularly, but it wasn’t until one weekend in (I think) October, that we had an evening one, approx.

9.30pm, and very shortly afterwards planes were overhead and above, and a few smallish bombs fell in the Swanside Road, Swanside Avenue and Dovecot Park area. A fair amount of house, roof and window damage occurred, nobody was killed thankfully. Many were shaken and a lot of streets had no electricity, gas or water, due to bomb damage. Our relatives who lived in these streets, namely Uncle Jack (the blind man) and his family and Uncle Arthur and Aunty Ida, both came to our house to ask us for cooking facilities over the coming weekend, this was willingly provided.

At my scout church, Wellington Avenue Methodist Church, we gave a Christmas Party each Christmas, and invited about twenty or so children from an inner city Sunday school to come and have a free party with us.

We provided a charabanc to bring them and afterwards to take them home. I went back with several other scouters to see these visiting children safely home, in the blackout, and the desperately sad conditions 30

under which they lived, in that part of Liverpool shocked me to the core.

Some of their homes were no better than pigsties.

Life at school went on as normal as possible, my brother Roy at The Holt High School, doing quite well, my sister Joyce at The Childwall Valley High School, grumbling about too much homework and that she didn’t like hockey very much. I was quite enjoying my school, struggling a bit with languages and general English, but otherwise it was alright. One day after I had been at The Collegiate School for a year or so, we were handed leaflets concerning H. M. Forces and a scheme called the Y Scheme. Giving details about how to enter this scheme for further education, leading to officer commissions in H.M. Forces. After a chat at home with my dad and mum, I decided that after I left school I would apply for this scheme and see if I was accepted.

The black-out was now in full force, nights were very dark, only the reduced lighting on the trains, visible and the darkened headlights on motor vehicles. Most pedestrians carried a torch, not permanently on, but ready for use for pavements, steps or potholes etc. The news on the radio each day was depressing, sadness in all directions, The Battle of Britain in full force. News each morning about who, what or where ‘got it’ last night meaning the bombing. I can still remember London, Portsmouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Derby, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and then the almost complete obliteration of Coventry; many smaller towns and ports also got their share of the German hammering.

At the shop my dad was struggling with trying to share out fairly, the small allowed rations of fresh meats. The port of Liverpool was suffering severely from merchant ship losses, when a convoy went down. Although it has to be said that most of local seaman spoke very highly of the Yanks, saying they were doing all they could over there to help us.

Locally, in between air raids, over Childwall way, the army had set up an ack-ack unit with searchlights on the high ground overlooking Childwall Valley, and another ack-ack gun on the railway line operated between Knotty Ash and Gateacre. So not only did we have the noise of ack-ack shells as they fell to ground, we had all the noise of this building work taking place.

At our shop, Dad had made wooden window shutters to try to protect the front plate glass window, and eventually, we had to manage with a reduced shop window size, just the centre portion, in case of bomb blast.

The Christmas of 1940 was memorable in that, although everybody was 31

trying to make the best of things (foodwise – rationing etc.), the absence of so many young men, gone to the forces was plainly noticeable and everybody’s usual celebrations were somewhat curtailed.

Our family tried hard to carry on with our usual tradition, work at the shop, was much increased, over the Xmas period, more or less as ever, but this mainly involved Xmas poultry orders, which of course all had to be dressed ready for the table. I had a few late nights plucking and dressing turkeys, geese, ducks and chickens, in the run-up to Christmas Eve. I was still staying over at Aunty Beth’s house in Renville Road, for the odd night or two, looking after young Gordon, and I can still remember the terribly sore and swollen right hand and knuckles, that I had got from all the poultry drawing. It took me all of a weekend to get the swelling to go down and start healing, with bowls of red hot water (not many antibiotics in those days).

Elsewhere out in the city outskirts, around Simonswood and Kirkby villages the building of a large ammunitions factory was hurriedly underway, and firms such as A V Roe, aircraft manufacturers and English Electric had large new factory buildings alongside the East Lancashire Road, to assist the war effort. Small bungalow living accommodation units were also built in the village of Roby, in the fields alongside Rupert Road.

These became known locally as the M A P bungalows (Ministry of Aircraft Production) and were tenanted by the factory workers from Kirkby, a special works bus service took the workers to work and brought them home again, to coincide with shift times.

The building of the munitions factory was being done by any building/construction firms that could provide the labour, and one of these men, a chap (a widower) from the Norfolk area, was looking for local Liverpool lodgings. Aunty Beth at Renville Road, had a spare bedroom and took him in, and in the fullness of time, they got attached, and finally married. Later on, having a baby daughter, who they christened Barbara.

Sometimes on the dark winter nights, there would be a knock at our front door, I would go and answer it to see John Bostock’s dad at the door step. I would invite him in and shout to my dad “Mr Bostock’s here dad”.

Dad would shout from the lounge “Come in Clem”, then I would see Mr Bostock take two bottles of Guinness out of his coat pocket, for the two of them to share by the fireside.

32

Another little wartime memory, which I treasure, is one of weekend Sunday winter nights, when Mr and Mrs Marks (our neighbours from next door) would come round to be with us for an hour or so. Also with them their wartime lodger, an Italian gentleman, who was working as an interpreter/letter censor, for the post office with Mr Marks, would bring his violin and treat us all to a sort of musical evening on his violin, and he was really good too!

Early in 1941, the evening air raids became more regular, although most of the bombs that were dropped, were over the docks or the city centre, but then the incendiaries started to arrive. Although we in the Thomas Lane area only got them on three occasions. We, the A.R.P staff reckoned we could cope with most of these fire bombs with sand bags, stirrup pumps and soil and spades. Although poor Mr Bostock’s house copped one right through the roof and on the top of the stairs, on the landing. Fortunately he was at home, and managed to get at it and get it out of the house, but it did a lot of damage. Some people also lost sheds and fences on fire. Then the bomb squad notified us, that we should be extra careful, as the Germans were now starting to drop different incendiaries, some with an explosive charge in the tail. So we kept little stocks of sandbags outside house, front gates, so that we could get at them quickly, if and when needed. These evening and overnight raids were becoming a right old nuisance, almost every night, for weeks on end, some people and their families deciding to sleep the nights in their air raid shelters. Which is obviously just what the Germans were trying to do!

Clothing coupons were being introduced and petrol rationing became so stringent, that dad decided for the time being to lay-up our car in his little timber and asbestos garage, for part of the year. So I jacked her up and put her on timber blocks, and covered her with some carpets.

At about the same time, Dad was suffering with a boil on his left arm, just above his wrist; he said he wasn’t too worried about it. But by that weekend, it was huge and swollen, so on the Sunday evening, my mother called for the doctor, and a locum doctor came out. He went into the lounge to examine dad, and mum came out into the kitchen, saying to me “Oh! Drever, he’s a black man that’s come”. I remember saying to her “so what Mum!! Dad needs a doctor urgently; his colour (the doctors) doesn’t matter”. Anyway Dad had a very nasty four headed carbuncle, the doctor lanced it for him and dressed it, and in a couple of weeks it healed up. The 33

doctor said it had probably developed following a meat bone scratch originally.

During my research reading for my radio repairs, I found the publications, The Wireless World and F J Cammes Practical and Amateur Wireless, a great help to me and in these, I read of the early T.V. transmissions from Alexander Palace and the early John Logie Baird transmission system.

At almost every air raid warning at night Mr Bostock had to go off down to one or other of the power stations, but luckily none of the stations got seriously hit. He would still on some weekends take John and I with him, and just for those readers with any steam power station (coal fired) knowledge: If I just mention Babcock and Wilcox, and Chain – Grate Stoker, those readers will understand.

During these early war years, Mum kept quite well, taking everything into consideration. But on the one or two occasions that she was down bad with something, I usually managed to keep the house routine going, albeit, dinners by me were usually stews and teas were bread and jam.

Roy was always busy with his music career until eventually his call up came for the forces. Joyce had joined the guides, and she and her friend Doreen from next door were inseparable pals.

In May, we got the worst battering of the war, which became known as the May Blitz. The usual sirens at 9.30pm every evening, the arrival of the bombers right through until at least 1am and through every weekend too! As far as I can remember, they were not incendiaries this time for us locally, but plenty of H. E.s (high explosives) and even some parachute mines too! The Friday and Saturday nights were the worst for us, but the city and the docks and the railway yards got it almost every night. One Friday night dad was on warden duty at our local public air raid shelter, and I was about to go down the shelters steps, when a local bomb (a big one) landed very, very close, on a railway bridge nearby. It blew the entire bridge on to the railway track and its blast, blew me down the shelter steps and rocked the shelter. Everyone said “Blimey that’s a big one, and near”, so I and a couple of other wardens, went out to see where it was.

We didn’t need to go far, it was just at the top of a little close of houses, called Eilean Grove, and the (once) railway bridge was gone, just an immense pile of bricks and stonework on the railway tracks. Most houses had no windows left, all blown out, several roofs badly holed and a local lady air raid warden named Mrs Harrison, she had a large hole in the roof 34

of her house. She came to me and said “Drever please come in to my house, I can see the sky through the bedroom ceiling and I think I’ve got a bomb on me bed!!” I went in with my torch, because the electricity was off, and she was correct about the sky through the bedroom ceiling. But the thing on her bed was a huge lump of clay, the size of a wheelbarrow, which had been thrown up, by the bomb. There were also several other houses and gardens that had lumps of clay or debris thrown up by the explosion. There was quite a deep hole in the side garden of our house, which Dad discovered in the daylight, which for a time the wardens thought was a U.X.B. (unexploded bomb). But the army chaps came later and excavated and declared it safe, as it was another huge lump of clay.

I had gone over to the warden’s post to tell Jack the signalman about the bridge and the bomb and he was on the phone trying to tell the railway about it. When he said “Hey, listen Drever, isn’t that a train coming up now?” It surely was! So he said “Try and Stop it!” ( he wasn’t able to, as he was disabled as a result of injuries received in the 1 st world war), so I dashed out with my bike lamp, climbed over the railings (the same ones that I had been absolutely forbidden to go anywhere near to all my life!!). I got down onto the track just in time to see the headlamp on the loco coming into the tunnel.

I stood in the centre of the track, swinging my lamp from side to side, and fortunately, I heard the steam being shut off, and the train clanked, slower and slower, out of the tunnel, pulling up almost alongside me.

There were three men in the loco, one with a hat on and carrying a lamp climbed down towards me, swearing and saying “What the Bloody Hell are you playing at?” The man, who was obviously the driver, called down from the cab, “Just a minute George” and then said to me “What’s up lad?” Where upon I told him about the bomb and the bridge. “Jesus!” he said, “Can we not get through?” “No” I said, so he then told George to take a look. George soon returned, to confirm what I’d said was correct and the driver thanked me, then he said to all present: “So now we’ll have to back this bloody lot all the way back to Gateacre, and off they reversed!

The bombing that night continued almost until daybreak and in the morning we got a phone message asking for help at the Rocket (this was a district just a short distance from the station) Air Raid Shelter on Queens Drive, Liverpool, as a big bomb had been dropped right in front of its doorway and people were trapped. I went up with three others, with our spades to assist. But although we managed to help some fifteen to twenty 35

people out, badly shaken, some injured. One whole side of the shelter had collapsed onto itself, caused by the blast, and very sadly quite a lot of people died in there, all except for a small baby who thankfully survived and was brought out by a very slim rescue lad, who fortunately was able to squeeze through and reach it. The dead were later recovered when the heavy lifting gear arrived.

I could hear explosions going on towards the north of the city, right into the morning after, which I later found out that an ammunition ship in Huskisson Dock had caught fire and blew up, and an ammunition train alongside Breckside Park, had, too caught fire and most if it blew up too!

Part of Norris Green (another district of Liverpool) had been closed off, whilst the bomb squad attended to an unexploded landmine that was hanging from its trapped parachute along the side of the Norris Green Primary School. Later on that weekend we also heard of the tragedy of Durning Road School, were the inmates of its underground air raid shelter, although safe from the bombs, had become trapped in by debris and tragically drowned from burst water mains. Terrible War! I’d occasion to make two message runs by cycle over the weekend also, one run out to the Finch Lane (in the Dovecot district) AFS Station asking for assistance at Edge Grove in Stanley (another Liverpool district), were they had been hit by a large bomb and a lot of houses were down. Then on the Monday, I had to go right into town (Liverpool city centre), to the Mersey Tunnel ventilation building, to the Rescue Squad office. The scenes in Liverpool City Centre were absolutely tragic: Lewis’s the big department store was burnt out on the top three floors, one half of Paradise Street was gone, just debris, and one side of Lord Street, parts still burning, as the fire brigades tried to pump water from the river. There were so many hoses and debris everywhere that I had to virtually carry my bike, from Lime Street station to the Pier Head.

Anyway enough of blitzes and sad stories. Air raids seemed to go a bit easier in the autumn and happily by Christmas it was quieter again. This Christmas in dads shop. Was even harder, rationing was really tight and even trying to get sufficient poultry for our Christmas orders was a struggle. I had to travel around quite a bit for Dad to get sufficient supplies. The staff position too at the shop was getting tighter too!

Originally we had Les (Dads second man), Colin, Billy (known affectionately as Little Billy because of his spinal deformity), little Les and Arthur. Because of call up Les (second man) and Colin, had had to go. This 36

then left: Dad, Little Billy, Little Les, Arthur and me. But by 1942, Little Les had also been called up, so it was quite a struggle at times. Shop keys were held by Les (second man), Dad and Colin (as he and Little Billy only lived across the road from the shop) so when Colin was called up, his keys transferred to Little Billy and there is no doubt in my mind, that a bond formed between my Dad and Little Billy during these difficult years, because later on when we finally had a telephone at 135, Little Billy would phone my dad almost every night to tell ‘the boss’ that all was well at the shop.

As we moved into 1941, I was trying my best at school to cope with the harder higher education and found homework a bind at times. Dad had bought us an electric HMV (His Masters Voice) radiogram from Mr Scott the postmaster, in the next door shop to ours. Mum really loved it, playing both 9” and 12” records that she bought, mainly musicals and vocals, and she would have one or two neighbours in during the afternoons for little musical soirees. We had never had a battery set, except for the odd ones that I bought home to repair, usually requiring soldering.

Then, on the war front came the shattering news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, where five battleships were sunk, fourteen other ships rendered useless and approximately 2500 killed.

This was just before Christmas 1941 and was a major turning point in what was now becoming a world conflict. There were now many, many war signs appearing everywhere, army lorries with troops on board, passing up and down all major roads, goods trains passing through Broadgreen Station loaded with army tanks, army vehicles and guns etc.

Army tanks and army equipment, being transported along Prescot Road, Knotty Ash, heading towards the port. What had been the local Territorial Army depot in West Derby, became enlarged into a full scale military depot and work began hurriedly on the construction of a literally huge American Airport Base at Burtonwood Village, out in the green field’s countryside between Warrington and Newton le Willows.

This base very soon became operational and almost nightly, for four or five months, massive American transport planes ran a shuttle service from the USA into Britain, carrying all kinds of American gear, troops as well, so that we were soon used to seeing American jeeps riding around the town and I’m told Padgate, Warrington, Newton le Willows and 37

Earlestown were nightly over run with American Servicemen (The Yanks).

We also saw plenty of them in the Old Swan locality of our shop.

Dad was getting annoyed at times, in the shop, because of the interfering attitudes of the Ministry of Food Inspectors, calling in at inopportune times. I understand that on one busy occasion, on a busy day in the shop, when two of these inspectors called, one irate regular lady customer, politely told them “can’t you see the poor man’s busy! B----Off!! So they did quickly! Wartime life in the retail meat trade!!

By the spring of 1942, school term exams were being taken and in my case my results were quite satisfactory, so I asked Dad about the Y Scheme again. He said I might as well go ahead with it, so long as I didn’t mind a lot more hard workshop work. Which the engineering course would entail, IF?? I was selected for it. I therefore applied, got the necessary forms, got them all duly signed, and after I’d received my school certificate result (called matriculation in those days) posted the forms together with my Matric results, which I might add for me were, surprisingly good and in due course, I got an appointment to Admiralty in London, with a railway warrant and an overnight subsistence allowance.

I went to Admiralty for my interview and a small entry examination, and towards the end of my interview with a naval officer (a lieutenant) he casually asked me “what do you think of the Kalamazoo System Mr Kendrick?” At first I was mystified, as my entire interview had, up to then been entirely of a technical nature, in the electrical and mechanical vein.

However as I had heard of, and read about the Kalamazoo System my reply to him was “Well sir, from what I know of it. It is proving to be useful in many ways and I’m sure the forces services, would find it a real help of they adopted it” His reply was “Thank you Mr Kendrick, you may well be right in the future, Thank you for attending, Good Afternoon”. However, it must have been what they wanted to hear, as shortly after this, I received a reply telling me I’d been selected and my engineering course would be at the Oldham Municipal Technical College, for twenty one month’s duration. Acceptance into officer rank would depend on a successful result at the end of the course.

During the last four or five months or so I had become very friendly with Colin’s younger sister, Jean, who lived across the road from the shop (she was also Little Billy’s sister and she had a twin sister Brenda). Jean worked in the post office, almost next door to our shop and at weekends, if one had the spending money, a night at the local cinema (pictures), was 38

normally the usual treat. I used to slip into the post office on a Saturday afternoon and ask Jean if she’d like to go to the pics that night. Her boss (Mrs Scott) was usually within earshot or eyeshot and often smiled, knowingly, at us as we chatted. This was the beginning of our romance, which was eventually to be lifelong.

Jean was one of a large family, having three brothers (Ben, Norman and Colin) in the forces, one elder sister in the land army (Betty), her twin sister (Brenda), twin siblings (Little Billy and Dorothy - she had been adopted away from the family), and one younger sister (Thelma), a school girl. We in the Old Swan area were very lucky for cinemas (picture houses), having four to choose from, The Curzon, The Regent, The New Premier and The Swan Cinema (this was a very small one). Also our transport services (even in those days) were very good for Jean and I. Even if we wanted to go further afield, there were adequate tram services to many parts of the city, and two outer bus services also serving the Old Swan area.

Most Saturday evenings, after shop closing times, there was regularly a sort of family gathering, or get together in Jean’s home. When anyone of their friends or family were welcome to call for a natter, or a supper, or a bit of music if Auntie Naylor (Jean’s step mother) felt like playing the old piano. Sometimes Jean would be asked to bring home, fish and chips, for suppers, when she and I were on our way home from the pictures.

The war was rumbling on, fortunately for us in Britain, the German Juggernaut, with its Panzer Tanks had gone into Russia, and Southern Europe and across into North Africa. But they weren’t getting it all their own way in Russia, as the Russian Armies adopted a scorched earth policy (retreating but burning everything as they left), which policy in the end was to beat the Germans. The American Liberty Ships were beginning to arrive in port, that is, those that whose convoys had managed to get through. The new echo sounding equipment now fitted to naval vessels, enabled our ships to better, track and kill, the U-boats. This equipment became known as ASDIC. Then by 1943, the new RADAR equipment was coming into use, enabling the detection of aircraft as far away as 100 miles, which, too was helping the war effort.

Also in 1943, I received my instructions to go to Oldham for the course, and I travelled there by train, being directed there by the forces billeting officer, to my new digs in Oldham. Life there was for me, all a bit mixed up, I found dear old Oldham very much different to Liverpool. The accent 39

was one of a very broad Lancashire drawl, the people mostly very friendly and the town almost completely (then) surrounded by mills on all sides. I was billeted in a council house in the nearby suburb of Derker, and travelled by bus to the college daily. I wasn’t happy with my billet. It was obviously over crowded, I had no facility at all for home study or homework, and when I mentioned this at the college, they made arrangements for all us officer cadet students, to become members of the Oldham Lyceum Club, which I found to be very helpful. Eventually, however, as several other candidates were the same as me, not happily billeted, the billeting officer came to the college, and arranged for those unhappy to move.

I found myself sent to a lovely elderly retired couple, Mr & Mrs Lincoln, at 67 Hardy Street, Oldham, one of the mill streets, behind the power station, near the town centre, with the aircraft makers A V Roe, just further down the road. Old Mr Lincoln, although retired from the mill, was still going off each night to work as a night watchman, even though he only had one eye. He’d lost the other in a mill accident some years back. I was very happy there, Mrs Lincoln was a good old fashioned cook, even with the poor facilities she had. She seemed to me, to treat me as though I was her son.

I soon found out that on some weekends, we had time off, until, 9.30am on Monday mornings, often with no work on the Saturday either.

So I was able to get leave for the weekend and travel home for Saturday afternoon, until early Monday morning. This enabled me to get home perhaps twice a month, help Dad in the shop, see Jean on Saturday night and possibly Sunday too, and return to Oldham on the very early workman’s Manchester train on Monday morning. My brother Roy, who shared a bedroom with me at home, was a bit annoyed when I was home, because my very early alarm call on the Monday morning upset him, as I had to get the train from Broadgreen Station at 5.50am in order to get back to Oldham in time. Dad said to me “Always remember son, if you can get leave home and there’s a railway service, I will always pay your fare home for you , just ask – if I forget!!”, and, bless him he hardly ever forgot, always insisting on putting the money in my hand.

Jean and I started writing letters to each other, keeping me up to date with home news etc. The course at the college became harder and harder as the weeks passed by and soon it became time for term exams. At this point about four candidates dropped out (standard not high enough) and 40

shortly afterwards another candidate committed suicide in his billet, some sort of family problems (very, very sad as he was a nice guy) and quite clever too.

I was still able to do a little of my radio (wireless) repair hobby, and a few jobs turned up for me, even in Oldham. Mrs Lincoln’s married daughter and her family lived next door, and I had occasion to repair their electric set that had gone ‘phut’ for them. As time went on I too, began to know their family as friends, so much so that her daughter, who was married to a soldier in the paratroops service, and she used to travel to Manchester Ringway Aerodrome (where he was stationed) every Sunday, to be with him; She asked me if I would meet her off the late night train from Manchester, at Oldham Central Station, in the black out, to see her home. Which on the Sundays, that I was there, I willingly did. So I used to take next doors dog with me to the station, for his walk and to meet her.

At this particular time 1943/44 the tune/song, You’ll never know just how much I love you, was in vogue on the radio and now whenever I hear that tune being played, I can see in my mind and memory the dog and I on the bridge overlooking the platforms in the dark, the light on the locomotive entering the platform, her alighting, the guard with the lamp (red then green), the train pulling out, the dog pleased to see her, and she thanking me for coming to meet her. Just another little war time human memory. But sadly all the more vivid, because she lost her lovely husband shortly afterwards, when he was flown out to Singapore and Burma and killed out there.

Down at college, in the cellar/engine house, we had installed a large Tensile Test Machine for testing sample metal bars for foundries in the Oldham, Manchester and Stockport areas. Our Physics Engineering tutor, taught me how to use it, as I was keen to learn, and some evenings I would volunteer to stay behind and pull these test bars on the machine, so that the results could be quickly forwarded to the various foundries, to help the war effort.

Back home, Dad said we could get the car in use again, so the next available weekend, I pumped up her tyres and got her off her blocks, charged and topped up the battery and took her out for a short run. But after one of two weekend runs, it became obvious that she needed a new battery, so I had to take her to Edge Lane to Lucas’s engineering workshop to buy a new 6 volt battery. This solved a lot of problems, and Dad was able to take her out a bit whilst I was away.

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Back at the shop, when I was able to be home, I encountered quite a lot of questions from Dads customers, such as “When you come out of the Navy, will you be coming back to run the shop for your Dad?” etc. etc.

Which at that time I couldn’t truthfully answer. Dad had taken over another butchers shop in the town, in Faulkner Street, that had a couple of flats above it, the rents from the flats making the financing of running the shop easier, and he had put an old manager in it, a Mr Jack Edwards, who had (earlier on) been Dads old boss, and had taught him the trade. I had said quietly to Mum, that I didn’t really agree with it, but she asked me not to say anything at this stage: So I didn’t.

On the war front, abroad the Yanks were getting a hammering from the Japanese. The fall of the Philippines made everybody, including Australia and New Zealand realise the seriousness of the world conflict.

Malta in the Mediterranean was virtually bombed out of existence and the North African conflict was at a stalemate. But all the time there were rumours of our intended invasion of France, and the opening of a second front, then early in June 1944 – it happened. Although there were quite heavy losses in some sections of the Allied Invasion, nevertheless it was a qualified success, and allied troops advanced steadily into Europe.

It was about this time, maybe a bit later in December 1944 that the band leader Glen Miller (who had a position in the Air Forces as a band leader for forces entertainment) was lost during a flight to France from Britain, the exact circumstances of how and why have never been ascertained, so his loss remains one of the war mysteries. Just about this time also, on one of my weekend passes home. Mum and Dad told me that Mr Scott the newsagent who was next door to our shop (Jean’s Boss – her husband) had been to see Dad, saying that he was running short of money, and wanted to sell his little cottage in North Wales near Holywell.

I don’t know exactly what the transaction details were, except that Dad got it cheap because it needed a lot of renovation. So at the first opportunity, several of us, travelled over to see it, going by Crosville Bus Service to Mold, then changing onto a Phillips Bus to take us to Halkyn (the village closest to the cottage). My first impressions were good, although it was completely over grown (garden wise) and in dire need of internal sweetening up. I of course was just approaching the end of my Oldham course, with the necessary tests and exams. So at that time, there was not a lot I could do. However when I finished the course and got home leave, the first Dad said was “Now Dreve, you get yourself over to 42

that cottage, for some rest, you look as though you need it”, Thinking back I can’t really see how much rest I was likely to get there, with so much needing to be done. However I agreed, and post haste went over by bus, together with a case full of paints and brushes, for my enforced week’s holiday. I remember the weather was kind to me, and as luck would have it – it was a break for me, just in time. Because as soon as I returned home, my draft to H.M.S. Royal Arthur was waiting for me, and further war time life in the services lay ahead!!

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Mum and Dads Wedding Day. Beth sitting next to Alice, Elsie sitting next to Tom

Little Grandma – front row, without glasses, and her sisters 44

Me aged 10 years 45

Me and Brother Roy on his wedding day

Our Family Home - 135 Thomas Lane 46

Letter to my Jean on Implacable Notepaper, and her reply written on the reverse, because paper was in short supply 47

48

Me in uniform

Me in my whites – on board Implacable

My Jean and her twin sister Brenda aged 19years

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HMS Implacable

Ready for Take Off Deck of HMS Implacable 50

CHAPTER 3 1945 – 1948 EVENTFUL FAMILY CHANGES It was quite a pleasant summer morning, when I bade goodbye to all at home on my way to Skegness to HMS Royal Arthur. As I kissed my mum I could see a little tear in each of her eyes, Dad shook my hand firmly, saying good luck, son. Take care always, and remember, I’ll always pay your rail fare if you can get leave.

Some readers, now, will be wondering what has Skegness, Lincolnshire to do with a Naval name, but to briefly explain, HMS Royal Arthur was the Butlins Holiday Camp taken over for the war as a Royal Naval transit camp for new entrants, sailors awaiting drafts, shipwrecked men, and returning P.O.Ws (PRISONERS OF WAR). I arrived late in the afternoon and was given a chalet to share with three other entrants, and over the next two days we were kitted out and formed into ships classes, each with a class number, and shown our way about the camp to the dining hall, the sick bay, the cinema, etc. Jean and I had said our fond farewells (yet again) on the night before I left, promising to write each other once (at least) per week. My brother Roy was walking out with a nice local girl named Dorothy Hart, she lived quite locally, and her parents had a florists business in Old Swan.

During my spell in Oldham, our instructor had always reminded us to take special note of Ships Standing Orders wherever we were stationed, either afloat or ashore. I’d remembered this when I arrived at Royal Arthur, so on one spare half hour or so I wandered down to the ships office, and sure enough standing orders were displayed on the notice board outside. Also, I spotted on the notice board, an instruction for men requesting leave passes and railway warrants. At the time I hadn’t really taken much notice of this, but on going back the next day to the office, I noticed that on the Leave Passes notice the class numbers for the following weekend were displayed viz: classes 82 – 110, applications for leave passes and railway warrants must be made here on Friday afternoons, to be collected on Saturday mornings. This made me wonder whether our class number, 96, would qualify for weekend leave. But that was next weekend – we (our class) had instruction on both Saturday and 51

Sunday, so I thought it couldn’t apply to us. However, on the following weekend I was free, so I trotted up to the office on the Friday afternoon, and sure enough, another leave pass notice was on the board covering classes 90 – 114. I asked at the office for a form, got one from them, filled it in, and miracle of miracles, on the Saturday morning I picked up a weekend leave pass and a railway warrant and smartly made my way to the railway station. I telephoned dads shop from the phone box at the station to let them know, and to tell Jean too; and I went for a 48 hour pass weekend. The journey was a bit tiresome, via Lincoln, Sheffield and Manchester, but nevertheless I reached Liverpool in time for the pictures etc. on Saturday night.

When I arrived back on the Monday, a couple of the lads wanted to know where I’d been etc. so I explained it to them. Consequently, on the next available weekend, about seven of us applied again, as I had done, and it worked again. However, that was the last time we could do it, as it all changed after that.

There was a notice, also, on the board, asking for an applicant for the ‘captain of the heads’ job. As I already knew this was for toilet cleaner work, I decided to apply as I was perfectly used to plenty of shop cleaning work at home for Dad. They gave me the job, to start with, and I found myself with a nice comfy Monday to Friday job, 9:30am to 5:00pm, with a little cubby hole of a cleaners room with a chair, a little table, an electric fire, all the necessary mops, brushes, buckets, soaps and disinfectants, etc.; and being virtually my own boss. I’m disgusted with myself to say I really enjoyed it, but I knew from my short experience of life that it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. After about a month they shifted me out, back to our usual class training. Not that I didn’t like class training, because we knew that we were soon to be moving on for gunnery training, torpedo, submarine and mine instruction, before drafting a float, when we would then be promoted to junior officers as midshipmen.

We had to have all the usual vaccinations and inoculations for naval service, five in number, and sadly the laddy (ordinary seaman) who was sharing my chalet went down really bad during the night with a very high fever. I called the sick bay tiffy (that’s the sick bay male nurse) to him, he took one look at him, went for the doctor, the doctor had him moved on a stretcher to the sick bay, and we saw the local ambulance shortly after at the sick bay. He died two days later in the local hospital from vaccine fever. It upset us all.

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Then during late May, early June, we heard that most hostilities had ended, and that the war was over at last. A camp celebration dance night was put on, open to the Skegness locals, with a Royal Marine dance band, a bar till midnight, and dancing etc. until 1:00am. It was a great night, enjoyed by all; god knows where they got all the grub from! Anyway, shortly after this we got our drafts to move to HMS Glendower in North Wales for gunnery training; this too was another of Butlins Holiday Camps taken over, the one near Pwllheli. The chalets were bigger than Skegness, the camp facilities not as good as Skegness, but we did have access to the local shore line out into the bay for gunnery practise.

We travelled by overnight troop-train arriving at Bangor, North Wales by 5:00am when the train seemed to be slowing right down to a crawl.

Soon we literally crawled into Caernarfon and stopped. After about half an hour the O C (officer in charge) of the train came through the carriages to say the locomotive had failed and we would have to wait for another engine coming through from Chester, so if any men wanted to stretch their legs they had permission to do so, but must be back on board by 7:00am. Most of us got off and wandered to the local square overlooking the castle, then, quite suddenly by a little church hall in the far corner of the square two Salvation Army ladies appeared, waving and calling to us, Any of you boys want a cuppa or toast or beans? I need hardly add, a queue of about 100 soon formed. All men waited patiently, and soon, the cups of tea came out, as did the toast etc. and a lot of naval lads were very happy. A navy hat was put on the hall steps, and when I left to return to the train, I’ll bet there was more than £25 in it for the Salvation Army.

I’ve never forgotten that event, I truly never will.

Glendower was a much more strictly run camp, the ships standing orders being totally different to Royal Arthur, but despite this our class of junior officers got along very well. I enjoyed my short time there. Jean’s weekly letters kept coming through, giving me all the latest local news of Derby Lane, Old Swan, and her family. Her twin sister Brenda was courting an army chap called Les Sayers, her elder sister Betty was in the land army in Lincolnshire and was soon to marry an army officer called Jack Connell, her brother Derrick was recently married to a local girl called Jessie Reed (her family lived in Corinthian Avenue, Stoneycroft), her brother Colin was away at sea in the Navy and Norman in the army. I tried very hard to get my weekly letters off to Jean, but sometimes the posting of it was difficult.

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The news of the war fronts that came through to us via newspapers was mixed – good because the hostilities were over, but very shocking and sad as well. The reoccupation and capture of the German concentration camps shocked the world, Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz, to name a few – and the destruction in Japan of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with the atom bombs made everyone realise the fruitlessness of it all. Then the Russians and the Allies couldn’t agree about peace arrangements for Germany, so a partition was sought and finally went ahead with the Berlin Wall being built.

Our time, however, at Glendower was not very long. I have some mixed up memories of mum and dad making a family visit to some local people outside the camp, and I faintly remember going to these peoples house for a Sunday tea but I cannot, sadly, remember much more. The gunnery training passes off very well for me. I almost shot to pieces an aircraft target with an Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun. I had a nasty fall on the assault course when I landed awkwardly from a jump, and my right heel took all my weight on a big hidden boulder in the grass. This put me in the sick bay for a night, where I was examined by a Polish doctor who couldn’t speak a word of English. I was strapped up, and on a crutch, for a fortnight.

We were considered at Glendower to be the best class for marching, arms drill and smartness for the year (big-heads.) We moved on, drafted to HMS Victory, Portsmouth, for a torpedo course, and submarine and mines courses, at HMS Vernon (not to live there) we were billeted at the Royal Pier Hotel, Southsea, which was the officers mess, too, so our living standards took a smart rise for just three weeks. I was able to get a couple of short weekend leaves in, but the distance from Portsmouth to Liverpool took up a lot of travelling time.

We were then drafted to the Derby Technical College course for a month or so on radio/radar, and electrical machines, returning to HMS Marlborough in mid-July. HMS Marlborough was a small shore station, in Eastbourne, specifically for R.N. vessels electrics, ring main switchgear, and degaussing for magnetic mines. The billets here were grand, being large Victorian homes close to the promenade, and I managed three weekends home whilst there.

My promotion to midshipman arrived whilst I was finishing the course here, and on the 15th August 1946 I received a first appointment draft letter to join HMS Cleopatra, which, by the next post was cancelled, and 54

I was instructed to contact HMS Implacable at Rosyth, to which ship I had been appointed. I applied for my joining instructions and in due course joined Implacable at Rosyth, where she then became my final home in the Royal Navy. Whilst being at all the southern shore stations over the previous five months or so, I had become quite accustomed to all the London main line railway stations of those days, and to all the points of changing trains when going to Liverpool on weekend passes or permitted leaves.

One typical bit of memory concerns Crewe station, where, it seemed almost always when I produced my railway warrant to the ticket inspector, his or her reply would be, change at Crewe, sir, and on entering the refreshments room with hundreds of other servicemen and servicewomen, I would suddenly be greeted with, Hi Drever. Here we are again! Spoken by a smart young lady W.A.A.F (women’s auxiliary air force) who knew me from Derby Lane butchers shop and who I knew from a house in Ionic Road adjacent to our shop, where she lived with her parents, who were meat customers of ours. Strangely though, too, although we kept meeting at Crewe, we were never travelling in the same direction; she, always going back when I was going home, and vice versa, that was how things were in those days.

Back at home, my brother Roy had received his call-up papers, and was put in the Fleet Air Arm as ground crew, eventually being posted to Leeon-the-Solent, Gosport, near Portsmouth, where, just before I left Portsmouth, we were able to meet and go out for a meal together. But after that, I was unable to meet him again until his demob.

My 21st birthday came along, and mum and dad said what would I like as a present for it, as there was no way I could get leave for a party. I asked for a small electric radio set, which we bought at a little radio/electric shop in Derby Lane on one of my weekends. It was an AC/DC mains set, so that I could use it on the ship as well as at home. The mains power on the ship being 220V DC, and that at home, 230V AC, and I found it worked wonderfully, although on the ship it only functioned when I managed to dangle the aerial wire out of a porthole.

When I joined HMS Implacable, I found that she had just returned from Far Eastern duty, calling at Perth, Australia on her way home, so most of her crew had gone home on leave, and she was in for refit before service in the north sea as a training carrier. I soon got used to her routine alright, acquainting myself with the ship and all her multiplicity of equipment that 55

goes with a large naval capital ship; most of the electrical machinery being part of my responsibility as Engine Room Electrical Officer. The main switch-board room was my action station position, and it was now that I realised just what my pal John Bostock’s dad meant when he had taken John and I around his two Liverpool power stations years back, and we were, as boys, allowed to sit in the switch-board control rooms then.

But my first introduction to true naval life occurred during my first two months aboard her. Junior officers like myself were somewhat considered below-par and shifted off to our own little wardroom, called the gunroom in line with old, out of date naval traditions, from the sailing ship days. We were of course allowed in the ships officers wardroom by invitation, which was rarely refused, but we also had on board some midshipmen from the Australian Navy serving on board for finishing training and carrier experience; and they made me seriously think about my position, especially when I learnt that their salaries were almost twice mine in the Royal Navy. Although I was the only R.N.V.R (Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve) man amongst the officers aboard, there were 12 other ranks in various branches, but most of these were demobbed in my first year.

My cabin-mate when I first joined her was a young Royal Marine Lieutenant called Bun from his surname, Richardson-Bunburry; we really got along very well, although I guessed he was from the upper-crust side of life by his conversation of his schooling and home life etc. But nevertheless, he really appreciated our service friendship, as did I. We had a fairly large Royal Marine unit on board too, as well as a band – the Royal Marine gunners looking after and taking care of their own gun turret in our starboard main armament, the Royal Marine band playing regularly on the flight deck (weather permitting) and at many official and social functions.

I, too, used to take a daily walk on the flight deck, weather and flying conditions permitting, as did a few others. It didn’t take me long to see that there was a distinct difference in the officers, like myself, who had come up from the lower deck, and those who’d been sort of pushed into it their commissions by way of family or historical backgrounds, money playing a very big part behind the scenes. As a little example, all officers had a mess bill – the account from the wardroom bar etc. for expenses occurred during the past month. My bill was usually only a tiny one, but 56

a lot of others had huge ones, and I often heard it said, oh, needn’t worry about that, Pater always settles it anyway!

Having said all that, however, my immediate superiors in the electrical office were always jolly decent towards me, in every way, and we all got on admirably. I too got on very well with my electrical party, a petty officer and six men, scheduled to look after below decks equipment. I soon found out that a fair amount of regular check-maintenance had been neglected below decks in various areas, and asked my petty officer to try to get this corrected, which he did.

Jean’s letters kept thankfully arriving more or less on time, despite all of my changes of address, and I did my best to get my replies off regularly to her. In the post-rack in the dining room, Jean’s letter usually stood out from all the others as it was the only handwritten envelope with a Liverpool postmark. My memories of the Liverpool bomb damage were bad enough, until I’d seen a lot of the London bombsites too, and poor Portsmouth, it looked just like one big bombsite, only a third of the town still standing. On my leaves home, I noticed that Liverpool was getting tidied up nicely, and a change from tram-cars to more buses, slowly, taking place. A lot of the bomb damage being cleared away, and a lot of poor bombed out people being rehoused as best as possible. The balloon barrage had gone, and the anti-tank obstacles in Thomas Lane/Edge Lane Drive taken away.

My mother’s sister, Auntie Beth, had married her lodger and he had been called up to the army and sent abroad. Jean had told me in one of her letters that her elder brother, Derek, and Jessie had married and were flat hunting.

All around, victory celebrations, parties, dances, etc. were being arranged and enjoyed everywhere.

We were due in Portsmouth around Christmas for refit, so the crew thought it would be a good idea to put on a children’s Christmas party, with a grotto and Father Christmas. The skipper agreed and it all went well, as planned, and a good time was had by all; I think about 150 kiddies were brought on board.

Previous to this refit, we had made a trip over to Norway to the port of Bergen, and as we were the first major man-o-war to enter the port after the hostilities much was made of it. We put on a civic welcome for the Lord Mayor and the civic dignitaries, afternoon teas, etc., and the Royal Marine band played for an evening dance. The ship was floodlit at 57

night, and dressed overall with flag garlands and coloured lights. The general atmosphere was happy, friendly, and most enjoyable for all. We had liberty boats to and from shore, every half hour from midday until 10pm. Most of the junior officers, like myself, were allocated to associate with many of the civic visitors as they needed us to show them around the ship and be company for them during the evening. I was allocated to the Lord Mayors daughter, a smart tall Norwegian blonde girl, about twenty-ish, very nice in many ways, but couldn’t speak a word of English.

We got along well, in spite of this handicap. She and her family stayed aboard for the evening, and she and I managed a little dance (of sorts) or two, to the Royal Marine band.

At the end of the evening she, aided by another member of the civic party, asked me if I would like to be shown around Bergen during our short stay in the port. I agreed, and on the morrow I ventured ashore on the midday liberty boat, to be met by her once again, on the jetty, as we’d arranged the night before. As I think back now – after a lifetime, I might add – I’m still amazed that a young Norwegian lass would trust a complete stranger, albeit a sailor too, after what their country had gone through at the hands of the Germans. Nevertheless, we met up (as did many others too,) and she took me on a sort of conducted tour of the port of Bergen.

Language and communication between us was a huge barrier, but after about an hour or so we’d both decided to laugh our way through every difficulty.

My first and lasting memory was the smell of fish everywhere about the port, secondly that there was no smoking permitted in cinemas, dance halls, cafés, etc. We both tried to teach each other our names; it didn’t really work, of course. I don’t even remember her name at all. She managed to call me Drever (from my Christian name), but she could only say something like Kentwick for my surname; however, on the third day, she was on the jetty again waiting for me, and we went into town to a sort of café where we had tea and coffee, and a couple of hard teacakes.

Then she took me home to their farm, where I was able to converse with her mum and dad, and enjoy a small, homely hot meal. Her dad proudly took me downstairs into the farm dairy room. Below ground and in the slate-lined wall of the room, he carefully lifted out a large loose slate from the wall, to reveal a little alcove in which was hidden a radio set and a roll of aerial wire, telling me that this was the set that they listened to the BBC on when the Germans weren’t about.

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As I was leaving for the ship, she wanted to come back to the jetty with me, and before I caught the liberty boat, she indicated that she’d like to go on the funicular mountain railway to the top, in the morning. I agreed, and on our final day in the port she was again on the jetty, and she took me to the railway station for our trip to the mountain top. I insisted on paying, but she only let me pay my half. It was a fascinating trip for me, being my first experience of this type of mountain climb; the view from the summit being quite breath-taking, HMS Implacable looking somewhat like a toy boat in a river. There was a hotel near the summit and we got a bottle of pop each, spending the rest of the day just strolling, sitting, trying to talk, and laughing a lot.

At the end of the afternoon, as we came down the funicular, she became sad as she knew that we’d be sailing in the morning on the tide.

I tried to thank her for my stay in the port but it only seemed to upset her more. As we walked toward the jetty, she suddenly stopped, turned, put her arms around me and hugged me. I reciprocated and held her for a moment. She then pecked me on the cheek with a little kiss. I did the same, then we both noticed that along the jetty there were twenty or more couples doing precisely the same as we were. All the Implacable men got on the liberty boat, and as the coxswain asked me, alright to leave, sir? I replied, yes please, cox, and we then said a sad goodbye to Bergen. I still vaguely remember a group of Norwegian ladies of all ages, standing on the jetty, waving; and some, including my lass, with handkerchiefs. I often wonder to this day (some 65 years on) what sort of terrible time those people had to suffer at the hands of the Germans.

Jean, in her letters, kept me well informed of the Liverpool V.E. and V.J. celebrations, of the dances that she and Brenda had managed to go to, and of who had been home on leave, in the family and close friends too.

Talking of leave, I had, up to now, managed somehow to be home over Christmas, and it looked hopeful again for 1946; but we knew that in January 1947 the HMS Vanguard was taking the Royal Family to South Africa, and we – HMS Implacable – were to be the escort capital ship, together with our faithful attendant destroyer, HMS St. Kitts, and also HMS Diadem and HMS Cleopatra.

It wasn’t until a few months later that Jean told me in one of her letters that Colin, her brother, was on HMS Diadem at that time. Actually though, it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference, because his ship and mine were 59

never in the same port together, so unfortunately I couldn’t have met him. Jean had told me, in her letters, too, that dad and mum had visited the little North Wales cottage a couple of times; and on the odd leave or two Jean and I had gone over there in Dads car, for a day out and to check all was well, quite obviously the little place needed more than a wash and brush up, but I knew it would have to wait a year or two for any serious modernising.

My brother Roy seemed to be having the life of Riley judging by reports that got through to me via our family, and although still serving his time, as it were, he was still managing some organ and piano playing whilst at home.

A considerable amount of bomb clearance work was underway in Liverpool, and a little bit of new house building going on too, around and about. My little radio repair hobby had to take a backseat, too, although I had repaired one or two on my travels to different billets, which I had enjoyed.

We were mostly doing flying training in the north. North Sea, north of Shetland, anchoring some weekends off Invergordon where there was a buoy we could use; but weekend leave from Invergordon for me wasn’t even possible because of the distance home. However, when we came into the Firth-of-Forth for a Rosyth buoy, I was just about able to get a weekend home to see Jean and family, and to catch up personally with Liverpool goings on, and my love life.

In spite of it being all those years ago, I can still vividly remember the steam train journey back to Inverkeithing (for Rosyth) and name all the stations we stopped at in the middle of the night, and my morning walk down Princes Street in Edinburgh to catch the Inverkeithing train at Waverley station. On arrival at Inverkeithing there would be an American army jeep waiting in the station yard, and the Yankee driver would cheerfully greet me with a grin, and a loud, morning, sir. Need a lift to the dockyard? Yes please was my reply. Jump in, he’d say, and away we’d go to Rosyth dockyard. The gate sentry wouldn’t bother to check my papers, and I’d say to the driver, Kings steps, please – whereupon he’d swing round into the dockyard and across to the jetty for Kings steps. I’d cross the drivers palm with a packet of 20 fags for his trouble, jump out with my cases, and usually the motorboat would be there awaiting me. The time there would be just about 9am. The coxswain would say to me, alright to go, sir?

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I’d reply, yes please, cox. Carry on! And we’d move out of the dockyard, into the forth, downriver under the railway bridge to the Implacable, pull in against her ladder, and in about 15 minutes or so she’d move off from the buoy, and away out to the North Sea again. I’ve put in all this detail so that readers, even today, can see what a wonderful journey at that time I was able to make, using steam traction all the way.

Departing Liverpool Lime Street: 12.45am, changing at Carstairs Junction: 7.10am, arriving Edinburgh Princes Street: 7.50am, departing Edinburgh Waverley: 8.15am, arriving Inverkeithing, North Queensferry: 8.50am. I did this journey at least eight times during my service life on HMS Implacable, and although we were a Devonport registered ship, we only got into Plymouth about once a year.

The winter of 1946/1947 was a very, very cold and snowy winter, causing a lot of transport hold ups, and we knew on board that we had to go into Devonport dockyard before January 47, which was the date of the Royal tour to South Africa. To get a few engine jobs done, and to be tiddlyed-up (a naval expression meaning to be painted up, smartened up for a special occasion). On our way down the Scottish western isles and the Irish Sea, I had my only (thank god) almost serious accident with electricity.

It was my usual daily practise to do a morning walk through lowerdecks, mess-decks, corridors, and to call on the dynamo rooms in use, as this way I could catch up on any areas with partial power failures due to fuses or cut-outs, cutting out, etc. and save man-hours if it was just a fuse gone as I also carried fuses and fuse repair gear with me in my haversack tool bag.

On this particular morning, I came across quite a large area of no power and no lights on the starboard side below decks. I checked the bulkhead fuse boxes concerned to find the fuses OK, but the boxes all dead. I traced this back to the nearest local breaker room, went down into the room, and opened the breaker cover to test for power with my test lamp. I noted that an HRC (high rupturing capacity) fuse in the breaker was dead, probably blown, but just at this instant my little test lamp blew up in my face, showering me with bits of glass and hot sparks from a massive electric arc flashover. The shock (not electric) to me was absolutely paralysing; I was completely blinded, had some glass fragments in both eyes; eyelashes, eyebrows and the front of my hair, all burnt off, as well as my battle dress front all singed. The power flash had 61

opened two other adjacent breakers, and I could hear upstairs (as it were) shouts from other fellows saying are ye aright, sir?

No I’m bloody not, was my reply. Give me a lift up the ladder, I’m bloody blind. I soon got help and got them to take me to the sickbay to see the MO (medial officer), and to let my petty officer know of the problem so that he could go up forward to fix it. The MO cleaned my eyes out of glass, and my hair too, but he said I’d probably not get my sight back for approximately 24 hours and offered me a bed in the sickbay, which I accepted. That night with my eyes, and face, and forehead all with cooling dressing on, I couldn’t really sleep much, but I was relieved when about 6.30am the next day I could see daylight through my dressings, and later on I could see alright again to eat my breakfast.

We arrived in Devonport dockyard two days later, and I was much improved again and back at light work. Leave was granted for three watches for the Christmas and New Year period, and I managed to get home again in time to help Dad and the shop lads with the Christmas rush.

Mum was very pleased to see me, she always used to tell me, confidentially, that my dad really missed me down at the shop.

I noticed that house building had restarted in Thomas Lane, opposite 135 on the spare land (where the old farm had been), about eight houses in all, all street lighting was back on again, and railway station nameboards were being put back up again.

Down at the shop I chanced once again to meet the WAAF girl. Outside the shop, the girl I mentioned earlier that I was always bumping into at Crewe station, this time she was with her mum and dad out shopping – what a small world. Jean and I were able to catch up with our courting life once again, getting out and about together to a few dances, the pictures, and borrowing Dads car too for outings and picnics. Jean told me that her Uncle Willie (her dads brother) had been calling in the Post Office asking after us both, and had told her that he and his wife were often given dance tickets and whist drive tickets that they didn’t use, so he would pass them on to us for our use if any good. Jean said thank you, yes please, so ever after that, we (sort of) had a steady supply of evening affairs available throughout the year, which were most acceptable. We both liked Uncle Willie very much, as did most of Jean’s family, but it seems his wife wasn’t too friendly at all – a pity really, I thought.

It was around about this time that my Uncle Jack (the blind uncle) called at 135 to collect my mother’s house insurance money, and on 62

hearing me at home, mentioned to me about a new life endowment policy that his company (The Co-op Insurance) were introducing for one year only, the particular policy being to celebrate their company’s special number of years existence (a kind of anniversary) – but the main point of its sale offer was that on reverse of the policy was a specific endorsement by the company, promising to grant a buildings mortgage in the future, on this policy, no questions asked. I liked the idea, costly though it was, but before going back from leave, I took a policy out with him, after talking it over with Jean. Readers may like to make a mental note of this, for a future chapter reference.

We had a super Christmas get together down at Jean’s house (no. 57, Derby Lane.) Her brother Colin was home again, several others looked in, Betty and Jack dropped by, Norman managed some time home, too, so altogether it was a bit like old times; but sadly her dad, Mr Naylor, was quite poorly with his old war wound, although he tried hard not to let it spoil anything.

Back at 135 Dad had been busy in the gardens – I noticed he’d put in six cooking apple trees down one side, and about two rows of blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes, as well as a fair sized kitchen vegetable garden. Down at the shop he’d told me that the fridge motor had been giving trouble. The fridge man had told him that the problem was the motor not being quite strong enough for the job sometimes; it would overheat slightly and cut out, starting up again when it cooled.

I had a look at it, reckoned I could possibly order a new larger motor that would do the job from one of the admiralty firms in Yorkshire. I knew this because of my overall knowledge of all the motors on Implacable – so, without more ado, I contacted this firm in Batley and, using a little guile, a touch of persuasion as they say in the service (a lot of bull!!) I was assured that they could indeed supply me with what we needed (namely a 1HP (horse power) motor, to replace a two thirds HP motor; to be sent by rail to Liverpool Lime Street station.)

Sure enough, they were as good as their word – it was waiting for me at Lime Street two days later. I collected it, took it down to the shop, I think it was the Sunday before my leave ended. I fitted it, it did the job well, and Dad reported later that there’d been no further bother in that direction.

On my service side, my promotion to Sub Lt. (sub lieutenant) RNVR had come through, entailing a visit to my naval tailors re: uniform upgrading, 63

etc., and as we were expecting to go tropical with the Vanguard trip, I needed a full tropical white rig-out, too. Jean had already found out from her brother Colin that he was expecting to be away for at least seven weeks, so she wasn’t too surprised when I had to tell her that my next leave might be at least eight to nine weeks away.

On board Implacable on my return, I was congratulated by various of my mates in the gun-room, and several other officers in the ward-room, including all my electrical office seniors, and my own petty officer was very nice about it, when he said to me, I’m really pleased for you, sir, you well deserved it!

Saying bye-bye to Jean this time was the hardest I can ever remember in my going-away life, but she was a brave lass, no tears, and plenty of her usual promises re: letters, etc., and kisses galore.

When I got back to Devonport dockyard we were almost finished repairing. My cabin-mate Bun was back, and he told me that his girl was travelling down to see him the next week, before we sailed for Weymouth, so when she arrived and came on board, I volunteered to give the pair of them the full run of our cabin for the rest of the day, for their privacy, etc. I went ashore for lunch and a bit of a walk on Plymouth Hoe. She returned to London on the evening train, thanking me for my understanding. ‘A reet nice lass’, I thought.

This particular Christmas and New Year, 1946/47, I had incurred my mother’s displeasure by appearing (according to her) to be giving my orders about home, as though I was in charge. So, she ticked me off! I suppose it was the way of naval life showing on me. The naval preparations for the Royal trip were going ahead apace. Inoculations for all, due to our intention to call in at Freetown Sierra Leone, and Dakar French West Africa on our return trip, and by the time we reached Weymouth in late January the Channel and all anchorages were full with naval men-of-war everywhere. There was a sort of sail-past by the Vanguard with home fleet vessels on either side, and Royal gun salutes – 21 in number – being fired on all sides.

Vanguard sailed from Portsmouth in a light snow storm, but by the time she reached the fleet in mid-Channel the weather was clearing, and although I was only able to catch a few glances of the fleet sail-past, I thought it very impressive. I happened to be on watch at that time, below.

As the sail-past came to an end, HMS Vanguard bade farewell to the fleet by signal flags and Aldis lamp, then we, HMS Implacable, with our 64

attendant destroyer, and HMS Cleopatra and HMS Diadem, moved out of line to take up our stations behind Vanguard for the trip to South Africa.

This would be about early afternoon. I have to admit that, at that time, I was truly excited by the whole voyage, being for me the longest trip afloat that I’d ever had in my life.

Needless to say there would have to be some snags, somewhere along the way; the weather, for one, because shortly after we entered the Bay of Biscay in the dark a violent storm blew up with quite mountainous waves. We had to close all on-deck watertight doors, and by about 10pm Vanguard signalled us by radio requesting that we take up station in front of her, in order to attempt to break up the seas a little, for the benefit of the Royal passengers. We moved into position ahead of Vanguard, and we immediately felt the true reason for this change of station. Storm stations was piped over the tannoy, all loose gear roped and tied down, but it wasn’t very long before some damage resulted.

All aircraft in the hangar had to be lashed down to the decks, a porthole in one of the seaman’s mess-decks on the starboard side had been stove-in by the sea, and the mess-deck was flooding from this incoming water. The men, their gear and hammocks were hurriedly evacuated to the next door mess deck, and the shipwright and engineering department’s staff were struggling to stop the flooding and pump out the mess-deck floor to the engine room billets.

Our captain had told our attendant destroyer to leave station and take cover nearer land, as did HMS Diadem and HMS Cleopatra also; I think they headed off to Gibraltar or Madeira until the storm abated, which, fortunately, it did within 24 hours. Vanguard reported storm damage too, and we had a lot of bent iron-work topsides. However, within another day and a half, or so, all vessels had returned to station to the rear of Vanguard, and the planned voyage continued.

Jean’s letters to me were always a considerable comfort to me, in regard to her and me and our courting, friendship; but as many of them often contained news of demob of others of our close friends, and relatives, and family, this type of information conveyed to me just how lonely she was feeling as she wrote. But, nevertheless, her lovely letters contained masses of family and local news that kept me up-to-date with Stoneycroft goings on, which I was truly grateful for.

As we sailed further south, crews had to change into summer-tropical gear (whites), which were cooler, but not much good for me as most of 65

my week was below decks, engine and boiler rooms, etc., and pretty dirty, so I continued to wear my brown engine-room gear when on duty. We had been told that there was to be a visit on board by the Royal party, with a crew inspection, etc., Royal Marines band, and, weather permitting, a flying demonstration also.

One of Jean’s letters sadly told me that my pal John Bostock’s father had been taken into hospital seriously ill, I was very sad to hear this. Also she mentioned that Roy, my brother, and his girl, Dorothy Hart, had split up, and that Dorothy was now seeing another chap.

We hove-too in nice weather about 300 miles out from Liberia, and the Royal party came on board shortly before lunch. There was a large gathering of crew (officers and men) on the flight deck for the Royal inspection, then the Royal party went to the captains quarters for lunch, then this was followed in the afternoon by the flying display, and during this time Prince Philip Mountbatten – then Lt. Philip Mountbatten – was allowed to be present with the Royal party and travelled back to Vanguard afterwards, returning to Implacable later that night by motorboat. He was at that time serving on board Implacable and I did, quite often, meet him in the wash-room on one or two occasions when I was shaving and washing. He was a very popular officer in the ward-room – shortly after the Royal visit (I did manage to obtain two or three photographs with my old brownie box camera through the porthole), we joined up with the South African naval escort vessels, who then took over from us, after more 21 gun salutes; the Vanguard headed southwards with her new escorts, and we turned and headed for Freetown. Passing the equator there was a typical naval line-crossing ceremony, but I was on watch at this time, so I missed a lot of the high-jinks.

It was very hot now, in fact at times uncomfortably so, quite a lot of the crew trying to sleep outdoors, as it were. It was about February 7 th (ish) as we approached Freetown, but our (pilot) navigational officer said the jetty there was an old wooden one, and the low-water level alongside not deep enough for us, so we had to anchor out, about three quarters of a mile or so. We’d hardly anchored before we were virtually surrounded by the local natives, bum-boats (as they were called) laden with all kinds of products for sale – viz: fruits, food, clothing, fancy goods, etc., and there then followed a busy two hours of bartering, banter, etc., as business of sorts was done. The tannoy on board warned all our ships company that no overnight leave would be granted at all, and that parts 66

of the Freetown outer areas were still very dangerous to servicemen.

Swimming was recommended on the nearby Lumley Beach, and THE crew were strongly advised not to go ashore unclothed before 1pm in the day because of sun-stroke, etc. An armed gun-guard watch was organised for the Lumley Beach from 1pm till 6pm each day because of sharks.

I went ashore on the second day for a sightseeing walk of the town, and finished up on the beach for a really memorable swim with quite a lot of others. The local native girls selling fruit from baskets besieged the beach, and I, and most of the others were grateful for the lovely fruit they pedalled, albeit they kept pestering for, as they said, you got English shillin’, please! None of them seemed to think much of half a crown or other monies.

On the third day I was on duty as we had one or two problems with boiler room fans due to the extra work on them, caused by the tropical heat, but on the fourth day I got ashore early for a further look around, watched a very ornate and moving native funeral, with the coffin on a human-hauled bier and all the family following behind chanting, must have been almost 150 of them. It was after that I came across a quite biggish Liptons grocers, and in its window I spotted a 1lb packet of Orange Pekoe tips tea; I knew my mother would like that, so in I trotted to ask for it. The native man who served me seemed just a bit shocked, so I asked him if he’d any more. Yes, he said, just one more in the stockroom, so I said I’ll take that please as well, and I also bought three bottles of South African sherry, two bottles of Spanish port, and some cigars for my dad, and then headed back for a liberty boat to get on board in time for a cool salad lunch.

I went off shore later in the afternoon, looking for green bananas, and was lucky again at a sort of fruit shop/stall, where I managed to get three long stalks to take home. I could only just about get them back to the jetty for the liberty boat, and the crew kindly helped me up the gangway ladder on board again. I had to suffer a fair few remarks, such as, you’ll never get those home, subby, you’ll eat em before we reach the UK. Anyway, I put them in my wardrobe, and luckily they made it home – albeit ripe when they got there.

Jean’s letters to me arrived reasonably regularly, when you have to remember that they would be chasing across various fleet mail offices in order to catch up with the ship. She always managed to keep me well informed about all the 57 Derby Lane family goings on, weddings, outings, 67

new babies, sickness, etc. As I write now, all these years later, I now fully realise how devoted and true to me she was, to wait all that time for my service career to end, as all around her other friends and family members were getting engaged, marrying, moving out, etc.; but still she waited for me. Not that I wasn’t wanting to do the same also; but somehow, my dear Jean always knew when I was with her on a leave, and in the (shall I call it) proposing mood, because she had a little mannerism of her own of putting her hand across my lips when I was just about to speak, and she would just quietly say to me, please Drever, not just now, please; whereupon I would remove her hand from my lips, kiss it twice, and just say, OK, love, and that was that – for then.

On our last day at Freetown, coming off the liberty boat late on, I heard a scuffle and shouting at the gangway ladder; quite a lot, some banging too, then about half an hour later I was told that one of the liberty men, a leading seaman of some 12 or more years standing, was much the worse for drink – violent, and gave the liberty boats crew a hell of a time getting him on board it, and getting him up the gangway steps on board. Then when he, and they, reached the deck, the officer of the watch told him to behave himself and get himself below; whereupon, I was told, he broke free from the men who were holding him, and punched the officer of the watch, etc. The officer of the watch ordered the gangway guards to arrest him and put him in the cells for the night, sending for the RPO (regulating petty officer) and the MO (medical officer.) He was eventually taken before a Naval Courts Martial and reduced to able seaman, losing all his years of good conduct service, etc., and he was transferred to one of the other ships, I think it was HMS Cleopatra.

We left Freetown on the tide, in still lovely weather, almost like a millpond, but two days later in this lovely calm sea I was seasick for almost a whole day. The MO had a look at me, laughed (as they do), and said, get in touch with me if it doesn’t clear up! Anyway, I was soon OK again, but god, the feeling is shocking to start with; I couldn’t understand it, as I’d been afloat for a fair length of time by now, and been through some really bad weather too. As we sailed northwards towards French West Africa (now called Senegal) there were urgent requests for some sea-swimming, but owing to the fact that our attendant destroyer had reported sighting sharks this was cancelled on safety grounds, and the shipwrights department rigged 68

a canvas swimming pool on the cable-deck for those who were off duty and wanted a splash.

Just at this time, as we had lovely hot weather, smooth as a mill-pond sea, one of the fans for no.2 boiler room had decided to burn-out, so my department were busy all day, and most of the night too, replacing it with a spare unit because of the heat in the boiler room. However, all went well, and after another days sail at sea with some flying practise, etc. we approached Dakar on a nice sunny morning. This port was a good sized one with room for us, as big as we were, to moor alongside a good stone jetty. As we approached the port we were met by a pilot boat, then given a 21 gun salute yet again by the shore batteries. There was indeed much excitement in and around the port, spectators by the hundreds, flags of all shapes and sizes flying everywhere, including Union Jacks, and ships hooters blowing. We moored alongside, main engines were shut down, as were most boiler rooms, except one, which we needed for electricity, cooking, heating and power, etc.

The programme was for civic reception on board, and also ashore for a small representative Naval party (senior officers, with our skipper), and daily shore leave for those not on watch. Prior to our arrival, any seascouts, or scouts, on board, were officially invited to a reception party by the Dakar sea-scout group, and our supply officer (who was the senior sea-scout aboard) organised this for one of our afternoons there. I managed to be included in this foray ashore, and what a lovely time they gave us, in spite of language difficulties and plenty of Pigeon French and Pigeon English being spoken. I was pleased, indeed, to see that scouting, even in the far off land in those times, was more or less much the same as ours in Britain.

The weather was very kind to us during most of our stay, and the commander (air) allowed a sea-fire fighter to be hoisted out and put ashore, alongside Implacable on the jetty for public display. My cabinmate, Bun, had a very busy time ashore with all his Royal Marines functions, band displays, marching displays, etc., including a small town parade as we were getting ready to leave Dakar. Bun told me that he would be getting moved ashore when we returned to the UK. We left Dakar in fine weather again, still very hot, and headed north towards Gibraltar; but on the second day out, I noticed I’d suddenly become jaundiced when I went to shave, and Bun noticed it too. So, off I went to sick-bay, where the MO immediately clamped me into isolation in case of 69

malaria. A blood sample was taken and flown off to Gibraltar for testing, and I was confined to the isolation bedroom in the sick-bay.

However, fortunately it wasn’t malaria, or yellow fever, and my jaundice soon cleared up, and I was allowed back to duty. We sailed through the Canaries on our way, and close to Madeira too, but as we neared Gibraltar we received orders to proceed into the Med to support the Mediterranean fleet along the North African coast for a further week or so, before getting into Gibraltar about mid-March. We had a short stay in the port, about six days, some more of Jean’s letters reached me there, and I got ashore to buy some perfume for her for when I reached home again (I think it was called Chanel no.5,) supposed to the best in those late war years!

We left Gibraltar towards the end of March heading for home, reaching Weymouth first, where some staff and the Royal Marines left us as planned, and Bun and I made our fond farewells; then, shortly after this, a single inboard cabin became empty and was offered to me, and I took it as it was warmer than the bigger outboard one that Bun and I had shared. We sailed then for Portsmouth for a short stay, and then headed off for Rosyth where we were due to be taken in-dock for some refitting in mid to late April. On our way there, the flying department flew off all our aircraft in batches to Naval air stations in North Ireland and Scotland, and after our arrival in the Firth-of-Forth, our upper works (masts, aerials, flag staffs, etc.) all had to be dismantled so that we could get under the Forth railway bridge and into the dockyard aided by tugs.

What I originally was told would be two to three months ended up being five months in all, but this was to my personal advantage, as readers will already know of my journey route to and from Liverpool by rail mentioned earlier in this chapter. I was really pleased to get away on leave with all my various presents, gifts, etc., and was welcomed home with much fuss thankfully from all and sundry. I must admit (as I suppose many other mariners would) that the feeling of being back on dry land was a wee bit strange at first; and my brother Roy was also a wee bit put out at having to once again share our bedroom. He was now going out with a different girl, but he intimated that he didn’t think she was serious about it. Jean and I, of course, had a lot of lost time to make up, which we did, as one would expect, but I hasten to ensure readers that as it was still 1947, any sort of hanky-panky was strictly not on the cards, and we still had to be home for 11pm (Fathers orders.)

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My leave was for a fortnight, and I was able to help a bit down at the shop as well as holidaying with Jean. There were quite a lot of changes, I noticed, around home (135.) The new houses in Thingwall Hall Drive were all finished and occupied, the little bungalow jutting out into Thomas Lane had gone, the road had been widened, and a house was being built on the land made available. Dad told me that the fridge had gone on fire at the other shop in Faulkner Street down in the town, and it had to be closed for a short time for repairs etc., and the older chap who had been running the shop was getting too old to carry on, so he had got a younger ex-forces lad to help him along. Although I had only been away since Christmas, an awful lot of changes had taken place in the short time of four months; down in the town a lot of new rebuilding and town future planning was taking place, more and more buses were on the routes, and less and less tram-cars. There was talk of the pier-head terminus being given up altogether in the future, on the river less ferries were running because of the effect of the new Mersey road tunnel, and the luggage boats across to Birkenhead had been closed down and ended because of the same reason.

Although food rationing was still officially in force, meat supplies in general were getting better due to more imports arriving in the docks, so the shop was running easier. Two more of Dads staff had been demobbed, and Dad had managed to get a new full window plate glass repair done, so the old place looked more like it used to be. I had been able to borrow the Hillman car for taking Jean or my mother out, for outings, shops, etc., and also for any duties attached to the shop, whilst I was home. On each of my home leaves, whenever I was home on a Friday evening, I would try and get over to my old Scout headquarters, and I found out that they had decided to change over to a sea-scout troop. Very apt, I thought, as my old pal Bill Stothart and myself had both ended up in the Navy.

The little cottage at Halkyn in North Wales had been rented out to an American couple with a baby, who were stationed at the Sealand airfield near Queensferry. The tenancy was only a short one to help the American authorities, and when they left some two years or so later the place was well looked after, with a new cooker electricity point installed, also a small cooker, and a very nice thank you letter from two very grateful American people.

71

On my return to Implacable at Rosyth, I had to acclimatise myself to ship in dockyard life, no flying, no aircraft or aircrews, etc. almost like a quiet ghost ship on almost dry land, except for the noises of the dockyard workers. No power machinery running on board, as what electricity we could have came from very poor shore supplies, and dim at that.

However, I had quite a bit more spare time on some days, so I decided on a few local walks. My big real interest was the Forth railway bridge, so I used to get down to North Queensferry on at least two weekday afternoons when the weather was fine, and walked by the collection of cottages, almost beneath the railway bridge. It was on one of these walks that I met an old fisherman who was sitting by a rowing boat mending some netting on some kreels. We got talking, and as I was from the Navy, he wondered if I’d help him sometimes rowing his boat out into the Forth to set his lobster pots and to haul in any that had caught anything. I said yes of course, and a sort of friendship grew between us.

I’d ask him when he needed me, usually about twice a week depending on the weather, then he’d row us out to his fishing grounds, I’d heave in the lobster pots and put out the fresh baited ones for next time, then I’d row us back to land. Sometimes we were lucky, getting two or three biggish lobsters and five or six usable crabs, other times no good, but to me it was good fun, and I suppose to him, when he managed to sell on his worthwhile catch, paid for his beer and his baccy. It was a complete change for me, from ship life, and I think it did me good. On a couple of occasions, we did really well, getting two really big hauls. So of course, I was given four big lobsters and two crabs on one occasion, and another time I was given six big lobsters and three crabs, just in time for my going home on leave, so I was able to get the lobsters and crabs cooked in the galley at Implacable, and took a lot home with me to Liverpool. Mum was astonished and delighted to have a fresh lobster salad for Sunday tea, etc.

Down at our shop, Dad was saying that the big old mincing machine was getting worn out, and he was going to have to get a new one, I was just lucky enough to be home and down at the shop when the engineers were there installing the new one, and guess what the engineer in charge told me when he knew I was in the Naval electrical branch – this new un will never be as good as that old un has been. He was, of course, right, as later on, a month or two on, Jean’s younger brother Billy who worked in our shop told me that it wasn’t anywhere near as good as the old one had been, and he should know, as he was the main staff member to use it 72

daily for mincing and sausage making, etc. The shop trade was improving nicely, and Dad was looking forward to the end of the food rationing rigmarole and regime.

One Saturday morning, when I was happily just on a weekend leave, at home, I heard my mother in the scullery scream, oh! So I rushed through to find her standing in front of the gas cooker oven, a hot roasting tin and half cooked chicken and fat on the floor, and hot fat all over her face, and top of her chest, and her hands and arms too. She spluttered, ‘Oh, Dreve, I was just moving it out to turn it when the roasting tin caught the door and tipped all over me’. I immediately thought of my scout first aid training, and my St. Johns Ambulance training, too, turned the gas off, sat Mum down in a chair, put a cold wet towel in her hands and then quickly made a bicarbonate of soda paste with the baking powder tin, and spread the paste all over her face and chest, and arms too, covering her with a damp tea towel, got a kettle on for some tea, and ran upstairs for a blanket, which I covered her up with in a chair in the kitchen.

By this time the fire had gone out of the scalding and, although badly shocked, she was feeling a bit better. I got a message through to the shop via next doors phone (we hadn’t got one then) and Dad said he’d ask for our doctor to come. The doctor came later on in the day, passed some pleasant comments on my first aid, but said it had done the trick and she wouldn’t be permanently scarred; but it was a frightening affair, it took Mum about five to six weeks really to get over it.

Down at Jean’s house, a lot of the talk was of Jack and Betty’s baby boy Barry, who they had with them when they came home, and also of Derek and Jessie’s forthcoming wedding and their house/flat-hunting.

Up at Rosyth we were finally ready to leave the dockyard in the September, when we sailed down to Plymouth Sound for a week, before slowly returning to our North Sea station, landing our aircraft for the next years flying training as we made our way up there. Our captain, Capt.

Mansergh announced that he had been promoted to rear admiral, and would be leaving us in early 1948. This he did, and we had a new captain, Capt. Stevens.

I managed Christmas and New Year (just) leave, having a really good time at home and down at the shop, and at Jean’s house too, but it all seemed to fly by, and soon, time to say my (fond) farewells yet again.

The New Year’s Eve party at our house was always very, very important in my mother’s eyes and her life, all and sundry had to be there, food and 73

drink flowed all night long, and the first person to be allowed to enter the house after midnight (viz January 1st) had to be dark-haired, (a stranger, if possible), and had to present my mother with coal and bread in a bag; first footing, I think it’s known as in Scotland. And boy, did my mother insist on it! You can’t imagine the tricks and fun that some of our relatives played on that her night, the Kendrick family were all known for it. We even had a visit from Ken Dodd (in his younger days of course), as the Dodd family only lived a short way down the lane from us, and Ken, Bill and June Dodd all went to school myself Roy and Joyce. I had many a tea party in Mrs Dodd’s house, with many others, when we had permission from our parents to go. I saw at home too that Mum had bought a grand piano for Roy to use. Not a full sized one; I think it was called a boudoir grand, second hand of course, but in excellent condition, and Roy would be practicing virtually every day, usually at 6.30am in the morning before he left for work.

Roy was now demobbed, and getting back into his stride as the organist for Knotty Ash church, and his long-standing music teacher – Mr Balshaw, I think his name was – who was also an organist, quite often asked Roy to help out at other organ functions, churches, etc. when he couldn’t do it. The grand piano, really, was too big for the living room, so Dad had to get a builder in to make the room slightly larger, extending into the back garden a little.

Down at the shop and Jean’s, around Derby Lane, most of the young men who had been called up were now demobbed, and I was the odd uniformed fella about, together with a few yanks (Americans) who were still at the American air base at Burtonwood. Consequently, many of our regular customers would ask me whether I was staying in the Navy to make a career out of it, or would I rather be back in the shop doing butchery. At this particular point in time, I truthfully hadn’t given it too much thought, except that I wasn’t really happy with Navy wages; so when asked, I usually replied that I hadn’t yet decided. I know, looking back, that my dad was always very, very glad to have me around over the Christmas and New Year period, as I was fully conversant with the difficult and awkward planning needed to cope with the Christmas rush, and the tidying up to follow; and, as we now had the car, it, and me as the driver, helped the shop along nicely when I was home.

The spring of 1948 brought many more changes all round as people, their families, their firms, etc. all worked hard to get over the terrible war 74

times that everybody had endured. The city, its port, its city centre, its suburbs, were slowly, gradually taking shape once again, and more and more essential businesses being repaired and restored, once again, to life.

With Implacable being back on north sea duty again, and usually being in the Forth most weekends, I was able by careful planning to get home quite often, and bless him, my dad, on two or three occasions offered to come to Lime Street railway station, with Jean and I in the car, so that he could run Jean back to her home after I’d caught the 12:45am overnight Glasgow train to go back to Rosyth for Implacable. The car, as I’ve called her, was a 1936 Hillman Minx Saloon: 10HP, four door, and virtually became my responsibility as regards any repairs, re: battery plugs, tyres, fan belt, etc. which I managed to cope with on my weekends home.

Funnily, when I think back, my brother was never keen to drive, didn’t bother about the car, nor did he show any keenness towards our shop, either. But then, as I’ve learned from my life’s experiences, that situation is often the way life goes in many walks.

Jean and I were (in modern, present-day jargon) an item, or in terms used then, walking out or courting, and I hoped in my inner heart that we could soon settle down to a future life of our own making; but this was not able to be just yet, although many other marriages, babies and setting up homes were on the go all round. I noticed at 135 that Dad had managed to get hold of some cement and sand, and had made himself (in the garage) some very tiddley shuttering to make nice sidewalks alongside the front garden pathway up to the front door. The air-raid shelter had been taken away (I think Jean’s dad had organised this, as he was employed in the Liverpool City Council offices in town,) and the apple trees were getting really huge, so I volunteered to help in pruning them.

Incidentally, they were now producing a good annual crop of fine cookers (cooking apples), so during the winter there was no shortage of apple pies, apple sauce, etc.

When I returned to Implacable there were quite a few new faces about, mainly in the air branch, and in the Royal Marines too, but all our department were the same. We had one appendicitis case, whilst out at sea, one of the other branch’s officers. Our surgeon operated on him successfully on board, and later he was sent ashore via our MFV (motorfishing vessel) to Inverness Hospital and soon got over it. It was shortly after this that we got an urgent report to the electrical office that the 75

seaplane crane had broken down, and couldn’t be stowed, the driver blaming a power fault. I and my PO (petty officer Dawes) went up to it immediately, as we both knew how important it was to many of Implacable’s operations.

On first examination it certainly looked as though what the driver had reported was right, but on closer examination and some testing, showed that power was indeed getting through it alright, but the fault eventually turned out to be in the crane turning gear box. I sent for an engineer officer to come and look at it, and a good friend of mine (Lt. E Lassbury, RN) came along and tentatively agreed with my diagnosis of the trouble, but as the crane was booked down as electrical branch equipment, well it was up to me to decide the next move.

Lass (Lassbury) and myself looked it all over and found that, in any case, the watertight cover on the gear box was not removable because of the very close proximity of a diagonal strengthener in the cranes bodywork. So in order to get into the box, a fairly large piece of this framework structure would need to be cut out to make space to lift the box cover off.

I asked Lass to ask his welders to get a man down who could use a cutting torch to cut it out. He went off to make his enquiries, etc. but 15 minutes or so later the reply came back that they hadn’t got a welder capable of doing the job. This mystified me really, however as I’d done a full welding course in my engineering training, and didn’t want to see the ship partially disabled by loss of the cranes use.

I said to PO Dawes, ‘If you’re game to help me, PO, I’ll have a go at cutting this out myself. It’ll take us the best part of the night, so long as they’ve got the gas and the gear up there in the workshop’. ‘OK, sir’, he said. ‘It’s fine by me. I’ll go and organise the gas and the gear’. ‘And don’t forget the goggles too please, PO’, I said. He laughed.

He came back, ably assisted by several engineering workshop staff, with all the gear, and I started at about 4pm, and got it cut out by shortly after 3.15am the next morning, with three or four stops for tea or cocoa.

We knocked off then, made everything safe, or tied down, and went to bed. The next morning the engineering department soon had the spare shaft fitted in the gear box, and the crane back in service and all tidied up.

Later that next evening in the wardroom, the chief engineer came over to me to say, thanks a lot, subby, for the crane job last night. You certainly helped us all out of a hole, much appreciated. I thanked him too of course, 76

but my thoughts in the ensuing weeks gave me reason for what I thought, sensible concern in all circumstances.

Jean’s letters were all coming through on time, and she told me of her and the family’s worry, about her dad and his war-wound leg, which was giving him a lot of trouble, and his chest, too, not being too good either.

I told her of my welding efforts on the crane, and too of the little fisherman and his crabs and lobsters; and she mentioned that our little dog, Peter, from 135 had been looked after at Jean’s house whilst my mum and dad had a little holiday away, and how good Peter had been with their own dog at 57. As time was passing by, on my weekend leaves, Jean and I had been chatting together about my future with the Navy, if there was to be one, and I said I understood I’d be getting told of my date soon when my present appointment was to end; but from what Jean said to me, she wasn’t keen at all at following a ship or a shore base around the world, whilst her fella was serving his stretch wherever. I said I agreed with this, and there, for that moment, the discussion ended.

During the spring/early summer of 1948 we had to temporarily conclude flying training and proceed to Plymouth, and on to Portsmouth, and as the weather was nice and settled, our pilot (navigating officer) plotted a course down the inside channel through the western isles of Scotland, to the Irish sea, and for me it was just like being on a cruise. One evening, in the wardroom having a drink and chatting, etc. before turning in, our warrant officer shipwright joined us, and complimented me again on the welding/cutting job. (A warrant officer is a senior man with many years of naval service, who has been promoted to officer rank from being CPO (chief petty officer) for many years.) He chanced to mention that I was now the only RNVR officer on board, at present, and had I heard whether they were going to offer me a permanent commission?

I replied, I hadn’t heard as yet.

Then he said, well lad, I know you’re a good engineer, but what of your future? You see I’ve always reckoned sea life is no good for a married man, if you want to raise a family!

I thanked him, and said I was giving it a lot of thought; so by the time we reached Plymouth in March I was starting, in my mind, to weigh up, as it were, what was I to do regarding both my immediate future, and Jean too, with me, also giving a huge amount of thought to things at home, Dad, Mum, the business and all its attachments and dependents.

I’d briefly mentioned the position to my dad on my next weekend at 77

home, and after some thought my dad said, well son, it’d always been my hope that you’d follow me in the meat trade. Before this damn war came, I’d always thought you might have made a good meat inspector, or perhaps a vet. But if you feel you want to come back, and go into the shop permanently, I’m happy with that. So I told Dad that the Navy money (wages) were not what I thought they’d be, so I may well be saying byebye to the Navy.

Shortly after this the captain sent for me, and said he’d sent for me as my date for the end of my present appointment was this coming May, and he’d had a signal from admiralty to say to offer me a new 6 years or 12 years appointment in the Royal Navy as a permanent electrical sub/lieutenant RN, to start immediately, and for me to choose the number of years, and if agreeable he would signal admiralty for the papers for me to sign in about 14 days time. He said he’d been told that I was a very capable and reliable officer (he was our new captain, and I barely knew him, or he me), and he hoped I’d have an excellent future in the service. I thought for a moment or two before telling him that I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in the service, in spite of having enjoyed every minute of being part of Implacable’s crew. This obviously seemed to upset him, whereupon he said, well, Kendrick, give it a lot of thought, and let me know your decision in the next 14 days. Oh, and by the way, what do you intend to do in Civvy Street if you go back?

I replied, I hope to go back to butchery business once again, sir.

My god, he replied. That seems a way off way of life for a fully qualified man of your calibre. Anyway, let me know. And with that, my interview with the captain ended. I didn’t mention any of this to anybody, but the Bush Telegraph soon put it about that - subbys not staying, but going back to Civvy Street! My PO surprised me the next day by telling me that he’d heard I was leaving soon, as he really thought I was made for the job.

Several other officers, who I’d really had little to do with, spoke to me as well about it, which made me think I was the talk of the wash house! (To use an old Liverpool phrase.)

Anyway, we sailed for Portsmouth in April and anchored off the Isle of Wight early May. I’d thought hard and long about the prospect of staying in the service, and, too, the prospect of not, and returning to Liverpool life again; but my heart, truly, was not in the service life, so I asked again to speak to the captain, and told him that I’d decided not to stay in the service. He said, well, Kendrick, I fully understand, as you must know, I 78

have to talk to and accept or otherwise, many junior and senior officers decisions in this type of matter. But, just to help you, I’ll not close the offer right now, but leave it open until the end of your 14 days leave after you’ve left Implacable. Should you decide to stay with us, please telephone me before the end of your leave, and I’ll get the admiralty papers forwarded to you, if that is the case. With that he offered me his hand for a handshake, which I accepted firmly, thanked him, and he wished me, all the best of good luck for the future; and on that - my Naval service ended! The lads in our workshop made me two lovely brass ashtrays from shell cases, which they presented to me with quite a touching little ceremony in the electrical office before I left.

The morning before I was leaving, I made a shore-trip on the liberty boat with my steel shipping trunks, with most of my gear in them, helped by one of the lads, to get the steel trunks to Portsmouth Harbour station, as luggage in advance to Liverpool Lime Street, so that on the next morning I’d only have my one navy case to carry with me. I picked up the trunks at Lime Street four days later. I remember, even now, when one reads of, or hears of, coming to that fork in the road of life, and just wondering what would have been along the road that I didn’t take. At that time, as I looked back to Implacable lying at anchor in the Sound, with the backdrop of the Isle of Wight, I wondered if I would ever see this part of our dear country again? and if so, how long before I did?

79

CHAPTER 4 1948/49 – 1950 CIVVY STREET, WEDDING, HONEYMOON AND SCOUSE LIFE I have to admit that life back at home was a huge change for me, but, surprisingly I soon adapted back to the butchers shop/home routine once again, and surprisingly too, quite a lot of the shops regular customers seemed very happy to see me back there. Throughout my early shop training with my dad and his staff, I was always equally treated with the staff, no favours being granted towards me because I was the boss’s son, so I soon fitted in again with the gang, and too, the old wireless repairs jobs started to come back to me again. I don’t really know how people had found out about it, but somehow they had.

Bread and flour rationing was over, clothing was getting easier, and there were rumours about the petrol rationing would soon be over; in fact, I found out at our local petrol station that our man would often offer me double the quantity on my petrol coupons face value if I wanted it, which I did sometimes when I took the car for juice. The car and me, too, soon became an item (forgive the simile!) but I began to be the permanent chauffeur/mechanic for our family on most social occasions, and also, where needed, too, in connection with the shop. Mum liked to be able to ask me to run her to various places, although she still liked her trips into Liverpool city centre on the tram/bus to the big shops, such as Lewis’s, Blacklers, T J Hughes and Owen-Owens. By the time we got to Christmas 1948, clothes rationing and restrictions were finishing, and rumours were about that a lot of the other food rationing, excepting for meat, might well come to an end by 1950. I’dnoticed on one of my visits into town that part of the old overhead railway to the docks was being demolished, and I heard that the Liverpool, Birkenhead and Wallasey ferry services were being considerably reduced due, no doubt, to the increase in use of the Mersey road tunnel, and the increase of cars on the roads too.

Jean’s elder brother Derek, and his new wife Jessie, were expecting a baby, and had finally found a house to rent in the Wavertree area at Lance Lane, and Betty and Jack and their baby Barry had succeeded in getting a 80

house further out of town, towards Bowring Park in the outskirts of Knotty Ash/Roby boundaries at Greystone Road.

Dad had started taking me around the Stanley Abattoir Meat Market again with him, on his buying days, as he had done before my Naval service, and quite a lot of the regular salesmen there remembered me, and seemed quite pleased to see me alongside Dad again, some much so, really, that sometimes Dad would trust me to go down and buy for him, on an odd occasion or two, and I enjoyed this freedom.

One of the lads in the shop announced that he was leaving to go to work in another butchers nearer his home, a shop that had re-opened after the war, so we all bade him good luck for his future. We did, in fact, see him on two or three occasions later on – he was doing alright, and he told us he was engaged to be married.

Jean kept really busy in the local Post Office, which was almost next door to our shop, and her boss, a Mrs Scott, the postmistress, also used to ask her to sometimes look after the sweet and tobacconist side of the office for her, with extra pay, of course, which occasionally was making it a long day for Jean.

Jean’s twin sister, Brenda, had her job further up Derby Lane in the farm dairy shop, so the two twins had reasonable opportunity to talk to one another, when needed, being so conveniently near to each other, as well as being just across the road, as it were, from home.

In the city, and port-wise, the Mersey underground electric railway was being extended right into the Wirral, past Birkenhead Park and New Brighton, and all the way to West Kirby, the steam service thereby being withdrawn, making it possible to get an electric train through to West Kirby from Liverpool city centre, and vice-versa.

The manual telephone exchange for the shop was being changed over to automatic, the old manual exchange in nearby Doric Road/Old Swan having been markedly enlarged for the new automatic system (the Strowger system), and our regular meat order for the canteen of the old exchange finished when all the operators left there and the canteen closed. The shops phone number originally being Old Swan, 1386, became Stoneycroft 1386, and another small advance in scientific technology became evident.

About this time I was being allowed to sit in with my dad and his accountant on the accountants monthly visits, usually on a Wednesday afternoon, and, as readers would expect, I, as a younger man, had many 81

questions to ask at these meetings as time passed by; some of my questions being quite comprehensive, and, on occasions, almost embarrassing to my dad. I’ll not enlarge on this point at present, but will be doing so in later chapters. Referring briefly now to the little cottage at Pentre-Halkyn, a letter from the North Wales solicitors had informed Dad that no actual deeds were in existence concerning the property, also none, either, for the two adjacent small properties there; so we picked a suitable dry, sunny weekend to all go over there, armed with tape measures (borrowed from a builder customer) to measure up the whole area surrounding, all the premises, with the permission of the adjacent neighbours, and I made a large scale land map, together with ordinance survey references, to be duplicated and sent off to the North Wales solicitor and the adjacent neighbours.

Washing machines were now beginning to come in vogue, as it were, (and talk of black and white television coming north soon, too.) Ken Dodd’s mother had decided to go for a biggish washing machine, English electric model because of all the dirty (grossly) clothing, etc. from the coal business, but after a couple of weeks she told me (when I called with their meat) that she was getting a bit fed up of it trying to chase her machine around the kitchen when it reached the spin – they eventually had to have it bolted down to the kitchens concrete floor. However, Mum decided on an English electric with a power wringer and this suited us fine, albeit Mum did get her finger caught in the mangle a couple of times, so it was usually left to me to use the power mangle. Talking of mangles, whenever I called down to Chester Road house, where we originally lived, and now my little grandma (Dads mother) lived, she would usually ask me to mangle her heavy wash (bedding, towels, etc.) for her, with the manual mangle, which I was always happy to do. She was a dear, dear little old lady, who always wore lace-up brown boots, did all her own washing and domestic cleaning, cooking, etc. and was particularly known for her going off on days out, either to Wallasey or New Brighton on the ferries, and not coming home till 11pm or so. I’m told the tram conductors all knew her well, as did some of the ferryboat men, too.

Christmas 1948 was more like a Kendrick Christmas once again, all members of the family being present at 135 (the home) for Christmas dinner, as well as two other old army friends of Dads, as well. The food situation was slightly easier too, but I myself felt a bit done in by all the 82

hard preparation work needed to handle the Christmas work at the shop, not being, yet, used to it all again.

Jean and I were able to, now, see quite a lot of each other, both on family visits and on personal outings, and one of Jean’s uncles (Uncle Willie), one of her dads brothers, often used to call into the Post Office, or her home, to give her dinner or dance tickets that he and his wife couldn’t use, for Jean and I to use. These were very good class functions in the city, usually at Reeces or Francis and McKays in Clayton Square, or sometimes for whist drives and dances also.

My brother Roy announced in the new year that he had met another girl, called Primrose, a girl from a Scotch family who lived locally, and whom he liked very much, and it wasn’t long before it was obvious that they were walking out (an item), too, and before spring was set in he’d got engaged and talked of an early marriage. This rocked the family boat more than somewhat, but Mum and Dad being the good old organisers that they’d always been, soon got wedding plans underway. Eventually we all met Primrose and her family, one way or another, in the run up to their wedding, which was planned for August 1949 at the Knotty Ash parish church, reception to be at the village hall, and a friend of Mums together with her husband to organise most of the catering. Primroses family being real broad Scots liked plenty of the hard stuff, and her dad, Lachlan, was hardly ever seen without a glass of it, but nevertheless a real nice fellow. Roy had asked me to be his best man, which I was pleased to accept, and then, of course, talk in the families ensued of where they were going to live.

As if this position had already been foreseen by my dad and our accountant, at the next accountants meeting, the wedding, etc. came up for discussion, and my dad quite surprised me by saying that he and Mum had already decided that they could afford to give each of us children a starting donation to our future lives; not a dowry, to use the old word, but a few hundred pounds to help us! Our accountant, Mr Johnson, checked the figures and the books and OK’d the plan, so there we were, to be given a little stepping stone to our lives, which neither of us had expected.

Nationally, about this time, black and white television was getting underway in the London and Birmingham area. Small screens then, just nine inch and 12 inch, with the promise of larger screens to follow in a year or two. When the Sutton Coldfield Transmitter opened, it was just 83

vaguely possible to receive a faint black and white picture in parts of Merseyside, with a huge roof aerial.

Down at the shop, although most meat rationing hadn’t yet come to an end, supplies were getting a little easier, but the big (once new) mincer was giving more trouble again, and had to be repaired by the company’s engineers. Our local health inspector, who had always been a great help to Dad over the years, called in to tell us that a new man was coming to take over his job as he was retiring, so for Dad and us to expect the old saying: ‘a new broom sweeps clean’. Also, that for health reasons, most small butchers were being advised to give up sausage making, unless they had suitable large workrooms for this purpose; as the use of machinery brought it into the Factories Act, rather than the Shops Act. Dad and I, and Les (Dads second man) all considered this, and decided that we would have to make the decision to buy in sausages from our cooked meats man, who called twice a week, and to considerably alter our future market buying patterns, to eliminate cheaper meat cuts that we previously used for sausage making, but it really was a headache.

What with Roy’s wedding, the changes at the shop, etc. 1949 proved to be a very, very busy year all round; although with me as chauffeur, we did manage to get a few nice runs out with the old Hillman to North Wales and the little cottage, to Southport, and a couple of long ones up to Lake Windermere picking up damsons for Mum in the September. My brother, Roy, and his intended, Primrose, had managed to find a nice rebuilt terrace house in Anfield in a road called Sedley Street, number 78 (readers please note), so all was set for their immediate future. The wedding went duly ahead, and ‘a reet good time’ was had by all, ending up at 135 late in the evening, with me at the piano and a right old family sing-song in progress. It was about this time that I pointed out to Mum and Dad about the back door at 135 being in the wrong place, as it was at the side of the house facing south-west, and allowed the prevailing wind and rain to be blown in when opened – so after due consideration, the builder was brought in to move the back door to the rear of the scullery, and the old doorway bricked up, making both the kitchen and scullery much warmer.

Dad was busy at home in the little garage with his woodwork. He was a superb carpenter, as well as a butcher, and was busy designing another bigger timber garage for us, and designing and making another kitchen cabinet (with pull-out worktop), the same as the one he had previously 84

made for Mum for us at 135, to give to Roy and Prim for their new home, with a promise, too, that he would do the same for Joyce (my sister) and I whenever we too had our own homes.

Nationally, some quite considerable changes had been happening with the railway systems, because of near bankruptcy for most of the old companies – LMSR (London Midland and Scottish Railway), GWR (Great Western Railway), LNER (London and North Eastern Railway), and the SR (Southern Railway) – an all-embracing nationalisation scheme was brought in, between 1948/49, the whole of Britain’s railway system from then on became British Railways, or British Rail for short. I don’t think it made really much local difference, but there were rumours that Englishelectric were working on a new diesel-electronic locomotive experimentally, which it was hoped might prove useful for British Rail.

It was just about this time, shortly after Roy’s wedding, that Mum had a bit of a poorly stretch for about two weeks or so, only to be followed by my dad being bad for a week, which was rare for either of them., as they’d generally always enjoyed fair health. Naturally, Dad worried over the shop, but Mum told him not to, as me (Drever), could handle everything quite well in his absence, which I did, and it was about this time that Dads real trust in me (behind the scenes) became evident when he signed eight blank cheques on the bank, for me to use for the weeks meat bills for the various suppliers.

In the Derby Lane locality was the Old Swan shopping centre, our main competitors with five or six other butchers businesses, and also a small cycle shop with battery charging facilities, batteries, etc., and the manager of this shop contacted me re my wireless repairs, to ask me if I could take on any repair jobs that came up to him in his shop, as his usual man had died. I agreed to do this from a spare-time point of view, and as such a long-term arrangement, with both seeing valuable results on both sides, was born. His name was Vic, and he and his wife and family stayed firm friends for many years, also becoming meat customers too.

Over at Jean’s house, on most weekends, I was hearing of the family difficulties with Jean’s younger sister, Thelma, mainly stemming from stopping out late past the time set by Jean’s dad (Mr Naylor), sometimes not coming home until the early hours of the morning, and occasionally being brought home by taxi, by American servicemen (yanks.) Jean’s family, now being somewhat depleted by marriages and moving out, meant that Auntie (Mrs Naylor) she was known as Auntie because that 85

truthfully was who she was, the natural mother of all the children, (except Thelma) having died in childbirth after a second set of twins in approximately 1927/28 – so Auntie, the mothers sister, had moved in to help rear the large family, even though she (Auntie) was a crippled polio sufferer, needing to wear a leg iron to get about, and later on she and Mr Naylor married, and later had Thelma, their own child. Jean and her twin sister Brenda were fostered out to a family, in the Wirral in New Brighton, but were brought back to the Naylor family after about nine years, which, as many readers will understand, had left a life-long problem in the two girls minds, which Jean particularly struggled with. The large number in her family meant having to struggle along on one wage (albeit a good one), so their home living standards were considerably lower than most of their friends and neighbours.

I’m sure, in my own mind, this tended to have an effect on our (Jean and mine) relationship, for a time, in the early months, because at that particular time 1936/1960, to live in a house at Knotty Ash was considered, locally, to be a better class area of the city, yet none of us folks living there thought that at all. Now in 1949, the Naylor household needed Jean and Thelma’s domestic assistance as much as possible, as both Auntie (Mrs Naylor) and Mr Naylor were getting older, and the other girls, Betty and Brenda, had married and left, and it was generally (sadly) believed in those years that the girls in a family had to do the women’s work!

Down at our shop another Christmas was on the horizon, and even as early as October, Christmas poultry orders and pork orders were coming in. Meat, although still officially on the ration, was easier, but Dad was having a struggle to find poultry supplies, locally, in quantity, but then an old market friend said he would be having quite a lot of fresh-frozen Irish birds coming in at a good price, as well as chickens and geese too. When these started to arrive on the Irish boat from Dublin, they looked just what we needed, so Dad decided to have some for our trade; in fact, quite a lot. But two weeks before Christmas, where the heck were we going to put them all? As being fresh-frozen they would all need to thaw out and hang for at least three days before we could dress them. I hit on what I thought might help us out – our other shop in Faulkner Street, down in the city, had two large cellars, clean and unused, so I said to Dad, leave it to me, I’ll pick up the cases of poultry from the market with our car (with the passenger seat removed, and the backseat taken out), and make two 86

journeys down to the Faulkner Street shop, I’ll hang all the birds up in the two cellars, and later on in the week, sort them all out and weigh them, etc. As luck would have it, all went very smoothly for me, albeit a few sore fingers and hands for my trouble, and they were just lovely birds.

Absolutely top class, all of them, even the geese too, and by the time the Christmas rush was upon us, Dad remarked that he hoped we’d be able to get lots more of those next year; but sadly we weren’t able to, as further changes to the poultry market and poultry farming were coming about.

As Christmas approached I was planning very seriously to propose marriage to my Jean, but somehow life wasn’t kind to me in that direction just at that time; as I have mentioned early in another chapter, Jean somehow just seemed to understand my mood, and would put one of her hands across my lips, saying, not now Drever, please, and there, life went on. Christmas came and went with much of the usual hard work and merriment, but at the New Year’s Eve party a cousin of my mothers, a lad in the Liverpool Scottish regiment, a piper in fact, was on leave, and invited to our party. Yes, you’ve guessed, at the vital time and on the stroke of midnight, he was persuaded to pipe in the New Year for us. It was very novel, at that time, but for future New Year’s parties he, Cousin George, was given a standing invitation, which for quite a few years he kept.

Early in the New Year, 1950, one Monday morning when I got back to the shop from market, Dads second man, Les, had failed to turn in, the shop having been opened by Jean’s brother, Billy, with his set of keys, and later that day, Les wife, Mrs Mossman, telephoned to say that Les was really quite poorly with a Quincy, and the doctor said he’d probably take two to three weeks to get over it. So we were just a bit short handed then.

Jean, once again on our usual weekend outing, had said how poorly, too, her dad had been, he being off work a bit as well at that time, seemed like the cold winter had got at people more than somewhat.

Entertainment, generally, at that time was the pictures (cinema) of which we, in Liverpool, had a wide selection; the theatre, again quite a number of these; the occasional weekend dance in the local dancehall, parish room or whatever; and sports, if you were keen in that direction.

Jean and I mainly stuck to the pictures, and just for us, in the Derby Lane area, we had four local cinemas in walking distance, and six other ones if 87

we used the bus or the tram, as well as many more in the city for, say, a very special film.

The shop was always busier, thankfully, during the cold winter months, but it made the job harder because of the lower temperatures, so one was always glad to reach the Saturday of a week and unwind a bit over the weekend. It was on just such a weekend as this, in February, when Jean and I were on our way walking home, about 9.30pm in the dark, passing the gates to a local residential park known as Sandfield Park, that I swung her round, stopping, put my arms around her and kissed her passionately.

She said, what are you doing?

I just said, ‘Dimps, will you marry me? I want you to be my wife’.

She looked a little flummoxed then she said, ‘yes, I will. But when shall it be?’

We resumed our walking home a little further, then I asked her for, another kiss, please Dimps.

‘Alright’, she said. ‘But you’re awful’ We were nearly home, then. So I just said then, I’ll go and ask your dad as we get in.

Whereupon Jean said, ‘oh, please don’t ask him tonight, he’s in an awful mood.’

But my reply was, I jolly well will ask him now, mood or not – and as soon as we entered the house, I went straight into the front lounge to ask him, whereupon he rose from his chair, shook my hand firmly, saying, you’ve taken your time about it, lad, but I wish you both every happiness.

Where’s Jean? (But Jean had dashed into the kitchen, I guess to spread the news to the rest of the family.) Whereupon her Auntie shouted for her to come, and Auntie then shook my hand and pulled me down to her face to kiss me, saying, ‘I’m so pleased, Drever, I’m sure you’ll both be very happy.’

And there it was, I’d finally and very, very happily, got myself a future wife, with the added bonus that she was also the girl of my dreams. When I got home to 135 that night, I told Dad and Mum about it, and they immediately said how very pleased they were, and that in the forthcoming weeks they would only be too pleased to help with our wedding plans. Readers may just have noticed that in my proposal, I’d addressed my Jean as Dimps – this was because I’d always spoken to her (personally) that is, with this term (with her permission), because of her 88

beautiful dimples. All my letters to her from sea, etc. all began with, Dearest Dimps. I’ll not try to conceal my true joy at our engagement, I was at that time utterly and totally consumed with the future life that lay ahead of us, and of all our hopes and wishes, of how we’d try to make it be. Yes, I can hear readers now, saying, ah! But that is how we all thought on many similar occasions in their lives! Needless to say, the close-knit community of Derby Lane, Stoneycroft and Old Swan, soon heard the news on the grapevine, and Jean (out of the Post Office) and Drever (out of Kendrick’s) were (to use my well-known adage), the talk of the wash house!

It was around about this time that soap rationing ended, as did petrol rationing too, and other food, biscuits, syrup, dried fruits, canned goods and sugar were all getting easier to obtain. Dad’s second man at our shop, Les, who’d been off with a quincy, came back after three weeks; but although he was on the mend, it had certainly taken a lot out of him. The other shop in town, in Faulkner Street, had its mincer worn out and broken down, so I had to make two trips down there in one week to deliver mince, and sausage meat made with our machine at Derby Lane.

I used the Hillman for this. Our changeover to buying sausages in from our cooked meats man was beginning to work out alright, although we weren’t the only butchers to be doing it, it was a pretty general thing across Merseyside, and Dad had noticed, at the market, whilst talking amongst other butchers, that quite a few of them were getting small vans to use for collections and deliveries; to cut out, too, the high costs of haulage by wagon that were now prevailing. So, at our next accountants meeting, the subject of the purchase of a van was raised, and mutually agreed so long as not too expensive, bearing in mind, also, my forthcoming wedding, etc.

However, as sometimes happens in life, fate, sort of, stepped in, as our sausage and cooked meat man, a Mr Gillespie, mentioned that he was changing one of his vans for a slightly larger new one, and would be putting the smaller one up for sale. After due consideration and agreement between him and Dad, Dad bought the van from him, and we now had a shop van and a driver, me, to face the ever-changing future.

This move, although it meant much more work for me, with the haulage side from the meat market, I was secretly glad, because it gave me the chance to make Dads life easier for him getting to and from home, the shop and the market, as I knew he was only getting older.

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Jean and I went into town (Liverpool) to a well-known jewellers at no.33 London Road to get her engagement ring. She’d chosen a solitaire.

For readers (from other than the Liverpool area) 33 London Road was the address of Messrs Balls, a well-known jeweller’s establishment. Wedding discussion was the rule of the day, when, which church, where for the reception, and most importantly, where were we going to live. It was the overall opinion that we should have a parish church wedding, at Jean’s parish church, with the reception at my church’s village hall at Knotty Ash (similar to my brother Roy’s wedding.)

So, the first move was for Jean and I to see the vicar at St. Anne’s Church, Stanley, to talk dates and times, bearing in mind all the variable ifs and buts, cans and cannots, which anybody who ever tries to arrange a wedding comes up against, for example, there’s catering bookings, hall bookings, church bookings etc. to name but a few. However, after a lot of shuffling up and down the calendar, the date of September 6th 1950 came out of the hat, as it were. A Wednesday afternoon (as all good butchers get married on their half-day), so there we were set for date, time, place, to be going on with. Jean’s next door neighbour at no.55, an elderly lady, slightly crippled, who used to depend on Jean sometimes for massages, help, etc. on hearing of our engagement, told us of an oldish three bedroom house that she had for sale in the Wavertree area. So we drove over that way to have a look at it, but it, sadly, it was terribly run down, needing such a lot of renovation, and truthfully Jean didn’t wish to go inside, so we didn’t, and turned down her offer, as good (price-wise) that it was.

Jean’s dad started to go down, poorly again, and fairly soon he asked for his bed downstairs in the lounge, which the lads did, to save Auntie needing to go up and down the flight of stairs with her leg. Sadly, the poor man deteriorated rapidly, and stubbornly refused to go to hospital, although in my mind, I think he knew, because his death came quickly, to everyone’s shock. The funeral was held in a rather quiet old area of Liverpool, named Walton Park Cemetery, he being buried in a vacant family grave place. Dear Auntie took it all very well, but I remember Thelma crying a lot at the time.

The year was moving on, the van at the shop now meant that we could increase our delivery customers, as and when we accrued them, with consequent sales benefits, and I and Jean’s brother Billy (who often accompanied me in the van) kept a keen look out for any possible house 90

opportunity that we might see when on the road. We did, of course, see a few, but mostly they were biggish ones, way above our possible price bracket.

We paid our expected visit to the vicar to finalise on the wedding arrangements, church-wise, and he and his dear wife requested Jean’s and mine attendance at their home on four evenings, a month before our marriage, for talks, a chat, and tea and cakes, which we both enjoyed.

Then, about April-wise, Mum said to me on my arrival home that she had met a shopping friend in the local bread shop, and hearing that Jean and I were house-hunting, this friend told Mum that her father had died recently in an almost new semi out Bowring Park way, and her mum couldn’t live alone, so the house was to go on the market. I asked Mum to please, at least, find out, if she could, further details; and happily, within a week, Mum had met her again and got further details for us. Jean and I motored out in the van to see it. It was in the new Paramount Estates build, a bit further out (in the sticks) than Jean’s sister, Betty, and Jean’s first impression was that as nice a home as it was, it was a bit too far from Old Swan than she would really have liked. However, it took about another month for us to get more details, and a key, and in the meanwhile I think Jean had talked with her sister Betty, and when we got a key Jean was much more eager to look it over.

On getting further full details about the house, I liked it very much, but the price of £1,760 was distinctly frightening. Needless to say, Jean and I paid several more visits to the house before saying to each other that we liked it, but it was much above our agreed limit. Then I suddenly remembered my life insurance policy (readers will now remember my earlier reminder), and by using this facility and raking up every penny in the world, I calculated we might just afford it. I contacted my Uncle Jack (the insurance man) re: the mortgage facility, and within 24 hours he got back to me to say the Co-op Insurance Society had accepted the application, and for me to just contact their solicitors in the Liverpool city centre and they would do the rest. This was a real shot in the arm for me, and Jean, really, couldn’t quite grasp the position, that we had actually been able to make the first concrete steps to a lovely, nearly new, home.

The moving out, the paperwork, etc. all took about another month or so, but by mid-July I’d paid the ten per cent deposit, and the house was ours. At this point we were also busily talking about where we would go for our honeymoon. North Wales was spoken about, even as far as 91

Llandudno or Llangollen, then I said I’d like to do the lakes, with Dads car if allowed. Jean agreed with the idea too; then talking to Mum, she said that she had the farm address outside Kendal where we used to get the damsons on our Sunday runs out, which she passed on to Jean and I. I contacted this farm, and to use the much used phrase, the rest is history.

We’d booked for a fortnight at Beckside Farm, Crook near Kendal, from Wednesday 6th September to Wednesday 20th September. At that time in July/August, I didn’t rightly know where I’d get the money for this, on top of the house purchase, but in the event, we managed it, as readers will hear later.

The house purchase papers were attended to by mid-July, and towards the end of the month we were starting to go out to the house to sort out our plans, and to see what we had to do; they had left us some nice curtains, the hall and stair carpets, and one downstairs room carpet, together with an old couch in the dining room, the gas cooker in the little kitchen, and an old gas boiler for washing in the little glass conservatory over the back door. I had always stipulated that I wanted a home with bedroom fireplaces, and this little home had just these, too. Don’t know really, now, why I’d said this, but there we are – it just came about.

The gardens were slightly overgrown, we had an old green shed too, and even double front iron gates, but no driveway then. At each weekend, and sometimes on a mid-week evening too, Jean and I would be up there doing this, that, and the other – bathroom ceiling, kitchen ceiling, and so on, as strength and money allowed. The couch, however, in the dining room, which was pulled up in front of the fire, which we’d lit, was a terrible temptation on many occasions for a right good snog, and I would be a liar if I didn’t honestly admit to wanting to go much further on the couch but for my dear Jean’s management of these situations who’d already extracted a firm promise from me that it was not to happen before we were married.

I’d promised her this even before I’d gone to sea, but, well, a man can’t help himself sometimes. Fortunately, common sense somehow seemed to hold the reins, as it were, and my promise was honoured in the end.

Mum and Dad were brought up to see our house, and it didn’t take dear old Dad very long to get out his tape measure to measure up the little kitchen, sizing it up for the little kitchen cabinet that he’d promised to make for us. Jean’s Auntie was also brought up to see it, and have afternoon tea (sort of) with us. Our wedding arrangements were all 92

coming together nicely, just one or two hitches with the bridesmaids’ dresses, but my tailor on seeing my no.1 Navy jacket said it would convert perfectly to a morning jacket, with the gold braid removed and the buttons changed, which it did very nicely. For the reception we’d reckoned on between 36 and 44 sitting down, and in the event it worked out at 41 guests. We’d ordered three wedding cars, and also a double decker corporation bus, for the journeying from homes to St. Anne’s Church and the Knotty Ash village hall, and readers will be just a little interested that the cost of the three wedding cars in total came to £6. I still have the original receipted bill with many other keepsakes from this period. The beer, wines, and other alcoholic beverages, were very sportingly supplied to me at cost price by one of our shop customers who had the licence for The Thatched House, a Wavertree pub/hotel in the Picton Road area, which saved us quite a lot in that direction. Surprisingly too, the wireless repairs kept coming in, sometimes more than I could cope with, but Vic in the bike shop was a good manager and was always happy to assist me, and of course the earnings I got from this work mattered considerably then.

City-wise at this time, more and more tram routes were being converted to buses, the Liverpool Edge Lane and Green Lane tram works were closed down, and the premises partly converted to bus depots. It was also reported that some of the Liverpool tram cars, the green goddesses, as they were called, had been sold off to Glasgow Corporation.

Another of our meat customers had two easy chairs to give away, so we called with the meat van to collect them, and Jean’s brother Billy helped me carry them into our house. They were in really good condition, a brown leatherette finish, easy to clean. Then, a few weeks later, Jean and I went town shopping on our half-day off, ending up in T J Hughes Ltd in London Road, where we bought a little simple sideboard, and a dining room table, and four dining room chairs, and so we were more or less set up, to start with.

It wasn’t very long before September arrived, but the weather was awfully unsettled then. Anyway, on the night of the fifth, the night before, I’d told Jean that I’d probably just call in to see her evening-time-ish, have a quick cuppa, and get away; but when I got there she seemed upset, a bit red-eyed, so I naturally said, what’s up, kid?

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She didn’t reply straight away, but then she said, come to the vestibule, please. At this, my heart sort of missed a beat. However, on reaching the vestibule, and we were alone, she put her arms right round me and just said, I’m so, so, sorry love, but it’s that time of the month, started this afternoon. I could see now that she was crying, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. I just gathered her up in my arms, kissed the tears tenderly (I can still taste the salt to this day), gave her a long, passionate kiss (one of our specials) and a long hug. Then she said, but it was to be our wedding night tomorrow.

I smiled, hugged her again, tightly, and replied, there’ll be loads of time for wedding nights, when you’re my Mrs Kendrick. That put a smile back on her face, I gave her my hanky to wipe up the tears, and she said then, but Auntie said I must tell you no.

Good old Auntie, I said. Then we said night-night to each other, another long hug and kiss, and off I went home. It rained all that night, but by morning it had stopped, and a lot of the morning I spent out in the back garden deep in thought, until it started raining again, about half past twelve.

Mum and Dad had bought us a new double bed and mattress, and Mum said she had a big wardrobe, finished in polished walnut, which she’d also give us when we got home from our honeymoon. As I’d breakfasted early, at my usual time of the morning, I was feeling quite peckish by half twelve, and as there was quite a bit of food about, ready to go the hall, I helped myself to a snack or two, just to keep me going. It was all comings and goings at 135, as is the usual thing on wedding days, loads of cards in the post, some early telegrams too, the flowers arriving, and one or two very welcome helpers also called in. Joyce was being got ready, and Roy and Primrose arrived early too. I’d already packed the honeymoon case (my old naval one), Jean was just going to bring her own small case to the hall.

The teapot and kettle were on permanent standby all the time, and although a bottle or two of whatever was your poison was available, I refused any alcohol, sticking to tea and sandwiches. By one o’clock most of the things that had to go to the hall had been collected, I was dressed ready, Dad had just arrived home from shutting the shop earlier and was soon washed and dressed, when the car came for Joyce to go. Then, a short time later, the car for Roy and I, and Mum and Dad, arrived. Roy 94

had all the letters, cards and telegrams in a large bag, as he was my best man.

The wedding presents that we’d been given were breath-taking, in spite of the wartime shortage era. People had been so, so kind to us. Half of one room at 135 was piled high with all the lovely things. I gave Roy the ring, telling him not to lose it, and there we all were, on our way to the long-awaited wedding at St. Anne’s Church, Stanley, by coincidence, right next to the Liverpool Stanley meat market, and abattoir. The double decker bus was parked outside, and several other cars also, and as Roy and I entered the church doorway, our photographer met us and briefly explained his plans. I’ll not labour the description of the church or ceremony too much in these pages, but what I will tell readers is that on that day, at that time, and when I had my darling wife, my Jean, on my arm, I was the proudest man in the land. She was a radiant, smiling, happy bride, and most of all she was my Mrs Kendrick.

The church was full of lovely local people, about 160 at least, as well as our invited guests, in spite of the foul weather, all these lovely folk from Stoneycroft and Derby Lane areas had turned out to wish us well.

Because of the rain pouring most of the time, all our photographs except the one taken on the church steps, had to be taken indoors in the village hall, and the adjacent small parish room, but our photographer, albeit an amateur at that time, did us proud. Black and white, of course, although he did contact Jean and I right after our honeymoon to tell us that he’d managed to get hold of one, rare (at that time) colour film, and would Jean like to sit for one colour photograph in her wedding dress, which she later did, and one colour photograph resulted. Talking of colours, Jean was in the traditional white dress, her bridesmaids being in light lilac/mauve shades, all wearing small flowered headdresses, and my Jean had a veiled headdress also, which she wore open.

The wedding breakfast was laid out in the village hall, and, bearing in mind the shortages prevailing at that time, was really quite something.

Just how on earth the catering people had managed such a spread I never knew, but it was lovely, and we had a three tier cake, too. I had asked for some sandwiches and a thermos of tea for Jean and I to take with us when we set off for our honeymoon in the lakes. The Hillman had already been brought down to the hall, together with our case, ready for our departure about 6.30pm, and after a very happy, sometimes laughable, sometimes raucous, celebration, Jean and I changed and got ready to leave. Our 95

departure time arrived and the guests all sang to us, for they are jolly good fellows, and so say all of us! There were one or two wet eyes amongst some of the family, then, as we went out to the Hillman still in pouring rain, I noticed the just married sign on the back, and the customary string of tins tied to the back bumper. With a huge cheer and bye-bye, we got underway (forgive the sea-going expression) at last. I feel sure that all married couples, like ourselves, whilst sorry to leave the families and the merriment, the huge feeling of relief and at last it’s over, or done, overthrows all, as we, just Jean and I, were together, alone on our way, I hoped, to a new and enjoyable life together ahead.

I’d turned the Hillman towards West Derby, ready to head out of Liverpool via North-way, Maghull, Aughton, and Ormskirk, to Preston, but stopped along Eaton Road, West Derby, to take off the rattling tins at the back, and the just married sign in the rear window. We made good time, really, bearing in mind the dreadful rain, and ran into one or two flash floods before reaching the lights of Penwortham outside Preston, and then downhill into Preston town centre, with good lighting, an odd tram or two, and a lorry or two, or bus, as well, for company. I headed north on the A6 and soon the lights of Fulwood were behind us, and I can, even today, see the lights of the late tram standing at Fulwood terminus in my rear mirror. We ran into one or two more flash floods as we headed north for Lancaster, in some places the A6 was flooded right across the road, but as I could see the old Ribble bus managing to negotiate them, I managed also to get the old Hillman through alright.

Jean asked me if I would like a cigarette, I said, yes please, dear; whereupon she lit two cigarettes, then passed one over to me for me to smoke as I drove, but she was very good at taking the cigarette off me if I needed both hands whilst driving. It was probably dark by then, and we both agreed that we could do with a toilet stop somewhere when we were just approaching Bilsborrow, and I spotted a pub over on the right called The Roe Buck, so I swung the Hillman over to it, and we nipped in for our comfort stop.

It was then that I noticed Jean still had some confetti in her hair and on the back and collar of her jacket. Some of the fellas in the pub noticed this right away, with remarks such as, who’s been to a wedding? and, it’s not your wedding, is it?, etc. I had to admit (truthfully I was bloody proud to say it), that we had got married in Liverpool that afternoon, and were on our way to Windermere for our honeymoon. A couple of blokes said, 96

you’ll be bloody lucky, man, on a night like this, it’s reported its worse further north.

However, we set off again bravely, and really quite soon, the lights of Lancaster began to show up, and as we ran downhill towards the infirmary and town centre, there were few more signs of night life about.

I’d remembered the big mirror opposite the end of Penny Street, where one turns right towards the Skerton Bridge, with Pyes garage and petrol pump on the right. As they were still open, I pulled over and filled up with petrol, and asked if he’d heard anything regarding the A6 north to Kendal.

He told me he’d seen a couple of the Ribble buses coming through from Carlisle, so it probably was still passable with care.

I thanked him, then drove over and along to a bit of spare parking space opposite the Green Ayre station, close to the end of the Skerton Road bridge across the Lune, and as Jean said she’d like a drink, etc. we dug out the thermos and the grub and had a bite to eat, a drink or two, and a kiss or three. Then, duly refreshed, we moved off again, across the Skerton Bridge, past the Ribble bus garage on the right, and onward to the north through Skerton to Slyne and then Bolton-le-sands to the Carnforth crossroads, traffic signals here, but as I’d done this journey quite a few times in the past couple of years on our family outings, I felt I knew the road fairly well.

Quite a lot of steam and smoke around Carnforth, and the smell of railways too, as we edged northwards. I knew the road from Carnforth was in poor condition, full of pot-holes almost all the way to Milnthorpe, and four or five flash floods, too, to contend with. Time was marching on as we couldn’t make much speed in the conditions prevailing, but I had warned Mrs Airey at our honeymoon farm that we would be pretty late anyway, but hadn’t foreseen anything like this.

We reached the Barrow Road turn off, at Levens Bridge alright, just a little bit more traffic here heading south, and then up the hill to the Strickland Arms public house, and finally down the switchback road, because that was precisely how it looked and felt in the daylight; but now at night, in these flood conditions, each of the dips in the road had a flash flood in it, mostly about 12 – 18 inches deep at most.

I began to negotiate each one carefully, with my headlights on beam, and usually in the centre (crown) of the road, or holding back to wait while another vehicle was trying, in turn. I’d negotiated two of these dips (flooded) and on reaching another, I saw the Ribble bus for Lancaster 97

approaching the water, so I waited for him to go through, then proceeded myself to enter the flood, about 9 – 12 inches it looked, and almost got halfway through when a huge cascade of water from the fields on my left tumbled over the grass verge onto the road ahead of me, immediately raising the level of the flood to what looked like two feet deep. I tried to accelerate the car out of it, but the poor old engine died, and there we were, up to our waists (almost) in unexpected flood water. I got Jean to stand on her seat, opening the sun roof for her, then I got out and waded round to pick her up and carry her on my shoulders up to dryer ground on the verge, where she waited whilst I returned to the Hillman to accept a tow-line that a very kind tanker driver had offered me, to tow the Hillman out, as his tanker engine was a high one, above the flood level.

This we (he and I) did, and I left the Hillman on the roadside, after trying to see if she’d start again, which she didn’t!

I walked back along the flooded verge to Jean, where I found her talking to a rather befuddled, friendly, somewhat drunken chap in a little Ford Anglia, who very kindly offered to take us both in his car by a different route into Kendal, where he and his wife had a small hotel, where he said we would be welcome to stay the night. My Jean looked worryingly towards me, but I quietly whispered in her ear, any port in a storm, dear, so we kindly accepted the offer and climbed into the back of the Anglia. He turned the car around and headed back southwards a bit, before turning off the A6 and into some farm lanes. Whilst doing this, he told us he’d been to a licenced victualler’s annual meeting in Preston, and the bad weather had made him late.

We seemed, in the darkness, to be turning this way and that, when all of a sudden, going up a slight hill, his engine coughed, then died. He swore, then he said, damn, I’m out of petrol, but I think old George might have some to spare! And with that, he got out of the Anglia and walked off down the lane, leaving us two love-birds in the car. Jean said to me, do you really believe him? I’ll bet this is a stolen car, and he’s just dumped us!

I thought for a moment, then said to my dear Jean, whatever the situation, love, at present were safe together in here, out of the weather, so don’t worry! But wonders of wonders, in about 20 minutes time, he came back, whistling in the dark, said he’d got some juice from old George, who’d gone to bed but told him where to find the can in the barn, 98

and then proceeded to pour it into the tank, and lo and behold, we set off again for Kendal.

We reached Kendal shortly after midnight. The river Kent was in full storm flow, and the council men were all out on duty around the river bridges.

As we reached the back door of his little hotel, his wife opened the door, looking (to start with) as though she was about to lynch him; but seeing us two bedraggled honeymooners alongside him, she immediately softened, put an arm around Jean, hurriedly invited us in, explaining that unfortunately she was full up due to the weather situation, that every other hotel in Kendal was full too, but we would be very welcome to stay the night there in the little lounge, in the easy chairs, and have a bath and breakfast in the morning if we wished. Of course we accepted, so there we were, in a strange hotel, in a lounge, in the middle of the night, wet and damp, and on our honeymoon!

They offered us each blankets, whisky, to keep out the cold, which I was grateful for, but Jean didn’t drink all of hers; and we made the best of it. There was only a small electric fire, but we weren’t cold, just a bit shocked, and Jean kept asking me, but what about the car??

I said, try and sleep, dear, well sort that out in the morning in the daylight.

She did fall off to sleep in her chair, but the chiming of the Kendal town hall clock every hour kept me awake most of the night.

In the morning they were kindness itself to us; just asked us to wait until the other guests had breakfasted, then gave us all we could eat, or want, for our breakfasts, a nice bath and clean-up, and he (now sober) briefly explained to me roughly where our car was on the A6, about one and a half miles south of Kendal, offering to run us to the Hillman if we wanted, but I said we’d walk as it was a nice morning, the rain had gone away, and the sun was shining. She wouldn’t take any payment at all from us, for all they did for us, saying, it’s just to wish you both every happiness on your road ahead, with our compliments.

We set off walking south along the A6 about 10.15am and soon spotted the Hillman in the distance just as a fire engine was coming back from where the flood had been. As we approached the Hillman, I said to Jean, she’s not where we left her, love, she’s been moved about 50 yards or so and parked up on the grass verge. But when we got to her, all was quickly explained, because the engine was warm. There was a letter on 99

the steering wheel from an AA patrolman, and although she was a bit dirty and dishevelled, she looked roadworthy. The letter on the steering wheel explained all, and believe me, the relief we both felt after reading this lovely letter was indescribable. It said: Oh dear, oh dear! What a night it must have been for you two! I’ve pumped water out, dried out the ignition and battery cables, cleaned the plugs, started her up, and warmed her through.

I’ve no doubt, last night will be a life-long memory for you both.

My sincere best wishes for your future, Andrew Kilshaw AA patrolman, Kendal You see, readers, my dad was an AA member, and his AA badge was on the front bumper of the Hillman, so the fire brigade may have informed him of the Hillman by the flood on the A6. As we started her up OK, and proceeded gingerly towards Kendal, I could see the change coming in my Jean’s face, as she now realised, as did I, that our planned honeymoon might still be able to go ahead as we’d hoped. We called back at the little hotel to thank them again, and to let them see that we were mobile again, then said goodbye to the Angel Hotel and made our way out to Crook and to Beckside Farm, where we then met Mrs Airey, our landlady (for our stay), the farmer’s wife, who immediately said she wasn’t surprised not to have seen us last night. She, too, had heard about Kendal being virtually cut off by floods, but she was quite interested in what had happened to us, saying, your story sounds almost like the story in a film!

We were shown to our room in the large, old-style farmhouse, with creaky polished floorboards, both in our room, and along the long access landing to the bathroom at the far end. It was lovely, light and airy, and you could hear the bubbling of the water in the adjacent beck, hence the name Beckside.

She made us very welcome, and offered whatever help was needed to dry the car out, etc. My Jean, surprisingly, was very reserved, quiet, and, I thought, just a little shy, which puzzled me a little because of her normal bubbly, confident nature when with me, but she altered, thankfully, after two or three days. The first three days we spent drying the car out with newspapers, cloths, etc. and plenty of sunshine and wind.

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I drove over the Kirkstone Pass to Ullswater two days on the run, where we sort of encamped beside the lake with the car doors all open, and the sunshine roof open as well, whilst we two sat, or lay, close to the lakeside, paddling, talking and planning, and kissing when opportunity presented itself. Jean hadn’t brought her mac with her, so we nipped over to Kendal to buy one for her at a quaint little old-fashioned ladies shop, full of hats, coats, cardigans, wools, etc. but she got a nice one there. I was utterly and hopelessly in love with her, and (whilst I’ll never know) I walked around like the Lord Mayor of wherever, with my smashing wife on my arm.

To have been able to honeymoon on the lakes in those days was quite something, and I was determined, as much as I could afford to, to get all we could get from it whilst we were there. The weather proved really quite kind to us in the end, and by my careful planning we were able to see almost all of the lakes, and also do most of the passes too. With the dear old Hillman we were out almost every day in the car, returning to the farm by 6pm in time for evening meals; although one evening in the start of the second week, Jean said she fancied the pictures, so we headed into Kendal to the local picture-house, but, sadly, after only about a half hour of pictures, Jean said she felt really queer and sickly, so we had to come out and stay in the fresh air until she got better, when we then headed back to the farm.

Sadly, the fortnight seemed to fly by, and it was time for us to bid Beckside farewell and thank you, all too soon. For any of my readers who are wondering, bearing in mind what I’d written before our wedding, I can tell you that our wedding night (albeit four or five days later) came about with the traditional fully consummated marriage, a good time being had by both.

We left for home and Liverpool early on the Wednesday morning after a lovely breakfast, paying our bill, and Mrs Airey wishing us every happiness for our future. As we reached Preston, lunchtime, Jean said she’d like to call on her Auntie Sissy and Uncle Harry in Aughton, just outside Ormskirk, so we headed that way, and my goodness, they were so pleased to see us. We were given sandwiches, cakes and tea, and Auntie Sissy insisted on giving us a bag of home-baked cakes and scones to take home with us.

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Dear Aunty – Jean’s Stepmum

My sister Joyce and husband 102

Our wedding – Family photo.

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AA Patrol Report, as left on CKA 948, following the flood on the first evening/night of My and Jean’s honeymoon

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Entry in Liverpool Echo, describing the break in and arrest of the offender at 135 Thomas Lane 105

Gwen, Brian (carrying the monkey) and Stephen – on a day out to Colwyn Bay approx. 1960

Gwen approx. 1962

Brian and Stephen ‘two little terrors’ 106

Gwen standing at Halkyn Cottage Garden Gate approx. 1957

Jean and the children alongside the Thames – on our trip to London 107

Family photo - approx. 1957

The Sands car with Gwen, Brian and Stephen

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Family Butchers Business – 116 Derby Lane

T D Kendrick Receipt Slip 109

Oh, a nice cuppa – Jean in the garden

Our cottage at Silverdale. Bill, Mary, Edie, May and Jean standing at the gate, approx. 1965 110

Me in the garden at Silverdale early 1970s

Mum and Dad (Tom and Alice) in the garden at Meliden approx. 1971 111

Our Silver Wedding Celebration from left Brian, Gwen, Drever, Jean, Stephen, Dave

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CHAPTER 5 1950 – 1955 MARRIED LIFE, CHILDREN AND BUSINESS CHANGES We arrived back at our little love-nest (no 53 Fairfield Avenue) about teatime, lit the fire, had a small tea, then got back in the car to go to each of our homes to let the folks know that we returned safe, and to make work arrangements for the coming weekend. Although we had only been away a fortnight, my goodness, what an enormous lot of happiness had taken place in our absence. There were more cards and presents in our hall when we opened the door, and more cards and wedding presents at each of parent’s homes as well.

Jean’s brother, Colin, had demobbed and had got himself a butcher’s job in the Walton Hospital kitchen, whilst my mother had made arrangements for a lady domestic help to come in twice a week to assist with the cleaning of 135, it being quite a big home. This lady’s name was Martha, a middle-aged lady, very friendly, and also employed by one or two other neighbours in the locality. Much-liked by all, she apparently lived with her widowed mother in the Swanside area.

Jean and I, of course, had to collect our wedding presents from the two homes and transport them to no 53, and my mother said I could have the old upright piano, too, as it had originally been bought for me in 1927.

Delivery to our house was eventually arranged with a meat haulier by Dad, and the promised wardrobe came also, to no 53 with it. I garaged the Hillman back at 135 where it usually lived, and took charge of the little Ford meat van, ready for getting back to work. My dear dad, bless him, still persisted in using his well-known push-bike, weather permitting, even though I’d promised him I’d always pick him up for work with the van every day, and bring him home as well. I still had my old push-bike (a somewhat dated model), but I rarely used it, as most times I was carrying meat from the abattoir to our shop in the van.

We’d ordered some coal from Billy Dodd’s Business, and we found this had been delivered whilst we were on our honeymoon. Our lovely neighbours, on both sides, had introduced themselves to us both. The ones in our adjacent semi (no 51), the Evans, were a brother and two sisters. He (Bill) being the manager of Blackburn’s Wholesale Newspaper 113

and Periodicals firm in the city, and the elder of the sisters May worked down in the city at Messrs Coopers Stores Ltd, where Auntie Beth had worked some years back; the other sister Edie being retired. On the other side (no 55) were Mr and Mrs Langhorst and family, that was Margery and Fred, and two school children, Isobel and Arthur. As the years rolled by, Margery and my Jean were to become bosom pals, and dear Fred, who was the manager of a well-known city pawnbrokers, Miltons, when being introduced to me as Drever, just said to me, ‘well, what does your brother call you then’?

So I just replied,’ oh, he calls me Joe’.

Where upon Fred said,’OK, Joe, that’s what I’ll call you!’ Which he did forever after.

Readers may also like to hear of another of our dear neighbours nice deeds; when it came to Good Friday, and Margery had asked Jean if we were having fish for dinner (tradition), which we almost always did on Good Friday. Jean would tell Margery, but he’s not getting parsley sauce, I can’t stand it! But from then on, every Good Friday at approximately midday, there would be a bang on the fence to next door, and Margery would be standing there with a small saucepan of parsley sauce to hand over for me. How’s that for good neighbours! And, too, that continued until we all moved homes in retirement. Lovely memories.

I loved my dear Jean dearly, but we both knew that money didn’t grow on trees; and remembering what old Uncle Jack (the blind insurance man) had told us, how he and his wife (Auntie Nel) had put all their earnings on the kitchen table every Saturday, to apportion which paid for what, etc. viz: rates (or rent), mortgage, heat and light, etc. We decided, Jean and I, to do exactly the same, so that we could keep tabs, as it were, on our expenditures.

We had my little electric radio (the one I’d been given for my 21st birthday on the ship) fixed up in the corner of our dining room, and it still worked well, getting quite warm on top of the case, but one evening, in a BBC 6 o’clock news, we heard that His Majesty King George VI was taken ill. This seemed to have caused a stir in London, and was headlined in most of the newspapers the next morning.

Vic, in the Old Swan bike shop, had got a pile of jobs in the pipe line for me, and some of these were now all-electric radios, so I was having to update my knowledge of these new types of mains sets coming forward.

I did most of this by regularly studying Practical and Amateur Wireless by 114

F J Camm, a monthly periodical, and also getting Wireless World, too. I very soon got the hang of them, and I noticed the battery sets were slowly getting less and less, as people’s homes were wired for electricity.

Mum asked me, did I think it would be alright if they went in for a television, as Dad had heard at the abattoir that some parts of Liverpool could now get some reception from the Sutton Coldfield Transmitter with a large roof aerial, and an electric shop in Fairfield (Prescot Road) was selling aerials and sets, if suitable reception was possible. I told Jean of this, and she said tell them to go ahead, they don’t go out much, they deserve something like that, and perhaps we could go and watch it too.

So in the fullness of time a television and aerial was duly ordered and put up. They’d liked a 15 inch Murphy with doors, quite a splendid bit of furniture, but it wasn’t for the furniture, it was for the picture. Around this time, Auntie Beth (up at Renville Road), told us that they were going to have a TV, a nine inch Ferguson, too. Apparently three or four other neighbours in their road had gone in for one, the reception being quite good in their locality.

A lot of our families, both Jean’s and mine, had been very kind offering us all sorts of little household gifts for our home to help out, etc. viz: little carpets, crockery, mops and brushes, and towels; and in our wedding presents we had been given quite a lot of very useful bedding.

Before I knew where we were, another Christmas was upon us. Dad had made connections with a new poultry man down at the market, who said he could supply us with whatever we needed in the forthcoming Christmas period; and, thinking back, what a good fellow he turned out to be, becoming our main poultry supplier for many years to come. The turkey market was just at the stage of changing over from all fresh birds, to ready-dressed frozen ones in boxes. The idea seemed to be reasonably well accepted in the beginning, and, too, it meant a lot less dressing work for us; but I said to Dad, I can’t see this lasting, as I’d become accustomed to being very cautious about anything that made things easier for me. The Christmas came along, and with hindsight, it went reasonably well. We sold about half new fresh frozen ready-dressed turkeys, and half fresh (hand-dressed by us.)

My Jean, up to November before Christmas, had been a little thoughtful and quiet-ish, but as December arrived she was bright and bubbly once again. I had half-guessed what had been worrying her, so I tackled her one evening as we sat at the fireside, having a glass of sherry 115

each. I had promised her before our wedding, that I would only give her a baby (to use her own words) when she said she was ready, as she said she was absolutely scared stiff that I’d be expecting her to have a baby every year! I soon put her mind at rest on that point; and when I spoke to her, then she admitted that nothing had changed since our honeymoon.

At that point, we left the subject alone, until the New Year.

The new TV at 135 was working well; so much so, that every Friday and Saturday evening, Mum had quite a few neighbours in for one and half to two hours for a sort of TV viewing party, including Jean and I sometimes, too.

Over in North Wales at the little cottage, the Americans had moved out, and all was left neat and tidy, so in the New Year (1951) we made one or two day trips to see what was needed garden-wise – quite a lot, as it turned out.

Soap rationing, sweets, and tea rationing, were to end by the year end, which made life easier for Jean in the sweet-shop side of her job, and sugar was getting easier too.

Then, quite out of the blue, Jean said to me, about 9.15pm on a Saturday night, let’s go to the cottage for the weekend.

I said, what, right now? Tonight?

Yes please, she replied; so, with a bit of quick preparation for food, milk, tea, etc. we were ready for the road by 9.30pm, and headed off to Mum and Dads (135) to ask for the cottage key. Dad answered the front door, which was bolted ready for bedtimes, looked aghast at me, then he shouted to Mum in the dining room, its only Drever and Jean, dear, they’d like the cottage key! So, after a brief exchange of words, we were off again, and on our way to Pentre Halkyn to Hillside cottage for our weekend. We arrived about 11.30pm, lit the fire, stoked up and put the old radio on, to Radio Luxemburg at midnight, for Jack Jacksons late night programme, ‘Whoa, it’s Saturday!’

We’d have a couple of drinks then cuddle up for the night, etc. spending a lot of Sunday gardening, if possible, returning home Sunday night about 8pm. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy these nights, because we both did, it was just a bit sudden, when Jean would decide, as she did on quite a few more occasions during the year, bearing in mind that we would be making other day trips for Mum and Dad, too.

I haven’t, as yet, explained to readers the layout of our butchers shop, but it was quite a simple one, similar to many more Liverpool premises of 116

the 1920s vintage. We had just a large sales shop/workroom, all tiled throughout, with a large marble window slab and marble side-tables around the room, a large plate glass window, and double-folding doors.

Our new cold-room occupied approximately a quarter of the shop space, and we had a small back room with cold water, sink, and storage shelves.

Above the shop was a self-contained three bedroom flat, with its entrance in the rear passage behind our shop. We both had electricity and gas supplies, so we had an Aintree gas water-boiler in our back room, for hot water for shop cleaning purposes. The flat above had an immersion heater, an open fire range, and a gas cooker, with toilet and bathroom upstairs, also an outside WC in the yard for shop staff use. This flat was occupied by my mother’s elder sister, Auntie Bella, and her family, having been living there from my childhood days, and I suppose, from the security point of view, proved a deterrent to burglary. Readers please make a note of the foregoing, as it will be mentioned, very seriously, in a future chapter.

However, one of this flat’s tenants, namely Auntie Bella’s younger son, name of Eric, was a bright and helpful young man, and as he was approaching the age for a drivers licence, he asked me, and my dad, if I’d help him with some driving lessons and road experience. We came to an agreement about this, and I proceeded, when I had time, to take him out on the road for lessons and practice, etc. In the fullness of time he went in for his driving licence test, and passed, which was good for him as he had the chance of a job change at work, with a car too. He later was offered an appointment abroad in America, and went out there to live.

Considerable local changes were taking place building-wise, at the Old Swan end of St. Oswald’s Street, a clearance plan of all the very old properties on the bend/corner of the street with Prescot Road were demolished, together with all the old property behind, and a new curved block of modern flats of about five storeys were built, being called St. Oswald’s Gardens. Many other local plots of land around and about the area – Queens Drive, Derby Lane, and some adjacent side roads – were having houses built on them, and on the spare land almost opposite our shop – which originally had been an old Borax Works (1914 – 1928), and later on a small Ash cabinet factory – was being cleared and foundations for a Littlewoods mail-order store branch being built, or so we were led to believe.

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Jean and I were now a well-known item in the families, and at parties, whenever we were invited, I was never offered an alcoholic drink if we had the car with us (which we nearly always did), and it became a wellknown family saying, oh, Drever doesn’t have a drink, and it was very true, too – I never did, and don’t do, to this day.

It was now mid-1951, and visits to Jean’s house at weekends usually meant meeting other family members, nursing their babies, and giving lifts home, if we could, or needed to; and before the end of this year, I was certain my Jean was getting broody. I certainly was, but decided to wait until the baby subject was raised again, which I was sure would be.

Jean’s twin sister had gone to live at her husband’s parents’ house in West Derby. Her husband, at that time, being demobbed from the army, had a manager’s job at a biggish toy shop in the Allerton Road area. Then, one weekend, Jean’s boss, Mrs Scott, received a telephone message from Runcorn Cottage Hospital to tell Jean’s family that Thelma (Jean’s younger sister) was being nursed in the Runcorn hospital after a car crash in that area, as she was injured and needing stitches and dressings, and would be kept in for a couple of days. As soon as Jean and I found out, I asked her if we should go over and visit her at Runcorn.

We decided to go, and on reaching the little hospital, were directed to the ward concerned, where the nurses on duty told us that we would be allowed to see Thelma; that she was a bit knocked about, needed stitches to her face and one arm; but the baby was alright; and for us not to stay too long. At this report, I looked at Jean, and Jean looked at me. I said quietly, well talk later, and then we went in to see her. This was the first intimation Jean and I had of Thelma’s forthcoming pregnancy, and I’ll not labour the point for readers, except to say, in those days, babies out of wedlock were not talked of; a mortal sin, etc. But readers will perhaps remember about her father’s enormous annoyance at her staying out late at night, overnight, etc. in the chapter earlier, and the dalliances with the US soldiers. Briefly, on her return to home, family arrangements were made for her transference to another family member’s home, away from Merseyside, for her confinement, and the future adoption of the child. A very sad business, all round, I thought.

My radio repair business was gradually on the increase, and I was getting asked occasionally for small household wiring jobs, power plugs, extension lights, etc. and at home at 53 there was quite a lot of DIY jobs waiting for my attention when funding and time allowed. Quite often, on 118

a Saturday evening, I would be tempted to buy my Jean some flowers, as I knew of a good florists in the Tuebrook shopping area, named Anakins, and the lady looking after the flower counter soon go to know me as one of her regular customers.

My mother at 135 said she wanted to change her dressing table, so we were offered the old one, which we accepted willingly, and Dad said he’d now finished the little kitchen cabinet for us, so we transported these items to 53 in the meat van. One of my urgent DIY jobs at 53 was to put down some hard standing at the side of our front path for the meat van, or car, to stand on overnight, instead of in the road – this entailed the removal of some plants and bushes to the back garden, and the laying, to start with, of used house bricks that I’d been able to obtain from a local brickfield. I planned to make double-side doors and eventually a concrete run-in right up the side of the house, with the possibility of a garage at the rear of the house.

About this time, the Faulkner Street shop came into the picture, once again, because it was obvious the manager there wasn’t managing properly. Dad’s accountant advised making a change there, and to my surprise (at the time) one of Mums relatives, the man who was the Scottish piper at our New Year’s Eve parties, had been demobbed, and Dad decided to offer the management to him. Readers please make a mental note of this, as it will be referred to in a later chapter. I have to admit, at that time, I was more than just a little miffed at this move, as I felt that perhaps I should have been offered that job; but my dear Jean wisely said to me, remember, dear, your dads the boss, and it’s up to him to make the decision, not you! As young as she was, my Jean could be a wise old owl sometimes.

Down at the shop, my dad said he was wondering if we would be able to offer a delivery service, to more outlying districts, as with all the new building in the overspill estates, such as Dovecot, Woolfall Heath, Kirkby, Huyton, Norris Green, etc. Dad had noticed that a lot of long-standing regular customers had been moving away from Stoneycroft, and been asking him about this point. We decided to give this a try, with me as the van driver, assisted by Jean’s brother Billy, or Little Billy (as he was more locally known.) We gave it a try, and within 12 months, we had enough delivery customers on a twice weekly service to make it a worthwhile undertaking, so we carried on with it.

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Up at 135, Dad said he felt they could afford a telephone, so a new phone was put in, with the number, Stoneycroft 5378 (readers will now know why I asked earlier for a mental note to be made of a) my brother’s house number, 78, and b) my own house number, 53. Dad had especially asked for this phone number, and I’m certain my readers can now understand why!)

As the year wore on, Jean and I made a few more runs over to the little cottage in Pentre Halkyn, mostly doing gardening, fruit gathering, and the odd bit of painting and decorating, and it was on one of these weekends, when were alone together, that Jean rather shocked me, somewhat, during one of our tête-à-têtes, as she quite suddenly said, I expect, you know, your mother is not very fond of me at all!

I replied, I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t know at all, but I’m jolly glad you’ve told me!

Then Jean just sort of explained to me, that as I was a man, men don’t get the same sort of feelings that women get towards other women, and that’s how she knew. I then said to her, look, darling, it’s you and I that are married, my mother doesn’t come into it, so don’t lets upset ourselves about it, please. And with that we both changed the subject, but it did put me a little on my guard for the future.

Back at home, 53, the spare land at the end of our avenue was now the scene of building, two blocks of shops with flats above were soon built, although there seemed to be some difficulty in getting permanent tenants for the shops due, no doubt, to the nearness of our other blocks of shops, at the Pilch Lane junction, which had been there for many years.

Also, the additional spare land in Childwall Lane was, too, the scene of more building, some larger style semis being erected there, We, Jean and I, had, by now, become more accepted into the Fairfield Avenue community, such as it was, being mostly retired or semi-retired folks, with just the odd one or two young couples with children. When we first moved in, there was only about four vehicles in the road, one being our meat van. Our milkman came on a pony and trap about 6.45am; and, late at night, if one was awake in bed with a window open, you could hear the hissing and bubbling noises from the gas street lamps, which were very good ones too. Our back garden backed onto the railway embankment of the Liverpool/Manchester railway line, and we eventually got used to the sound of the trains; but one train I often listened for, that was the 12.45am Liverpool to Glasgow overnight 120

sleeper, bringing wartime memories of Jean seeing me off, on my returning to the ship after a weekend leave. Readers may just recall this detail from an earlier chapter.

My brother Roy and his wife Primrose had announced her pregnancy, and, I might just add that one or two of my regular customers had been dropping hints to me, with remarks such as, no children yet?, or aren’t you having a family?, etc.

My jocular reply was, just be patient, or give me time.

Most Sundays Jean and I would be eating Sunday lunch out, either at her house, or at Mum and Dads at 135, but whilst we enjoyed it and were grateful for these invitations, it meant that we weren’t at home at 53 to get on with our DIY and homemaking, etc. Invariably, if we were at 135, I would get involved, yet again, with some chauffeuring duties, which, truthfully, could be a bit of a bind, but reciprocally we, Jean and I, did have the convenience of a vehicle for our use generally.

My sister, Joyce, who had an odd one or two jobs to start with, had now landed a nice job down in Liverpool city centre, in Messrs Sloans, the furriers of Bold Street, and by all reports was doing well there.

On the domestic front, washing machines were now becoming the in thing, with Messrs Hoover having three models on the market; and quite a few more TV sets were starting to be installed around and about. Whilst being kept busy with the radio repairs, more and more mains electric sets being the norm, I did occasionally get asked to have a look at the odd customers TV that either wouldn’t work, or wasn’t behaving right, and it was this that made me study deeper into TV, again with the help of my monthly periodicals, Practical and Amateur Wireless and the Wireless World. I found in The Practical and Amateur Wireless a guide and engineering instructions on how to build a working homemade TV receiver using government war surplus parts, from aircraft radar sets; and, on my Jean’s encouragement, decided to have a go at making one.

This, of course, entailed finding one or two government surplus shops, and finding the right units for the job, but after a few weeks trying, I was able to obtain most of what was needed, but our trouble then, in Fairfield Avenue, was the aerial problem. Only one other house, then, in our avenue, had TV, and they’d had to have a huge BBC aerial mounted on the chimney stack.

I thought that the news that the BBC transmissions were to be brought further north, soon, a good thing, using a position on Winter Hill, 121

Lancashire, for the Holme Moss Station, and this would enable us, then, in our avenue, to get a much stronger signal; so I decided to shelve the TV set plan for a bit, until I was sure of the signal. I will let readers know, shortly, of when the TV set construction started up again. A lot of my home DIY work now was outside the house, in making a start on the front and side driveways to our house, as well as general running repairs to the home itself. I had laid, by hand, general foundations for the pathways, gradually, using small boxes of loose chippings brought home from North Wales on each of our weekend visits, and eventually I had concreted, by hand, the front driveway, and part of the side driveway too.

Christmas ‘51 came and went, with the usual amount of very hard work at the shop, long hours and late nights, then my brother Roy and his wife Primroses baby arrived, a bonny little girl who was soon to be christened Margaret. Much family fuss, as usual, all round. Whether this was the catalyst for Jean and I to talk about babies and having a family, I can only surmise; but by February-ish, Jean said she wanted a baby, so I said, OK, kid, well give it a try! And happily, after a couple of false alarms, she soon was happily pregnant. I suppose I shouldn’t say happily, truthfully, because my dear brave Jean suffered shocking morning sickness for the first three months, and then at the anti-natal clinic she was told they suspected that she was carrying twins, I suppose not to be dismissed lightly, with Jean being a twin herself.

Just about this time, too, the new local school, Malvern County Primary School, was being built on the spare farm fields alongside the railway embankment, between us in Fairfield Avenue and Auntie Betty and family in Greystone Road south, about a mile and a half away. Further tram routes were being changed over to buses, and a massive under-city tunnelling scheme was in progress to connect the Southport/Liverpool electric railway line to the Liverpool city underground system at Liverpool Central underground station, preparing for the forthcoming closure of the Liverpool Exchange station; but unfortunately not foreseen at the time, but latterly, sadly, it was found that the noises of passing underground trains could be quite easily heard in the Liverpool Empire Theatre, as the theatres foundations were sadly just above the new railway tunnel.

The year, truthfully, proved to be one of the busiest in my life, with hardly a spare restful hour to be had. My dear Jean was progressing favourably, and the babies, too, were OK as well, or so we were told. We 122

tried to get over to the little cottage at weekends, whenever we could, and too, whenever we could afford it.

Down at the shop, news on Derby Lane was that Littlewoods mail order stores, who were building small, single storey building on the site of the old Borax Works, were likely to enlarge this building to a much larger affair, with three floors of an office block on top of the dispatch depot.

Readers please note, as I will refer later to this proposed development in a later chapter. It’s strange but true, in life, that just at the time when you have no spare time in hand, all sorts of profitable jobs in my radio repairs/TV business kept cropping up, and I could only struggle along as time permitted. Jean and I were busy, with home and baby preparations; as, too, fortunately, were many members of both our family, and it wasn’t long before knitting needles were busy everywhere for baby clothes, cot blankets, etc. even, bless them, early presents of nappies (good ones too, usually Zorbit or Osman.) Then, quite suddenly in early September, I went down poorly (rare for me) with a chest infection, high temperature, etc. I couldn’t work, we had the doctor to the house, he said I had pleurisy and lung congestion, put me on the latest sulfonamide drug tablets, Sulfaguanidine, then available, and said I must be careful and take great care, otherwise it might progress badly to pneumonia; but in spite of all we, Jean and I, did, I went downhill fast, and the pneumonia set in, in less than a week.

The doctor, as soon as he next saw me, said, hospital right away for you, young man. Your dear lady wife can’t nurse you in her condition! So, after giving me a thundering great needle full of the new penicillin drug, he sent me off to Broadgreen Hospital for nursing there. I was admitted to ward KI in the old military wards (men’s medical), mostly all poorly cases, and I can remember my dad being at our front door at 53 as the ambulance crew carried me out, and holding my dad’s hand, and asking him to, please take care of Jean for me, Dad, until I’m well.

Of course I will, son, was his loving reply. Strange how we can sometimes remember, forever, little very human happenings and words.

I’ll try not to burden readers with too many hospital details, I’ll just keep to main events during this period. Dad and Mum asked my Jean to come to 135 to temporarily live there, as it was close to Broadgreen hospital, walking distance really, which she reluctantly did, to save her being alone in our home at 53.

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I was desperately ill for a full seven days, my x-ray having shown a double pneumonia, and I can still remember the hospital matron on a late night visit to my bedside, sending the ward sister for a bottle of brandy to give me three quarters of a cup full of it, to warm me up, and help me sleep. That, I still believe, was my turning point, as a couple of days after that I was strong enough to stand, and walk around my bed, holding on, of course, but couldn’t walk properly yet. It was just about this time, one afternoon, when a consultant who was visiting other patients opposite me, when he heard my chest (breathing) like a violin tune, and he came over to my bed, asking the sister, how long has he had the pleural rub?

About two days, sir, was her reply.

He then looked at my chart and said to me, who put you on that new drug??

I replied, my GP, sir!

Well, young man, he said, you’re on the best there is just now! And with that he left me to carry on with his other patients. As he got to the ward door, however, he suddenly turned about, and walked back down the ward to my bed. He looked at me, looked at my chart (on the end of the bed), and looked at my locker at the bedside, then he said to me, you’re not smoking then, Mr Kendrick, your ashtray is clean!

I replied, can’t fancy them, doc. They taste horrible just now.

He smiled, then he said, oh yes, of course, they will do with the Sulfa drug. How long since you’ve last smoked, then?

Three and a half days, doc, I replied, then he started to walk away, but he turned round and came back to me, and said, have you ever thought of giving up smoking?

No, doc! I replied.

Well, he said. If you haven’t smoked now for three days, well, it could be three weeks, three months, or forever, if you wished to; but I’m not asking you to give up, just a thought. Good afternoon, young man! And off he went. Well, I wrestled all afternoon with his words, my thoughts, my damn breathing, my breathing keeping half the ward awake half the night, and then at supper time when the night staff nurse came on (she was a heavy smoker) I called her over to me, saying, staff, I want you to have these, I’ve signed the pledge and I’m giving up smoking! Whereupon I passed her my Players cigarette packet. She laughed and said, OK, very good, but I’ll put them in the office for you, and if you fancy one during the night, shout me and I’ll bring them to you.

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Thanks, staff, I said. But, readers, I didn’t call her, and have never smoked again since that date (September 1952.)

My recovery, thankfully, was pretty good, bearing in mind what I’d had, and in a couple of weeks’ time I was home again with my Jean at 135 in the double bed, in what had once been my bedroom. However, we were soon back home to our own home 53 again, getting ready for the babies arrival, when, at another of Jean’s visits to her anti-natal clinic at the hospital, a different consultant doctor examined her, and surprised her by saying, I don’t quite know who diagnosed your pregnancy as twins, my dear, as I’m almost 100 per cent certain that you’ve only got one baby there, and a very healthy one too. So my Jean arrived home, in a vastly different frame of mind. She, of course, had to go next door right away to tell Margery and Fred, and they said, now don’t forget, if or when you ever need the telephone, ours is right there by the front door. Just knock hard, day or night, and shout through the letterbox. What lovely, lovely neighbours we had.

Nationally, at this time, the King, HM King George VI, had suddenly taken very ill, and died, in February 1952 necessitating a sad message, having to be sent out to South Africa, to Princess Elizabeth, who was on a Royal visit out there with her new husband, Lt. Prince Philip RN, who, of course, had to return to Britain to take up her place on our throne as our new Queen Elizabeth II. Her coronation, then being tentatively fixed for some time in 1953.

My Jean started having discomfort on the night of October 30th, and pains in the early hours of the 31st, but she wouldn’t let me phone for an ambulance until almost 7am, to take her to Broadgreen hospital maternity ward, where she was already booked in. I nipped next door to their phone (as arranged) and my Jean went into the hospital, and I went off to the shop for work, but surprisingly, we got the message on the shop phone about mid-morning, that the baby, a girl, had safely arrived, and mother and baby were doing well. I immediately ran across the road to Jean’s home to tell Auntie the good news, and during the morning my dad said for me to telephone, using the shop phone, whom ever I wished to, to pass on the good news. I’d already asked the hospital if I could visit and they said only me, anytime today; so I left the shop like a bear with two heads, feeling like a million dollars, and headed to see my Jean and my new daughter, in the meat van, to Broadgreen maternity. The next few 125

days, over the weekend, was all visits, telegrams, cards, and presents for baby and mother.

Over the last two or three months leading up to the birth, my Jean and I had discussed about a name, or names, for the baby or babies, but the only one we’dsettled on was of Brian, as we both felt sure we’d be having a son; so when a girl arrived, some more quick-thinking had to be done, and I wasn’t very long before we both happily settled on Gwendoline.

Readers may, or perhaps may not, at this point, be a little surprised, to know that I still have all the telegrams and baby cards and letters, concerning this confinement, tucked away in a little box at the back of the blanket drawer.

At that time, at Broadgreen Hospital, the porters lodge by the Queens Drive entrance gate performed a double duty, as a registry office of births and deaths on certain days of the week, so I was able to register Gwendoline’s birth there, which saved a lot of travelling to town. Whilst all this was going on, I had been going up to our house 53 to light fires, to keep the place warm and aired, ready for our return home, when Jean and baby Gwendoline were finally discharged.

After we all got home to 53, my goodness, what a huge difference to life a little tiny baby makes; but we soon got into a routine, my Jean was able to feed her herself for a few weeks, so that was a help, and gave Gwendoline a really good start. Readers will laugh now, I’m sure, when I tell them that the little AC/DC mains radio set, that had been my 21 st birthday present, was still performing well, and because it was quite warm on the case top, we used this to keep the next nappy warm, ready for use. Callers arrived a plenty to see our baby and wish her well, also presents and money, too, for her, and my Scout pal, Bill Stothart, offered to be godfather to her, at her Christening, which pleased Jean and me considerably. I soon got used to nappy washing, as I used to ask Jean to leave them in a bucket under the kitchen sink in soak, until I got back from work, then I’d run them through after my tea, ready to go on the line in the morning, but Jean said, I mustn’t let anybody see me hanging them out; so I mentioned this to Margery (our next door neighbour) when I was hanging them out, and Margery smiled, then she said to me, Drever, I understand what your Jean means, but if you’re happy to hang things out on the line for her, I’m perfectly happy to see you doing it. So from then on, happiness reigned on our washing scene for the future.

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Mum and Dad had offered to buy our pram for us, and Dad said he’d get my old drop-side cot out, that he’d made for me as a baby, and give it an overhaul and a coat of fresh varnish, ready for when Gwendoline was old enough.

In London, the funeral of the late King George VI had previously taken place, and our new Queen was on the throne, her coronation date fixed for June 2nd 1953, and, of course, when we heard this in the news, Jean reminded me of my television set building plans, so I made another determined start on its construction, in and between radio repairs, baby helping, washing, and whatever else my dear Jean needed me for, as there was always the odd garage job on the meat van, to keep that on the road too.

Jean’s elder sister Betty had been up to see Gwendoline, and told us she was expecting again, and also, Jean’s twin sister Brenda was also pregnant, so the stork had been busy all around our families.

I got started on the TV set, beginning with the sound receiver, and it was just before Christmas 1952 that I succeeded in getting some sound reception, using a homemade loft aerial in the cockloft. It was only faint, to start with, but soon in the New Year I had it quite comfortably loud; but the big snag was that the gear needed to do this occupied a good half of the dining room window-ledge, and met, somewhat, with my Jean’s severe displeasure. However, personally, I was secretly chuffed that I’d been able to modify some RAF radios to enable me to tune in to the BBC television waveband.

Christmas ‘52 came and went with its usual slogging down at the shop, but the forthcoming ending of meat rationing meant a relaxation, at last, of all the petty fogging food regulations down at the Stanley abattoir and meat market. Some of the old established firms, whose salesmen were still working there since before the war, began getting in touch with Dad and I, regarding striking up new business connections for the future, and it was during this spring that I was further introduced to many of these firms, so that I could find my way about the place and stay in touch with the companies who dealt in our quality and standard of meat, which, I might add, was always of the highest quality available at that time; we never, ever sold any poor or low quality meat at all.

Then, one Monday morning that I called at 135 to pick Dad up, Mum said, ‘oh Dreve, your dads terrible this morning, his face and head is all swollen, and he can’t breathe very easily, and he can’t drink very well 127

either.’’ I’ve rung for the doctor and he’s coming soon.’ I went in to see my poor dad, and I have to say I’ve never ever in my life seen such disfigurement; poor dad looked so ugly he’d frighten the life out of a dog.

Anyway, after the doctor had been, he diagnosed Erysipelas – probably got it from pork, or a pig, at the shop, he said. He put Dad on the penicillin drug, saying it would take about seven days to clear up. I really did feel dreadfully sorry for him, however, true to the doctor, in seven days it had gone, and we had our dad back to what we were used to.

Locally, near Auntie Bettys house in Greystone Road south, further house building was progressing at a fast rate, with more shops with flats above, several new roads, and the news of the possible building of a new public house opposite the shops. Auntie Betty’s road (Greystone Road) was extended, and the houses renumbered, so Auntie Bettys house, previously no.12 Greystone Road south, became no.96 Greystone Road.

At home at 53, it was clear to me that if we were going to rear a family, a secure source of hot water, for clothes washing, baths, etc. had to be made available, so I made plans to install an immersion heater to our hot water tank, and to put in a ring-main also, and to modernise the electric cupboard in the hall, which was full of antiquated 1930s electrical fuseboxes and switch-gear; but, of course, this took quite some planning and time, as well as money. Our kitchen had already been wired for an electric cooker when the house was built, but this had never been used, as the previous owners preferred a gas cooker (which was still there), but Jean and I planned for an electric one when we could afford it. I was still pressing on with my homemade TV set, but, what with all the gear needed for it, I’d had to temporarily house it in the front lounge, out of our way, whilst baby nursing was underway. Nevertheless, I was gradually making progress with it, and when Auntie Betty (Jean’s sister) told us that they were getting a small telly in time for the coronation in June, because the coronation was to be televised, I realised that the Holme Moss Transmitter must now be in full commission, so that told me that we in Fairfield Avenue would now be able to receive the transmissions, so that urged me on to building a half wave di-pole aerial in our cockloft.

Of course, our dear baby Gwen was going through all the usual little tummy and windy upsets, as she was now mostly on the bottle, with my memory telling me of Oster Milk no.1 and no.2, and Woodward’s and Nurse Harvey’s gripe waters! Coming to mind, I have to admit to readers, that although I loved my dear Jean very, very dearly; at this particular 128

time, if it was at all possible, as I watched her feeding Gwen late in the evening before putting down, I truly loved her right deep down more so than ever before, or, for that matter, ever after too.

We arranged for Gwendoline’ s Christening at the Roby Parish Church in the spring and had a family Christening party at 53 with a firkin of ale for the boozers (to wet the baby’s head), some whisky and various sherries for the select few, and a good time was had by all, our little home being jam-full of happy, well-meaning friends and relatives. We had kept the top tier of our wedding case especially for this occasion, on the family advice of Aunties and Mothers, supposedly for good luck. It had kept well (the cake) in a tin in our sideboard, albeit the icing was really a bit too hard in places.

It was shortly after this that Jean and I talked church and our views individually, regarding or family future, religion-wise, and we both came to the view that as neither of us had any real leaning to any particular variety of church, perhaps we might prefer to give Methodism or Chapelstyle of religion a go, as we had heard that the Court Hey Methodist Church was eventually to be erected on the vacant land plot where the Horses Rest had originally been. There was already a type of pavilion-style building already put up there, and being used for church worship, and there seemed to be quite a keen interest, locally, in it. Whilst I’m talking on this subject of religion, we received the sad news (from our point of view) that my brother Roy had resigned from his organists job at the Knotty Ash Parish Church, and taken up attending the local Kingdom Hall near his home, for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Primrose, his wife, had contacted me at the shop, to tell me how much the business of what he had done, had upset her. Suffice it to say, that for this, my autobiography, further drastic changes to their lives were to come about, but that is where I leave that.

I pressed on, at 53, with the wiring of the immersion heater, and some of the ring-main wiring, too, although whilst there was nearly two feet of clearance under the lounge floor, which enabled me to crawl under, I was not so lucky under the rear dining room floor, where there was only just about one foot. Nevertheless, by the end of March, we had our immersion heater fitted and working, and most of our ring-main, too. I’d said to Jean that she could do with a washing machine now that we had a socket to work it, so we looked around and about for a good second hand little Hoover, with a side hand mangle, which would fit under our 129

sink draining board; and sure enough, it wasn’t too long before we had one. This proved a huge boon to all the washing, although I still had to boil my shop coats and aprons on the gas cooker to get them clean enough, but I was able to help Jean with the mangling , and some of the ironing too.

Down at Derby Lane, the new building for Littlewoods Mail Order Stores was underway, and the electricity supply department were digging a huge trench in the road and footways, as far as Queens Drive, where there was an electricity sub-station adjacent to the entrance to the Vagabonds Tennis Club grounds. There were quite a lot of men on this trenching job, and we got most of them in the shop, as customers, as the job progressed. I was pressing on, too, with the DIY TV set construction, but I soon realised that it would need at least five of the RAF radar units, modified by me, to get any sort of picture on the little eight inch RAF radar tube, but this didn’t deter me, so I decided on making a sort of trolley frame on castors, about 14 inches wide, two feet deep, and four feet, six inches high to carry all the units, but by April, I had reached the early test time, and concentrated on the loft aerial to get correctly aligned to Holme Moss Transmitter. The sound receiver now worked perfectly, and sometimes during the evening, when Gwendoline had gone up, we’d put the sound receiver on to listen to the BBC television sound channel, for a change.

My Jean had obviously been telling everybody at her home about my various jobs (electric wiring, radio sets, TV, etc.) and her brother, Norman, approached me with regard to wiring their house for electricity. He said their landlord wasn’t eager to do it for them, but he wouldn’t disapprove if they wished to do themselves. This put me in a bit of difficult situation, whilst, although I knew, and was quite qualified to do it, getting time to do so, was another very distinct problem, so I talked it over with my Jean, who, on the one hand, dearly wanted electricity in the home for Auntie and family, but could see just how handicapped I was to do it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Norman, Jean, and Auntie were very happy for me to do it for them, no matter how long it took, and Norman said he would be able to buy all the electrical wire and switches, etc. needed for the job from his Liverpool firm, Messrs Bunneys of Whitechapel, Liverpool. So there I was, work, work and more work, up to my eyeballs, but truthfully I didn’t mind really, as it proved, my Jean and Gwen would be down there with me on many occasions as I progressed with the job.

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Down at the shop, things, decoration-wise, were looking a bit down and out, and decidedly in need of a tidy up, so I volunteered to Dad, that I’d come down on at least two Sundays during the summer, to paint the shop and back room, inside, ceilings, and walls, where needed, and to put up some walling tile-board where some of the original old tiling had broken out. Our scales people, Messrs Avery’s, with whom we had an annual servicing contract, had brought round to us, to show us, a prototype of a new self-calculating counter scale, very expensive but very efficient; but my dad said he didn’t really know just how it would be accepted by our customers, as our trade had always been used to the open pan and weights type of instrument, so perhaps we would be wise to wait a little before going in for one.

I made arrangements to go down to Jean’s home in Derby Lane early in April to survey their house for the electrical wiring job, to measure up, and to assess quantities required, which quite astounded me as to just how large a property it was, so I had to justifiably warn Auntie and Norman about the huge amount of wiring, switch gear, sockets, etc. that would eventually be required; however, I got it all written down for Norman, and gave them a sort of completion date of late autumn 1954 (ish.)

Up at 135, Mums domestic help lady, Martha, was turning up very regularly, although not always on the same days, but her and Mum always seemed to be happy about things. Then, on one Wednesday afternoon, when it was accountants visit day, and Mr Johnson, the accountant, was there, together with Dad and I, Martha came in, bringing cups of tea for us all, and shortly after this Mr Johnson had asked Martha if she could do for him at his Wavertree house, sometimes, and she did, too, and within six months he and Martha got married, and Mum lost Martha’s home help.

I was really loving having a baby in our lives, in spite of the odd disturbed evening or night, and I tried to give my Jean an hour or twos break, whenever we could arrange it, but I have to add that at that particular time, year-wise, I often noticed some funny looks from other ladies when I was allowed out with Gwen in the pram for a walk out, or to go to the shops, but looks didn’t deter me, I was proud of my dear daughter and just got on with living, whether it was, or was not, men’s work!

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Then, on one Wednesday afternoon, when I was at home for half-day, I noticed the council men and electricity men changing our Fairfield Avenue gas street lamps over to electric ones (sign of the times.) My progress on the TV (homemade) was slow but sure; I had already modified the vision receiver to BBC picture frequency, and was well ahead, with the power pack and one of the time bases. I used to work at it late evening, when I could, then before turning in to bed, would push it on its castors back into the front lounge, out of the way, until next time.

As we got into the spring of 1953, we managed to get into a sort of holiday mood, and got over to the little cottage in Pentre Halkyn, North Wales for a few sunny weekends, this time with the pram and, of course, a somewhat cheeky little girl. They were lovely times to live in. We weren’t well-off, having to count our monies every Saturday night, but we counted our blessings for what we had, and didn’t waste anything; no longer needed things, or household articles, were always handed on or passed down to those who could use them.

My good friend Vic in the Old Swan bike shop kept me more than well supplied with sets for repairs all the time, and he was quite surprised how I’d been able to manage more and more all mains electric sets, too.

Fortunately for me, I had been able to keep up with most changes in radio sets, by virtue of my regular swotting, and although I say it myself, I really was a dab hand at soldering.

The enormous changes to family life, brought about by the electricity revolution, were becoming obvious every day, and it wasn’t too long before I was being asked, do you repair irons, or, our electric kettles blown up, can you fix it? and many other problems concerning a variety of electrical items, which, fortunately at the time, I was usually able to repair, fix, or whatever; and, just a bit, nearer home, Mum said, at teatime, as Dad and I got back from the shop, the telly’s gone off today, I don’t know what’s to do with it. So I stayed at 135 a few minutes to look it over, taking the back off the set, and my very cursory glances, without testing anything, told me that something had burnt-out, by virtue of my detecting a faint burn-out smell from the transformer pack at the base. I asked Dad if it was under guarantee still, and he said yes, it was, so I said best to phone the Fairfield shop and get an engineer out, which he did the next day.

Our baby was now no longer a baby, but a right little madam, standing up in her cot, shouting her head off, and yes, as most readers will know 132

too, we eventually reached the point of gates on the stairs, and on the front door too. Up at 135, my dad had finished constructing his larger timber/asbestos garage, just needing me to help him put it up, in place of the old one, and I was able to have most of the timber frames and asbestos sheets for my own smaller garage, that I hoped to put up at 53.

By midday I had managed on my DIY TV to finally get some sort of picture through on the radar tube, and spent three or four exciting nights (for me) finally tuning it in properly, so that it was watchable in a darkened room. Of course I still had a lot of loose ends with it to tie or solder, but I was now sure we’d be able to watch the Royal coronation on June 2nd, 1953.

Auntie Betty, Jean’s elder sister, called up to see Jean the week before the coronation, saying she’d be only too happy for us to go up to her house to watch the coronation on their set if we wanted to, but when I got in from work, as Betty was still there, my Jean asked me to put my homemade set on to show Betty; and when I did, she was quite impressed. The coronation day came and went, with our lovely young Queen and her naval husband, street parties, family parties, club dances, etc. nationwide, with good television coverage by the BBC. And so the year sped on, but it was to be a slightly marred year for Mum and Dad at 135 as, on one certain evening when Mum and Dad had gone out to a cinema, my sister, Joyce, who was out too, returned home early to see a light and a shadow moving in Mum and Dads bedroom as she approached the house. She knew Mum and Dad couldn’t be home, so she called at a neighbour’s house opposite, to call the police on their telephone.

The police arrived smartly, entered the house, and arrested a burglar on the landing at the top of the stairs; and here’s the rub, the burglar, who had Mum and Dads savings certificates in his pockets, turned out to be a certain Leslie, the eldest son of my mother’s sister, Bella, who lived in the flat above our shop in Derby Lane. So it was a nephew who tried to rob his uncle.

Very sad for our whole family, when it came to court, of course, a lot more about him was revealed about his past, and he had to do the correct prison term for his misdemeanour, but I can tell readers that relationships in the family were badly rocked by that affair; but it was my dad and mum that I felt so very, very sorry for, because they had always been so kind and helpful to Auntie Bella and her family. As many other 133

autobiographer’s will say, there’s always a skeleton somewhere in everybody’s cupboard!

Jean’s brother, Norman, let me know that he’d put the order in at his work for most of the electrical gear needed for their house wiring, so it would soon be time for me to start wiring, etc. at their house. Whilst doing the bit of painting and decorating at our shop, I found two or three lots of bad electrical wiring and fitting, so I had to make that lot good, too, whilst I was on the job there, bearing in mind our block of shops had originally been wired back in 1926 when electricity came to the Derby Lane area.

On one of our weekends away at the little cottage, Jean said to me, I’d really like us to have another baby, to be company for Gwendoline, and perhaps it might be a boy? So I agreed with her points of view and we, to put it in the modern phrasing, started to try for another baby; and sure enough, it didn’t take us long. My Jean fell pregnant in the June 1954 our doctor confirming this in the July, and Jean was booked in again at the clinic for later in the year. The dreaded morning sickness came again, but fortunately it didn’t last too long, and really, I suppose, our families were quite delighted for us, with the news. I certainly was.

I made a start down at Jean’s old home with the house-wiring job, and up to the run-up to Christmas I made quite good progress there. Back at home, at 53, our old vacuum cleaner had gone the way of all flesh, so I looked around for one for us, and eventually found a good second hand Hoover Junior in a furniture shop in Fairfield, which ran very well.

We got to October, when Jean came home from an anti-natal clinic visit at the hospital, to announce that they think I’m having twins.

At that time, I just said, remember last time, dear, over Gwen.

She replied, ‘ah, but you see, they’ve definitely told me there’s two heartbeats, so I believe them!’ And sure enough, by the time we reached December, it was clearly obvious from her size, it could very likely be two babies. This was, again, confirmed, definitely, at a pre-Christmas clinic visit, where the midwife asked us to prepare ourselves for the arrival of two this time. So once again, the family knitting needles, the baby clothes, blankets, etc. all came to the fore, and Jean’s sister Betty offered to pass on loads of boys things, as she’d had two boys, if we got a boy; and a number of customers at the shop brought in to me gifts of baby clothes too, which all came to good use.

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Christmas came, once again, fortunately with a very good trade, and the usual lot of hard work to go with it, and my dear Jean was quite massive, and struggling a bit with the weight by mid-January. At the clinic, when one was getting near confinement time, an ambulance card was given to the expectant mother, so that the ambulance crew, when called, could come prepared for childbirth; a yellow card for a single, normal pregnancy, a pink card for multiple pregnancies, and of course, Jean was given a pink one; and the doctor told us that as it was twins expected, they may arrive prematurely, as quite a lot of twins did just that.

The weather at this time was a nasty cold winter, and fair few snow showers about, and as the birth date was possibly early March, Jean was told to be prepared from mid-February onwards. It really was quite a nasty cold winter, and pretty cold too in our shop, with all tiled walls, a solid floor, and a huge marble window slab; but on the other hand, we weren’t too much troubled about refrigeration in these weather conditions, the shop temperature being just on freezing most nights, so some meat carcasses could be safely left hanging out on the shop rails.

My Jean and I spent most of our winter evenings playing with Gwendoline until her bedtime, then we might watch our little tiny TV picture from BBC, with announcers called Mary Malcolm, Sylvia Peters, and McDonald Hobley, names that come easily to my mind. After close down, the test card C, and during the day, intervals with lovely pictures of the windmill, and down the river (or canal), all black and white of course. Then, on a Thursday evening after taking Gwen up to bed, I came back into the dining room, and Jean said, I’ve just had a nasty pain in my back.

I, of course, just said to her, but didn’t you have the same thing a couple of nights ago?

‘Yes, I did,’ was her reply. ‘But tonight’s pain hurt me.’

This alerted me somewhat, so I thought, perhaps she’ll feel better if I ask to listen to the babies – so I did, and she was happy for me to do so. I had been allowed to do this over Gwendoline’s birth, and I was thrilled to hear the little hearts beating just under her tummy skin. It was only February 17th, so I didn’t think it was time yet for her confinement, so we both got ready for bed at our usual time. It was obviously a real struggle for her getting upstairs, with the weight, however we got settled in bed.

Dear Gwendoline was sound asleep, and I was just dozing off, when my Jean said, oh, I’ve got that nasty pain again.

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So I said, shall I get you a tablet or drink or something?

She just replied, ‘no thanks, I’ll just lie still and probably doze off!’

She did, but I didn’t, and shortly before 3am she touched me on the shoulder, whispering, I think my waters have broken!

She, of course, was quite correct, I asked her, ‘shall I go to order the ambulance?’ ‘Good lord, no!’ she replied. ‘Not for a couple of hours yet, at least!’ And I then realised what a wonderful lady wife I had; yes, she was in complete charge of her situation, having been along the birthing road before. She just told me, I’ll tell you, in an hour or two, when to telephone! So I got up to sort out and change the bed, etc. making her as comfortable as possible, then went downstairs to stoke up the fire and make a brew. It was a particularly cold and frosty night, with about eight inches of snow lying on the ground, although I’d cleared our front path up to the front door.

About four-ish she cried out again, but then just dozed off again.

However, by the time we’d reached half past five, she disturbed again, saying, I think I’ll need the ambulance soon. So I nipped next door to Margery and Fred’s to ask for the phone, shouting through the letterbox, it’s me, Joe, Fred: Jean’s started and we need the ambulance! Bless him, dear Fred was down his stairs in his pyjamas like a streak of lightning; help yourself to the phone, he said. I had brought the pink ambulance card with me, for the phone number, and when I dialled it a very sleepy, yawning voice replied, ambulance depot, asking me for name address, etc. then he said to me, ‘have yer got much snow there?’ I replied, about a foot in some places, but our roads open. Jesus, was his reply, then he said, what colours your card, mate? It’s a pink one, I said. Oh, bloody hell, he said. Then I heard him say, Bert, we’ve got a multiple pregnancy in Roby.

OK sir, we’ll be with you in 20 minutes or so.

I thanked him and rang off, then thanked Fred, who then shouted up to Margery, who replied that if we needed her for anything at all, for us to just shout. Lovely, lovely neighbours! Jean said she’d come downstairs to sit by the fire until the ambulance reached us, with a big blanket round her, and a woolly cardigan too, round her shoulders. Naturally, she mentioned Gwendoline, so I said I’d get her up at the usual time, and then see if Betty would be able to have her for the day, which, in the event, was what happened. The ambulance reached us just after seven. Jean walked out supported by the two ambulance men, I bade her farewell in 136

the ambulance, and away she went to Broadgreen Hospital, the maternity ward, as planned. I got in touch with Betty at breakfast, and she was only too pleased to offer to do whatever Jean and I needed; so I took Gwendoline after breakfast up to Bettys house, for her to stay the day there, with her children, to have dinner, tea, etc. and for me to collect her in the evening, which was a huge help.

The morning at the shop was, for me, anticipation par excellence; I truthfully didn’t know quite what I was doing, but at least concentrating on the Fridays work (which was one of our busiest days of the week) sort of kept me occupied, when the phone rang. Yes, it was the hospital; yes, the twins had successfully been born. I was congratulated by them (the hospital), my wife was alright, but very tired. Only, I, would be allowed to visit as soon as I wished, but the twins, being some weeks premature, had been put in the premature baby unit until they’d settled down and started to gain weight. As soon as I got the news, I dashed across the road to Jean’s old home to tell Auntie the news of the safe arrival of the two boys.

Then I spent the next hour telephoning round on the shop phone with the good news to relatives and friends. I need hardly add, that our shop on Derby Lane, and in particular Jean and I, were once again, that weekend, the talk of the wash house (for my readers translation, the foregoing phrase concerning the wash house was, in those early days, on Merseyside, a local term generally used to confer startling, or special, local news in a district or area.)

I went up to the hospital in the early afternoon, taking flowers and my card for Jean, and the sister took me down by the glass window of the prem-unit, to hold up the boys by the glass so that I could see them, and I think my face must have conveyed concern to the sister, because when she’d put the twins back in their cots, she came out to say, oh! Mr Kendrick, you really do look shocked. Is it because of the size of the smaller baby? I replied, well, yes sister, it is!

Don’t worry, Mr Kendrick, they’re both fine, healthy lads, and the smaller one will grow up to be a man bigger than you, you just wait and see – they always do! And by god, she was right. Even now, today, I have to look up to him to talk to him.

Jean and I had already talked of names, but the only one that we’d both settled on was Brian, if we got a boy; but a we’d got two boys, Jean suggested Stephen, and I happily agreed. So, in the eventuality, my second Christian name, Drever, (the old family name from generations 137

back) we gave to Brian, the eldest son (eldest by about 45 minutes, I think), and we gave Stephen the other half of my Christian name, Thomas.

Brian’s birth weight was 3lbs 12ozs and Stephen’s weight was 5lbs 3ozs, so Jean told me that she would have to stay in the hospital with them to help feed them etc. until they reached a sufficient stable weight to be allowed home, which was usually around the 5lbs mark. So it was not until March 14th that they were all safely discharged from hospital, and dear, dear Gwendoline was thrilled to start with; but a little later one, even though Jean trained her to help feed the lads, and to fetch and carry for her, etc. as you did do in those days, there were times when a few tears flowed, as two babies were just a bit too much for one little girl. I really do have to add, though, that many family members, especially Betty, and some lovely neighbours too, all called in regularly, to help in many ways.

The weeks soon rolled on, and the better weather came along, so the boys could go outside in the pram (a twin one, now!) for fresh air, and for walks, too, and with us having the shop meat van on our side path, we could all go out visiting, weather etc. permitting, carrying the twin pram in the back of the van.

I had now got the concreting of our side path, right up to our back door finished, so I spent some spare time starting on our little garage, homemade, of course. On the radio repairs, and television front too, I was still able to keep up to the demand for my services in that direction, but the wiring job at Jean’s old home had had to wait in the wings just a bit, but everybody understood my position.

And there, my dear readers, my very, very dear Jean and I, now had a ready-made family in which to put our best endeavours to, hopefully, successfully rear.

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CHAPTER 6 1955 – 1965 CHALLENGES, CHANGES, FEARS, FUN AND LAUGHTER As I begin this next part of my life story, the huge elation that I felt with the safe arrival of our twins, and my dear, dear Jean’s recovery, is still with me, and our very dear little Gwendoline was such a treasure to us, with all her help with the babies and also around the house, we both wondered just how we’d have managed had we not got her with us.

However, to settle down to family rearing was the next most important thing, and we got along quite nicely.

Our little Hoover washing machine was working fine, Jean and I did turn about for the overnight feeds, so that she could get some sleep, and I had the idea with the twins of putting the two in one cot, so that I could feed one in a corner at one end, and the other in the opposite corner at the other end, which worked quite well for a bit, until we started to have trouble with Brian, who always seemed to be sick about 10 minutes after his feed, so Jean thought it best to get the doctor out, to be sure.

Consequently our doctor, Dr Maxwell, from the Derby Lane area, came out to us, as requested, arriving at our house just after the 6pm feeds. He had a good look at him, in fact at both Brian and Stephen, and as he was holding Brian in his arms to talk to him; yes, you’ve guessed. Brian was sick all down the doctor’s arm of his overcoat, and on his trousers and shoes, too. But, really quite surprisingly, our doctor just said, oh dear, I see exactly what you mean, Mrs Kendrick, so I suggest in his case, just feed him about a quarter to a third of his bottle, let him be sick, cry, or whatever, and then re-feed him again in half an hour. The doctor then went to the bathroom to tidy himself up, and then bade us farewell. We started this routine with Brian and it worked well, and we soon got him back to normal routine in about two weeks.

Locally, more and more changes were occurring, the proposed new public house close to Auntie Bettys was built and opened, given the name The Roby. There were quite startling changes happening in the Huyton village area, it was now no longer the little village it used to be, but gradually spreading out into a town centre, and further out country-wise, the Childwall Valley Road out to Gateacre was the scene of quite 139

extensive housing plans, with even blocks of flats planned for the area towards Belle Vale and the old jam works. Talking of plans, our little Court Hey Methodist mission, which was held in the pavilion hut on the old Horses Rest site, were planning the building of a fully-fledged Methodist chapel, and were holding all sorts of fundraising events to help towards building costs; sort of sales, shows, crowning of the rose queen, etc. and one evening, quite out of the blue, we had a knock at the front door by the church treasurer, to ask if we could possibly help with any sort of loan or donation. I looked at Jean, Jean looked at me, then I said, I think we can manage a small loan.

Thank you, Mr Kendrick, he quickly replied. Any sort of loan will be splendid! So I made out a cheque for £15, which, truthfully, at that time was all we could afford. He duly gave us a receipt, and happily went on his way. Then, not very long after this, building started on the site, and by late 1957/early 1958, the church, a splendid looking modern chapel building, was ready for use. What a time of changes! All sorts of things seemed to be happening almost everywhere one turned.

And then, quite out of the blue, Dads long-serving second man, Les, announced he was planning a move to another butchers in the St. Helens area, which was nearer to his home. This, of course, rocked the boat at the shop, for a time, but I knew Dad could rely on me to cope work-wise, and managerial-wise too, when needed; but we did need to replace Les soon, hopefully with a younger man.

The building of the new Littlewoods Mail Order block of offices etc. was going ahead apace, and one particular day, a lady customer introduced herself as the wife of the chief engineer/surveyor for Messrs Laing’s, who were the construction firm for the site, saying that she and her husband and children had just moved temporarily into Stoneycroft, to a house on the Queens Drive, whilst the Littlewoods building was under construction, and could I help her, as they were complete strangers to the area, by suggesting shops to go to here-abouts, and the doctors, and a school temporarily for her children. Apparently she’d asked her new next door neighbour, and she (the neighbour) had directed her to our shop, to ask me. I was soon able to help her, and after this, a nice business friendship grew; so much so that a couple of weeks later, her husband, the chief surveyor, offered to take me for a walking tour of the new building and too, a sight of the new building plans as well, which I accepted and thoroughly enjoyed.

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This, of course, pre-warned me, and other Stoneycroft shopkeepers, also, that eventually a large number of employees for this large office complex would soon be working in our area, and as most of them would be women, a lot more shop trade, locally, would ensue. On one of Dads accountants monthly visits, I raised this point in conversation, and Mr Johnson, the accountant, said he’d already heard on the grapevine about the Littlewoods plans, so we should be grateful that it had turned out this way for Derby Lanes present and future trading. He also said to Dad, he’d wondered if the second man, Les, had also thought that he would have been given the opportunity of the Faulkner Street shop management, and as it had been given to the Scottish piper chap, George, perhaps that had led to his (Les) deciding to leave us and move on. And then, it was at this point, that the accountant said, I see the Scottish piper chap, George, has done rather well for himself, too, so one of my clients told me recently.

He’s managing the Otterspool Motors car sales, Aigburth way, did you know? I certainly did not, said my dad, quite shocked. Oh! Is he? And then Mr Johnson said, I know it’s not my business, Tom, to try and persuade or influence you in any way, but I really do reckon you’d be a lot better off without that Faulkner Street shop and the property there.

I think you may well be right, Harry, said my dad, and shortly after this visit, the Faulkner Street premises was put on the market and sold off. As I was leaving the meeting, Mum called me over and said,’ you’ll never guess who’s come to live right opposite us?’

‘Who, Mum?’ I said. ‘It’s Molly Squires and her husband, the lady who used to take you out to Newsham Park when you were a baby, and we lived in Chester Road. Do you remember her?’ I think I just might, Mum! Although truthfully, I hardly did; although I did slightly remember her husband, a tram driver. Readers may just remember my note in chapter one concerning this small family event.

Be that as it may, however, life moved on. Our lads, Brian and Stephen, were christened at St Bartholomews, Roby Parish Church, similarly to Gwen. My wireless radio repairs carried on at a pace, and to avoid income tax complications, I opened a separate bank account at the Old Swan Westminster bank, to keep our radio earnings separate and recorded, and took on a short tenancy of half-a-shop in the Green Lane area, sharing with a local chandlery, mainly for more storage space than anything else, as we, at that time, hadn’t a lot of spare room at 53.

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Nationally, the port of Liverpool was reporting a slow decline in transatlantic sailings, and also a similar decline in Orient sailings too, whereas up at Manchester the old Ringway Airfield was being vastly extended, almost annually, into a large international airport. I had now managed to find for us a second hand 12 inch black and white television, and my old homemade one was finally put into retirement.

I hear readers quietly saying, I wonder why he never mentions his piano playing? Well, truthfully readers, I’m a little ashamed to say that it (the piano playing) slowly got left behind in my and Jean’s flourish of life, so that I only tried to play a little, approximately two or three times a year, on my old upright piano, which I had made several temporary repairs to as time went on.

There seemed to be such a lot of life happiness for us around these formative years (1959 – 1965) that my little memory sometimes lets me down. I remember in 1959, the construction of the new motorway network started with the M1 from London to Rugby; the Doctor Beeching plans for British Railways future were announced, with the huge devastating reductions to our railway network, to be implemented by 1963.

Down at the shop, Dad had taken on a new young man to replace Les, a chap called Dave, who I immediately liked because of his openness, and keenness to do a good job. But just as things appeared to be mending, as it were, one afternoon when Dad was at home, and Dave and I were in the shop, Jean’s sister, Thelma, from 57 across the road, came dashing into our shop to say, Drever, our Colin’s called in home to see us, and he’s fainted on the kitchen floor in pain, can you help please? I immediately dashed across to help, he was in a lot of pain in his back. I brought him round slowly, and got him onto the couch, telling him he definitely needed the doctor, and told Auntie I’d phone for a doctor from the shop phone, for which she thanked me. A doctor came right away from our practice (Dr Maxwell’s) and a short time later the ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. He was taken to the Walton hospital near his house, but sadly he died very shortly afterwards, so another milestone came about in Jean’s family.

It was just about this time that musical groups, or young dance bands, were coming fast into vogue. Names such as The Beatles, Billy J Kramer, Matt Munro, Walker Brothers, Jim Reeves, Bobby Darren, etc. with names on the television such as Bruce Forsyth, Ken Dodd, and many others. The 142

Beatles, of course, our Liverpool group (one of the many) were nationally famous for their Cavern appearances in the Liverpool city centre, songs such as Love Me Do and She Loves You and From Me To You before their last Cavern performance in 1963 (the Cavern was eventually closed in 1973). Up and down the country, too, other groups and singers were riding high. I’ll just mention a few more for my readers to think about: The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, The Walker Brothers; Yesterday, Matt Munro; Do You Want to Know a Secret?, Billy J Kramer; Welcome to My World, Jim Reeves; Dream Lover, Bobby Darren; Johnny Remember Me, John Leyton; I’m Telling You Now Freddie and the Dreamers; I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, Rolling Stones; Apache and Foot Tapper; The Shadows. But I’m absolutely certain, readers, you can recall many, many others from around the country too.

Down at the shop, Derby Lane was beginning to buzz with anticipation as the Littlewoods office complex neared completion. Local folk were making tentative enquiries regarding employment possibilities there, when it opened, and it all was beginning to look good. Family-wise, though, Jean’s family were all rocked by Colin’s quite sudden demise, as during his naval service, just some five years or so back, he always looked a fit chap. On a Wednesday afternoon, our half-day closing day, I’d taken Dad home, dropping him off on my way home, when a little later on in the afternoon Jean asked me, would I take her and the children down to Aunties for a visit. So we did so, when I remembered I had a radio repair call to make in Knotty Ash, which I then went out to and picked up that set, returning via Thomas Lane and making a quick call in at 135 (my old home), to find my dad in a deep conversation with a very well-known Liverpool butchers owner. My mother said, he’d come to talk to dad about Derby Lane! Oh, I see, I said, and off I went to pick up Jean and the children. The next morning, on our way to the meat market, I asked my dad, what did Mr O want to know about Derby Lane?

Dad said, he’d come to see him, offering £25, 000 for Derby Lane and Faulkner Street, lock stock and barrel; but he’d told him it’s not for sale and sent him packing! I just said to my dad, I expect he too, has heard about the Littlewoods office complex and wants to get in on the act. Yes, my dad replied. I think you’re right about that, son!

Christmas 1959 came and went, as usual, our new chap Dave being a real asset, and during one of Jean and my’s little family weekends to the little cottage in the New Year, Jean said, shouldn’t we try to encourage 143

your mum and dad to holiday a bit? So I said, yes dear, I reckon that’s a super idea. After all, they’re not getting any younger! So we did just that, and quite soon they were booking little coach holidays, going with Auntie Ida and Uncle Arthur to places such as Torquay, with local coach firms such as Sunnyways Coaches and Home James Ltd. After all, Dave and I, and Jean’s brother, little Billy, could quite satisfactorily run the shop alright, and I could do the buying as necessary.

Jean’s sister Betty now had three boys and was expecting again, and I have to mention that her dear husband Jack, who had a key job in the Runcorn municipal offices as a surveyor for the Runcorn new town development, never failed to remember my birthday, as on the morning of every March 29th, he would always knock at our front door at 7.15am in the morning, with two bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale in a bag, on his way to work, greeting me with the words, ‘a happy birthday to you, Drever!’ This, readers, I shall never forget!

During this year (1960), my Jean didn’t seem to be quite the happy, smiling, bubbling young mother, as she had been during ‘58 and ‘59. In fact, she seemed to be losing weight, and although in many other ways things jogged along normally, I wasn’t really very happy about her.

Down at Derby Lane, at 57, Jean’s old home, I’d finished off the wiring job for the electric, and the power company arrived early in the New Year to lay the cable down the front garden and connect up, and my goodness, what a difference that made for them there. Still being more than a little worried over my Jean, I resolved to try and get her and our children away for as many sunny weekends to the little North Wales cottage as possible, so that she could rest in the garden, and I could feed and look after the kids, and this we managed quite well. At times though, the boys (Brian and Stephen) were little lovable mischiefs, and I was glad for Gwendoline’s handling of them for me, with her schoolmarm manner (a right little bossy boots, she could be, when she wanted!) In fact, we’d made the North Wales journey so many times in the meat van, I’m sure the old van could go there on its own, if asked.

However, in the fullness of time, as happens with everything mechanical, the poor old van started to give up the ghost, so Dad and I decided we’d have to replace it; and, happily, Mr Gillespie, our sausages and cooked meats supplier, turned up trumps once again, and sold us another second hand one from his fleet. This, I think, made Mum and Dad think of a change from the old Hillman, and Dad sold it to me for a salutary 144

£25, just so that some sales figure could go down in the accounts. And so the old Hillman came up to no.53 to live with us. We were all delighted to have a car, and as the next few years passed by it became christened ‘the sands car’ by the children, because whenever it was brought out of our little garage to the front of our house, they always automatically assumed we were going out to the sands (the beach).

Mum and Dad, on some of their little holiday trips away, had taken Joyce, my sister, with them; and on a certain Torquay holiday, Joyce met a local Torquay man, and, after what seemed like a lightning courtship, decided to get married. So he, Mick, came up to Liverpool to live up here and find work up here, and marry Joyce. On paper, and in conversation, this sounded marvellous, and we all liked him, he being a jovial, happygo-lucky fella with an Irish/Devon accent; but I think, looking back, that my mother had her own particular misgivings as, as soon as she was talking to me about their wedding, she sort of said, ‘oh, but you see Dreve, he’s a Roman Catholic.’ To which I quickly replied, ‘I can’t see what difference that can make, Mum. They love each other, Jean and I wish them all the luck in the world.’

And so another family wedding took place, and Joyce and Mick eventually got a house over in the Mossley Hill area near Mossley Hill station. The other branch of our family – that is, Roy, my brother, with his wife, Primrose, and their baby, Margaret – had decided to move house, out of Liverpool, and into the Wirral to a new house in Little Sutton; but, I heard, then, that their marriage was then, to put it mildly, a bit rocky, for which I was very sorry. My Jean still seemed to be not up to standard, and I gathered in conversation that it was possibly caused by what had been taken out of her, in carrying and bearing twins. Nevertheless, as we approached the run up to Christmas 1961, I persuaded her to see the doctor, and he was concerned with her weight loss, and detected a possible thyroid problem as she had a slight enlargement in her neck area, so she came home with thyroid tablets.

During late 1960 and early 1961, the Bank of England had phased out the very old farthing coin, making it no longer legal tender; as, too, they did with the very, very old white £5 note. Elvis Presley was then riding high with Wooden Heart, and for those readers who can still remember the first programme showing on the new television, Songs of Praise, took place in October 1961.

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Then, in 1961, at another accountants meeting in the late autumn, I was a bit late getting there, but as I walked into the lounge, Mr Johnson was asking Dad about the flat above our shop and the income from it, for tax purposes. I heard my dad say, we’ve never charged them any rent at all! Whereupon Mr Johnson said, ‘well, Tom, I’ve got to put something down on the tax form. So what do you suggest?’

I immediately exploded, ‘Jesus Christ, Dad, I never knew that was happening!’ Whereupon my mother, from the kitchen, shouted, ‘Drever, there’s no need to talk like that, it’s not like you!’ So I said, well I’m more than a bit disgusted, and it’ll have to be put right very soon! Which, of course, it finally was, and I have to say, too, that Auntie Bella’s youngest daughter, Beryl, who didn’t, of course, live at home, told me in confidence that she was shocked to hear of the situation, and would have put it right much sooner, had she known.

However, in a different vein, Mum and Dad quite surprised us (Jean and I) when shortly before the Christmas, they announced that they’d given quite a lot of thought to retirement from the big house in Thomas Lane (no.135), and had found a smaller semi-detached house in Bryn Llys, Meliden, near to Prestatyn, North Wales, which they really liked, and what did we think? Without seeming too enthusiastic at the news, we said we thought it was a splendid idea, and could we go over to Prestatyn to see the house, which, of course, Mum and Dad agreed to; and shortly after that, we made a Sunday outing over there to view it, and we told them to waste no time, put 135 on the market, and pay a deposit on the Meliden house, so that is what they did, and the rest way history.

However, by the October of that year, my Jean became more and more lethargic, and sort of introverted; so much so that our dear little Gwen, now approaching nine, said to me on several occasions, our mum is very poorly, isn’t she Dad? And I had to admit that she was, too. I got Jean back to the doctors before the Christmas, and her medication was changed, but frankly I couldn’t see much improvement, and her neck now had a very prominent swelling, almost as though she had grown a wide collar round it. I was really, really worried, although I tried not to show it, and I’m sure our dear little Gwen must have been sick of my almost daily requests to her of, darling, please try to help Mum all you can! And bless her, she never ever refused me.

Down at the shop, Dave, the new man, knew how much I was worried, as did Mum and Dad, too, and I know Dave went a lot out of his way to 146

lighten my load for me. As the Christmas approached, I noticed Jean’s condition still slowly declining, so much so that she was having to spend a lot of her time just lying on the living room couch. I’d managed to organise most of the Christmas presents for the children for Father Christmas, and I’d put up our usual little Christmas tree in the front lounge window, where most of the neighbours walking up the road had been used to seeing it. However, my dear Jean admitted to me a day or so before Christmas day that she was absolutely whacked out, and wouldn’t be able to do hardly anything over the Christmas period.

I did my best to console her, and in fact, although we usually all went down to 135 to Mum and Dads for Christmas Dinner, we just couldn’t do it that year; so I made a Christmas dinner at our home (53), and Jean had hers in bed on Christmas day, with me beside her on the dressing table.

Down at the shop, after Christmas, the employment officer from the Littlewoods new building called in to see me to let me know that they were now interviewing for staff, and would be up and running by midsummer. I duly thanked her for this information, and she said she would keep in touch with me if, or when, there might be any changes in the future.

It was a very cold old winter, but we were alright for coal, as Ken Dodd’s brother, Bill, who was now managing the coal business, made sure that all our family were well supplied, but he said to us on one of his regular calls at 53 that he was sad to hear that Mum and Dad were leaving Knotty Ash to retire to North Wales, as he would be losing their custom.

As the New Year commenced I, truthfully, readers, was getting to the end of my tether. So, on one January winter evening, I said to my Jean, I want to take you down to the doctors now, tonight, to see Dr Maxwell, to see if he can make any better suggestions for you, as you’re still not getting any better! There were tears, of course, lots of them too, and she almost wouldn’t come, but I got a neighbours daughter in to babysit, and off we set off to the doctors. I have to honestly admit, I was very, very worried, and more than a little annoyed; more so, too, when we reached the doctors house to be told that he’s very fully booked, etc. and we could see a locum. I just quietly said, my wife, here with me, is a very, very sick girl, and well wait for however long it takes to see Dr Maxwell. We did, however, eventually get shown in to his surgery, and I am sorry to admit, readers, I virtually lost my rag with him from the start, by saying to him, doctor, she is a very, very sick girl. Something has urgently got to be done, 147

and if you can’t help me with her trouble, I’m fully prepared to travel the length and breadth of the land to find somebody who can!

Oh, Mr Kendrick and Mrs Kendrick, he said. I am truly sorry for all your worry and upset, but of course I’ll do all I can for your lady, but you see, what she is now exhibiting is one of the classic symptoms of thyroidism, and her further treatment is going to require hospitalisation with surgery, and I have been loath to take her out of your family set-up, because in my experience being taken away from ones children is never a good thing to do. However, it is now obvious that the hospital is the next move, and right now, I’ll get her an urgent appointment for you with a thyroid specialist, whom I’m sure will help us!

Consequently, following this meeting, Jean was quickly seen at the Liverpool Northern Hospital Thyroid Clinic, and by early February was taken into that hospital for a thyroid operation. Whilst all this was in motion, the house at Thomas Lane (135) was sold, and Mum and Dad got an early removal date to North Wales. Strangely, they moved to North Wales on the same date that my dear Jean went into hospital for the surgery. Jean’s sister Betty, once again, turned up trumps for us, telling me to bring, or leave, the children with her and her gang any day or time whilst Jean was in hospital, and I really was eternally grateful to her and Jack for this.

The thyroid surgeon said he couldn’t really say just how extensive the goitre operation would be, but he would try to manage with as little surgery as he could. In the event, it was a very extensive operation across the entire width of her throat, and on my first visit to see her, in the evening of the day of the op, I fainted at her bedside and had to be put on a bench outside the ward door in the fresh air, until visiting time was over, when I was then allowed a short escorted visit, just in case it happened to me again, but I’m happy to say it didn’t.

The Liverpool Northern Hospital was one of two remaining old hospitals from the 1850s era, with round wards with a central fireplace, with about 12 beds to each ward, and fortunately for us, it was possible, when Jean could walk again, for her to see the access road, behind Liverpool Exchange Station, and I arranged to bring the children down in the van with me, so Jean could see them and wave to them from her ward window. There was no family, or children, visiting in those days. The arrangement worked well, and we did it on three occasions, if I remember correctly.

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Mum and Dads removal from 135 took place as arranged but, as Jean and I found out later on, my mother wouldn’t part with hardly any of her furniture, so they ended up in North Wales with two bedrooms full to overflowing with not-needed furniture, and half the garage, too, was cluttered up. My Jean made good, albeit slow, progress, and was home after about 12 days, with a dressing, and stitches to be removed, and the specialist advised a post-operative radioactive test to be done at the Southport House Clinic in Rodney Street, in about three months’ time.

This test, we were told, was to test the operation of her thyroid gland after the surgery, and was standard practice. I was, of course, delighted to have my girl back home, albeit she was still very weak and thin, but more cheerful, thank god.

With the last of the tram cars being withdrawn (the no.6A Bowring Park service being the final one to go), there was no further news for the DC (direct current) supplies in the city, so the no.1 Lister Drive power station was closed down, ready for demolition, and as both the Lister Drive no.2 station and the Clarence Dock power station (down in the Liverpool docks) were coming to the end of their 25 years lifespan, plans were underway to close both these stations, too. As the steam locomotives on the railways were being slowly withdrawn, I tried to get the lads with me, up to the Edge Hill railway depot and goods sidings, as often as possible to watch there before the final changeover to diesel and electric traction in 1965.

Mum and Dad over in North Wales seemed quite happy over there, although they did make three or so trips back to Liverpool for odd night’s stay over, at Joyce’s house at Mossley Hill, and also for the odd weekend stay-over at our house (no.53) after Jean had fully recovered; and when they did come over, my dad, of course, had to put in an appearance at the shop to offer his free help when needed.

On the television, the BBC Two service started, in 1964; On the home front, the government removed the death penalty from the list of punishments, and changed it to life imprisonment; and The Bachelors were riding high with the song I Believe! Her Majesty the Queen made her first televised Christmas broadcast in 1957; Pick of the Pops started on BBC Radio with Tony Blackburn in 1967; and Get off of My Cloud was all the rage with The Rolling Stones (1965). The Littlewoods Mail Order building opened, gradually at first, but it soon became obvious to us on 149

Derby Lane that we would get a surprisingly big increase in our shop trade as the New Year progressed.

Then again, very sadly, dear Auntie, who had been confined to bed whilst Jean was in hospital, had to be hospitalised, but died, quite suddenly, with a stomach cancer, much to the shocked sadness of us all.

With Dads retirement from the business, and my taking the helm (as it were) several changes had to take place in the management structure, and it was just at this time that the vehicle insurances for the sands car and the meat van became due for renewal; but when I approached the agent for the insurance company for this renewal, he shocked me by telling me that they weren’t prepared to offer me a renewal, so I immediately had to go and look for a renewal elsewhere, which I easily obtained at the insurance office in the Old Swan. I never did discover the reason why this happened, but I wasn’t all that bothered really.

Dad’s accountant had warned me that, at Dads retirement, he wanted to reduce his workload, so he recommended me to a new accountant, a young Mr Jenkins, who took over for me for the accounts, etc. Dad had managed to sell off the old Faulkner Street premises, which I was glad he’d done so, hence I only had the running of Derby Lane to worry about.

I gave up the little half-shop in Green Lane, bringing what stock I had down there to the garage at 53, and had come to a rental arrangement with Dad for Derby Lane, even though he had strenuously said on more than one occasion that he didn’t want a rent from me – but I always made it a rule that he and Mum would always get a weekly rent from me as long as I had the Derby Lane business, and, my readers, that was the way it stayed until my father and mothers passing many years later.

The lads and Gwen were now settled in our local school, ably assisted by dear Auntie Betty, who lived a little nearer to the school, as we did.

After the first years trading at the shop, in my control, it was obvious on two fronts – firstly, we, Jean and I, would be able to enjoy quite a useful raise in our income from the business, and secondly, (after considerable research work by me) the overheads for the shop would, in about 15 years’ time, overtake the earnings, and hence make the business virtually unsustainable. So, I had to have a long hard look at all my overheads all the time. The little Methodist church was slowly getting on its feet at Court Hey, proving to be a very popular addition to our neighbourhood, and there was talk of youth club activities, Sunday school, and possibly annual garden fetes, too. Also, surprisingly, in the post one day, a cheque 150

arrived for us, repaying the £15 loan that we’d made to the treasurer towards the building costs. I asked Jean how did she feel about religion for the children, and she wasn’t really terribly worried about it, saying that if the new Methodist church was liked by all of us, then why shouldn’t we all attend there? Consequently, in the fullness of time, that is what we more or less all did, so I have to tell readers, that because of the TV show Sunday Night at the London Palladium the evening church service that was usually scheduled for 6.30pm was, by general congregational agreement, brought forward to 4pm in the afternoon to enable the congregation to be home again in time for that show. The power of television, as early as 1964!

Jean was, happily, steadily improving all the time, but I have to honestly admit that sadly, she never ever fully recovered from that truly bad bout, although I never ever told her so, nor have I ever told anybody else since either, until writing now; she lost, then, forever, a little bit of the gorgeous, bubbly Jean I’d married, such is life. With our slowly improving living standards, we were able to plan for a new concrete garage, some new carpets and furniture, and to having a telephone put in (telephone no. Huyton 6236), and we managed to find a good second hand twin-tub Hoover washing machine, which I’m proud to say I was a dab hand at using. We, Jean and I, of course were often asked, are you having any more kiddies?? Whereupon our prompt reply was, not if we can help it! Jean and I had, naturally, talked this point over, after the arrival of the twins, as many parents do, but we both came to the decision that three children were as much, or as many, as one could sensibly hope to rear, unless there was an accident! And we didn’t want anything like that to happen.

Now that Mum and Dad were over in North Wales, it was an ideal situation for us to call on them, or meet them when we were weekending at the little cottage, so that is what we did. We would go to the little cottage on a Saturday evening, then go over to Prestatyn on the Sunday (weather permitting) to meet Nana and Granddad on the Lido car park down at Prestatyn seafront, so our gang could go to the beach to swim, etc. then we would go back home with Nana and Granddad to their Meliden house to have Sunday tea with them before we returned home to Liverpool. It was quite a good working arrangement, particularly when the weather was good, and it meant that from their neighbour’s point of views, we, in Liverpool, were sort of keeping an eye on the older folk. In 151

fact, as time went on, Mum and Dad got on very well with their next door people, and even became friendly, too, with a retired Army officer and his dear wife, who lived four doors down from them. This was Brigadier J P Brickman and his wife, and, readers, you will hear these lovely people mentioned again shortly, when a year or two later on, Dad needed to go into hospital.

Back at Derby Lane, the business, thankfully, was buzzing along at quite a pace, and although we were steadily losing some of our distant delivery customers, by virtue of deaths, or estate rebuilding and new shopping centres growing up in the now new-housing areas, at Christmas, an enormous number of our regular Christmas orders, even from customers (long-standing, yet no longer living locally) came through to us to order their Christmas poultry or pork, just as they had always done throughout the past years, even some from really outlying addresses, such as Great Crosby, Ainsdale, Bootle, Aughton, Maghull and Hunts Cross.

As we approached the spring of 1962, my Jean was looking and feeling better, and much to my relief, she began to talk again about us, our little family, and, in answer to questions from our children concerning her own (Jean’s) upbringing, the story of my Jean’s family background began to come to the fore.

You see, my dear readers, my dear Jean and her twin sister Brenda had somewhat of a chequered upbringing to live down.

It seems, back in 1925, when they were born, their mother had already borne four children, making it six with them added, and she (their mother) again bore another set of twins two years later, and sadly died (in childbirth) from what in those days was termed white leg, but what we now know as septicaemia. This left the father with eight children, in a small three bedroom house, and no mother to look after them. The mother’s dear sister, Auntie Adelaide, moved in to help, and consequently, the twins Jean and Brenda, and one of the other set of twins (Doris), were (sort of) farmed out to live elsewhere. Jean (my dear wife) and Brenda (her sister) being eventually fostered out to a lovely family over the river in New Brighton, and Doris, one of the other twins, being legally adopted to a family in West Derby.

The Auntie stayed with the remainder of the family to help Mr Naylor rear them, and later on, she and Mr Naylor married, but to all intents and purposes, she kept the term Auntie and to my knowledge had always 152

been known affectionately by this term. All the family loved her, and she later on bore a child too, a girl called Thelma. But, and here is the rub, readers, when Jean (my dear wife) and Brenda were about 10 or 11, they were transferred back to their original Liverpool family roots, with the consequent host of difficulties that go with (sadly) that type of upbringing. I speak from personal experience with my dear, dear wife Jean, and all she confided in me. She was, truly, very mentally mixed up by it; and it was about this time that she talked a lot about it, on one of our North Wales trips to the little cottage, asking me did I think we might ever be able to make a journey to Crayford, Kent, where, she had heard from Brenda (her twin sister) that their mutual foster mother, now a widow, had gone to live with her daughter.

I made my dear Jean a promise that just as soon as I had overhauled the sands car, we would all go down to Crayford, Kent to find her foster mother. So, I started overhauling the old Hillman (the sands car), in order to get her ready for the promised forthcoming London/Kent trip. What with gaskets, piston-rings, bearings, exhaust line and tyres, I was kept well out of mischief, and had some very late nights lying under the dear old car in our little garage; but by early summer I’d done it, and she was ready for the road. I had talked with Dave, in the shop, about this and he said he’d be able to manage for a couple of days without me.

So, on our next weekend to the little cottage we went, prepared to make the London/Kent trip on the following Monday morning. Everybody was all excited about the trip and, although I tried not to show it, I was more than just a little bit overawed by my plans, as I’d never driven that far, ever before in my life, and truthfully, I was asking an awful lot out of a car that was approaching 30 years of age; but, all smiles in the morning (early) after breakfast, we loaded the sands car and set off for London and Kent.

Jean had previously written to tell them that we were hoping to get down to see them, but at the time of writing, she couldn’t give them any exact day or time.

I’d planned on following the A55 into the Chester area, then picking up the A41 to take us southwards into the Midlands via Wolverhampton, south Birmingham, and then across towards Coventry (south) to up the new M1 motorway at Rugby, which is as far as it extended northwards in those days. Everybody was getting hungry, however, by the time we were south of Birmingham, so we made a toilet/food stop at a roadside 153

transport café, where we saw a lot of parked lorries, and I distinctly remember our Brian having a humorous conversation with a truck driver whilst he was eating his dinner.

Really, now, when I look back, we had made good progress from North Wales, bearing in mind that our dear old sands cars top speed was in the region of 40 MPH. Happily, the journey went on very well and we were in the London area around the 1pm time, passing through the Elephant and Castle junction (traffic policeman on his box) about 1.30pm, and then map reading our way into Kent and on to Crayford.

I don’t need to tell my readers what a human, tearful, memorable meeting it was when we eventually found the address; a lot of conversation regarding news, family members, etc. took place between my Jean and dear Mrs Astill, her foster mother from the past, and with Mrs Astill’s married daughter, too. However, time flew by and it was soon evening, 6.30pm approximately, so I said, sadly, that we’d have to go and find a hotel for the night, and their neighbour said he didn’t know of one in Crayford (at that time), but if we nipped over to Dartford we’d find one there he felt sure. At that time, The Shadows were riding high, and we’d had them on the little car radio playing ‘Riders in the Sky’ and ‘Apache’ as we had come through London. We headed off, however, to Dartford and soon, in the main street, spotted a small AA (three star) hotel, so I pulled up and nipped in to see if there was a room for us. Good evening, sir, the middle-aged man on reception said. Can I help you? ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Were travellers down from Liverpool, visiting, and looking for rooms overnight and breakfast tomorrow.’

‘How many are you?’ he replied. To which I said, there’s my wife and I, and the three children. Whereupon he immediately said,’ oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, sir – we don’t take children. I’m sorry!’

So I said, I just thought with this being an AA hotel, and were AA members, this was the place for us to try. I’m sorry, sir, no, he said again; but then he said to me, if you’ll come to the door with me, I’ll point out another place down the road on the right, who I’m sure will put you up, they’re lovely people. And that, readers, is what took place, and the other place was an old-style inn, with a jukebox (blaring Shadows music) and a bar (like Coronation Street), a stable yard at the side, and plenty of room for our car, so we stayed the night there, and very memorable it turned out to be. So memorable for me, that every time I hear one of The 154

Shadows hit tunes on the radio now, my memory fills up right way with that family trip to distant Kent, and all that happened then.

After a lovely full English breakfast, we packed the car again, bade farewell to the lovely people in the inn, and nipped back over to Crayford to say farewell there – a tearful one, too, I have to add. After we got back into London, and passing once again the point-duty policeman on his box at the Elephant and Castle junction, I said, who wants to see London and Buckingham Palace??

We do, Dad! came the chorus from the backseat, so we headed for the mall, the palace, admiralty arch, Trafalgar Square, and the embankment, taking a few memorable photographs with our little miniature camera at one or two suitable spots here and there. Readers will please see one of these photos amongst the photo pages enclosed in this story. As we then, by teatime, headed out of London homewards, we called at a petrolstation-cum-car-sales on the London outskirts, and the salesman (quick on the draw sort of fella) remarked, where you heading, sir, in that old crate?

I beg your pardon! I said to him. She’s our sands car, and she’s taking us back home to North Wales and Liverpool right now!

Good luck, mate, he replied. Rather you than me, in that!

And with our tank filled up with petrol, I set off for the M1 to Rugby, and the A5 and A4 back to the little cottage, returning home to Liverpool late in the evening to put everyone to bed, at the end of a memorable family trip.

Back at Derby Lane, at the shop, Dave and Billy had managed quite well, and Dave said to me during the ensuing few weeks that he felt sure that we (him and I) could carry on quite well, organising the odd little break now and again, if I wished to do it; and when I told my Jean, she said, good, that’s fine, as after all, the children will need a holiday or two now and again! We decided, Dave and I, down at the shop, that we could use another young pair of hands to possibly learn the trade, now that our trade was slowly increasing monthly.

So we made some tentative enquiries, and a very tall, likeable lad, name of Ritchie, came along to apply, and after the usual preliminary instructions, said he would like to come to us, so I took him on for the customary one month’s trial period on both sides. He seemed keen, and eager, so I told him all the normal safety precautions concerning our tools of the trade, knives, cleavers, saws, etc. including checking that he 155

couldn’t get any part of his hands down the entry-throat to the mincing machine, and that if ever he left any knives or tools in a bucket of hot water, he was always to shout, knife in the hot water, Mr Kendrick! He smiled at this, but again I cautioned him, saying, now just listen to me, lad. If I find you cutting yourself regularly, I will warn you that this type of job is not for you, and you’ll have to leave. He said, I understand, Mr Kendrick.

Yes, readers, I can hear you all saying, we know what’s coming! And I’m very sorry to have to tell you that, that is what I had to say to poor old Ritchie after three weeks with us. In the first week he cut two fingers, in the second week he cut one finger and also stabbed his wrist, needing two stitches, and in the start of the third week more damage; so I was truly sorry to have to finish him for his own safety. He understood, of course, but some of our customers were sorry to see him go because he was well-liked. We didn’t lose track of him, because he would often drop by to tell us of his progress in a car factory up in Speke (an outlying industrial area of Merseyside.)

I took on another young lad, name of Jeff, and he settled in alright, and stayed with us for another year or two.

About this time, the commercial TV channel ITV became just about available in the Liverpool area, so in order to be able to receive this, additional programmes, an additional aerial, and a set top-box had to be fitted. I was able to do this fairly soon, so we were able now to receive the two programmes. The old gas cooker that we’d had given with the house was getting old, so Jean and I decided to replace it with a new Belling electric cooker, which I wired in; and whilst I was at it, I put in a downstairs ring-main so that we could have the new 13 amp plugs throughout our house. We needed quite a lot of decorating and DIY at 53, so the three years from 1962 to 1965 were kind of formative ones at 53, as Jean and I, and the children, got on with painting, decorating and paper-hanging when the time and money permitted.

The winter of 1962/63 started off being very cold for a September, and by the end of October it was a frost every night, so severe at times that we noticed our cold room thermostat down at the shop had often switched the machine off, sometimes for all day. By the run-up to Christmas several weeks passed by when the weather stayed freezing all day. On the plus side for us at the shop, a lot of meat stock could stay hanging in the shop on the rails, because the cold room wasn’t needed 156

anyway; but back home at 53 it was a case of, Dad, the chain won’t pull or, the hot tap won’t run, etc. so I had to fit some heating lamps in both the cock-loft (attic) and the bathroom to try to ease the frosty situation, which, happily, it did. By the February and early March, it (the winter) was being announced as the coldest winter for Britain in 200 years. When I read in the local paper that the Sefton Park boating lake was frozen over, and there were ice floes in the Mersey, I asked the children if they would like a ride up to Sefton Park to walk on the lake. They all laughed, but said they would; and that is what we just did, as did, too, hundreds of other Liverpool folk, many of them ice-skating too.

Over at Mossley Hill, my sister Joyce and her husband Mick had been blessed with their first-born, a cracking little boy, whom they called Christopher. Mum and Dad, of course, had been over for a day-run on two or three occasions, but that is when I found out that my dad had been suffering with, of all things, piles. His local doctor in Meliden wanting him to go into Rhyl infirmary, for the modern operation to reduce them for him, telling my dad off for waiting so long to get treatment, and saying to him, I can’t understand it, Mr Kendrick, you’ve been living in Liverpool all these years, with all those wonderful hospitals, and yet you have to wait until you live up here, in Meliden, before you seek help! However, he was soon taken in to the Rhyl hospital and fixed up, and alright again soon.

On one or two of our visits to the Meliden house, Dad would say, if you’d like to come up to the back bedroom, about half past four in the afternoon, you can see the North Wales steamer heading back to Liverpool again. It was either the St Tudno or the St. Seiriol, run by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, but sadly this service was shut down by the end of 1964.

On the international music front, The Honeycombs held sway with ‘Have I the Right’, Manfred Mann scored with ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’, and The Beatles reached number 1 with ‘Help’ as did Ken Dodd with ‘Tears’.

On the sports front Liverpool Football Club won the First Division League Titles in 1963/64 and 1965/66 and the FA (Football Association) Cup in 1964/65.

Again, up at Joyce and Micks house in Mossley Hill, my sister was pregnant again, and gave birth to another lovely little boy, whom they named Nigel. They also had a largish dog, a black one, but it always seemed to growl at me or Jean, or our children, whenever we called up there to see them, or to a family party there.

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Jean and I would either telephone Meliden once or twice per week, or else Mum and Dad would telephone us, but as the years moved on, I got the impression (correctly) that they (Mum and Dad) preferred a weekly letter, preferably written and posted off to them on a Sunday, which they would then receive, marvellously, on the Monday morning at 7.25am, as regular as clockwork. They really liked this letter arrangement, but they, too, always liked to see us all in person whenever we could manage to get over to see them, which was usually about twice monthly, to include a weekend at the little cottage in Halkyn.

We, Jean and I, had noticed that Mum and Dad no longer visited the little cottage, so we assumed that they had, sort of, passed it over to us to use, maintain, DIY, etc. but I, sadly, had to point out to my Jean that whilst our income could afford to pay the local rates for the little cottage, and the electricity was on a slot-meter then, we wouldn’t be able to pay out a large sum to update the dear old place as, as every year went by, the cottage began to assume a prehistoric look to itself – a charm which I know my Jean and I enjoyed, but one has to be just a bit modern where children growing up were concerned, and as the local council, in its wisdom, had planned to install modern sewage drainage to a sewage plant, the nearest available sewer to dear little Hillside Cottage passed the premises in the field above the premises, about six feet above, making it virtually impossible to modernise the premises with a bathroom, toilet, etc. without a huge re-build.

But not only in Merseyside were there remarkable changes taking place, the discovery of North Sea oil, and gas, was just coming on stream, with forecasts of enough gas in that field to last Great Britain 100 years (which I said to my Jean was a bit ridiculous), but it seemed that the largest gas reserve was over on the Norwegian side, so Norway benefitted very well too.

Nearer home, the proposed second Mersey tunnel was nearing completion, which would enable Liverpool to connect, under the river, to Wallasey, and to a proposed mid-Wirral motorway, and with the end of tram cars, most of the old tram sheds (depots) had been, or were being, converted over to bus depots.

Locally, on Edge Lane, and around the Edge Hill railway sidings, quite extensive plans were afoot for when the railway no longer needed the land. The biscuit firms such as Jacobs and Crawfords, together with many of the other companies throughout the land, Elkes and Fox, and Carrs of 158

Carlisle, for example, were all forming a united company called United Biscuits, and on Edge Lane, too, where a lot of our customers worked, the automatic telephone company (or the Auto, as it was previously known locally) became Plesseys.

In the shop, trade was thankfully buzzing along, mainly thanks to the Littlewoods Mail Order office building opposite, which was now fully open, and quite a large number of customer friendships had been formed

by Dave and I with many of their staff. Bearing in mind that most of their staff were female, and quite a lot of young lasses too, which, for my Dave’s position, who was now a man of marriageable age – well, he quite rightly had an eye for one or two. He surprised me though, when he said he was dating one of these young lasses, and her name was Liz. She was living locally, on Derby Lane with an Aunt, but, sadly, I thought, their friendship didn’t blossom, as she announced that she was emigrating soon. I’dmet her, of course, a couple of times, and thought she was very nice. Dave was a very, very keen cyclist, and was out nearly every weekend with his cycle club, training, racing, etc. However, it wasn’t very long before he met another nice lass called Val, who worked in the local council, and it wasn’t long before I realised this was for real, for both of them.

Our accountant, Mr Jenkins, on one of his visits, remarked about a change in the tax allowances for combined motor vehicles, for both goods use and passenger use, viz: shooting brakes and estate cars; telling me that most of his clients similar to me had taken advantage of this new business tax allowance scheme, and purchased new estate cars on a two or three year HP (Hire Purchase) scheme, where the HP interest was an allowable charge against tax. I agreed that it looked good, so we decided to scrap the old meat van, and go in for a new estate car. I saw what I thought would do us nicely, in a car showroom in Bebbington, and we ended up with a 1500 Cortina Estate in dark blue. I really liked this idea of a dual purpose vehicle, albeit, one had to realise that the pervading smell of meat would always be about, no matter how clean one was, but in any case, we had to have a galvanised liner made for the back part when I was carrying meat, to comply with health regulations. But I did notice at the Stanley meat market, that most small butchers like myself, had done the same thing.

With the approach of another summer, Dave in the shop had mentioned about holidays, and we both were trying to work out dates, 159

and when the trade slackened for summer, as it always did, Dave said he could manage alright, for Jean and I and family to get away for perhaps four days, maybe even a week, so long as I left him a cold room full of meats to sell. The children were all now happily settled in school, and so, as the school holidays approached, Jean told them one teatime that we would all be going off somewhere for a little holiday in the estate car.

Where are we going to?, was the big question, every night I got home from work.

It’s a big surprise, I replied. And, readers, I have to be truthful and say I couldn’t tell them where we were going to, as I didn’t know at all, and I was just hoping that my Jean might just say to me, quietly, can we go to…..please? But she didn’t, so I just had to carry on with the secret holiday, until the day dawned, and we set off. Jean had confided in me quietly that it’s got to be the seaside, preferably not Blackpool or Morecambe, so I headed for the Mersey tunnel and New Chester road to Queensferry, then pressing on into Wales on A494 to Ruthin and across the moors to Corwen and on to Bala. It was a really lovely sunny day, and the new 1500 Cortina was a grand car for us, just the right amount of power when fully loaded, and drove, for me, like a charm. We made a couple of toilet stops, and for sandwiches, ice cream, etc. then pushed on towards Dolgellau, and got into Barmouth about 4.30pm, and I saw a little car park right down by the little old harbour. I drew into a space (there were only about 10), and the little car park attendant came over to sell me a ticket, I think it was one shilling, old money. So I just said to him, nice day for us!

Yes sir, he said. Are you staying hereabouts?

Not yet! I said. Anywhere where we could put up round here?

Aye, he said, turning round; then he said to me, look up there, to those houses yonder, can you see that lady cleaning her windows?

Yes, I said.

Well, try her, she takes people for holidays.

Thanks a lot, I said. And yes, readers, she took us for all of our stay, and what a grand and memorable one it was for all of us, and particularly for me, a recalcitrant father, who had set off not knowing, honestly, where his family were to sleep the night!

We motored around and about Barmouth, and got down to Talyllyn Railway, southwards to Fairbourne (opposite Barmouth) for a ride on the Fairbourne Railway, and a couple of lovely swimming days on Fairbourne 160

sands. The weather really was so kind to us, and, readers, I was so, so relieved to see my Jean actually being able to enjoy herself once again, and for our children to holiday just like other kids at school. I’d, of course, made a couple of phone calls to Dave, in the shop, and he assured me that all was well in Derby Lane, and to stay for a couple more days, if I wanted to. However, all good things have to come to an end, and our Barmouth holiday did just that, but I’m absolutely sure, even today, that all my children (grown up and married now, with their own families) can still remember their own particular highlights from our Barmouth visit.

Back at Derby Lane, Jean’s other brother, Norman, who had never seemed to bother with ladies, quite surprised us all by announcing that he and a lady called Eileen, whom he had met at the conservative club whilst he was accountant there, were walking out together, and hoped to marry, quietly, soon. So, in the fullness of time, yet another lovely family function took place at St. Pauls Church, Stoneycroft, and they bought a house, in Plemont Road. Eileen’s mother and father were customers of ours at the shop.

Back at home (53) we had, more or less, decided on having a sectional concrete garage at the rear of the house, to replace my old timber and asbestos one. So I ordered one from a local Ormskirk firm, for delivery in the autumn, and I realised that I’d have to have a new concrete base laid ready for it, hence a lot of extra hard work had to be put in for a few weekends, by me, giving me plenty of aching limbs and sore hands and knees. However, the base was ready by August, and I managed to get my sister Joyce’s husband, Mick, to come over and help me erect it, and my goodness, what a nice job it was, too, when we got it up.

During the 1960s the railways saw the publishing of the Beeching Report and dramatic changes to the services, and for my musical readers, some other hits of the time include ‘House of the Rising Sun,’ The Animals; ‘It’s All Over Now,’ The Rolling Stones; ‘Don’t Throw Your Love Away,’ The Searchers; ‘I Think of You,’ The Merseybeats, and ‘It Might As Well Rain Until September,’ Carole King, were some of the songs then all the rage.

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CHAPTER 7 1965 – 1975 TIME MARCHING ON! THE HERALD OF A NEW GENERATION

As I start this, what I intend to be my concluding chapter of my journey, it is the start of summer, and I am happy to be sitting outside in the fresh air and sunshine in my back garden. It is afternoon, and by the children’s sounds and noises now reaching me, it must mean schools out, and teatime for me will soon be approaching.

From 1965 and onwards saw the enormous worldwide change in the shipping practice, as the method of containerisation of all merchant shipping became accepted worldwide, and quite big constructional changes took place in many merchant ports, not only in Liverpool either.

Down at the shop, our cold room compressor was coming to the end of its useful life, so I had to arrange for the fitting of a new, more modern one, with automatic defrost facility, which eliminated the carry-on of either Jean’s brother Billy, or myself, goings down to the shop on a Sunday evening to empty the defrost buckets, and switch the old compressor back on again, a chore which we had both become accustomed to, since time in immemorial! The shop weighing scale, too, was becoming somewhat dated, so we got our scale maintenance firm to demonstrate for us the new self-calculating scale, electric, which I decided, with Dave’s support and encouragement, to go for, and which a lot of our regular customers voiced their appreciation, too.

Dave and his lass, Val, seemed to have really settled down together, so I wasn’t surprised when they announced their engagement, and intention to marry when they had found a home.

A telephone message from Thelma, Jean’s younger sister, at no.57 Derby Lane, one Sunday evening, indicated that Billy (Little Billy, as he was always affectionately known) had severe chest and back pains, and consequently not to expect him in for work in the morning. I thanked her, of course, but it sadly seemed he worsened 162

during the night, so she called the doctor out, and Billy was taken right away to the Broadgreen Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a heart attack, and complications due to his Potts disease of the spine.

He went into a sort of coma almost immediately, and although I visited him daily, both early morning and evening, he never woke up again to speak, and died three days later.

My Jean, of course, was dreadfully upset, as were all the rest of the family too, but I felt his loss more deeply, I think, than most did, as I had him working with me all along the years since my coming out of naval service. My dad had given him employment in the first place because of his disability and his limitations to any heavy work, but he had been an absolutely reliable and trustworthy man, and a damn good friend to me, over the years.

There was no doubt, on Derby Lane, how much he was going to be missed, by the turn out for his funeral. My dad, too, was upset at his passing, telling me that in the war years, and just after the end of the war, Little Billy would often phone my dad to let him know that all was OK at the shop. So, another milestone in the family history was passed.

At home at 53, many more changes were taking place all around us, as happens in a family orientated neighbourhood we had had, of course, one or two deaths in the road; mainly people who had been in Fairfield Avenue most of their retirement lives, also the usual crop, if I may call it that, of babies arriving, and the normal arrival of newcomers as well.

Our immediate next door neighbours at no.51, the Evans, were a brother and his two sisters, none married, all nearing retirement age, and they idolised our twin boys, Brian and Stephen; as the lads got older, it was really Stephen who became their sort of messenger boy, and I think they were often grateful for all that he did for them.

Gwendoline by now was growing into a really good-looking lass, still as bossy as ever, and somehow, it seemed, she always commanded the respect of the two lads, as the years progressed, the lads always asking her for guidance on many young person’s 163

decisions. Although, as my readers will probably have guessed, she, Gwendoline, would occasionally cross swords with Jean, her mother, on some, apparently, seriously important decision to her, when she would then attempt to call me into the argument using the time-honoured divide and rule principle; but, of course, Jean and I had already discussed these sort of possibilities long before they had ever arrived, so we weren’t surprised whenever these occasions arose.

The day of the transistor radio (trannies) had arrived, which virtually put a final ending to my wireless repairing, barring the odd electric set, and occasionally a battery portable or two, but I was still quite often called out to the odd TV set as well. Transistors were not manufactured to be repaired, and the worldwide production of these sets heralded, too, the worldwide production of many things electrical and electronic, and although I had accumulated a large stock of service information for many brands of TVs such as Bush, Marconi Phone, Ferguson, Ekco, Murphy, Alba, HMV, and many more, it was obvious to me that a lot of these English firms would fade into the background, as the flood of imported modern sets came into the country.

The lads, Brian and Stephen, had expressed a keen desire to join Scouting, as they had, of course, heard all about my past history in the 16th Wellington Road troop, and so we got them enrolled in the 15th Fairfield Group at Oak Vale Church, Edge Lane Drive, Liverpool, near the Rocket pub, and they seemed very happy there.

In Old Swan, quite a lot of demolition and rebuilding was taking place, and the little shop where I used to collect wireless sets for repair was included in this demolition, and ultimately closed, and pulled down; and, too, the old ropes works in St. Oswald’s Street was closed down too, and finally demolished as well. It was now becoming obvious that the rise of the television was bound to affect other forms of entertainment, particularly the cinemas and some of the regular monthly dances. The theatres also suffered, The Pavilion and The Shakespeare closing down, and some of the attendances at big sporting events, locally, noticed a drop in supporters too. There was no doubt, to Dave and I, that the coming 164

of the Littlewoods Office Building was a blessing to our trade in Derby Lane, and truthfully, we dared not really think about what we’d do if and when they (Littlewoods) had to shut down. I said to Dave, let’s not worry too much about that just yet. Littlewoods must have laid out a huge investment on the building, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be there for a good few years! He agreed with me on that.

Back at home, Jean and I would try to get out together perhaps just once a month on our own, when our reliable babysitter, Irene from two doors down, would come in for us, and Jean and I would go off, either to the Empire Theatre, or to perhaps a meal out in, say, Southport. If it was the theatre, I would already have bought for Jean her favourite chocolates, Terry’s All Gold, which, usually, Jean’s old boss had in stock in her shop, ready for me.

We were still able to get over to Prestatyn on a regular basis, about twice a month. The weekly letter-writing carried on successfully as planned, and my dad had made good progress with his gardens, but he’d gone and bought quite a few more fruit trees and bushes, which, although nice to see, I personally thought he was making too much work for himself. My mother, too, had been out buying a few more chairs, too (god knows why!) She already had a house overflowing with excess furniture. Sometimes, on our way home from a Prestatyn visit, Jean and I, if on our own, would engage in somewhat deep conversation concerning the old folk, and my Jean said to me, on one of these such occasions, you know, love, now that your Roy has moved off into the Wirral, and your Joyce hasn’t got a car, it’s looking like we are going to have to look after them in their old age.

I said, yes darling, I have to agree, it is looking that way. And, readers, of course, I remembered what my dear Jean had told me, years before, in fact before we married, that the relationship between my mother and my Jean was, well, to say the least, more than a bit rocky! So I understood what my dear Jean was hinting at.

Oh dear, oh dear! What a worry families can often turn out to be!

On the roads, cars were on the increase quite noticeably, and I distinctly remember back in 1946/47, on Derby Lane, there were 165

virtually no parked cars along the road, whereas by 1965, it was getting to be almost impossible to get a clear place to park. Major road plans, of course, were underway, and new bypasses for both Preston and Lancaster were soon to open, to relieve the congestion in those two cities; a Queensferry bypass with a new Dee Bridge had opened, making the North Wales access easier; and plans were afoot in North Wales for the A55 (top road, as it was locally called) to be made a dual carriageway with several small bypasses to miss some villages on its route.

At home at 53 we were finding space downstairs, kitchen-wise, getting tight; so after much discussion as to whether we should move house, or build an extension, the idea to build a larger kitchen-morning room semi-conservatory type of extension won, although we did at one time see a suitable house up Woolton way that we might have moved to, but we didn’t move. Consequently I set to, drawing up plans, getting council planning permission, etc. and got the idea rolling, Joyce’s hubby Mick giving me a hand with the bricklaying, and within about nine months we had demolished our old back door conservatory, and built on our new extension and got it more or less weather-proofed before Christmas ‘65. Mum and Dad had made one or two visits to Liverpool during the building, and Dad fully approved of our idea.

Nationally about this time, the European common market was holding sway, as it were; and talk of metrication in all things, and decimalisation of our currency came to the fore. In fact, metrication came a lot slower than I thought it might, which, with hindsight, was a good thing, but decimalisation when it eventually finally happened in February 1971, was a thundering great headache, as over the shop counter, it was plainly obvious that our new decimal currency meant a rounding up of our old currency values, which made it appear, correctly, of a small swindle, and this feeling took a long, long time for a lot of our older customers to accept.

For my readers with musical memories, The Beatles, of course, were carrying the flag for Liverpool; but about this time, too, were: Sunny Afternoon , The Kinks (1966); Here Comes the Night, Them 166

(1965); Green, Green Grass of Home, Tom Jones (1966); Hey Jude, The Beatles, (1968); The Wonder of You, Elvis, (1970); Edelweiss, Vince Hill, (1967), and a little later on, Spirit of the Sky, Norman Greenbaum (1969/1970) Then, seemingly all of a sudden, a phone message from Nana in Prestatyn, to say Granddad had had to go into Abergele Chest Hospital for his breathing etc. Fortunately, Mr and Mrs Brigadier came to their rescue for assistance, getting my mother to and from Abergele Chest Hospital, and home, which my readers may remember my remarks in an earlier chapter. However, Dad wasn’t in hospital too long, but x-rays confirmed his doctors suspicion, and he was confirmed COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) with emphysema, and, of course, all the tablets to go with it, and his further inability to do all his little jobs he’d liked to do.

This change of circumstances prompted me to have an in-depth chat with Jean, and also Joyce, regarding Mum and Dads future; but Dad had already realised his own personal predicament, and had got a builder in to work out how to make their small kitchen pantry into a downstairs toilet with a wash-basin, as Dads main problem was coming to be the stairs. Jean and I fully approved with this plan of his, and encouraged him to go right ahead with it, which he did.

But when Jean was talking to Joyce regarding Mum and Dad, she found out from Joyce that they (Mick and Joyce and family) were contemplating moving out of Liverpool, and possibly going back down to Torquay to settle, if they could find a suitable house.

This sudden-ish turn of events made me make some immediate decisions RE: the family’s future. The little cottage at Halkyn, now no longer needed, would have to be sold off, as we really couldn’t afford to pay out to virtually rebuild it, and in any case, although we, both Jean and I, were only in our forties at this point, my mind was, at times, thinking along the lines of, where might we think of retiring to in the future?

Our kitchen/morning room extension was proving to be a real worthwhile asset. I had bought a new modern sink unit, and had moved the electrical cooker into the extension, and as it turned out, there was just enough room for the twin-tub washing machine 167

to fit in between the sink unit and cooker. We had also bought a good condition fridge-freezer that also fitted in well, and the additional floor space gave room for the table with four chairs, if needed. There were two opening windows on the side next to our neighbours (Margery and Fred), so that my Jean could talk to Margery, next door, without running out to the fence, as I had built the new back door entrance on the lee-side, or sheltered side, of the extension to avoid the troubles of wind and rain from the prevailing weather side.

Over at Prestatyn, Dads major problem stemmed from his lifelong smoking habit, which the hospital had told him had ruined his lungs for him, so, very bravely, he tried very hard to cut it down, and eventually he gave up smoking altogether, but it was too late to help him really. On one of our regular visits he told me during one of our chats together, that if he had have known back in 1914 (when he began smoking in the Army), he would never have started. My dear dad, in retirement, had developed into a sort of sage, or soothsayer, telling me various opinions on life that he had decided over his lifetime, but one of these has stayed with me to this day, and this is what he said, you’ll find, lad, as you go through life, that the two most dangerous times of the year, for human beings and animals, are the rise of the sap and the fall of the leaf, And I was actually alerted to his meaning of this when, the next winter into spring, he was really very poorly; but, around about late February, he said to me (on one of our visits), if I can just last out, son, until spring, I’ll be OK and alright for another year! And readers, he did just that.

A little family memory that stays with me today, and possibly, too, with my daughter and sons, is a little Sunday afternoon/evening occurrence that used to take place between us (our house) and the Evans (next door house), was a signal (banging) on the wall to our Stephen, on the dividing wall in the dining room, to tell Stephen that The Onedin Line programme was just coming on TV, if he wanted to go into their house to watch it. At that time we were unable to receive that station, so of course, he always did go in to watch it. Even now, today, I still enjoy, thoroughly, the 168

theme music to that programme, which I’m sure many of my readers will also, like me, enjoy; namely, the theme from Spartacus

by Aram Khachaturian.

So, to put more of my decisions into action, I advised Mum and Dad to put the little cottage at Halkyn up for sale, preferably with the agent in Prestatyn, whom they had had dealings with previously for their Meliden house, but to get a professional valuation for it, because of the land that went with it, which they finally did. In some respects, saying goodbye to Pentre-Halkyn, for me and my Jean, was a little saddening, bearing in mind all the good times we and our family had enjoyed there.

But time marches on, and our children were getting to be grown up and more modern-ish. Brian, for example, had taken to pigeon fancying, and asked if we would allow him to have a pigeon loft down at the far end of the back garden, close to the railway embankment, which ran along at the back of our house.

Apparently, one of his old school friends had a loft to sell, and as it was only a stone’s throw away from us, I and my Jean said he could go ahead with his hobby; and thereupon, he and a couple of his friends transported this pigeon loft to our garden, from a nearby house in Ashbourne Crescent (if I remember rightly), about three quarters of a mile away, and when I came home from work, there it was, down the far end of our back garden.

It gave him hours of interest in the pigeon world. Near neighbour of ours, Ian and Marion Naisby some eight or so doors down the road, he was a Hoover washing machine and vacuum cleaner engineer, he was also a keen pigeon enthusiast, and became a great mate of Brian’s as time went on, and also became a family friend too.

Nationally at this time, Donald Campbell was attempting another water-speed record on Lake Coniston in the Lake District, but very sadly was killed in his attempt (January 1967). The breathalyser for drivers over the drinking limit was also introduced in 1967, and also that year, Joyce and Mick told us that they had found a suitable house in Torquay, Devon, and would be moving down there to live about the middle of the year. The Grand 169

National that year (1967) was won by a rank outsider, Foinavon, and our Brian shocked the family, when he won £5 (five pounds –A LOT OF MONEY THEN) having been allowed to have a little bet on the race (he’d put a 5 shillings each way bet on it!) That became the talk of the family for years afterwards. Also about this time, I remember the completion of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, and its first opening ceremony, which brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city from all over Britain, and Ireland also.

My Jean, quite suddenly, really, began to lose her hair, it coming away each day in the comb, so she went to see our doctor about it.

He put it down to a side effect of some tablets for her thyroid problems that she’d had a year or two back, and assured her that it (her hair) would all grow back again. She persevered wearing a wig for a month or two, but eventually it all grew back again.

The estate car, our Ford Cortina 1500, was still serving us well, having been an enormous help, particularly during the building of the kitchen extension, and of the concrete garage also, and we also used it for some small furniture carriage to or from North Wales, as required.

About this time, also, on TV the programme Dads Army was just getting started, and my goodness, what a success it turned out to be, if you liked that sort of humour. Also, in 1968, the last steam hauled train was a special run by British Rail (called the fifteenguinea special) it was run from Lime Street station through Hellifield to Carlisle and back, on August 11th 1968, hauled (double headed for part of the journey) by black-fives (45110, 44781 & 44871) and a pacific class (Oliver Cromwell.) And, too, it was later this year that the Carnforth motive power depot finally closed.

However, in spite of the withdrawal of steam power, we, at 53 Fairfield Avenue, with the railway embankment at the end of our back garden, did see one or two occasional steam engines passing, usually running as a light engine for a few weeks after the official British Rail steam ban began on August 12th 1968; but most trains were either diesel hauled, with a diesel locomotive, or else as diesel multiple units, and although we saw a lot of the diesel/electric units 170

known as Deltics, they didn’t seem to reign for very long on our section of railway.

It was around about this time that Dad talked about his Will, and asked me if I’d be his executor, which I willingly said I would, in the full confidential knowledge that, more than likely, we (Jean and I) would become the carers for Mum and Dad, as my dear Jean had said. It was around about this time that various traders down at the Stanley meat market and abattoir had mentioned to me about the forthcoming annual meeting of the Meat Traders Federation, which, this particular year, was to be held in the Winter Gardens at Blackpool, and I could have tickets free if I wanted to go. After talking it over with Jean, and Dave down at the shop, Jean said, could we make it a short holiday weekend?

Dave, at the shop, said that I should go, and bless him, said he’d manage alright for a couple of days. So we went off to Blackpool, found a boarding house in Hornby Road (I think) that could take us, and had our little holiday in Blackpool. My memory tells me that, although the butchers get together in the Winter Gardens was quite interesting from the butchery point of view, even at that early date the entry of supermarket trading into the country down south was already showing a lot of small traders, just the way that domestic shopping of the future was heading. Nevertheless, the children and Jean enjoyed Blackpool, it was a nice change for us all, and I particularly remember it, for our family visit to the pictures (cinema) to see the new Sound of Music film that was filling cinemas nationwide.

The following Christmas, being a pretty cold one, we, at the shop, were able to leave, hanging out of the fridge, a fair quantity of meats, which prompted Dave to ask me, how about doing a Christmas show in our window, the week before Christmas? I agreed, and we put on this window show for three nights, having a photograph taken on one night by one of Dave’s cycling pals, who was an amateur photographer. In fact, we did this window show idea for a few more Christmases after this, even though it meant that I had to go down to the shop on a Sunday, or Saturday, night, to put everything back into the cold room before midnight. Of 171

course, the loss (if I may put it that way) of the little cottage in North Wales had left quite a biggish hole in our weekend leisure hours, albeit the children were, now, no longer children in the sense that they had been during the 1960s. Gwen had passed her scholarship, and had selected the girl’s grammar school at Prescot for her teenage education, and she was, thankfully, developing into a hard-working young lady. The boys didn’t manage any scholarships, so were starting secondary school locally in Rupert Road School, in Huyton.

Nationally, about this time, there was a lot of wrangling in the railway and mining industries, due, no doubt, to the decreasing need for coal, because of the advent of smokeless zones and smokeless towns, together with the now increasing quantities of North Sea oil and North Sea gas over the entire country. Musically, the tunes of Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys, (1966), Bend It and Zabadak, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich (1966/1968), and also, Someone to Watch over Me, from the film ‘Star’ with Julie Andrews (1968), all come to mind.

Locally, up at our little Methodist Church, all was humming along merrily; the Sunday school, the services, and the youth club (known locally as the Tufti Club), all thriving. Gwendoline, and some of her friends, being regular members there, even my Jean and I being sometimes roped in to give help there on occasions.

When the church was holding its annual garden fete, I was one of the regular fathers who gave up a weeknight (usually a Wednesday) to erect the church marquee on the adjacent small field, next to the church, and then to assist in taking it down again the following week. The lads, Brian and Stephen, had Scouts, of course, and were regularly off to camp, to places some fair distance from Liverpool, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight and France all come to mind, much further than I’d have ever dreamt of taking my troop, back in 1939/40.

On the way back home from Nana and Granddads in Prestatyn one weekend, my Jean and I got talking about looking out for another little weekend holiday residence, not too far from Liverpool, perhaps somewhere we could modernise, and spend 172

some of our time at weekends doing just that. We weren’t well-off, but we did, fortunately, have a fairly good living standard at that time, so we commenced looking around; newspaper adverts, estate agents, etc. but the prices were often astronomic. We went over again to North Wales, to look at a semi-converted railway station between Mold and Wrexham, but Jean was dead against it.

Then, another newspaper advert took us off, again, in North Wales, in the Llangollen, Chirk area, to a small, run-down farmhouse, which we both felt we might be able to do something with, until I enquired of the local area council planning office for more details, only to be told by them that the person selling it to us was not the actual owner, so we let that go too. Then, after a few more false alarms as it were, one evening when I got in from work, Jean just happened to say that as she was standing, waiting to be served in our little local grocers, the girl (lady) in front of her, whom Jean knew from school runs, etc. and whom she (Jean) quite often met, was talking to a friend alongside her, saying, so the uncle is going to sell the little cottage soon.

So I said to my Jean, did you not think to ask her for any sort of details? But my Jean said that, just at that time, she didn’t; but after we’d both chatted that evening about it, my Jean said that she would watch out for this girl when she (this lady) was on her way down to school, and try and ask her, and during the next couple of weeks, caught up with her and eventually got a telephone number from her of the uncle concerned. To me, really, in truth, to both of us, it all seemed a very long shot; however, I telephoned this uncle, explained how his telephone number had reached us, and he, very friendly, told me that, yes, there was indeed a very small bungalow/cottage in North Lancashire, in a village called Silverdale, that he was selling. He told me its address, and who, locally, in that area had the key for it.

So, off we all went, the first free available Sunday, on a very wet February weekend. We found it, in the winter drizzle, down a winding cul-de-sac lane, and managed to get its key from the local man (a plumber) who had it. Well, I don’t know really, at that stage, what we all expected; but myself, as soon as I got inside, and sat on 173

a box to eat the salad sandwiches and drink the thermos tea that Jean had prepared to bring with us, I surprised everyone there by saying, do you know, I could live here.

Oh, Dad, surely not like this!

No, I said. I meant if this place was modernised.

My Jean wisely said, well, we’ll just have to see! But just having to see, surprisingly, soon came to pass. I contacted the uncle again, we got an agreement on a price, and he, the uncle, gave me the name and address of his solicitor in Huddersfield, who would be handling the possible sale. We paid another weekend visit up to Silverdale, on a much brighter, drier day, to look the little place over again, to ascertain what we would do if we bought it, and my goodness, when I think back now, I must have had stars in my eyes or something like that, because the dear little place, that had been a home for a retired old quarryman and his wife, comprised only of a living room/kitchen, two very small adjacent bedrooms, a cold water tap, an old cast iron cooking range in the living room, two old cast iron fire places in the little bedrooms, an outside bucket toilet, and a small outside old-style wash-house-cum-coal/fuel-store, with a fireplace to heat the wash water. No electricity or gas, no street lighting, and Silverdale railway station three quarters of a mile away, with Silverdale village approximately two and a quarter miles away. There were also a couple of cracked broken windows, to go with it too.

Readers will see a photograph showing the cottage early on, within the picture sheet. But on the plus side, from our family point of view, it was just big enough to house us all from the camping holidays point of view. The market town of Carnforth was some four miles away, and the resort of Morecambe about nine miles away, which was a big plus to our family as they all loved trips to Morecambe; and as far as the distance from Liverpool, something like 85 miles, but the journey (using what motorway was available then) to take little more time than our journeys in the past to North Wales.

After this second visit, when we returned home I did a quick check on what we needed to do to the place if we bought it, things 174

like how old I was, how old Jean was, what our income was then, and possibly what it would be in 10 years time, and after very deep in depth discussions, we decided to try and buy it and use it. So I contacted the solicitor the next day, by telephone, and he then told me that there might be a slight snag to the sale going immediately ahead, due, as he tried to explain to me, to family circumstances surrounding the uncle and some of the uncles family, as he (the solicitor) also acted for several members of this family and he (the solicitor) had heard rumours that the little bungalow/cottage had been the subject of in depth family discussions. However, just as soon as he (the solicitor) had received the go ahead for the sale, he would again get in touch with me. Oh dear! A wind of some slight disappointment blew through our family for a week or two.

However, true to his word, the solicitor in Huddersfield contacted me, once again, to say we could proceed. So, after telling Jean, she said, it sounds as though they’re trying to not sell it to us, so that it can go for a higher price on the open market!

So I said, well dear, I’ll get over to Huddersfield this week and settle the matter!

How on earth can you do that? she said. You can’t leave the shop just now.

Oh yes, dear, I can, I replied. I will go by train on Wednesday afternoon, our half-day closing, on the Trans-Pennine service, which calls at Huddersfield. It leaves Lime Street station at 2.15pm, and I should be back home by evening, on the evening service.

Which, my dear readers, is exactly what took place, and a little human quip, if I may add it; as the Trans-Pennine service passed our house on the embankment at the end of our back garden, I told them at home I would wave a folded newspaper out of the carriage window, so that they could see me on the train from our back bedroom window, and know that I was on the train to Huddersfield.

After seeing the solicitor and signing all that was to sign, and handing over the cheque, I telephoned Jean from a phone box in Huddersfield station to tell her that it was all done, and the little place was ours. But my readers, to this very day, could I ever have 175

imagined what a future lay in store for us, and our family, to follow our acquisition of this dear little place.

First off we needed electricity in order to facilitate further building jobs, repair jobs; in fact, it was absolutely essential, so one of my first jobs was to contact the local north western electricity supply company for the provision of a service to our Haweswater bungalow in Moss Lane, Silverdale, which entailed the provision of two poles, several hundred yards of conductor, etc. and a fairly substantial bill (estimated) for me, with about a six months wait.

This wait didn’t terribly worry me, as I had to set about wiring the place for electricity anyway, which I put in motion on each of our trips up to the bungalow.

The old iron range was worn out, and the fireplace leaking smoke all round, so we decided on a modern tiled fireplace, which I managed to buy in Liverpool in a sale, and transport it up to Silverdale in the estate car, ably assisted by Stephen, my son, to help with the lifting in, and also to help with the lifting out of the old cast iron range to the spare land at that the back. Consequently, by the spring of 1969 we had the grate in, with a new fire-back, and the place wired ready for when the power men arrived.

On each of our trips at weekends, if there was spare room in the car, I would carry up there, such as cement, or bricks, or paints, or anything that would likely be needed in the coming months, as obviously a lot of repairs would need to be done to make the little place comfortable. Just as though fate was moving in, just in the run-up to Christmas, during a lunchtime when we’d left the shop locked up, burglars broke in through the back, stealing legs of pork, boxes of bacon, and some frozen turkeys. The CID said it was obviously a very professional job, as they must have had hydraulic jacks to break down the armoured door that we had in the back room, in order to gain access. Fortunately, the insurance covered us, but it was an unpleasant reminder that somebody, somewhere, was always dogging my footsteps; but to avoid a repetition, I had the armoured door removed, and totally bricked up, permanently, for the future.

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Things at home, at no.53, were now galloping ahead. Those whom we had, for so long, spoken about as our children, were now becoming grown-ups in their own rights, as so, too, were their friends also, sometimes reminding me, and no doubt my Jean, too, that we were, also, getting to be just a little dated (if I may put it that way.) Brian was still mad keen on his pigeons, and occasionally would bring up to Silverdale some of his racing pigeons, to be released from there. He also would send some off by train from Roby station to Bridgewater in Somerset for racing training, and later on for a race, when he became more practiced and experienced. He was still very friendly with Ian Naisby down the road, and I have to add, that he (Mr Naisby) thought a lot about our Brian, and helped him considerably too. Ian was always very helpful to Jean and I over our washing machine (twin-tub), and vacuum cleaner as well.

Looking back to our family side of life, the children’s upbringing, their guidance along life’s way, and family behaviour in general, was, on the whole, good, balanced and friendly; of course, there was always the odd hitch now and again. I would hear Gwen having a long, concentrated discussion with her mother regarding, say, clothes, when I would hear words such as, I’m not going to wear that, or no, Mum, that’s down right antiquated, etc. But, by and large, there were only a few ripples on the family water, which was only to be expected, although I do remember one occasion when Stephen had a few offhand words with Jean, when he came home late, and didn’t like being reminded by his mother, whereupon he stamped out of the lounge and slammed the door. Jean looked across the room at me, I got out of my chair, opened the lounge door, shouting, Stephen, I want you in the kitchen now, please.

Right away. Whereupon he joined me out in the kitchen, I stood right in front of him, saying, I’ll not stand for any son of mine speaking to his mother like that. Don’t ever in your life slam a door in anybody’s face, it might be the last time you see that person alive. Now go right back in to your mum and say to her, Mum, I’m very sorry – go on!

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He looked me straight in the eyes (he was taller than me), then I saw two little tears falling from his eyes. I’m sorry, Dad, he said.

OK! I said. Now go to your mum. Which he then did, and readers, I’m absolutely certain that you can all recall similar incidents along your own family’s life’s road.

Nationally, at this time, there were huge threats of strikes, both on the railways, and the miners, and sadly by the early 1970s the government announced plans for power cuts in the approaching months, maybe years, to cope with the shortages of power due to coal being withheld from power plants.

Then, on one (for me) memorable Wednesday afternoon, when the lads came in from school for tea, they announced to Jean and I that they’d been seen by the careers man at school, and told that they probably wouldn’t beable to get a really top job when they left school, so what did I advise them to go for?

Now, readers, as many of you will certainly, yourselves, have come to this tune in the road of your children’s lives, I had, previous to this, thought about their future. In fact, Stephen had been coming down to the shop to give a helping hand now and again, but Brian, whilst prepared to assist when pushed, preferred to steer clear of shop work. I had asked Stephen previously if he wanted to learn butchery. I was happy to teach him and train him, but truthfully, had to warn him (as early as then, 1970s) that there wouldn’t be a living in retail shop life as he got older.

So readers, this memorable Wednesday afternoon, I sat down to family tea with them, telling both of them that my advice (their fathers) was to try and get a job (employment) as close to the land (farming, perhaps) as they could manage, as, in my experience, most land workers (as I put it), whilst never making a fortune, somehow always had a roof over their heads, food on the table, and a bed to sleep in. At my remarks, they openly laughed, but a little later on they both thanked me for my opinion. And, readers, when I bring this chapter to its final pages, I will let readers know just what my two sons are now working at.

So there we were, our children reaching school leaving time, soon, and their futures coming up for discussion, etc. And, too, 178

there was the growth of the motor car, more and more people taking to car ownership, bringing with it driving lessons, and the driving test and practise leading up to it. I had been asked by a friendly local neighbour, who lived directly opposite us, would I take him out for driving practise, which I agreed to do, after which he did pass his driving test, which, of course, raised the similar questions for our children, too, and I said I certainly would take them out for lessons with me if that is what they wished, but Brian said he, at that time, preferred a Honda 50 motorbike, or perhaps a scooter. Stephen agreed he’d like to try driving lessons with me, as did Gwen also, so I had to reorganise my weekend free time (such as it was) to accommodate the driving lessons etc.

Brian had found employment at a poultry farm out at Melling near Aintree, in September 1970, and was very happy out there, his boss liking him very much too. So he (Brian) motor-biked or motor-scooted there to his job; in truth, I wasn’t too happy about the motor-biking side of things, similarly to my old dad (who always pleaded with me, as a lad, never to have a motorbike.) Stephen also had got a nice little job, out towards Widnes, on a little local farm – not good money, but nevertheless, a start, and he too was much liked by his boss, an old farmer, name of Chris, who trusted him implicitly, and on one occasion when Jean and I called up that way, to take sandwiches or such-like to Stephen at a harvest time, the old farmer told us just how much he appreciated him.

Gwen had come to the end of her time at the Prescot Girls Grammar school, and whilst waiting for her exam results and a decision regarding her future, she had got herself a little part-time job in a cake and bread shop in Prescot village on Saturdays. When her exam results came through, whilst on the borderline for university, were very good really, and her teacher wanted her to go for further college education whilst she had the chance, but Jean and I could see that (sadly, as we thought) she was trying very hard not to carry on at any course. But, in the end, she grudgingly agreed to go to the Widnes Technical College to do a business studies course, but it did mean she had to leave home quite a bit earlier in the mornings to get the Crosville bus service, which took her 179

virtually direct to the Widnes College; although sometimes on our half-day closing on Wednesdays, Jean and I would motor up to Widnes to pick her up and bring her home, Jean sometimes doing a bit of shopping at the same time.

I took Stephen out for driving lessons in our estate car, and he soon became very proficient, and very soon put in for his driving test, and really astounded me, that he got through and passed first time, so it wasn’t long after this that he was tractor driving on his job. I also took Gwen out for some driving lessons, as I had promised, but, sadly, on two or three occasions (whilst we didn’t actually come to blows, to use a well-worn phrase), she hugely disagreed with me on what I considered serious driving errors, and which I truthfully felt I had to point out to her. So, driving lessons with her Dad, stopped, and then never started anymore.

Brian and Stephen, also, were now quite keen dance club members, both up at the Tufti Club (at our church) and also down at Billy Martins Dancing School in Derby Lane, not so very far from our shop. Gwen, too, went to the Tufti Club regularly, as did a number of her friends, and we often had youth club gatherings at our house (53), and Jean and I came to know quite a wide circle of our children’s friends at this time, which we both always encouraged, and consequently a lot of the friends parents quite often would express their gratitude to Jean and I, for our keeping an eye on them, for all concerned, as most parents were happy so long as their sons and daughters were down at the Kendrick’s!

This particular time in our life was, to say the least, absolutely overflowing with events, happenings, etc. which was, of course, brought about by the family growing up, and life, for them, not standing still. My Jean said to me, on one of our evening chats, our Gwen, now, my dear, is a grown woman, and will shortly be bringing home boyfriends, as happens in all families; and sure enough, by the New Year of 1971, Gwen was, indeed, keeping mixed company, as did a lot of her girlfriends, too, and Brian also, as young as he was, had a bit of a reputation for fancying girls, whereas Stephen was more for motor cars, groups, bands, assisting at bands at dances, etc.

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But then, seemingly quite out of the blue, Gwen brought home a local lad whom she’d been keeping company with, and whom we liked, and for a time they kept seeing one another. He was from the Huyton area and he, too, had connections with our church, he was a member of the Boys Brigade and the Tufti Club, too. His name was David, working as a machine-tool fitter for a Kirby engineering firm. He was more or less fully qualified, having served a full apprenticeship at the job. Then, as the summer approached, Gwen asked if it would be alright for her and Dave to go for a North Wales holiday in a caravan. My Jean was somewhat hesitant about granting parental permission, but she did so, as I did also, and Gwen and Dave said they would call on Nana and Granddad whilst they were over that way.

It was about this time, too, that Gwen had put in an application for a job at the Inland Revenue Tax Office at The Royal Liver Buildings, In Liverpool, and happily, she was offered the position, which both Jean and I were proud of her for it. Over at Prestatyn, my mother and father said, when we next saw them, how much they liked Gwen’s boyfriend (Dave), and it wasn’t very long before the pair of them (Gwen and Dave) presented themselves before us to talk of engagement and marriage. My Jean was not terribly happy about things at first, mainly because of Gwen’s age, as one has to bear in mind that when my Jean and I went to the altar in 1950, we were then both 25 years old, as was mostly the usual habit in those years, my Jean saying to me, I don’t think she’s really old enough for marriage, yet!

However, after further deep conversations all-round, we gave our permission and blessings, and David promised me personally, saying, I promise I’ll always look after her, Dad! By this time, the year was racing by, and when we came to talk about a wedding date, they (Gwen and Dave) didn’t want to wait for possibly a year or so, so we had to organise a wedding for them as early as possible, before the approaching Christmas period at the shop, so it ended up being late in November, at our little Methodist Church, with a reception at The Tudor Rooms in Kensington, followed by an evening bash at our house at 53. And Gwen and Dave went off to a 181

Lakes honeymoon, staying at a hotel in Kirby Lonsdale, and also staying at our little Haweswater bungalow in Silverdale. They were very happy, and started off by living at Dave’s mum and dads house in Huyton, but shortly after, Dave’s mum and dad moved house, nearer to us, close to the Court Hey Methodist Church, Gwen and Dave moving also with them.

Their wedding at the little church was lovely, a quite big family affair, although the weather could have been kinder, and on the morning, at 53, before my Jean and I left for the church, my Jean said to me that she wasn’t feeling at all well. However, by the time she got to the church, she improved and felt better. But I must tell my readers that, for me, a little atmospheric event that took place, right at the time in the middle of the wedding service, as Gwen and Dave stood by the altar rail with the Minister, (as it was a dull day) suddenly through the high window of the church, right opposite the altar, a bright beam of sunlight shone through this window, brilliantly illuminating Gwen and Dave and the Minister. This ray of light, lasting only three minutes or so, but it was so stunning when it happened, and I knew in my heart of hearts then that their union had been Heaven-blessed.

Then, by early 1972, Gwen announced her pregnancy, the baby to be due July/August, so life now for the Kendrick family was racing on! And we, my Jean and I, were to become grandparents.

Gwen had started her Inland Revenue job, and both her and Dave were house-hunting for a small starter home, which I’m happy to say, they eventually found in the Old Swan area, in a little street called Childers Street, which was barely three quarters of a mile from our shop and also handy for us (Jean and I) to call down at their little house too. They, Gwen and Dave, had been going over to Nana and Granddad’s in North Wales prior to the birth of the baby, which was making life a little easier for Jean and I, in that direction, and quite surprisingly for a young couple, they both were good painters and decorators. So, consequently, over at Prestatyn, they had offered to do some decorating work for the old folks. And, quite remarkably, even though Gwen’s pregnancy was well advanced, the pair of them were actually over in North Wales doing 182

some finishing off for Nana and Granddad the night before she gave birth to the baby, a boy, later christened Alan.

Up at the little Haweswater bungalow at Silverdale, I had put in alteration plans to add a bathroom and toilet, an extra double bedroom, and a septic tank filter unit, and got the plans all passed.

So I was getting on with the building, etc. when opportunities presented themselves, and Nana and Granddad had said they would like to see how things were up there. So we, Jean and I, organised a weekend when Granddad drove themselves over to Liverpool, to stay overnight at 53, and then we took them up to Haweswater bungalow on the Sunday to view the building works, which Granddad was very happy to see and gave full approval.

Down at the shop, all was jogging along merrily, thankfully, but already, peoples buying habits were slowly changing. And, too, sadly for our family trade, a number of our long-standing family customers were dying off. Frozen foods, i.e. Birds Eye, Findus, etc. were now also quite the rage, so I had bought two small shop freezers to give our customers a little help in that direction, but there wasn’t a lot of sales potential for that type of food, really, at our shop.

My Jean, of course, was at this point in time, completely absorbed with baby Alan, as one would expect, and Gwen and Dave were very happy with our family relationship all round, as we were.

It was about this time, too, that on the music scene Bobby Vee rereleased his hit Take Good Care of My Baby! (1973) Then quite out of the blue, Nana phoned from Meliden to tell us that Granddad had had a heart attack that evening; Dr Stephens had come round right away, Dad had gone, unconscious, to Abergele Chest Hospital, where he sadly died. It was approaching the end of September, and we had, then, a really heart-breaking funeral to arrange in North Wales, and of course, in due course, make plans for my mother’s future over there.

Also we had all our own goings on children-wise at 53, not to mention running the shop in Derby Lane, so that autumn and Christmas, into the next New Year, was exceedingly busy all round.

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Nationally, the threatened miners etc. strikes took place, followed by nationwide power cuts right across the country, and I used my long-standing electrical engineering technique to rig up, at 53, a battery powered lighting system to give us hall light (car headlight bulb) at the front door, a light (another car bulb) over the kitchen sink, and another light in the living room; all these switches powered by a spare car battery in the garage, which I charged up when we had electricity on again. I thought it a good idea, as it did save any accidents in a dark house.

My dad’s funeral went ahead quite well, the Prestatyn undertakers being very helpful, but I have to add that, for myself, I was absolutely disgusted with the butchering fraternity of Liverpool, in that, although I had well informed everybody of my father’s passing, not one single member of the Liverpool butchering fraternity turned up at his funeral. Mum, of course, was, for a time, very upset; but her next door neighbours, Sheila and Teddy, were of an enormous help to her, and to us, too, in that we were more than somewhat limited in time that we could give to North Wales trips, bearing in mind that someone was going to have to, for the foreseeable future, look after Dads gardens, as well as suitably supervise my mother, and I knew that I just couldn’t expect my Jean to take on extra worry, with the relationship that didn’t exist between the two of them, anyway.

Nevertheless, for the first six months or so, life went peaceably along, and Joyce, my sister, now in Torquay, suggested, should she ask Mum to go down there to Torquay for a short holiday, possibly with a view to seeing if my mother would settle with her. So Jean and I went over to Meliden to bring my mother to Liverpool with us, putting her, next morning, on a through train to Newton-Abbott from Liverpool Lime Street station, where she would be picked up

by Joyce and Mick.

Readers can imagine the sort of conversations that took place, between my Jean and I, discussing the possibilities of such a plan; and between Joyce and Mick when they had my mother down there with them! It wasn’t very long before Mum came back up to us, and we took her back to Meliden once again. I won’t labour this 184

point any further, as all families at some stage have old folk worries.

I, personally, was a little worried down at the shop, as another local butcher from the Old Swan shopping centre was rumoured to have bought an empty shop in Derby Lane, further round the bend from us, and was intending to fit it out as a butchers shop, which I knew if, and when, it opened, would take away some of our family trade from that part of Stoneycroft, and therefore affect our business detrimentally. Also, just to pile on the agony, as it were, we, Dave and I, spotted a medium sized van pulling up in Albany Road, opposite our shop, on Friday afternoons, close to the Littlewoods office doorway; and we watched as a man handed out wrapped parcels to various of the Littlewoods ladies as they left work, sometimes money obviously changing hands, too. Dave said to me, is there nothing we can do, to stop that kind of thing going on?

To which I replied, No Dave, I’m sorry but that’s the cruel way of the Liverpool world!

However, to get back to my mother and North Wales; on one of our weekly visits to Meliden, my Jean whispered to me, just take a look under the sink, in the unit, and on the shelf in the downstairs toilet, will you?

OK, I whispered back, and when the occasion was right I did just look, as my Jean requested, only to find dirty food dishes in both places, many with rotted food left on them. This discovery pulled me up sharp, as it were, and I tactfully said to my mother, what are you saving up dirty dishes for, Mum? To which she just replied, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I winked at Jean, quietly removing the offending dishes, etc. and clearing up, and washing them all and putting them away before we left for Liverpool; but on our way home, my Jean said to me, you’re going to have to watch your mother, love, I think from now on.

Yes, dear, I said. I will.

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So on the next visit from our local doctor at the shop, when he called in to collect his weekend meat, I asked him if I could have a word with him, and he said, certainly, Drever, what is it about? So I told him about the occurrence at my mother’s at Meliden, and the dishes and the food. The doctor looked straight at me, putting one hand gently on one of my forearms, saying to me that those signs at my mothers were the early signs of senile dementia; that he was very sorry to have to tell me that, but that I should watch out for further happenings in the future, which of course is what my Jean and I did. We did, of course, mention this matter to my sister, Joyce, in Torquay, in one of our telephone chats, but she said she was sorry to hear about it, but there wasn’t really a lot she could do to help the position, which, of course, we fully understood.

Our estate car, the old Ford Cortina 1500, was now needing a lot of major expenses to be spent on it, but our accountant advised that it was better for us to go for another new one, whilst the income tax position for businesses was still the same. So we went car viewing again, and ordered and bought a new Morris Marina 1800 estate, and, also, luckily, the liner that I’d had made for the Ford also fitted into the new Marina, so that was a small saving, too, in that direction.

My Jean and I had, for a number of years, been discussing the possibility of having a silver wedding celebration in September 1975, when we would have then been married for 25 years. And now that Gwen and Dave were married and starting their own family life, our silver wedding came up for more detailed discussions, my Jean saying that she was all in favour of a fair sized do, if we could afford it. So we started to put out feelers, regarding where to have it, and estimates for size of party, numbers, etc. so that we could book a place, and get the date we particularly wanted.

Also, we both had distant memories of our wedding night journey to the Lakes in Dads Hillman Minx, and of the very kind and thoughtful AA man, who had fixed our flooded car for us in our absence, so that we could continue our Lakes honeymoon; and both of us vowed then, that if we survived to a silver wedding do, 186

he and his wife would, if alive, be on our guest list. My Jean was most determined on this, and she also wanted on our guest list a certain gentleman by the name of Mr Dennis Horton and his wife, if alive, as this certain gentleman had, when, as a young man working in my father’s shop in Derby Lane in the 1930s, had a very serious accident using the new electric mincing machine, and lost his hand. We had recently heard that he was a very good singer accompanied by his lady wife, and so that was another little tracing job to do before the silver wedding date.

Before all this, however, there was to be a general election, and when this took place, a strong Labour government was returned, and our local MP for Huyton, Mr Harold Wilson, was given the job of Prime Minister.

Musically too, at that time, were The Drifters, topping the charts with Sitting in the Back Row of the Movies on a Saturday Night, etc. which always, for me, brings back distant, wonderful memories of my Jean and I, back in 1948/50 on the back row of the Curzon cinema in Old Swan in our courting days. I’m absolutely certain that there will be very many of my readers who can say similar things, about events, too, in their own younger lives.

Around and about, both locally and in Liverpool city centre, all kinds of changes were slowly taking place; new shopping areas, new blocks of flats were sprouting up everywhere, our local (once little) Huyton village had now become Huyton town, with a new town centre, municipal buildings, fire station and ambulance station, and yes, one new multi-type supermarket store, too.

The motorways were well under construction both northwards and southwards. The M6 northbound had now extended to Lancaster, and the Lancaster bypass, which enabled us when travelling up to our little Haweswater bungalow to use this new motorway all the way to Carnforth.

On the railways, many little-used or non-profitable railway branch lines were being closed, and tracks taken up – to name a couple, the Carlisle – Edinburgh old line, and the Ruabon – Barmouth – Great Western Railway line, and numerous others about the country.

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Manchester Airport, which readers may remember I referred to in an earlier chapter as Manchester Ringway, had now grown, or perhaps swollen might be the right word to describe its massive growth, due to the on-going increasing demand for air travel, and it had already become the largest airport in the north, at that time.

But the big talking point for us at 53 and down at the shop, too, was Gwen and Dave, their baby, Alan, and their little home.

My Jean and I, however, had put out feelers concerning our silver wedding celebrations, and after getting two or three quotes from various venues, we decided that the Allerton Hall offered the all-round best arrangements that would suit our purpose, so we went ahead to view it, and finally booked it for September 1975.

About this time, Stephen came home from work to tell us (Jean and I) that he had been offered a much better job working for an agricultural contractor in the Widnes area. This particular contractor had secured a large contract for the new Runcorn new town construction, which, incidentally, we also found out from my Jean’s sister Betty that her husband, Jack, was also involved with the Runcorn new town development as their architect. Stephen, of course, took this new job and liked it very much.

Christmas 1974 approached, the usual pre-Christmas hard work in the shop, and we had been going over to Meliden to check on Nana on a regular basis when on one journey home to Liverpool, I said to my Jean, did you see how many chairs Nana had in the lounge today?

My Jean replied, well, dear, I noticed you counting something.

Yes! I replied. I was counting just how many seats she had crowded into that room, and I made it fourteen!

What the hell she needs all that lot for, I’ll never understand, as there’ll only ever be five or six of us visiting ever at the one time!

My Jean replied. Well, dear, we’ll just have to keep an eye on her.

Up at little Haweswater, we had made really good strides with our modernisation plans. We now boasted a double room, a single room, a modern-ish kitchen, and a toilet room (wash basin and lavatory), with a separate shower cubicle, and an up to date septic

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tank filter unit, too, as well as electricity, of course, and a flickering (sometimes) black and white TV. As Christmas arrived, Jean whispered to me one evening, Gwen has said she thinks she might be pregnant again.

So I said, well dear, it’s only to be expected. So I suppose they’ll be looking for a bigger house in a year or twos time!

The Christmas came, with a warmer type of weather, which made it slightly more difficult for us at the shop from the cold storage point of view, but in spite of that, we coped well, and as we moved into the New Year, Gwen’s pregnancy was confirmed, baby probably due in June, which was good from the future planning point of view, our silver wedding bash coming up in September.

So, a little later on in 1975 we decided, Jean and I, on one of our trips north to Silverdale, that we would try and trace the whereabouts of the very kind AA man who, back in 1950, had fixed our car for us on our honeymoon, starting off by calling in various older garages along the A6 road in the Carnforth/Kendal area, armed with the little letter that he, Mr Andrew Kilshaw, had left on our steering wheel back in 1950. But our search, at first, looked as though it had drawn a blank, as nobody in the little garages remembered him, until at one (our last call) at a Kendal car showroom, where the manager said that one of their storekeepers upstairs was an older Kendal resident who might just know of him, and kindly sent for him. This gentleman, although he said he had never met Andrew, but his wife had had connections with Andrew’s wife’s family in the past, and she (Andrew’s wife) had connections with a men’s outfitters and tailors in the centre of Kendal.

So, thanking him very much, we set off to find this men’s outfitters, which we soon did, told them our story and showed them Andrews little note off our steering wheel; and sure enough, one of the shop staff said, I recognise that writing. Just a minute, Ill telephone our Mary; she’s bound to know Andrews new address, as he’s now retired, not very well.

So there we were, readers, we now had an address in Kidderminster, and after we had written to him and his wife, it 189

confirmed that we had indeed found the right person, as the signature on his 1975 letter matched exactly the signature on the note that he (bless him) had left on our steering wheel in 1950. But readers, sadly he was too disabled by arthritis to travel up to Liverpool, being mostly confined to a wheelchair, so we had to be content in sending them (he and his wife) the present of a cheque to cover a full turkey dinner, together with the promised invitation card containing a heartfelt message from Jean and I, signed by both of us, as a keepsake.

The planning for the silver wedding celebration, together with Gwen’s forthcoming baby (everybody hoping for a girl) seemed to take precedence over all other happenings, and soon, Gwen’s pregnancy came to its end, with a lovely baby girl, who was named Victoria Jean – later, of course, being called Vicky for short.

It was about this time that I noticed the tremendous changes taking place, regarding not only cities, housing, etc. but the enormous changes in means of travel, too. During all my childhood and early years, travel mainly meant railways, ships and tram cars, whereas by 1975 travel meant aeroplanes, motor cars, electric railways and motor coaches.

However, with our forthcoming silver wedding celebration, a pretty fair amount of forward planning was obviously needed, and

by March, what had started as a guest list numbering 50 – 60, began to increase weekly, looking very much nearer the hundred guests when it became time for us to commit to reserving the number. Happily, however, all went well as the year progressed, and thankfully, too, the final cost was within our affordable budget.

My Jean, of course, was still very much doing all she could to assist Gwen with the new baby (Vicky) and little Alan (her brother), who was always nosey with his new baby sister, and had to be watched closely whenever he was around the cot or pram. Gwen, too, helped my Jean with regard to what to wear for our party, and also concerning her hair-do as well.

And so the day arrived, and happily, it all went off very well, our children, Gwen and her husband Dave, Brian and Stephen, giving tremendous help at the Allerton Hall, particularly during the 190

evening after the meal, and Mr Dennis Horton and his lady wife attended, and he entertained us with some excellent singing, much to my Jean’s thorough enjoyment.

Really I suppose, for me, it all felt just like another wedding all over again – we received an absolute avalanche of cards, both by post and by hand, and the amount of presents, which we had said, please, no present, that were given to us was staggering.

But, before I close these few lines on the silver wedding celebration, I wish to tell you, my dear readers, of a small, very, very special present, that was brought into our butchers shop by an old customer of my father’s day. This lady was herself a Great Grandma, by the name of Mrs Baker of Albany Road, opposite our shop, whose grown up family had all been customers of ours in the past. That dear lady came into the shop with a card for us, and a small package, about the size of a Swan Vestas matchbox, saying to me, Drever, I want you and Jean to have this little silver gift from me, as I’ve known both of you since you were school children, with my love and best wishes! It was, readers, a small real silver snuff box, obviously of some age, and I hasten to tell you that it had, and still has, pride of place in our china cabinet to this day.

And so, I feel it is now time for me to draw to a close this Liverpool life story of mine. But before doing so, I’m reminded that I promised in an earlier chapter to tell you just what my two sons did with their lives after my fatherly advice, those many years ago. My eldest son, Brian, is still, to this day, working in the poultry/egg industry. After many years’ experience in that industry, he now, at present, is a poultry/egg farm manager with a large national company, rearing 250,000 egg laying hens in a gigantic farm in the midlands. He was married and divorced and has two children, Jenny and Simon who have grown to be fine adults and are forging ahead with their lives, he now has his long term partner Paula.

His brother Stephen now has his own agricultural contracting business, also down in the midlands, near Stratford-Upon-Avon. He is married very happily to Jane and has two children also, Helen and Fiona, both similarly fine girls and moving on with their lives as well.

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I hear somebody saying, he hasn’t told us about Gwendoline, his daughter? So, yes, here is about Gwen – she, as you know, married happily to Dave, has three children, Alan, Vicky and Joanne, who again are fine adults, making lives of their own, very happily. After rearing her children, Gwen returned to work in the National Health Service at Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool, then later to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool in senior management, and has just recently taken early retirement, but is still connected with the hospital, being on the board of governors.

And now readers, it is thank you time. My profound and grateful thanks go to all members of my family, who assisted me in any way at all along my writing road; also to the printing teams involved; and especially, of course, to my dear daughter Gwen for bravely being my editor; and finally, last but most importantly of all, to you my dear readers, for being with me along my life’s way.

The end.

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POST SCRIPT Drever (Tom) now lives in Carnforth, Lancashire. He unfortunately lost ‘his Jean’ to cancer in 1991. He was blessed to meet his second wife, Eileen in Carnforth. However, he lost her too, to heart problems in 2011. He is now a very proud Great Granddad to Jessica, Thomas, Alfie and William, and also Step-Great Granddad to Megan, Joshua, Max, Adam, Evie, Amy, Callum and Ryan. He is greatly treasured and much loved by all his family.

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