All the summers of my childhood seemed to be endless sunny days with never a cloud in the sky and the winters were proper cold ones. I can remember waking up to see my breath over the top of the blankets, the inside of the window panes were frozen with ice. I remember licking the ice to see out on to the fields across the road from the front of the house. Snow ball fights were going on in the street and Dad had built a great big snowman in the front garden. The winter of 1957 was a really hard one I do remember with plenty of our neighbours having burst pipes and so much snow on the ground there were no cars running for weeks on the estate.
The summer of 1958 was really hot, we spent lots of time in the garden with the twins under sunshades as they had started to crawl about and Mum was worried they would get sunburn. We three are all very fair skinned. As I grew older I started going off on the long summer days with the gang of lads from Higgins lane. I can remember one year we spent days at the canal locks. This was where the Rufford spur went off the Leeds to Liverpool canal. It had been a barge repair dry docks and there was a flight of locks down to the bottom level over half a mile long. We would swim in the water or splash in the lock over flows, the bigger boys would jump in from the towpath bridge that went over the spur, it is still there today and is a good 15 feet above the water. I was never big enough to do this jump. It’s amazing that we didn’t get all sorts of diseases. There were always dead animals floating somewhere in the water, whether it be a dead piglet that had fallen in from the piggery or a bag of kittens that someone had drowned because no one wanted them. We did not bother, we were just having fun and took no notice at all.
After we had been out on the canal a few times with the Draper family Dad decided that a boat on the canal would be a good idea for the family. He found a converted ships life boat for sale in Lytham St Annes and he got a few friends and a car to go up with him to pick it up. When we got there it was on a trailer of sorts and it was hitched to the back of the car. We started to tow it and before we had gone very far the trailer got a puncture. Of course there was no spare so someone had to take the wheel to the nearest garage to be repaired. This happened several more times and we were getting nowhere fast. I t took about six or seven hours to get from Lytham through Preston and down to the Rufford spur in Tarleton. Dad said “right let’s not try to tow it ant further on the road, we will launch it here and sail it through to Burscough via top locks.” That was easier said than done because there was no ramp into the canal. It was high banks and the only way was to back the trailer into the canal and let the boat float off. They started and it was ok until the wheels went over the bank and into the canal. The trailer acted like a see saw lifting the back end of the car by the tow bar. The only thing they could do was to cut the ropes holding the boat onto the trailer and let it drop into the canal. It went in with such a splash that I thought it wouldn’t come up again but it did and it floated well too. We all cheered and shouted, Dad got a bottle of beer and smashed it on the front of the boat, “ I name this boat Amneris, the Queen of the Nile” he always was rather melodramatic. Mum had sung with Liverpool operatic society and had had the part of Amneris in the opera Aida. Well we managed to drag the trailer out of the canal and my dad’s mate, the driver, went off down the road towards Burscough at a rate that we had not done all day. Dad started the engine on the boat and we pushed off south towards the locks. After about 50 yards the boat stopped and we couldn’t see why. Everything was fine, plenty of fuel, the water from the canal was going through the engine keeping it cool but the propeller was not going round. A young lad stripped his shirt off and jumped in to the water. He came up sputtering that the prop was choked with water weed. Then we looked ahead and saw that the whole canal was solid with weed. This would mean someone on the bank pulling the boat along until we could get to clear water. It was like a scene from the African Queen with Humphrey Bogart. It took us another 4 hours to tow the Amneris the 4 miles to top locks before someone could clear the fowled the prop shaft and the engine could power us the last mile to Burscough canal yard. It really was fun when we got it all sorted and kitted out, we had many happy Sunday’s going one way or another along the Leeds Liverpool.
One day Dad took us up to Scarisbrick and we pulled in near to Scarisbrick Hall woods. We played in the woods with all the gigantic trees and we crossed the canal to Shawhall farm. We walked up the farm track to the lane and Dad showed us where he had lived as little boy. We did not know but a few years later we would be returning to the same area ourselves. Amneris was not very lucky as the winter of 62/63 the canal froze, the hull was crushed and she sank.
Dad had various jobs as I was growing up, he had worked in the office at Shepherds sawmill, then he went to the office at Elkes and Foxes Bisquits. He also worked part time behind the bar in the Royal Hotel. Mr and Mrs Gaunt were the licensees when he started there but they left and Ken and Val Heaps took over, they had a big Irish wolf hound called Rafferty. He was huge and had a really loud bark, he was supposed to be there for security but would have licked anybody to death if they had broken in to the pub. Ken would take him out for a walk almost every morning but on their first day he thought he best take him for some exercise. He was on his lead down school lane from the pub and they turned into Victoria street towards the canal. As they got up to the British legion club he saw some empty land where the bargees cottages had been demolished and he let Rafferty off for him to stretch his legs. Now Rafferty was easily six feet or more long when he stretched himself out and really started to run full pelt across this open land. He ran straight on up the bank not realising that he was out and over the canal before he suddenly went with the biggest splash at least 12 feet into the middle. Ken had to let him swim along in the canal in till he got to part of the towpath that had collapsed in to the water. He climbed out on to the towpath and shook himself soaking Ken through to the skin. They had to walk back though the village stinking to heaven both of them from the fetid water.
The Heaps had three sons who we used to go and play with too They were about the same age as David, Colin and I. It was fun because Mum started to work in the kitchen with Val Heaps helping when she had do’s to cater for, us kids were put up in the lounge with plenty of pop and crisps and best of all a television. Working at the Royal for Mum and Dad was extra money and we started to get luxuries like our own television set. I can remember programmes like Seahunt with Lloyd Bridges and Coronation Street.
Dad decided to train to be a pub landlord and applied to work for Threlfalls brewery who owned the Royal Hotel, He got the job and his first training place was the Meadows hotel in Maghull. He did not have any trans port so it would have meant either the train or a bus and that would take a lot from his wages, He decided to buy a NSU Quickly moped and it was on the day before his first day he went to see how long it would take him. While he was away I sliced open my knuckle. When he got back I was there with my arm in a sling.
One of the things I remember was dad going on a visit to Seagrams in Liverpool, they are big distillery and they made Captain Morgan rum and London dry gin and bottled it in Liverpool. The day was a trip out for all the licencees and the trainees paid for by the distillery. They were taken round the gin making plant and were given many samples as the day went on. One I can remember being told was to take a half pint glass almost full of cold water and they put a table spoon full of the gin spirit in to it. This was then the equivalent strength to a very large gin and tonic. They were each given this to drink plus at the end they were taken in to a tasting room where other brands of spirit were there for them all to sample. Needless to say the samples were drunk with gusto. Everyone was given a bottle of Captain Morgan black label rum to take home as a gift. Dad then had to drive his moped home from Liverpool the 20 miles or so to Burscough. This was in 1962 well before the days of the breathaliser and no one thought there was anything wrong with this. Now this moped only had a half a gallon tank and by the time he got to the top of Christ church he ran out of juice. He then pedalled it down the hill and into Kinlochs Garage on County road where he pulled it up onto the stand and put his bottle down on the floor. “Fill her up” he slurred to the attendant, he paid the 1/3d and drove off . He drove home and got in safe and sound, “What’s for tea” he asked Mum, “ creamed mushrooms on toast” was here reply. He did not wait to get his coat off and he rushed up the stairs to the toilet, we heard retching as all the drink he had consumed was brought back up. He never came down that night and it was the next morning when he came down stairs with a terrible hangover he realised that he had left the bottle of rum on the ground at the garage.
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