Just before we moved to the Mersey Forge, it had had a refit and redecoration, all the furniture had been replaced with brand new. One day someone said that a set of the chairs and a table would look good in their kitchen, My dad not knowing what he was dealing with said if they could get a set out without him seeing they could have it. The next morning there was a knock at our private door and dad went down to see who it was, there was a set of the four new chairs and a new table on the pavement with a note saying that if they wanted they could have got all the furniture out without any one seeing but they thought just showing him would be enough. He never challenged any of the customers after that.
If we ever wanted anything you only had to mention it no matter what. Mum had started going to catering college to learn how to do large scale catering and she needed a set of chef’s knives. Someone turned up with a brand new set at a bargain price no questions asked. Dad said they could do with a new fridge, some said what brand or size? He joking said one of the big American ones with double doors, a couple of days later a van turned up with a fridge just like he wanted and at a price that was not to be believed. A docker came in one evening with his white coat on and asked Dad if he wanted any bacon, Dad said he would need a big piece for the kitchen. The docker opened his coat and said “ Is this big enough?” On the inside of his coat he was wearing another white coat and hung from it were two complete sides of bacon. He had walked off the ship through the dock gates and half a mile up the road to the pub like that. The stories that used to be told about things that went from the docks you would not believe. There was one docker that took a barrow load of straw off the docks every night, he was searched and nothing was found, he just said the straw was for the kids pets. When they came to check stock after a while they found that about 50 wheelbarrows had gone missing.
One night a docker came into the pub looking very grey around the gills, Dad asked him what was the matter and he said that they had been down a hold in a ship to check out what to come ashore, they found a stillage of wooden barrels at one end of the hold. So he got his “tap” out of his pocket. A docker’s tap was a bradawl and a length of rubber hose. He drilled a little hole in the cork of the barrel and put the hose through the hole. He siphoned off some of the liquid in to his tin cup and had a taste, it tasted quite firey but alcohol did that at first. Some of his mates gathered round and they all had a sample of this brew until the stevedore shouted down into the hold, “Don’t touch those barrels at the far end of the hold lads” “ why not?” came the reply. “ Cos dey are pickled apes for the school of tropical medicine” “Well” he said” we ran up the ladder so fast you would not believe it, there was six of us all shouting for yuweeee over the side of the ship.” It had been pure alcohol with gorillas in it for medical school.
A couple of times on a Sunday while the pub was closed between two o’clock and seven in the evening we caught the bus down to the pier head where the ferries ran over to the Wirral. We caught the Royal Daffodil across to New Brighton and spent the day at the sea side. The beach next to the pier was a lot bigger then because the Seaforth container base had not been built. When the container base was built the sand was washed out to sea and the pier was left high above the waves. As a child I loved to run on the sand under the pier and see all the barnacles on the upright iron posts. At the end of the pier was a floating dock which the ferry came into and at low tide it was so steep to climb up. In New Brighton was an indoor fairground which was good fun on the wettest of days, further along was the fort which had defended the Mersey harbour and still had some of the old cannons mounted on the battlements facing out to sea. Beside the fort is the Perch Rock light house and we could walk along the sea wall and right round the light house, at low tide you could do this on the sand. It was fun to sit with your back to the sea wall and have a picnic on a blanket. We had things like candy floss and even got some sea side rock with New Brighton written all the way through the middle. We did not realise how polluted the river really was until twenty odd years later when they started to clean it up. We were bathing in all the effluent from the chemical works up river at Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn. After a wonderful afternoon we got the ferry home, sometimes it was the Royal Daffodil other times it was the Royal Iris. I loved to explore and in the dance hall on both ships was a big brass plaque commemorating the fact that both of the ferries had gone over to Dunkirk to help bring all the soldiers back home during the second world war. We sailed home with the setting sun behind us and I thought how did these little ships make it all the way to France when they tossed so much when the river was stormy that they ferry had to be closed at times.
My mum had worked behind the bar in the Royal Hotel for Ken and Val Heaps and when we got to Liverpool she had work a lot more. She had to do the catering for the pub as well as work behind the bar, look after us kids and the home too. One evening she was serving in the vaults bar and someone was fooling about and trying to get her going, she went to tell him off by calling him a fat twit but it did not come out like that she shouted at him “ you twat”. Well you could have cut the air with a knife, here she was a young country lass, the new licencees wife swearing like a docker. Best of all mum will tell you she did not know she had sworn until Dad told her later what it was.
In the November I was up stairs watching telly one night when the news came on, it was an interruption to the programme with a news flash. President Kennedy had been shot whilst visiting Dallas in Texas. I went downstairs in to the bar to tell Mum and Dad but they would not believe me. I tried and tried to convince them but it was only when the lad that sold the latest Echo on the street corner came would they believe me. He was one of my childhood heroes along with Donald Campbell.
I remember the first time I saw the Orange lodges marching on the 12th of July 1963. All the bands would assemble and march down Mill street to town where they would get on the trains and go to Southport for the day. The noise and the colours where fantastic, one of the regulars was a drum major for one of the bands, he would march in front of the band swinging his big silver toped baton. It would go flying into the air turning round and round before falling back downwards for him to catch it without losing one step. The story goes that one year one of the drum majors tossed his baton and it landed across the electric lines for the trams on Lime street bringing all the trams to a halt until it could be taken down. We always opened early so that we could catch the marchers with a drink before they went off. Then when they got back from Southport the pub would fill up straight away. The kids would sit outside and recount the fun they had had playing on the beach or on the fun fair while their mums and dads brought them out a bottles of pop and packets of crisps. Mum would do plenty of rolls and sandwiches because the women did not want to go home to start cooking even if they were sober enough. It really turned into a party atmosphere until closing time when the catholic teenagers would be waiting for the Lodges to walk home when they would pelt them with bags of pepper and run away. At least it was not petrol bombs as happened to the marchers in Northern Ireland.
At the bottom of Harlow Street was the cast iron shore or as the locals called it “The Casey”. This was a floating dock and to get onto it was the Dockers bridge, it was all linked to the Herculaneum Dock where the ships from West Africa used to come in. All the sailor were allowed to bring in a parrot ,a monkey or some such exotic animal as a pet for their family. I knew lots that had monkeys in their houses, sometimes a sailor would come in and offer one for sale, he was not really supposed to do this but it gave a bit extra cash for their families. My Dad knew that all the parrots would be talkers but it was what they said that put him off buying them. The parrots would be kept in the sailors cabins during the six week journey home. Now sailors were never known for clean language and the parrots were the same. They swore like troopers every one of them. You would never be able to invite the vicar round for tea if you got a sailors parrot.
No comments:
Post a Comment