Heather and I started going out regularly and most times we ended up the Burscough football club. Burscoughs claim to fame in the football world at the time was that the wooden stand had come from Goodison park when the stadium had been built. It was a typical northern working men’s club. There was a bar and it was open every evening, on a Saturday and Sunday evening there would be two men on organ and drums providing music to dance by. Caberet acts would be on weekend nights. We saw some really awful acts but did not care as it was the company we went for. The crowd of locals were bolstered by friends that came in from Liverpool each Saturday and Sunday. I was offered a job eventually by the committee, Mum had quite a few friends that had something to do with the football club. I helped behind the bar and cleaned the beer pipes and the cellar to earn extra.
One of my mates from school came in one night and I suggested that he ask to do a midweek disco for the local youngsters. This was taken up and every Thursday after that at the football club was Northern soul night. It brought in extra revenue for the social club. Once a month they had a gentleman’s night where there would be striptease and blue comedians. This proved very popular. It was always the busiest night of the month. I was told to make sure that two men at the back did not pay for any drinks, I later found out they were two plain clothes police men making sure that the strippers did not got too far. That was until one of them was taken up on the stage and stripped naked by two of the strippers. We never had any trouble from the police after that.
One adventure was when they got draught cider in for the first time. Every time I was to have a drink I got a half a pint of cider. I managed to work to closing time serving and clearing up after we closed. I went to go home, when I got outside the cold air hit me and the next thing I remember is waking up in my own bed the next morning. I was still fully dressed and my head was banging. I opened my bedroom door and there was my mum with a mop and bucket “ before you do anything, go outside and clean up the front door step”. I went outside and found that I had shamed myself and puked all over the step and the front door when I had got home. I do not remember how I walked the mile crossing the main road and got home safe. I made it a rule never to drink alcohol while working again.
Heathers dad rode a motor bike and we got on quite well. He had a BMW 600cc bike with a big white fairing and panniers, similar to a police motor bike. On a Sunday he would suggest that we go out on the bikes for a ride. Heather would ride on his bike as I was still on “ L” plates. We would go out all over the northwest of England until one Sunday I started to hear a repeated ting, ting, ting from my back wheel. One of the spokes had broke and was catching as it went round and round. We were somewhere up in the Pennines miles from home so we started back at a slower than normal pace. I was riding at about 20 miles an hour and it was starting to get dark when there was another ping, ping, ping. I decided to ignore it and said they should get off and get home as Heather had work in the morning. I could envisage the back wheel of the bike falling off but I carried on slower and slower as more spokes went. Eventually I got home at gone ten o’clock with eight spokes gone. The next day I took the wheel in to work with me, on the train, as there was a repair shop in Waterloo. It cost me £12-7/6d to have the wheel respoked. That was over half a week’s wages then it would be nearer £100.00 today to do the same job.
Heather had two mates she hung around with Beryl and Helen. Both Girls worked in the local Tesco shop and Heather worked Friday nights and Saturday there too. They both were seeing lads from Liverpool, Beryl was going out with my mate Phil from the second hand shop and Helen was going out with his brother Dave. We would all end up on a Saturday at the football club Then it would be into someones van and off the Phil and Dave mum's house in Longmoor road in Aintree. It was a victorian terrace with three floors and a cellar. We partied all night and into the early hours of Sunday. Every one was welcome and the house was full of music and laughter. In the morning every one was given bacon or sausage butties before we all went off to the pub for a "hair of the dog".
Phil's mum and dad had cottage on the Wirral at Heswall and we teenagers would take it over some weekends. There would be about ten couples go over on a Saturday night after we had finished work. Some would go on motorbikes, others like Heather and I would scrounge a lift in someones car or van. It was freedom for us all with no parents and no supervision. No one seemed ever to get aggressive or angry when they had a few drinks we just had fun.
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