We could not stay on the site during the winter , it was only a holiday site, so in the October of 1970 the caravan had to be moved somewhere else as we had no other home. Mum was offered a space in a field in Burscough by a friend Sam Curtis, he was a magistrate in Liverpool and was a customer at the Royal Hotel. Mum arranged for a transporter lorry to take the caravan to Burscough and it was put onto Sam’s land at the back of his house. This was on the north side of Burscough village on moss lane. One Sunday I had went down and cleared some space for it, I created a hard stand with railway sleepers and bricks. We would be sharing with five Chinese geese and six Muscovy ducks. We had to arrange a caravan transporter wagon because of the size it was. It was quite a job to get it out of the sand on the park at Freshfield, all the sand had drifted under the van during the summer. The axles where buried and the sand was almost up to the floor of the caravan. It was towed out by a tractor and aligned for the transporter. We had about two tons of sea coal that we had collected over the summer, It went on to the wagon with the caravan. It took the driver quite a long time to negotiate the bends out of the site and on to the road. We went off and ovrertook him so we would be at Burscough when he got there.
The lorry arrived and could not get to the space we had made because the ground was too soft and it couldn’t go down the side of the house, so it was placed at the far end of the field. This meant about a fifty yard walk to get to the outside toilet and the cold water tap, far from perfect with David, Colin, Simon, mum and me. All the water had to be carried in plastic containers to the caravan every day. All the coal had to be fetched to keep it warm and any shopping had to walked from the village every day because we had so little storage in the caravan.
We had to manage with calor gas for cooking and hot water from the kettle to wash with. All our clothes had to go to the launderette or we could use Sam’s washing machine if we wanted. We got woken up most morning by the ducks and geese knocking on the side of the caravan. The twins were still at school and Simon was just starting to walk. He loved playing with the muscovy ducks and named the biggest drake Amiral, he couldn’t say admiral. To try and make a bit more space in the van I went to sleep in the house. Not something a found to my liking because Sam liked young boys. I never told Mum what happened because she had enough to worry about. I was glad when Mum applied for a council house but it was spring the next year before we got one in Stanley Court. I never went back to that house after we moved away. When we eventually got a house Mum sold the van to the owner of Shawhall farm Caravan site in Scarisbrick and it was used as the site shop for many years after that.
Mum went back to working at the Royal Hotel for Ken and Val Heaps cooking the lunch time meals, she also got other work at Harry Hagues. This was a vegetable packing plant where the farmers took the veg to be packed for supermarkets like Tesco. I baby sat my younger brothers so she could work the late shift in the evenings. That winter was a hard one for us, Mum fell many times and sprained her ankle a couple of times but we managed to keep happy even though the blankets started to get mildew and mould with the condensation in the caravan. Mum tried applying for council and private lettings but all the private lettings were far too expensive. The council house waiting list was long but we were quite near the top, soon we heard son news from the council.
Stanley Court is a development of housing on the canal bank in Burscough village with maisonettes above ground floor flats. We got one of the maisonettes and moved in to it after the caravan. It was at the end of the farthest block and overlooked the canal. Underneath the maisonette was a flat where an old lady lived. She was very nice and we had to remember not to make too much noise as she went to bed quite early. The twins had one room and I had my own, Simon shared with Mum. There were two toilets, one as you came in the front door which doubled as a cloak room and one in the bath room upstairs, this was a real luxury after the caravan where you had to cross the field in all weathers to get to the toilet. Lots of friends helped us with furniture as most of the stuff that had been put into storage the year before was damaged or mouldy. One thing I did save was my record player, the twins did get quite annoyed with me playing the same records over and over again. I was really into the Moody Blues and had just bought their latest album” In search of The Lost Chord”.
Off the front room was a small balcony where we could sit in the summer. Most of Simon’s sit on toys were stored out there. It looked out over Colboune Close and the canal towards Ainscoughs flour mill. It was a nice house for us after living in the cramped caravan for nearly twelve months.
Best of all it was dry, warm with solid walls and a roof that did not leak.
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