Life amd love in Lodge Lane
Tiber Street school was special to us kids in that it not only provided us with an education,but it was also open as a play centre in the autumn and winter evenings.It was a pleasure to go there of a night time,there was none of the rigid discipline of the classroom,we played organised indoor games, had drawing lessons,or just simply sat and listened to stories being read by teachers.
Miss Bell ,the headmistress,was given to enthusiasms,she loved organising concerts or displays.Every May Day a Maypole was erected at the top of the playground and selected boys and girls were chosen to enact the Maypole dance.This was a rather intricate affair,ribbons of red ,white and blue, were hung from the top and the boys and girls each held one of the colours.
They were taught to dance around the pole in opposing directions,skipping and weaving as they went.this was done to the sound of music played on an old wind up gramaphone.When the dance was ended the pole was covered from top to bottom with a red, white and blue pattern.
It took days and days of practice,I was removed from the team because I kept going the wrong way.
For Christmas '49 Miss Bell decided to put on a concert,in fact a N****r Minstrel Show.Hard to believe now,given the way Lodge Lane is today,but way back then, we didn't even know the word racist.
A group of boys were chosen to be the minstrel choir and dance chorus,and I was picked to in it.Al Johnson was a very popular entertainer at that time and we all ,the minstrels that is,thought we were going to be like him.
We were given several songs to learn,which we did at home,and had to rehearse some simple dance and comedy routines at school.
I spent hours practising Swanee River, Poor Black Joe,By the Light of the Silvery Moon and several others.Whenever relatives came around I was hauled out and told to go into my routine.
Come the day of the show the minstrels had to take their pyjama trousers,a white shirt and their Dads hat(I was lucky mine had one ,a green trilby)
the teachers had made us colourful bow ties,and blacked our faces too.
We lads were thrilled with our reception,and, when the show was over,went home still blacked up.All we got was nice smiles from passers by and pats on the head from old people.I shudder to think what would happen if a child walked home like that now.
We had an Indian boy join our school that year,the only Indian boy I had seen before was Sabhu, the young star of Soldiers Three,Jungle Book and The Drum.So this boy was invested with an aura of glamour before we got to know him.The Head Mistress had him on the platform and introduced him as a boy from the Indian Empire, and she let him tell us about the village he was from.He was a great story teller,I can't remember much about his village,but I remember the tale he told about the day a lion attacked his father.
We were spellbound as he told of finding his father clamped in a lions mouth,it was was dragging him by the shoulder, away from the farm.The boy picked up his fathers knife and slashed the lions nose,causing it to drop his father and flee.He was all of 9 years of age.
Another pupil from a far away land joined our class that year,a beautiful freckle faced girl with auburn hair.She was from California and I developed a massive crush on her,the sound of her voice,her lovely white teeth,and that sunny complexion, she was so different from any girl I had ever known.
She was to remain unaware of my affection because I would get tongue tied whenever she was near.
When 1950 dawned, Miss Bell informed us in assembly one morning, that 1951 was going to be an Historic year.The government had decided that there was to be a Great Exhibition, like the one held a 100 years ago in London.
Tiber Sreet Primary School was going to play its full part in the proceedings.
This was going to be different from the May Day ceremonies, grander than the school concerts. This was going to be an occasion that people would remember for the rest of their lives!!
When Miss Bell pronounced her ishes ,the school obeyed!!
Ideas were called for,discussions took place throughout the school,what kind of display would Tiber Street hold?
At length ,it was decided to build a battleship in the playground,it was going to be called HMS Britannia.We kids were imagining that the yard was going to look like Cammell Lairds.
She had to have a screw loose,build a Battleship in the playground.
And then slowly the plan was given form,we children would be the battleship!
The outline of a ships hull was drawn in chalk in the middle of the playground.It was huge,at least to us kids it seemed huge.Whole classes of children were needed to stand along the outline of the hull,forming two curved lines from stem to stern.We were to be the ships bow, sides and stern.The superstructure was going to be built out of boxes or tea chests and would be painted grey.Canvas sheets were to be made and would be painted to look like the hull of a warship.we kids were to hold this in place.It sounded fantastic and nearly every day we were lined up in battleship order and made to practise moving in line like a ship under way.It was very hard trying to maintain the shape as we moved,but this was early '50 and we had nearly a year to practise.Most dry mornings would find us in the playground,all holding hands to keep the line intact,trying to sail gracefully across the yard.One of the older girls was chosen to play the part of Britannia,she would be sat atop the superstructure,with a shield and trident, just like the one on the penny.She took no part in the rehearsals yet, for the boxes had not yet been produced to make the upperdecks.
We may have been unable to add up or do long division ,but by the arrival of the summer holidays in 1950 we kids could match the grenadier guards for marching.
This summer promised to be our best ever for Mum and Dad were going to take us all on holiday to Llandudno.We were excited as could be for this was going to be our first holiday as a complete family......................................
BrianD
Life amd love in Lodge Lane
So, the anticipation of real seaside holiday excited us so much,we had been to New Brighton and Southport,but that was for days outings.
This was the stuff of fairy tales.We were going to stay with my Mums Aunty Dolly,she had a guest house in Alexandria Road on the West Shore in LLandudno.
We prayed that nothing could happen that would prevent our holiday,so often had we felt disappointments in the past, when rain had put a halt to a promised outing.
The months seemed to crawl by,but we still had school and the Festival of Britain rehearsals.We still had our street games and the endless diversions that filled our spare time.
There seemed to be a season for everything,at certain times of the year,whip and tops would appear,pavements would be chalked with hopscotch grids,ropes would be slung over the ladder arms of gas lamps and we would swing till we were dizzy.Who deemed it time for a game to start ,we'll never know;it was the order of things.Boys flicking ollies(marbles)into circles,a kind of junior bowls,girls playing balls with all the skill of jugglers,dresses tucked into knickers so that they could throw the balls under their legs,as a variation.The skipping games which were done to old street songs like Bobby Shafto,sometimes Mums and Dads would help turn a big rope so that up to half a dozen kids could skip in unison.
Those games brought us together as a group,we were part of a "tribe",the kids of the top end of a street would rarely play with the kids from the bottom end.There were exceptions,there was a family in Coltart Road,who were special.they were black,not something that was ever remarked upon then,the younger son was my age and he was part of our group of school mates.His elder brother was a rather dashing figure,he was in the American Army Air Force and he looked so "hollywood "in his uniform.
What made him special was that he always had time for us kids,with four steel poles and a couple of ropes,he would rig up a boxing ring in the street and give us proper boxing lessons.We thought he was a real hero.
Some of the older girls in our street were dating G.I.s, who would call for them in their Buicks and Plymouths,we would stand at the kerb awestruck at the beautiful chrome grilles,the fantastic interiors with the big bench seats and the ivory coloured steering wheels.Such opulence amidst such squalor.
Some of the brothers of the girls would get comics and candy and were the envy of us all.If we ever saw a "Yank",we would call out "Any gum chum?",sometimes you'd get lucky and be treated to a stick of Wrigleys,if not, we'd shout "Up your bum Chum" and leg it.
Thinking of American servicemen,calls to mind an incident that occurred during one of the school holidays,Our gang had been down to Sefton Park
to watch a circus being set up,we were walking back up the Lane and were on the opposite side to Mozart Street ,when I saw my Mum coming out of Holdens Stores.I hadn't seen her all day because she had been at work.She was carrying shopping bags full of groceries so I shouted to her that I would help.Without looking left ,or right.I just hared across the road...........................right into the path of an American Military Police jeep.
I stiil don't know how it happened,but I ended up on the bonnet ,holding on to the spare wheel,while these two "snowdrops",with eyes like saucers,went skidding to a halt outside Percys greengrocers.I tumbled off and broke the 4 minute mile getting out of there.
When I crept back home later ,my Mum gave me such a larruping,she had dropped the shopping in fright and broke that weeks ration of eggs.
Summertime was here and the holiday was looming.
Cases were packed withour best clothes,no buckets or spades,we'd get them there.That morning saw the five of us boarding the train,shivering with the excitement of it.The station, full of people and trains,the kids clinging on to their parents for fear of getting lost in the crowd,the hiss of steam and the clouds of smoke,whistles blowing and the lurch as the great blackened behemoth shakes off the station bounds and starts to chug ,chug, chug its way to pastures new.Trundling out through the city cuttings she starts to gather speed,the clickety click of the rails sets up it melody in your head.The streets turn into fields,the gold and green of the meadows like some vast patchwork quilt.To a child of city streets this was a colourful awakening.With noses pressed to the windows ,we drank in the passing scenes,clickety,click, clickety click, are we there yet,clickety click,is it far? The whoosh and shudder as a train passes the other way,the blackness that swoops upon you as we enter a tunnel.The shrill sound of the train whistle and the slowing down as we come to the outer reaches of the station.People standing up to reach for cases from the rack ,the gentle click as we cross those final points.the slow lurch to a halt as we stop beside the platform."Come on lad" says Dad,"give your Mam a hand with her bags,We're there!"
BrianD