A J's Liverpool Childhood 1916 ?

[Kev]

Tragedy

Grandma and Grandpa Bennett came to stay at the shop to look after both the shop and the children. Tragedy struck the family soon after. Irene, who had never been a strong child, died from fever, and a few years later their father died though he had lived longer than expected. Credit for this must go to the nursing care of both his wife and Grandma Bennett who always seemed to be available in a crisis. She was a wonderful person who never spared herself where her family were concerned. On the morning our dad died, it was early and we boys had known the night before that our dad was extremely ill. We were still in bed when mum came in and told us that dad had gone to heaven and that from now on there would only be her and us. I remember her crying. After this mum qualified for a widow?s pension for which the moguls granted her the princely sum of half a crown for each child and half a crown for herself which was paid weekly, what a reward for the loss of the breadwinner and the promise of a Britain fit for heroes to live in. After his death life was very different; mum concentrated on the business and we were introduced to the privilege of having a live-in-servant. This came about because mum was overworked. She set a high standard of keeping her home clean and comfortable and was determined that we would not be disadvantaged by the death of dad. One of the customers who had a large family was worried about the future of her 14 year old daughter who had just left school with no prospects at all of getting work. Mother suggested it would be mutually beneficial if the girl came to live with us as a sort of adopted daughter; the girl would receive a payment, her keep, and above all a good training in all aspects of domestic work. Annie Watkins entered our lives as our new big sister, (poor Annie), we ran rings round her; we were far sharper than her, she was always second best in a battle of wits, she was a good sport. One night mother had gone to visit grandma, and Wilf and I started to play Annie up, she could not handle it so we tied her to the settee; we really bound her up like we had seen people do on the pictures.

What we didn?t realise was that the people on the films were loosely tied, and Annie wasn?t, so we nearly strangled her by tying the ropes so tight that we cut off her blood supply. Fortunately mum returned before it was too late. It took an awful long time for her to recover; both Wilf and I got our just rewards. Annie was very nice really and we began to like and respect her. We accepted her as a big sister, and mother trained her well and found her a tremendous help. In another incident mother had shown Annie how to iron and starch sheets, pillow cases etc, which was something she had not experienced in her own home. On this occasion Annie was holding the flat iron behind her back after removing it from the gas stove where it had been getting hot. I came running in from the yard and without looking or thinking grabbed Annie from behind, a trick I was in the habit of doing; the hot iron went full on the side of my face, what a scream, what a fuss, I was lucky I didn?t lose the sight of one eye, the skin peeled off and once again I was visiting hospital. Poor Annie was distraught and blamed herself for not being more careful, she really did become one of the family. She grew up to be an attractive young woman and married very comfortably thanks in no small measure to mother?s training. I was nearly seven and the school and the district were beginning to know that I was around. At seven we left infant school and were segregated into either the boys or girls school (a system of which I heartily approve). The ?big boys? as our new school was called was an entirely new world, discipline was the name of the game. We were considered to be entering a man?s world and must start to behave like men, and learning became a serious preoccupation, the intricacies of the English language unfolded as punctuation marks and grammar were drummed into us and sums became arithmetic. Poetry and the introduction to Shakespeare were a new world. Many are the Liverpudlian children who took their first faltering steps to the stage through spouting Portia?s plea with a gusto that would have thrilled Sir Lawrence Olivier. Mind you, we were also very quick at learning the fruity rhymes we continually made up and for which Liverpool?s wit is famous. All children are natural actors, and as the stage and theatre world are well aware Liverpool has produced an enormous amount of theatrical genius. Needless to say I trod the footlights performing at St Martin?s Hall in Scotland Road and on two famous occasions sang in Picton Hall. This resulted in being chosen to perform in the church choir. I was a natural, church Latin proved no difficulty; I did everything well.

Thanks to the comments so far

[Kev]

Sports

At eight I was given a trial in the school junior eleven and immediately won a place at inside left, a position I held until I was promoted to the first eleven.

By now I was recognised among the gang as one who would have a go at any daredevil stunt. I remember the occasion when after a game outside the church where we regularly played, the idea was put forward that we should try to ring the church bell from outside the church. This meant climbing up the church steeple from the outside right to the top and then reaching up to get hold of the bell hammer and bang it to make a sound. Kaney (my nickname) was the only one to succeed. We nearly always met outside the church and the school. The road which ran alongside it had been covered with a tarred surface to deaden the sound of the horses and carts as they passed by. This piece of road was known as the tar pitch and was recognised as our home ground, when we challenged other streets to play us. It was also recognised by the parish priest, who knew that he could always get a group of boys to do a job for him whenever he needed. Father Joyce the parish priest was a very decent man, he often gave us the money to buy a rubber ball as a reward for helping him.

At nine I was also playing cricket in the street. Lancashire were the cream and all the players my idols, but Dick and Ernie Tyldesley were the ones whom I tried to emulate; the intricacies of finger and wrist spin to right and left had to be learned, and until one had scored a century one was a rookie.

Such were the Liverpool sports mad kids, and we were quick to learn anything given the chance. I was also a fast sprinter, generally the first picked in the street games. At 11 the games master entered me into the inter school contest. I was a regular winner of awards at Polly Jays in County Road with vouchers for prizes won at various sports. My biggest disappointment was in the sprint final on Liverpool?s football ground. To reach the final I had to win area finals, zone finals and a semi final. In the final I was away to a flier, but sensed that I was on my own and thinking that I had jumped the gun I hesitated and in a split second someone had passed me, I recovered but only managed to come third. Mr Kirby the games master was furious as it was my last chance before I left school.

Swimming was a must in the area; many children were drowned in the river, docks and canals. Liverpool City opened a free swimming pool, and there was also a baths in Bevington Bush. I swam a mile.

[Kev]

Liverpool

Liverpool is a great city, its people are a unique blend of Celt and Saxon blood.

Their sense of humour and sentimentality have to be experienced to be appreciated, the salt of the earth, super mates in tight corners, generous to the extreme, but they make bad enemies with a very deep feeling of injustice towards their part of the world. No one anywhere can find a reason for a party as readily as a Liverpool family; if the cat has kittens it?s down to the pub for a sing-along, and everyone has a party piece.

[Kev]

Lockfields

Gambling is another peculiarity. Scousers love a gamble, and as a newsagent my mother loved and understood horse racing along with the rest of the family. The family had interests in bookmaking, and had a number of street corner runners from whom my elder brother and I would collect the clock bag at the appointed times. Attempts were made by the runners to delay giving the bags on time, hoping of course to push in a couple of bets for which they already had the result; this was a continual battle of wits as one trick after another was tried to beat the book. It was part of our education and helped us to become wide awake. When it comes to a gamble, Liverpool was unique in having the lock fields. These so-called fields are the areas of land that lie between the various locks and docks. They were a Mecca for gamblers. On Sunday afternoons you could gamble on almost anything except the stock exchange. There were football matches at half a crown a man, there were bare fist fighters, boys swimming races in the docks, card games of all types, pitch and toss, picture and blank, but best of all for the boys was the rat catcher. For a penny he would sell a live rat from his leather bag which contained many rats. Many men had dogs on leashes, and the dogs were paired off for the purpose of killing the rat when it was released. The men formed a ring and the dogs were held at an equal distance from the centre, where the rat catcher would release the rat, the dogs would be freed, and the dog which caught the rat was the winner. Bets of course were placed on the dogs. If the boys? mothers had known they would have skinned them. It had to be experienced, it was super entertainment.

Another source of entertainment was Pitt Street, Chinatown, this was always fun but the night before Lock Ah Tam was hung was particularly special. Loch Ah Tam was a Chinese millionaire who lived in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead. He had been found guilty of murdering his wife, and after a sensational trial he was to die. Everyone thought that his money and position of influence would get him off, but his appeal failed and the large Chinese population as a last resort were resorting to the idols and gods to come to the aid of the millionaire and obtain his release. It was well known that the idols and gods were being displayed in the shops, bars and windows. On the night numerous Liverpudlians promenaded Chinatown to see the event. In spite of all the entreaties to the gods, next day justice was served, and Loch Ah Tam was hung in Walton jail.

Liverpool was an extremely rich city but its riches did not reach down as far as the working class families. The commerce always revolved around the River Mersey, the docks attracted the ships, the ships? cargoes were stored in the huge warehouses and then processed in the mills into many commodities such as flour, sugar, soap, washing liquids, cattle foods, etc.

The docks employed many thousands of men; these were honest hardworking people who wanted nothing more than the opportunity to work, but the power of the ship owners who dominated the city council in those days was very great, they owned all the great estates and the land for many miles outside the city. What they didn?t own was owned by the landed gentry like Lords Derby, Stanley and Knowsley etc. The result of this was that no great industries other than shipping were allowed to develop and compete for the available labour. It was therefore very easy to keep wages low, and this in turn lead to the poverty of the day and the actions of people like Joey Porter. It is a pity that the present generations of children (late 20th / early 21st Century) cannot be educated to understand the suffering of their forefathers. History of the social privations of the past should be a compulsory subject; it would most certainly help to develop a more humane and understanding person, and ultimately a better world. It is difficult for the present generations to get a feeling for what it was like.

Imagine the streets completely devoid of the present type of motor car, lorry, bus or coach... In the early days the bulk of the traffic was horse and carts of various shapes and sizes, and there was also the tram car. This was an electric powered vehicle running on tracks down the main roads of large cities, it did not have a very high speed and the boys could easily sprint alongside and when the conductor was upstairs they could jump on, wait until the conductor was coming down the stairs, and then jump off. As the motor became more common so our interest in them grew. One of the delights was the steam traction engines. These were extremely powerful lorries which usually pulled a trailer and what seemed to be huge loads of flour or sugar. In front of the engine between the wheels there was a fire box which the driver would light a fire in; this would heat up the water which in turn created steam pressure. They were extremely slow but were faster than horses and many times stronger. The fading of the horses was something we did not like. Horses provided quite a lot of our excitement, for instance if we boys decided to make a boxing ring we would creep up behind a loaded wagon as it was going along the street, we would get under it , climb onto the rear axle and from there lean forward onto the tray which hung down and where the driver kept his sheets and ropes. Then we would drop the end of the rope onto the floor until it trailed behind the wagon and climb back the way we had come. Once off the wagon it was simple to pull the rope until you had all the rope required to make a ring. It was probably a very risky thing to do but we boys thought nothing of it, and I did it many times. We became good friends with the traction engine drivers who would allow us to open up the front of the fire box and stand there warming ourselves in the cold weather; sometimes we would put potatoes in and bake them, this was always popular with our mates who were always hungry. But the horses and their stables provided a lot of our excitement. Where there are horses there are rats, and rats were good for sport, a favourite sport was to isolate a rat, chase it until it ran up a down spout, then smoke it out with wet straw. One of our pals would fetch his terrier and when the rat made a run for his life we would release the dog; we thought that was great.

When the stable middens were being emptied was really super. There was always about twenty rats in a midden, word would pass around that a midden was being emptied and the gang would turn up with their dogs. As the manure was being lifted out a rat would jump out and make a run for it, the dogs were always ready, up went the rat and we all cheered; few rats survived. We were a sadistic bunch of boys but didn?t realise it, rats were such a common sight in the 1920s. As a family we had always bred bulldogs, they are not noted for speed or rat-catching ability, but one day a rat walked into the shop from the street and Sally the bulldog quick as a flash snapped it in two.

On Saturdays most pubs would be visited by people entertaining the public and the boys would be around to join in the fun. Other common excitement was the arrests, gambling houses would be raided by police from Black Marias and Saturday night drinking sometimes developed into family feuds which the police had to sort out. The boys enjoyed life in their own way with little or no money. As they grew older the technology developed and so did the opportunity to get hold of the odd copper or two. I would walk round Paddy?s market in Scotland Road and hope to be used as a model. The hope was that a woman buying a second-hand coat for one of her children might decide that I was the same size as her child, and ask me to try it on. If it fitted I would usually get a penny. In the school holidays I would go round on a lorry to the well-to-do areas of Liverpool calling on houses by arrangement and collecting empty jam jars and bottles. My job was to sort out the different sizes and types, for which I got about three pence. Another piece of enterprise was to go to the golf-course to caddie or look for golf balls which could be sold. The interest in money developed with the advent of films and talking pictures.

One of the highlights of the school football was the Ross Common Cup. This was an unusual competition in so much that it was an inter-denominational competition. Sponsor of the cup was a Mr Wilson, owner of the Ross Common picture house. The Wilsons actually filmed the games for showing in the picture house. The crowds flocked to see their children and family friends on the screen. I played in the final and we lost 1-0 to Rennyn Street. Watching the game on the screen was unbelievable at the time. As the talkies took off so popular singing increased. For years Sam Bonner?s jazz band played between films at Derby Picture Palace for at least half an hour. The words of all the popular songs would appear on the screen and people let it rip; Thursday night at Derby Picture House was always packed.

We would hang around the back of the boxing stadium in Pudsey Street hoping to creep in free to watch stadium fighters like Ike Bradley, Dom Volante, Nel Tarleton, Peter Kane and Ginger Faren, all local men who we boys worshipped. Sport, singing and religion were the driving factors of our lives. When the first world title fight took place at Anfield, the whole city wanted to see Nel Tarleton fight the American Freddie Miller for the featherweight title; needless to say the boys wanted a piece of the action.

The cheapest ticket was half a crown, which was well beyond the resources of the street boys. Me and my pals arrived with a strong rope. We stood on each others shoulders until one boy reached the top, he dropped over the wall, secured the rope and in no time at all the boys were over and saw the fight ? Tarleton lost.