Hello Donna
I've just come across this thread and this website and I must admit I am very intrigued to find some discussions on Dutch Eddie's cafe at long last after searching high and low on the internet for any info or stories on it.
Just to introduce myself: my name is Simon Gong and I was born in Smithdown Road in 1965 and lived at number 294 (which was the old T. Gong Chinese Laundry which my parents owned and worked in for nearly 15 years before moving across the river to Wallasey - where we have been mostly based since.). I have many many fond memories and recollections of my infant life on this road, which is surprising but I really do recall a lot of things whilst living there with my family.
I was the second youngest of four children all born at Sefton Park General Hospital (which is now Asda!) and my two elder sisters, Susan and Linda used to always take me to this legendary place (The Old Dutch Cafe) when I was but a wee two year old. In 2009, I met up with Kay Jones from Liverpool Museums at the Oomoo Cafe to share recollections and memories of our early infant/childhood lives on Smithdown Road, and Tim Brunsden actually interviewed me (for a short film that will also be featured at this exhibition when it opens in July at the New Museum Of Liverpool) talking about our Laundry whilst I took him on a walk around our Wavertree haunts back in the late 60s. The only problem was, at the time of the filming (February 2010), my recollection of where exactly this seminal Dutch cafe was along Smithdown Road was vague - and yet I completely overlooked the fact that it was where the Bathroom Centre currently stands - marked so obviously by a blue windmill above the frontage. It just goes to show that I wasn't doing my homework properly in failing to do something as simple as just look UPWARDS!!!
Of course, when you're a toddler like I was, always being taken out on shopping trips with your two big sisters (my younger sister Christina wasn't born until December 1967 - on Christmas Day in fact), distances would always appear to be vast. This might well explain why I always thought the Old Dutch Cafe was further up Smithdown Road going in the Allerton direction than it really was. In fact, where the derelict buildings were near the car-servicing place towards the old Co-op location (now an overgrown piece of shrubland), was where I mistakenly assumed the Cafe once stood.....
Anyway, having now finally established that it was where it really was (before Dudley Road junction), I can say very emphatically that my sisters used to always frequent that place to pick up some milkshakes and then a couple of ex-juke box vinyl singles of the current hit records of the day. It was thanks to my sisters always taking me to this place to get the records that I became a vinyl addict at the tender age of two (incredible but true!). I can even remember a whole load of the singles we bought from here between 1966 and 1971 which was the last time I passed by the cafe as we'd moved to the Wirral to set up a fish and chip shop business in New Brighton by 1970. For example: Bus Stop, by The Hollies, Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann (actually the first record I was given for my 2nd birthday!!!), Ha Ha Said The Clown, again by Manfred Mann - they turned out to be my favourite group when I was just two - the Beatles didn't even figure in my young life until Hello Goodbye/Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields came along a little later.... Working In A Coalmine by Lee Dorsey, Monsieur Dupont by Sandie Shaw - I really loved Sandie Shaw even at this tender age!!, Goodnight Midnight by Clodagh Rodgers, (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson, Fox On The Run by Manfred Mann, River Deep Mountain High by The Supremes and Four Tops, and, the last record I ever got from there: Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris !!!!
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I was also aware of a lot of the bikers who used to congregate outside there, as my sisters would always tell me about "the heavies and hells angels".... but to this day I had never seen any old pictures of the place, until I clicked onto this link which showed some amazingly evocative photos that you and a couple of other contributors put up. All I remembered at that age was the PEPSI signs on the front because they were so prominent!
During my chat with Tim Brunsden whilst we were filming for the Secret Life Of Smithdown Road exhibition, I had actually put out a request for anybody who had pictures of the old Dutch Eddie's cafe to get them uploaded - but not many had appeared in the ensuing year...until now! This is such an amazingly evocative and nostalgic discussion and I really love nothing more than to hear other people's stories and recollections. In fact I was deeply moved to discover that two of my sisters's best friends back then in the 1960s had added some comments to the four pictures of myself, my parents and my sisters that I contributed to the Facebook page and I will be hoping that our paths might cross come the opening of this exhibition in July as my two sisters Sue and Linda are now very keen to meet up with them - which would be so fantastic as they haven't seen them [thus effectively losing touch with them] for the last 45 years!!!!
Here's hoping more peeps come on here with their reminiscences of this legendary meeting place on the most legendary of streets in Liverpool. Truly, in my view, Smithy Road is THE multicultural artery of south Liverpool...there really is no other road like it and I feel so honoured to have been born there - even if I did myself only live there for just three or four years.
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