Pearson’s was my first job on leaving school in 49’ I was the office-boy/messenger or in today’s parlance “The Gofor”; it was on the left hand side of Smithdown Lane, a stone-mason, monument works on the opposite corner. Person’s comprised a large factory area with huge double gates; the factory was adjacent to yard where all old military vehicle bodies were stored. From memory, the next building down from the Pearson’s complex was a block of tenements, I believe it was Mertyl Gardens, the road leading up to Wavertree, opposite Pearson’s Gate, was where Saint Ann’s Catholic School and Church was; I once knew the area quite well but that was a long time ago and the old grey cells have deteriorated a lot since then. The factory was a double story building but only the main floor was in use, the whole left-hand side was the store, on the right was the paint shop and the middle section was where they built the coaches and reconditioned some military vehicles. There was always three or four coaches under construction and at the far end of the main floor there was a ‘Body Shop’ which really fascinated me because the body builders would take a flat sheet of metal then, backwards and forwards through rollers and beating with different hammers they would produce perfect mudguards, hoods, boot lids in fact they produced all the body work … those men were skilled.
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I left Pearson’s in 50 to go the Gravesend National Sea Training School, then spent over 50 years sailing the oceans of the world as a Merchant Seaman.
During the May Blitz all around that area was devastated in the bombing, Persons was hit and as kids we would terrify each other with stories about the ghost of White Mary, she supposedly was killed when Pearson’s was bombed … I went in and out of all the bombed building looking for shrapnel, in fact our gang used to manufacture pieces of Meschersmitt 109’s out of tin cans, in Pearson’s yard, and I never saw White Mary …. Incidentally that piece of a German plane that got shot down in Liverpool that your granddad showed you is possibly a piece of baked beans tin.
PS. My memory has just kicked in, it wasn't Pearsons when the building was bombed it was a firm name Millners and I think they made Security Safes and Strong Box's
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