Within this blog I hope to as time permits to show photographs that I , my father, family and friends took since the early 20th century. Some will be scanned in for obvious reasons but todays photographs will be of the digital age. It is amazing how technology has changed, my father was born in 1908, 4 years after the Wright brothers first flew and 4 years before the Titanic disaster. He was too young for the First World War and too old for the Second World War, but he suffered the poverty in the 1920's due to the great recession and travelled far and wide for jobs including Londonand Great Yarmouth................
Aircraft fitter Circa1930 (sitting)
..............He had been everything, all self taught from a butchers boy, bus driver, waiter, cabinet maker, aircraft fitter and mechanical fitter. He saw the Olympics in Germany in 1936, didn't get married till towards the end of the Second World War. He had to live with my mother in her house as his was bombed during the war. My mother ran a chandlers & iron mongery business called Wild's Stores at 270 Old Chester Road on the corner of Fairfield Rd in Tranmere, inherited from my Grandfather (of whom I have some very early black & white photos of) . From this business my mother sold paraffin, coal, pots & pans soap, gas mantles (people still upto the late fifties early sixties had gas lights in their home), tin baths, and a manual washine called a Dolly Tub & Dolly Peg...used may I say with a scrubbing board used by would be musicians in the fifties as a Skiffle Board in a Skiffle Group! Even in my time growing up in the 1950's the street lights were still gas lit and deliveries of coal, bread milk etc were still by horse and cart. There were some terrible slums (housing) around the area of Old Chester Road but all now have been replaced. Replaced with in my opinion with new slums, small featuureless box housing void of any thought or design.
West Kirby marine Lake late 1950's
New Brighton Pier
Note the Royal Iris in the background
New Brighton Pool
Triumph Mayflower, taken in Ruthin N. Wales
My fathers car mid 1950, body was made from aluminium. It was nicknamed as the poor mans Rolls Royce
Raby Mere
Raby mere early 1950 with my fathers car (Standard) in the background
Guiness Clock New Brighton
The Guiness Clock at New Brighton with the pier in the background
Bomb site 1950's
Taken from upper floor at 270 Old Chester Rd, corner of Fairfield Rd looking across to Well Lane Tranmere Birkenhead. Bomb fell during World War II destroying half of Fairfield Rd and Well Lane
New Brighton "Its a Knockout" 1960's
Katy Boyle BBC televsion presenter at New Brighton Pool
Tranmere Rovers Jubilee Dinner
My grandfather 4th fr left fr row
HM Queen Elizabeth II visitng Lever Bro Port Sunlight late 1950's
Coronation Party 1953 Portsunlight
New Brighton Pier circa 1930's ?
Dancing competition on New Brighton Pier
Lever Bros Portsunlight 1950's
My father took photographs of the girls who worked at Levers in the 1950's. I wonder if any are still around today?
Charabanc somewhere in Birkenhead. Circa?
View from the Haymarket up Hamilton St
The Haymarket Birkenhead no longer exists. Where the buildings are is now the tunnel entrance approach and the road is Hamilton St looking up to Hamilton Square
woodside ferry/bus terminal mid 1960's
Hundreds if not thousands travelled to work in Liverpool on a bus & boat return. Buses were every 2 - 3 minutes but the pollution, smoke, fogs were choking and filthy in those days
Birkenhead Market and tunnel entrance
At the top of this road ahead is the old Birkenhead Market. To the right is the tunnel entrance and to the left is the old Haymarket and Central Station. This area is now probably the retail park on the New Chester Rd where McDonalds, Wickes, PC World and Matalan are today
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