As I Remember It
by
Ian McDonnell
an ex Speke lad now living in Adelaide South Australia

 

We moved from my grandparent's house at 169 Western Avenue in about 1950 when the new Speke estate was built.

My first memory was that of standing in the front room of 70 Little Heath Rd. with my younger sister Barbara and my Father, looking at our new brother Lawrence, it was January 1952. It was shortly after this that I remember the big steamroller thundering along the road, no more dirt roads.

1953 sticks in my mind, and indeed many others, because of the coronation. We had a monster of a party in the street. There was me, my sister, and my young brother in the pram and it seemed like a thousand other people at this huge and very long table in the middle of the street full of sandwiches cakes and soft drinks. We each received a coronation mug and moneybox. As it was finishing we all got an ice block on a stick I don't remember what it was but I do know that it tasted bloody awful and it ended up in Mrs. Johnson's privet hedge. She was an old lady that lived in number 72 on the end, she lived with her daughter Dorothy.

On the other side of us were the Smith's who also had their older son living with them. Next to them lived the Harris's. Across the road were the O'Brien's and the Italian lady who took her two children Nadia and Danny to Italy each year. Behind Mrs. Johnson in Upton Close were the Dickson's and then the Savages behind us, who we were later to become related to through a marriage. Strangely this wasn't to happen for another 20 years - in Australia.

Mum always took me shopping at the Crescent in the early days, and then came the mobile Co-op, I think that called every Tuesday.

Around the mid 50's there were two mobile shops, except they were not very mobile.
Firstly there was Bewley's, they were situated in Upton Green just a few metres from
Number 25 where a chap called George was practicing with his mates to become a rock star. The council did get on to Mr. Bewley occasionally about moving so he would take his bus into the next street near Alderwood Ave. for a few days.

The other bus belonged to Mr. Dunn and he was situated in Withington Street near the bottom of Ardwick St. the home of a young Paul McCartney whose mother was the local midwife.

I had started school by this time and went to Alderwood Ave primary school.(and later Stapleton Ave ) I remember the "dance" lessons to the music The Gay Gordon's played on an old wind-up gramophone.

Who remembers the clinic in the flats on Central Ave? We used to enter from Upton Close right in the middle of the block. You had to get a pass from school to attend the clinic so you could show the truant officer if he saw you out of school. I used to know a girl that lived above the clinic, where is Barbara Stevens now I wonder? Another friend in the close was Derek Ruddle.

Next door but one from us was a vacant block of land and it was decided to build a church. I remember it quite well because I quite often I would lend a hand on the site and the bricky used to store his bricks in our backyard. The first minister was Pastor Thomas who lived in Western Ave. I often attended Sunday school there.

We were not a family that went out much but I do remember walking down through Carley Walk to Oglet shore, and we also went once to Speke airport to see an air show which featured "The Birdman" who did wing walking on an old bi-plane, I watched as the plane disappeared over some tree's to my left and the news spread rapidly that he had fallen from the plane, but, I'm not sure of the facts or what happened.

I can still picture in my mind the old rag and bone man with his horse and cart as well as asking the coal man if he could spare a bag of coal as at that time coal was still rationed after the war.

There were also a number of times us kid's, by now four of us, had to go into a home due to mum being in hospital . It was either Olive Mount or Fazackerly depending on our age.

Does anyone remember good old Dr. Silverstone? I will always remember a sign he had on his door " I complained I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet".

Just to finish off what about this for a coincidence.    In Speke the ice cream man that called in our street was Mr. Stewart, when we had been in Australia about two years we got a new ice cream man in our street. It was the self same Mr. Stewart.
                             

 

Some more o' me rememberin'

I read with interest, on Vinny's page, the bit about the Parade shops.
I remember there used to be a supermarket called Scott's, and also a sweet shop on the northern end of the block of shops, that sold ( when available ) one penny ice lollies on a stick.    Boy did we have to wait in a long line to buy one of them.
One of the way's I used to earn a few pennies was to wait at the bus stop at the Central Ave.  Little Heath Rd. corner and wait for elderly ladies to get off the bus and offer to carry their shopping.   Sometimes they would give me a penny or three pence, sometimes nothing.

Ah well that's business.

At that time my great grandmother was living with us and I always remember the Insurance man coming for her insurance payment. His name was Mr. Walker and he rode one of them bicycles with a motor on it, he would peddle like crazy until the motor started.
After working on the buses my Dad got a job at Burtonwood Air Base as a Driver. After being away sick for a short time, he went back to find that the next day there was to be a
"Driving Rodeo " and every one including the Americans had been practicing.
He went in the next day and won the thing. That was 1957 I still have the trophy.                                                       

 

                                                           THE LONG TRIP.

 

It was a pretty ordinary day on the evening of Monday October 24th 1960, but it was the start of a new life for my family and myself. I remember leaving our corporation home at number 70 Little Heath Road sometime in the evening in what I seem to remember as a vehicle resembling an old ambulance.

Our train was leaving Lime Street station at midnight bound for London at 6am. We had breakfast in London before heading to St. Pancras Station to catch the Boat Train to berth 31 Tilbury Dock.

The P&O steamer "SS Orontes" was an old ship built in 1929 and saw extensive war service and was refit in 1948 and again in 1953 as a one-class vessel. Its gross tonnage was 20,186 and was 664 feet in length carrying 1,364 passengers. If my memory is correct she made just one more trip after ours before being sold for scrap.
I considered (and still do) this trip the best holiday I ever had. It was quite an adventure for a 12-year-old boy. We were given two cabins due to the size of our family, 808 and 801, almost on the water line on G deck. There were no stabilizers fitted to the ship so it was quite a turbulent trip but we got used to it and even got to enjoy the rough weather when we would get tossed from one side of the main stair case to the other. We were looked after very well on the ship the meals were excellent and we had a steward that looked after our group of cabins, his name was Harry, he was a great help to us.
I still have some menus and the passenger list if anyone requires further information on this topic, as well as a plan of the ship.
We crossed the equator at 7.15am on November 15th.

ARRIVAL
We got into Adelaide at 8.30am on Saturday November 26th and boarded a bus that was to take us to Finsbury migrant Hostel that was to be our home for the next two years.
We were met at the hostel by my grandmother and her daughter (my aunty Muriel) and her husband. My grandfather was terminally ill in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which was one of the main reasons for coming here. That night I had to look after the younger one's so that Mum and Dad could visit him. He was to die ten day's later.
We had a great introduction to Australian weather, we arrived right in the middle of a heat wave. It was about day six of a run of twelve where the temperature was over 100 degrees.(About 37c) It often gets this hot, and hotter, in summer but not for so many day's on end. Although at the time of writing (Dec.02.) we are experiencing something similar. The place we were to call home was a round hut like a small aeroplane hanger it had some basic furniture, no TV and more importantly, no toilet or laundry, you had to go out

to another building for those sort of things. You soon learned to hold your water until the morning, particularly if it was raining. Oh yes and there was no refrigerator. Could you imagine the heat and nothing to keep the food from spoiling. Obviously that was one of the first things we had to get. In February we got a TV but we only had two weeks and sent it back due to financial problems. It would have been nice to have had some form of cooling in the "house" as it was very hot in a tin shed and sleep was very hard to come by, although I'm sure things would be quite different these days. (Asylum seekers have it very good in comparison)

The next month I turned 13, hooray I was a teenager. I didn't even get a bloody card, although Mum did give me sixpence.

Two years later we were given a housing commission house in a new suburb set up for migrants. The new town was called Elizabeth, named after you know who, about 15 miles north of Adelaide.
My parents broke up in the late 60s and Mum moved to the River land to live. A place called Waikerie on the banks of the river Murray. She passed away in 1996 and dad in 1998.
I am happily married with five great kids (four boys and one girl) and settled in a suburb not too far from Elizabeth after living in a couple of country towns which I found to be a very different, slower, and more relaxed lifestyle.

I have managed to do quite a few things in my time here.
I have done quite a bit of acting, both amateur and professional as well as working for a few years in radio.
My sister and her husband are now living near Rockhampton in Queensland about 3000 km. from us, and one of our sons is currently living in a southern area of Brisbane 2100 km. from here. He just drove down with a friend, to share the driving, stopping only for petrol they took 23 hours. It really makes you realize how big this country is.

 ....................to be continued

 

Ian McDonnell and sister Barbara outside 70 Little Heath Road, Speke circa 1951.
Notice that the road surface had not been installed at that time.

 

Ian, sister Barbara and brother Lawrence as a baby, at the Little Heath Road Coronation party

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