I moved to Speke as a five year old in 1969 from Lloyd St in Everton . Our first house was number 112 Eastern Avenue . Just round the corner from Central Way and next to the alleyway that used to run up between our house and what was then the big church on Eastern Ave .
We used to live next to the Gore family ....there was Ann , who we used to call Aunty Ann and her two sons and daughter , Tommy , Jimmy and Cathy , ( later to become my real Aunty ) Jimmy went on to become a professional footy player playing for Wigan Athletic , Bury and a few other teams ...

     I was with my mum , Teresa and Dad , Brian and my brother and sister Joe and Maria . Joe and I are only 13 months different in age so many people used to mistake us for twins in those days .

     I have seen the pictures of the old bus on the website and I remember the bus being at the top of Eastern Ave , not Western Ave as is shown on the site . It was at the bus terminus where the 82C , 81D and the 500 used to run from . The other Crossville buses from Runcorn and Widnes came from the Hale road end of Eastern Ave , they where the H1 and the H25 .
But I remember me Mum sending us to the old bus for ciggies and bread .

      All our shopping was done at " the Parade " where there used to be a big Woollies supermarket in the early days ...I remember the pick'n'mix section where I reckon every Speke kid used to help himself to a handful of sweets whenever he was walking in or out . The Parade in those days was the thriving hub of Speke ...I dont remember any of the shops being vacant...there was Fine Fare , the VG , the Chandlers , two news agents , the Offy , the Greengrocers , The chippies...the bank down at the library end where I had my first bank account . I think it was the TSB..?

      Then you had the Post Office...the Health Centre where we all had regular visits to "Nitty Nora , the head explorer " ..! and the dentists....

     The summers seemed endless in those days ...we would spend all day playing on the fields next to the airport runways ...there was marshland where we would go fishing with nets for newts , sticklebacks and frogspawn....or we would go egging ....but we would leave the house with an old lemonade bottle of water...and we'd be back home for tea .

     We would also go down Oggy Shore....does anyone remember standing under the planes as they landed..???? we used to throw stones at them as they flew to their landing a hundred yards further on down. We'd go down to Oggy and on those hot days we'd walk along to Hale lighthouse.....there used to even be a beach in those days and I have old black and white photo's of us as a family on the fore-sore at Oglet beach....

      Looking at Oglet shore these days its hard to recognise as my old playground of 30 yrs ago However it is great to see how the wildlife has adopted my old stomping ground .

      Another of our old haunts as kids was " the Millies" down at Damwood ...the woods that ran from St Ambrose Primary school to over by the Ford Plant......that was another pond we used to bring jamjars full of stickle-backs back from and Newts if we where lucky....we would also bring jars of frogspawn back and empty it into buckets and watch them turn into baby frogs and toads .

      Around 1974 we moved from 112 Eastern Avenue to 32 East Damwood road....just around the corner , but a world away ....we used to have a big field over the road we all called " The Backies" where there was a playground with swings and Monkey bars to climb on .
We went to St Ambrose in those days and we always had a great laugh there . My best friend was a lad who lived next door but one named Steven Kaye...what are you doing these days Steve .

      As Catholics , our local church was St Ambrose on Heathgate Avenue . I was an alter boy for a few years ( only to get off school...!! )
Mum and Dad's local pub was " The Ambrose " the club down the side of the priests house....the priests where pretty good too in those days ..
Father MacSweeny and Father Flynn....Fr. Mac was our hero when we where at St Ambrose , always playing footy with us and it was my pleasure many years later to buy him a pint in The Ambrose after he returned from his work as a missionary in Peru to visit us all back in Speke . A visit that was very much appreciated by everyone who saw him that evening .

      The Backies was where every Bonfire Night ( Nov 5th ) we used to have our "bommy" . It was always a fiercely fought battle between the kids of the Backies and the kids of Alwain Green ...capped one year when one of us chopped down a telephone pole as our centrepole....!!! you'd wake up next morning and your backyard door would be gone....anything that could burn was burned...!!! I remember sitting outside the Dove and Olive many a time , trying to con money out of drunken patrons with our "Penny for the Guy" scam...!!! hahh hah ....

      No doubt I will add more to this page over the coming months...so anybody who recognises me from then please feel free to email me at :
............to be continued.
                                              vinny32@primus.com.au

                              all the very best to all Spekites....wherever you are...
                          
                                                           Vinny Edwards
                                                            Brisbane
                                                            Australia

 

Eastern Avenue

More Speke Memories
by
Vinny Edwards

 

My mum chasing an 82C up Central Way after one of the neighbors told her my 4 yr old brother Joe had been seen getting on the bus that was just disappearing round the corner on its way to the Pier Head .
She was halfway to the "Noah's" before she realised she had no chance of catching it…she stood there bawling her eyes out when he comes walking back down past the playing fields …the bus conductor had chucked him off the bus because he had no money… Going to the baths up at the Parade .. the Austin Rawlinson Pool I think it was and still is called . We used to walk up there with our cozzies wrapped up in a towel and spend hours in there. Then when we were finally finished we'd go up to the cafeteria for a bag of crisps if we were flush…the smell of chlorine always takes me back there…. Me Mum sending us to the shops for her ciggies and they always used to serve you because they knew who your Mum was..10 Embassy Number Tipped was what we used to get for her.
My brother Joe who had a terrible memory as kid would always come back with a packet of washing powder cos he couldn't remember what he'd been sent for….but NOW if you owe him a fiver …he remembers… All our neighbors on East Damwood road…the Voses next door..a lovely family…the Fitzimmonds on the other side..the neighbors from hell . The Doonah's from over the road…Ronnie and Benny opposite us …Mr and Mrs Smith and her bee-hive hair-do…the Reavies…next door but two…the Moores on our block The Cassidy's from over the road…Danny's Mum's brother was Jimmy Case , the former Liverpool FC player who used to play footy and cricket with us in the summer, the first time I ever met anyone famous..but me Dad used to drag us in cos he was an Evertonian..!! …I can picture all the faces but some of the names are dimming with the passage of time .
The neighborly spirit was great in those days …Mr Birkenhead our local bobby…Andy the milkman who gave me my first job helping him in the mornings…he never let me help him collecting the money cos he used to get tips though…my first weeks pay off him was 7s/6p…I was rich…my mornings where a blur of Silver top, Red top, Gold top and Sterry…. you could always tell the people with the money cos it was gold top with a bottle of orange juice or yoghurt for them… Andy used to keep them locked in a box in the cab of the 3 wheeler electric float so it wouldn't get nicked when we were in the flats.

How many of you had a job delivering the papers? Mine was delivering "The Echo" for the newsagents at the top of Eastern Avenue. All the shops used to be occupied in those days and it breaks my heart to see them all knocked down when I return for my bi-annual holiday. There was the Papershop, the Greengrocers, the chandlers, a hairdresser, the Cake sho , the Vee-Gee…( we always used to call any small supermarket type store the Vee-Gee for some reason ),the taxi office and not forgetting the chippy…the best chips in Speke were at our chippy…we used to get them to throw the batter bits in as well …if we where being treated it was Chips, curry and Rice…or a sausage dinner…or the lovely fishcakes…my mouth is slobbering just remembering them. Does anybody remember when the fair or the circus used to come to Speke?  It must have been the only time Gypsies went away from a suburb with less money than they came…
Does anybody remember the year an Elephant went missing? It wasn't gone for long but it just shows how "enterprising " Speke kids were…I mean , what would they have done with it..? Tried to sell it or something..? You can just imagine the scene…The Dove and Olive, half an hour before closing time…"hey mate you wanna buy an elephant..? " The Liverpool airport airshows were always memorable for us kids…the arrival of the Red arrows , usually the day before the show was always great …they ALWAYS did a fly past down the runway in formation and then landed one at a time . Other great moments at the airport…when a USAF Galaxy landed for a visit…they wanted to prove that Speke could handle the largest plane in the world…or Concorde flying in on the many charter flights…in the late 70's. Thousands of us used to line the runway fences and watch.
Or remember when Manchester Airport would go on strike and Liverpool airport would take all the Jumbo's…it was brilliant going to school on the bus in the mornings and seeing all the Jumbo jets lined up on the tarmac on Speke boulevard with their airline markings from all over the world

 

 

More Memories
I read with great enjoyment the memories written by Ken Savage. Thanks Ken.
Oglet Shore also holds many fond memories for me ….it is unrecognisable today to the place I knew as a kid . Does anybody remember the great big giant triangular concrete blocks that scattered the shoreline near the wall...? we used to believe that they were tank-traps left over from the war….does anyone know if this was true..? In fact does anyone know why the wall was there…was it an old wharf in days gone by..? I know garston docks where not far away to the right as you used to walk down to the Shoreline . As kids we used to wander down Oglet lane and go egging along the pathway that used to run behind and under the runway lights up to the back of the Dove and Olive…we used to get Thrush , Blackbird , Linnets and Chaffinch eggs down there for our collections…we also used to wander up and down Bailey's Lane …looking at the houses there and wondering what it'd be like to be so rich that you could afford to live there . I remember the farmers fields down the side of and behind the Dove and Olive…there was a big field and then there was a garden nursery on the far side of it . I remember getting caught egging in there once and the guys who worked there caught us and threatened to call the police…but then decided to let us go…it makes me laugh now when I remember how scared we were with the threat of the police being called …kids don't seem fazed by that sort of threat these days do they .? Remember the two little cottages where the road divided to go down towards the back of the airport runways ..? to the farm that lay down there…there was, I think, a dog kennels. as we always used to hear lots of dogs barking down there… The best fun we had down Oglet Shore though was riding our bikes down the hills from the top level down towards where the wall is…we used to get up to some speeds…it's a sign of the times I guess but the last time I went there in 2001 there where kids of the same age riding motorbikes up and down those hills…when I told them we used to ride our " Raleigh Choppers" down them same hills , they laughed and said we where mad…!! I remember once my mum and Aunt taking us down to the Oglet beach one summer when we about six years old and us sitting on the 'beach" it was a blazing hot day and I remember me mum rubbing suntan lotion into our backs….but she wouldn't let us go in the water because it was so dirty. Does anybody remember the marshland that used to run parallel to the runways..?…we would spend long summer days in the ponds with little fishing nets trying to catch newts and sticklebacks or egging for birds eggs . Even swimming in the deeper water holes when it was hot enough .
.........TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

Vinny on the left, taken at work