North Western Hotel Built by the London and North Western Railway as a station hotel, it became redundant when the new Adelphi Hotel was built and became offices. When these were vacated, the building lay empty for a number of years before being taken over by the Liverpool John Moores University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nothing to do on Monday as I had purposely left the day all to myself. My intention was to take a trip into Liverpool (again) and to walk about my old haunts, such as are left of them. I was up reasonably early having my breakfast before having a shower and getting dressed, something I almost never do is eat before I am washed and dressed but I made the exception this time. It was however approaching 9.30 before I was ready to leave the house. I asked E if she would like to accompany me but she declined. The main reason for that is I was going on a walk-about and she has a complaint which restricts her from walking too far. She also had to be at home to collect her medications which are delivered by the pharmacy. So off I went alone to the station. There is a guy who lives not too far away from us who, shall we say, is not playing with a full deck. I say that with all due respect to him as he suffers through no fault of his own with a mental deficiency and he has behavioural issues too. I have known him for many years first coming across him at a church I once attended. He turned up one day dressed in women’s clothes and carrying a handbag, the next week turning up as normal, that is dressed as a man. He was always seen about town doing the same thing and giving each person he came across the two fingers before continuing his walk. Very strange behaviour but as I say, he unfortunately cannot help himself. I arrived at the station and waited for the train to arrive a few minutes later when who should arrive on the platform but this guy. He was dressed as a man but was carrying a woman’s handbag. He was also carrying a very large corrugated metal food canister perhaps originally carrying carrots or something similar. A couple of holes had been put near to the rim of the can through which had been threaded a length of string. The can looked as if it held an amount of cold black coffee for as he sat down waiting for the train he poured out some of the liquid on to the platform a couple of times before deciding it was enough. I was hoping he would board the train in another carriage to the one I was boarding for I knew how difficult an encounter with him would be. It is sad really for people such as he but at the same time it can be a nightmare dealing with them. I don’t know where he was going but I do know it wasn’t to the same place as myself. I sat in the company of two other women and we chatted away the time together. Once out of the train station in Liverpool I made my way to the area in which I grew up. That area is about a half-mile behind the building shown above which stands on Lime Street, a street made famous in the old song from Liverpool called ‘Maggie May’ about a prostitute who walked it touting for business. This was the sole purpose of my visit on this occasion, not to walk down Lime Street for that reason I hasten to add but I had to walk it to get to my destination, Prescot Street.
Lime Street, Liverpool, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had driven past the area a couple of times recently but couldn’t stop there to browse around on foot. I made my way slowly uphill along the familiar roads which led to where my family lived from early 1946 when I was merely three months old until we left for the suburbs in 1958 when I was almost twelve. I have vivid memories of the area as it was then and knew that many changes had taken place since so I was prepared for it. The streets themselves have changed very little though most of the small side streets and the houses that stood in them are long-since gone as were the prefabricated houses one of which we lived in. The picture below shows the ‘prefabs’ that stood on the opposite side of the street to the one we lived in.
The direction to London Road, Lime Street, a half mile or so distant and the city centre is to the left. Strange as it may seem this photograph must have been taken not too far away from our house! Tram car lines can still be seen in the centre of the road. It was in 1957 I think that the tram service ceased though I seem to remember the last one did a final run in 1958. I know it was a so called ‘Green Goddess’ which I think went into service on Blackpool promenade thereafter.
I approached the spot where our little house once stood and there is absolutely no indication that is was ever there. A concrete wall over which and below are the grounds around one of the main hospital buildings which were erected perhaps in the seventies. They are themselves seemingly going to be demolished to make way for the expansion of the Liverpool University complex which will incorporate a replacement hospital building in its stead. Across the road are buildings which were erected around the same time and cover the ground where other prefabricated houses stood together with the brick-built terraced housing that remained standing after the bomb raids during the war. All that has gone but there was one old building at the top of the street that still stood its ground, the old police station that bore the name of ‘The Bridewell‘, if you spent the night there, and many did, you would most probably have been the worse for wear through drink! No longer used as a police station it was once one of a few where policemen operated from in an effort to combat crime and disorder in the streets of the city. It was also the place we had to go to retrieve a ball that had been confiscated by a local resident tired of it being kicked over their backyard wall! I stood and chatted with a couple of cabbies (Taxi drivers) about times gone by for one of them was wondering why I was standing there as if lost. As it turned out I was older than they and was able to tell them things they hadn’t been aware of. On my way back to the station I met an old lady who lived not far away when I lived in the street and we chatted about how the area has changed over the years. We both took the bus back into the town centre and went our separate ways. I took a stroll through the main shopping area having decided to catch the train home from another station across town and en route I went to an out-of-the-way pub I often visit when in the city to have lunch. The train ride home was uneventful but by the time I reached home my toes were feeling sore. I had been wearing a pair of low-heeled shoes and perhaps should have worn flats instead. I will know better next time.
Shirley Anne
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Filed under: Memory, Nostalgia, Time Tagged: Lime Street, Liverpool, Maggie May, Prescot Street
