Bootle in the 1930s - Mum's Memories
Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:58 pm
My mum was born in Bootle - Ruby Morrison in 1928. She lived at 10 Morningside Road in Bootle until it was bombed. She is getting ready to celebrate her 90th birthday and putting together her memories. I hope that on this site, I can hunt down some pictures of the places she remembers. We live in America now. I was born and raised in Formby, but have lived in California for a long time. These memories are so wonderful for her, though. They are sort of in random order because I tried to pull only the ones related to Bootle. They really are very interesting. I will try to find the pictures I have and post them here also.
FROM MUM's MEMORIES:
My first school was on Smyrna Road, and then I moved to Christ Church School. In 1939, I began at Bootle Grammar School, then we were attached to Southport High School during the war.
When we were little, there were no school uniforms until Bootle Grammar. There, I wore navy blue pleated gymslips, square-necked blouses, and navy blue knickers, which had to have a pocket for your hankie. The gymslip had a colored belt. The school was divided into ‘houses’ which competed against each other, Green, Red, Blue and Yellow. Red was called Lancaster House I think and Blue was Kent house, Green was Gloucester. I can’t remember the other.
Sweets, we did not get except at Christmas. Sweets and chocolates were displayed in windows with a colored shade to ‘protect’ them from the sun. They got sticky and chewy and the chocolate faded. We got a penny from Mum and sometimes a penny from Dad, and we would go to the pictures, one penny for the pictures, downstairs. If we had the other penny, we could go to the shop and get a pennyworth of fades, fruit that had the brown bits cut off and bits of orange. We could also go to the other shop, where we would go for a bag of broken biscuits, and joy of joys, maybe a bit of broken chocolate bikky and we would both have a bit of that (Edie and I). When I was older and earning some money, I used to like pear drops or lime and soda drops. Still do and the cinder stuff like the inside of a crunch y bar.
We would go to the park and play on the swings. Sometimes we would get the trams and go to Woolton Woods Park where we would stand and watch the flower clock hands and wait for them to move. It would take two trams to get there and we could transfer from one tram to another for the same penny fare.
** There were many different kinds of walled gardens with different themes and flowers and trees to indicate the area they were from. There was an Italian Garden, a French Garden, Chinese, etc. We also played in Stanley Park, which was the little one behind Morningside road, where Mum and Auntie Ivy used to hide Mr. Taylor’s Dog.
Each Year at Whit Monday there was a parade, and we were on floats, there are pictures of us with our maypole dresses on. I used to go to Linacre School in Bootle to practice the maypole dancing, Edie was on the float and did not do the maypole. Stan was on the Morris dancing team dressed in purple velvet waistcoat with gold coin medals all over and wooden barbells with bells and colored streamers on. Not the traditional Morris dances with the sticks. There is a picture of Stan in his Morris Dancing clothing.
War was actually declared on September 3, 1939, but we were evacuated on September 4th. In school we were told to be prepared that the school might be evacuated but our parents would tell us all about it. We had our little suitcase and the cardboard boxes with our gas masks in. We carried those things around everywhere for a year.
And then on September 4th 1939, I left home for the first time in my life. We went to School and were evacuated as a school group. Edie was at a different school so she went to Crossens, South port. I was at Bootle Grammar School and we were evacuated to Birkdale, Southport. I look back at the war, and in my ignorance, I think only of the fun times we had. The bombs that fell seem only a part of a dream, and not really a very scary dream at that.
I was ten when Great Britain declared war on Germany. I had never been away from my home or my parents before. But, as with many other parents, mine had decided that if war was to come, it would be better if my sister and I were out of danger. My father and older brother had already been mobilized from the reserve army into the regular army and my other brother could not wait to get into the Air Force.
The morning of Monday, September 4th, 1939, began as usual with going to school, but this time we took packed suitcases with us. My sister and I went to different schools, and although we did not know it then, this would be the last time we would see each other for some weeks. Buses took us down to the railway station at Bootle, exciting for me, because I had never travelled on a train before. Our parents were there to see us leave, many parents and children in tears. I was too excited to cry when my mother said goodbye. I climbed into the train with the other girls from my school, each of us trying to grab a window seat. We did not travel very far, just to Southport, 18 miles away, but far enough away that we supposedly would not be in any danger from the expected air raids on Liverpool, and its surrounding dock areas, which were expected to be prime targets. (Bombing raids started in 1940.)
Upon arrival, we were marshalled into a nearby church hall, Temperance Hall. There were wooden tables lined along the walls, like an assembly line. As we entered the door, we were given a small brown carrier bag. There was a lady behind each table, wearing an apron and as we passed by their table each one dropped something into the bag. We couldn't wait to get outside to see what we had collected. We sat on a brick wall just outside the church hall and emptied out the bags, much to the annoyance of our teachers, who wanted to get us on our way. We had tins of evaporated milk, tins of fruit, Pineapple chunks, Pears, Packets of tea, etc a can of corned beef, peas, potatoes, and four large chocolate bars. I couldn't believe my eyes. Four bars of chocolate in my greedy little hands, all at the same time. (1 Yorkie bar – dark chocolate) (1 Fry’s cream bar – dark chocolate) (1 Cadbury’s chocolate Bar – Milk chocolate) (1 Aero bubbly chocolate bar – Milk chocolate). I had had chocolate before but never a whole bar. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Dad would bring one home occasionally and we would each get a small piece.
I sat daydreaming, planning out exactly how I would eat each one and how long I would make them last, being at last rudely awakened by one of the teachers, with "Come on now, Ruby, you can't stay there all day."
It seems that this 'billeting' plan had all been worked out many months before, when it would appear that Great Britain might eventually go to war with Germany. Volunteers were requested to take children into their homes and would receive a weekly allowance for each child. Naturally, some of these volunteers were more interested in the money than the child and some bad instances were observed which caused unhappiness and misery before they were put right.
There were lots of stories in her memoirs about being billeted in Southport, but I'll skip those because they aren't about Bootle.
(she ran away from her billet and came home, long story, but not a good situation)
I told my mother I was not going away again, and under great protest, she allowed me to stay home. Liverpool and its surrounding districts were being heavily bombed, and each evening as the spiralling call of the air raid siren sounded, we went down into the cellars with comic books, candles and set up small camping cots. I loved it. No sheets, just the thin flock mattresses and pillows and army blankets. It was so much more exciting than sleeping in a bed with white sheets and pillowcases. I was at home on the night that the bomb went under the house and failed to explode.
Our house at 10 Morningside road was bombed, but we were very lucky. The bomb did not go off. ** I thought it was May or June 1940 but bombing started later that year so I need to look it up. We felt a bump and then it was quiet. An Air raid warden hammered on the door and woke us up - my mother and the other people who were staying there (Aunty Ivy, Mr. Murphy was away in the army. ) Roofs on Houses on either side of ours were on fire and they were allowed to grab only their handbags and shoes and leave immediately. My mother always kept a box by he door with birth certificates, her marriage lines Identity cards and ration Books. She picked up her handbag and me (Edie was still evacuated) and off we went to her Mother in Formby We went to Formby to stay with my grandmother and the next day went looking for a house to rent in Formby. She had no intention of going back to Bootle to stay. She found the house that we lived in for the next 28 years. Down a country lane, no street lights, no electric, but no bombs either.
** So every day, I travelled into Bootle on the train to Marsh Lane Station, and then usually would walk up to School or later to work through the little park. If it was raining, would wait inside for a bus, but I liked the rain so if it was not too heavy I would still walk up. Mom stopped working as soon as the mandatory war time work orders were cancelled . to go to school. I was not the only child who had ended up back home due to one reason or another, bad billets, homesickness, etc, and because there had been no sign of enemy air raids. The Girls’ grammar school had been reopened as a co-educational school, as the boys' grammar school had been burned down in a recent bombing raid.
Each day, there would be barriers in an area. Perhaps there was a bomb that had not exploded. We would have to go to school a different way because of ruins and debris from a raid the night before. Sometimes, a friend from school would be missing because of that same raid. Yet each day was a new day, and we did not think about the war as we woke up each morning.
The school corridors were filled with sandbag walls to hold back the blast of any bomb that might land. All windows were criss-crossed with tape to minimize the spread of any glass from shattered windows. On the occasions when the bombers came over to make daylight raids, we would put on our gas masks - go into the big school shelters and play memory games, mental arithmetic, spelling, geography, until the sound of the all-clear. At break-times and lunches, we would all congregate around the Royal Air Force battery stationed at the school with the barrage balloon. These balloons were in the air during all air raids. Naturally, we called ours after our headmistress 'Ethel Mary.' We got a lot of fun watching the older girls in the school flirting with the air force boys.
Later in the year, my Mum was moved from the armament factory to work at the railway yards by the docks. We lived in Formby because she was on her way at the Railway station to get her train home when they were machine gunned. She liked it much better as it was mostly out in the open. She worked with American Soldiers unloading the materials being sent over for the American allies who had now come to Great Britain as allies after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. They would give the ladies who helped at the docks, tins of jam and jars of peanut butter we had never seen before.. Regular butter and margarine were rationed and we got two ounces per week and we never saw jam on the shelves. Unlimited supplies of peanut butter seemed like a luxury at first and it was really very tasty. But she worked at the docks until the end of the war and by that time (and even now) I couldn't stand the taste or the smell of peanut butter.
Many people lost their homes during the bombing. We had been living in a very large house, basement and three floors ( I think) on 10 Morningside Road. My mother took in a gentleman who needed temporary accommodation after he lost his house. We only knew him as Mr. Taylor. He had a lovely Pekinese dog named Kitty, and he spent hours brushing this dog. He was very bitter about losing his home and his beautiful possessions and he was evidently a fairly wealthy man. He had the 'back parlor' as a bed-sitting room, and this had large french windows which led into the garden. In the two rooms at the very top of the house, we had old friends of my parents, Ivy and Tim Murphy (his nickname was 'Spud'). She was always “Aunty Ivy” but he was always “Mr. Murphy.” Spud was in the army, so he was not home very often, and my mother and Ivy were the best of friends.
FROM MUM's MEMORIES:
My first school was on Smyrna Road, and then I moved to Christ Church School. In 1939, I began at Bootle Grammar School, then we were attached to Southport High School during the war.
When we were little, there were no school uniforms until Bootle Grammar. There, I wore navy blue pleated gymslips, square-necked blouses, and navy blue knickers, which had to have a pocket for your hankie. The gymslip had a colored belt. The school was divided into ‘houses’ which competed against each other, Green, Red, Blue and Yellow. Red was called Lancaster House I think and Blue was Kent house, Green was Gloucester. I can’t remember the other.
Sweets, we did not get except at Christmas. Sweets and chocolates were displayed in windows with a colored shade to ‘protect’ them from the sun. They got sticky and chewy and the chocolate faded. We got a penny from Mum and sometimes a penny from Dad, and we would go to the pictures, one penny for the pictures, downstairs. If we had the other penny, we could go to the shop and get a pennyworth of fades, fruit that had the brown bits cut off and bits of orange. We could also go to the other shop, where we would go for a bag of broken biscuits, and joy of joys, maybe a bit of broken chocolate bikky and we would both have a bit of that (Edie and I). When I was older and earning some money, I used to like pear drops or lime and soda drops. Still do and the cinder stuff like the inside of a crunch y bar.
We would go to the park and play on the swings. Sometimes we would get the trams and go to Woolton Woods Park where we would stand and watch the flower clock hands and wait for them to move. It would take two trams to get there and we could transfer from one tram to another for the same penny fare.
** There were many different kinds of walled gardens with different themes and flowers and trees to indicate the area they were from. There was an Italian Garden, a French Garden, Chinese, etc. We also played in Stanley Park, which was the little one behind Morningside road, where Mum and Auntie Ivy used to hide Mr. Taylor’s Dog.
Each Year at Whit Monday there was a parade, and we were on floats, there are pictures of us with our maypole dresses on. I used to go to Linacre School in Bootle to practice the maypole dancing, Edie was on the float and did not do the maypole. Stan was on the Morris dancing team dressed in purple velvet waistcoat with gold coin medals all over and wooden barbells with bells and colored streamers on. Not the traditional Morris dances with the sticks. There is a picture of Stan in his Morris Dancing clothing.
War was actually declared on September 3, 1939, but we were evacuated on September 4th. In school we were told to be prepared that the school might be evacuated but our parents would tell us all about it. We had our little suitcase and the cardboard boxes with our gas masks in. We carried those things around everywhere for a year.
And then on September 4th 1939, I left home for the first time in my life. We went to School and were evacuated as a school group. Edie was at a different school so she went to Crossens, South port. I was at Bootle Grammar School and we were evacuated to Birkdale, Southport. I look back at the war, and in my ignorance, I think only of the fun times we had. The bombs that fell seem only a part of a dream, and not really a very scary dream at that.
I was ten when Great Britain declared war on Germany. I had never been away from my home or my parents before. But, as with many other parents, mine had decided that if war was to come, it would be better if my sister and I were out of danger. My father and older brother had already been mobilized from the reserve army into the regular army and my other brother could not wait to get into the Air Force.
The morning of Monday, September 4th, 1939, began as usual with going to school, but this time we took packed suitcases with us. My sister and I went to different schools, and although we did not know it then, this would be the last time we would see each other for some weeks. Buses took us down to the railway station at Bootle, exciting for me, because I had never travelled on a train before. Our parents were there to see us leave, many parents and children in tears. I was too excited to cry when my mother said goodbye. I climbed into the train with the other girls from my school, each of us trying to grab a window seat. We did not travel very far, just to Southport, 18 miles away, but far enough away that we supposedly would not be in any danger from the expected air raids on Liverpool, and its surrounding dock areas, which were expected to be prime targets. (Bombing raids started in 1940.)
Upon arrival, we were marshalled into a nearby church hall, Temperance Hall. There were wooden tables lined along the walls, like an assembly line. As we entered the door, we were given a small brown carrier bag. There was a lady behind each table, wearing an apron and as we passed by their table each one dropped something into the bag. We couldn't wait to get outside to see what we had collected. We sat on a brick wall just outside the church hall and emptied out the bags, much to the annoyance of our teachers, who wanted to get us on our way. We had tins of evaporated milk, tins of fruit, Pineapple chunks, Pears, Packets of tea, etc a can of corned beef, peas, potatoes, and four large chocolate bars. I couldn't believe my eyes. Four bars of chocolate in my greedy little hands, all at the same time. (1 Yorkie bar – dark chocolate) (1 Fry’s cream bar – dark chocolate) (1 Cadbury’s chocolate Bar – Milk chocolate) (1 Aero bubbly chocolate bar – Milk chocolate). I had had chocolate before but never a whole bar. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Dad would bring one home occasionally and we would each get a small piece.
I sat daydreaming, planning out exactly how I would eat each one and how long I would make them last, being at last rudely awakened by one of the teachers, with "Come on now, Ruby, you can't stay there all day."
It seems that this 'billeting' plan had all been worked out many months before, when it would appear that Great Britain might eventually go to war with Germany. Volunteers were requested to take children into their homes and would receive a weekly allowance for each child. Naturally, some of these volunteers were more interested in the money than the child and some bad instances were observed which caused unhappiness and misery before they were put right.
There were lots of stories in her memoirs about being billeted in Southport, but I'll skip those because they aren't about Bootle.
(she ran away from her billet and came home, long story, but not a good situation)
I told my mother I was not going away again, and under great protest, she allowed me to stay home. Liverpool and its surrounding districts were being heavily bombed, and each evening as the spiralling call of the air raid siren sounded, we went down into the cellars with comic books, candles and set up small camping cots. I loved it. No sheets, just the thin flock mattresses and pillows and army blankets. It was so much more exciting than sleeping in a bed with white sheets and pillowcases. I was at home on the night that the bomb went under the house and failed to explode.
Our house at 10 Morningside road was bombed, but we were very lucky. The bomb did not go off. ** I thought it was May or June 1940 but bombing started later that year so I need to look it up. We felt a bump and then it was quiet. An Air raid warden hammered on the door and woke us up - my mother and the other people who were staying there (Aunty Ivy, Mr. Murphy was away in the army. ) Roofs on Houses on either side of ours were on fire and they were allowed to grab only their handbags and shoes and leave immediately. My mother always kept a box by he door with birth certificates, her marriage lines Identity cards and ration Books. She picked up her handbag and me (Edie was still evacuated) and off we went to her Mother in Formby We went to Formby to stay with my grandmother and the next day went looking for a house to rent in Formby. She had no intention of going back to Bootle to stay. She found the house that we lived in for the next 28 years. Down a country lane, no street lights, no electric, but no bombs either.
** So every day, I travelled into Bootle on the train to Marsh Lane Station, and then usually would walk up to School or later to work through the little park. If it was raining, would wait inside for a bus, but I liked the rain so if it was not too heavy I would still walk up. Mom stopped working as soon as the mandatory war time work orders were cancelled . to go to school. I was not the only child who had ended up back home due to one reason or another, bad billets, homesickness, etc, and because there had been no sign of enemy air raids. The Girls’ grammar school had been reopened as a co-educational school, as the boys' grammar school had been burned down in a recent bombing raid.
Each day, there would be barriers in an area. Perhaps there was a bomb that had not exploded. We would have to go to school a different way because of ruins and debris from a raid the night before. Sometimes, a friend from school would be missing because of that same raid. Yet each day was a new day, and we did not think about the war as we woke up each morning.
The school corridors were filled with sandbag walls to hold back the blast of any bomb that might land. All windows were criss-crossed with tape to minimize the spread of any glass from shattered windows. On the occasions when the bombers came over to make daylight raids, we would put on our gas masks - go into the big school shelters and play memory games, mental arithmetic, spelling, geography, until the sound of the all-clear. At break-times and lunches, we would all congregate around the Royal Air Force battery stationed at the school with the barrage balloon. These balloons were in the air during all air raids. Naturally, we called ours after our headmistress 'Ethel Mary.' We got a lot of fun watching the older girls in the school flirting with the air force boys.
Later in the year, my Mum was moved from the armament factory to work at the railway yards by the docks. We lived in Formby because she was on her way at the Railway station to get her train home when they were machine gunned. She liked it much better as it was mostly out in the open. She worked with American Soldiers unloading the materials being sent over for the American allies who had now come to Great Britain as allies after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. They would give the ladies who helped at the docks, tins of jam and jars of peanut butter we had never seen before.. Regular butter and margarine were rationed and we got two ounces per week and we never saw jam on the shelves. Unlimited supplies of peanut butter seemed like a luxury at first and it was really very tasty. But she worked at the docks until the end of the war and by that time (and even now) I couldn't stand the taste or the smell of peanut butter.
Many people lost their homes during the bombing. We had been living in a very large house, basement and three floors ( I think) on 10 Morningside Road. My mother took in a gentleman who needed temporary accommodation after he lost his house. We only knew him as Mr. Taylor. He had a lovely Pekinese dog named Kitty, and he spent hours brushing this dog. He was very bitter about losing his home and his beautiful possessions and he was evidently a fairly wealthy man. He had the 'back parlor' as a bed-sitting room, and this had large french windows which led into the garden. In the two rooms at the very top of the house, we had old friends of my parents, Ivy and Tim Murphy (his nickname was 'Spud'). She was always “Aunty Ivy” but he was always “Mr. Murphy.” Spud was in the army, so he was not home very often, and my mother and Ivy were the best of friends.
