FRIDAY FOTO 13 - FAMILY PARTY - 1971 / 72

A photo, taken by myself using with my trusty Kodak Instamatic, 

of a family party which we had in our flat at 22 Childwall Heights, Liverpool.

The picture features Mal, Eric and Marion Taylor who had come to visit. 

Also pictured are my brother Gary, Aunt Betty and Mum Joan.

Just why they had to pretend to form a band; being pictured with our two guitars, a Bontempi organ and a couple of tape-recorder microphones, I don't recall. But what I do remember is that such events were a regular occurrence in our house. We would be visited often by friends and family, and these events would always end the same way-- food and drink would be consumed, music would be played, and everyone would generally have a fab time. 

I also remember that I had an extension speaker my Dad brought home for me from the Hippodrome cinema where he was working at the time. It was an unwanted piece of kit he rescued after the cinema sound system had been upgraded.

During these parties, I would place the speaker in the living room and play music from my gear in our bedroom. I played both records or tapes-- playing whatever artists or albums had been requested by those present. Then, once the dancing was over and the conversation and general chat started, I would plug the speaker into the microphone input of my tape deck and sneakily record some of the conversations which ensued. 

After a while, I would fess up and playback a section of the recording to the audience. Once everyone had realised what I'd done, they'd listen to themselves speaking and even more laughter would take place. For some, it might have been the first time they had heard themselves talking on tape; quite a strange occurrence for some of them back in the 1970's.

It might just have been a family party... but the photo reminds me of such magic moments! 

How I wish I'd kept those tapes. 

I would just love to listen to them now. 

FRIDAY FOTO 1 - JOAN SEAMAN AND THE BOYS IN HUGHSON STREET

Mum Joan SEAMAN around 1959/1960, with Gary on her knee and Graham holding the lorry. Pictured in a rare colour photo of the time, sitting on the couch in her parents rented home in Hughson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool 8. The house was a small two-up, two-down terraced house in which we were all living at the time. 

My Gran and Grandad slept in the main bedroom at the front of the house, while Mum, Dad, Gary and myself slept in the smaller back bedroom. My brother and I would eventually sleep in bunk beds - Gary on the bottom, me on the top. My Aunt then slept downstairs in the front parlour room on a fold up sofa bed. 

As if all this was a bit basic, there was also no bathroom in the property. We had to get washed in the back kitchen, after it had been warmed up from the heat of the stove-- or had to take a stand-up bath in front of the fire in an old tin bath. When not in use the bath would usually hang up on the wall outside the kitchen in the backyard.

Finally, there were no indoor toilet facilities in the property. If we needed the loo we would have to go down to the bottom of the yard and do our business in the outside toilet. There was no heating or lighting in the cold brick-built shed. We would need to go down there during the snow in winter or with an umbrella when it was raining. 

Not good. Oh...and don't forget your torch whatever you do!     

JOAN SEAMAN & PEGGY WILCOX - BACK IN TOUCH AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!

Lovely to get Mum and my Auntie Peggy back in touch again today. 
The next thing will be to get them into the same room together! :-) x. 

#familyhistory #seamanfamilyhistory

FINDING HUGHSON STREET - UK 1911 Census Address Search

The photograph on the left-hand screen below shows my mother, brother and I standing on the step on my Gran and Grandad’s house at 25 Hughson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool. At a guess I’d say the photo had been taken at the end of the 1960’s. I’d spent the whole of my early life living in the house - a simple two-up, two-down dwelling; with a front parlour and a back kitchen, a yard and outside toilet to the rear. And then, when I was seven years of age, we moved up into the ‘leafy suburbs’… and my Mum and Dad’s first rented property of their own in Childwall.

Hughson Street - Census Search

The property in Hughson Street went back somewhat longer however. The rows of terraced properties had been built around the turn of the century, the small neat houses replacing the slum court dwellings which had been situated there previously. The houses had been rented out to tenants, and although I grew up primarily only knowing it as the home of my Gran and Grandad, I found out later that other families had lived at the address before we did.

The details of one of those families is featured in the right-hand side of the photograph.

For my online family history research I use Ancestry.co.uk when looking for information on the UK census records, and although there is no specific address search on the site one can still search for addresses by using the fields ‘Lived In Location’ and also ‘Keyword’. By just using this simple search criteria I found my record relatively easily by entering ‘Toxteth, Lancashire, England’ into the first field, and then the address itself into the second. Although my search did not immediately return the property I was looking for, it did however return one of the other houses in Hughson Street into the search results and I then used the ‘previous / next’ buttons to scroll through the pages to find the actual address I was looking for.

The census for 1911 shows that the residents in 25 Hughson Street were a 39 year-old widow, Elizabeth Flannigan, and her family. She had two daughters living with her in the property - Margaret aged 21, and Lelly Flannigan who was 18. All three of the women had been born in Liverpool.

However, on the night when the census had been taken there were four visitors to the property. Patrick Flannigan (aged 71) was a farmer from Greencastle, County Donegal in Ireland. This was also the birthplace of Edward Flannigan, a 32 year-old joiner, and John Drummond, a 43 year-old dock labourer. Finally there was yet another dock labourer, James Ennorby, who was also visiting and was listed as a widower. Of course, Patrick and Edward were most likely related to Elizabeth (perhaps they were her father and brother). The relationship of the other two men to their host is not known.

On speaking to my mother about her memories of the house during the 1930’s, she recalls that my Gran and Grandad were renting it from the landlord as far as she can remember, but my great-grandfather Peder Ingebretsen - a Norwegian merchant seaman - had also been living there up until he died in 1933. From that point on, the house stayed with our family right up to the 1970’s when the properties within the area had compulsory purchase orders finally served upon them, and the residents (in our case my Grandmother and Aunt) were moved out.

Ancestry - Address Search Criteria

Using the search capabilities of Ancestry in this way has been a most interesting exercise for me, and its been useful to look into the history of a property I can remember so well, and indeed at one time called home. But by ‘walking’ myself through the 1911 census pages in this way, I was also able to find names of other families who my Mother remembered as living in the area later on… such as Thomas and Phoebe Moss of number 21, and William and Annie Black of number 17. This brought her a lot of pleasure as she recounted her memories of what it was like to grow up within the area, and in particular relating to me what she remembered about their other neighbours who lived close by.

All I can say is that it only takes a few minutes to carry out a search such as this. If you have an old property which played a similar role in your own family history, I’d thoroughly recommend you try this method as well!

FAMILY HISTORY - HUGHSON STREET, LIVERPOOL 8

HUGHSON STREET - LIVERPOOL 8 (click for video)

This is a short segment of converted movie film showing some of our family in Hughson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool. As well as seeing a few of the family themselves, there are also glimpses of the area around my gran and grandad's house, with Northumberland Street at one end, after passing Prophet Street just seen on the right. Toxteth Street is at the other end, across Park Street which led up toward our school.

The film was shot around 1965 / 1966 and you can clearly see the 'bommies' - those empty spaces where houses once stood before they were blasted by the German bombs which fell during the war. One of them lies alongside our own house, the bomb falling as my Mum and parents sheltered in their bomb shelter, which stood in the yard just to the left of where my grandma was standing in the above photograph. My very existence being saved by a mixture of pure chance as to where the bomb fell, and also a few layers of sturdy brick. 

 Finally there are some shots of the cobbled streets, new housing being built and also our own back-yard - whitewashed to make it look as sparkling as the washing Gran used to hang on the line.  

Mr brother Gary playing my plastic 'Beatles' guitar, and also myself - on the same toy drum-kit I played on March 1st 1966 while sitting in front of their black and white TV, watching a broadcast of the Beatles live from Shea Stadium.

This is just a short glimpse of our lives back then... I only wish I had more. 

I hope you enjoy it...

FAMILY HISTORY - CHOCOLATES AND COCKROACHES

(click here to enlarge photo)

The above photograph was taken in approximately 1954/55 and features my mother, Joan Seaman, when she worked in the sweet kiosk of the Gaumont cinema, Princes Park, Liverpool.

Mum was an usherette and worked alongside a team of other girls, and they all shared duties and took turns serving the cinema customers from the sweet kiosk. In those days apart from selling ice-creams, chocolate bars and drinks, you could also buy cigarettes to smoke while cuddling up to your loved one on the back row!

The short audio clip below describes my Mum’s memories of working in the kiosk, together with some of the more unwelcome visitors she used to have to deal with……

THE GAUMONT - CHOCOLATES AND COCKROACHES - (audio clip)