THE UNKNOWN BRIDESMAID - ST.PAUL'S CHURCH, PRINCES PARK, LIVERPOOL - 9th MARCH 1955

 

Pictured on her wedding day to my father, Charles SEAMAN, is my mother, Joan WELSH, together with her three bridesmaids.

On the right is her cousin, Marion ERLIS, and on her immediate left her chief bridesmaid, her sister, Elizabeth WELSH. 

However the identity of the lady on the absolute left is unknown. A replacement for my father's sister who was not able to attend, she was reported to be a friend of a cousin, and was said to not actually be a member of our family. Unfortunately, my mother cannot recall her name, and as far as I'm aware we don't have any other photographs of her apart from these, and certainly none with her name written on them. If anyone does happen to recognise her, I'd therefore appreciate if you could let me know, so I can let my Mum know once and for all!

The couple were married in St Paul's Church, Princes Park, Liverpool which had been situated on Belvedere Road. The church was demolished in 1970 and replaced by the new Belvedere School... now a successful preparatory school and Academy.

Further information about St Paul's Church can be found < here >....

#familyhistory    #genealogy    #seamanfamilyhistory

  

William John Welsh - Grandad's Birthday - 6 June 2019

Graham with his grandad William John (aka Jack Welsh)

...another photo of Graham with his Grandad William John Welsh (b.1897 d.1965)

Remembering my grandad, William John Welsh, who would have been 122 years old had he still been with us today. 

Happy birthday Grandad - missing you. x. 

#familyhistory #seamanfamilyhistory

FRIDAY FOTO 26 - WEBSTER FAMILY WEDDING

This is the kind of photograph we each have in every family album. The wedding of my cousin, Michael Webster, at St Gabriel's church in Toxteth in the late 1960's. And as with many of those photographs, there are faces I remember and can identify, but also faces which I cannot.

In the shadows at the rear, I can see my uncle Arthur Teese and also my Aunt Betty, mum's sister. I can't identify the man standing at the back on the far right, although his face appears to be familiar. 

Moving forward is my grandmother Elizabeth Welsh (nee Englebretsen), standing toward the centre of the photograph. As to the elderly lady standing to her left or the taller gentleman on her right, I have no clue as to who they are.

The smiling man on the right wearing the glasses is my uncle, Johnny Erlis, who used to drive the goods trains up and down the Dock Road in Liverpool. The lady in white on the left of the photograph is again familiar to me, but I have no evidence of her actual identity.

And then comes the group I'm most sure about.

My Auntie Ann - Hannah McAulay (nee Irvine) - is in her trademark 'ocelot' hat and coat and has her hand on the shoulder of my brother, Gary Seaman. The woman standing next to her in the trendy 60's hat and coat is my Mum Joan Seaman (nee Welsh), while my Father, Charles Seaman, is standing on the right. Finishing the list off is my younger cousin, Tracey McAulay, who is standing between my brother and myself.

The church and doorway are still there to this day, as evidenced in the photograph from Google Streetmap below. Indeed the church doorway showed up on television relatively recently as a couple of scenes in the popular television biopic 'Cilla', starring Sheridan Smith, were filmed nearby on the steps in Yates Street. Knowing the area relatively well I recognised it at once.  

Hopefully, there will be a postscript and an update to this story at some point, as I intend to take the photo down to show my Mum when I visit her later today. I have all my fingers crossed that she will be able to identify a couple of the other people featured in the photograph. 

For me, this is not just another photograph of an ordinary family wedding. I see it as an opportunity to possibly fill in some gaps in our family tree and maybe expand, even just a little, on the story of how we all grew up in Toxteth in Liverpool.   

FRIDAY FOTO 24 - BETTY & LIL IN HUGHSON STREET

A photo, taken on my Grandad's Kodak 'Brownie' camera, of my aunt Betty and cousin Lilian in Hughson Street, Toxteth.

Taken in the mid-1950's, it shows the two of them standing in the sunlight outside my Gran and Grandad's house at number 25. I lived in the house up until the age of seven and I remember both it, and the surrounding area, very well indeed.

To the left of the photo are the remains of a coal merchants property; the large 'court' properties which used to stand along here had now been demolished to make way for new housing to be constructed.

In the background stands a large warehouse on Northumberland Street. The docks were not very far away from Hughson Street, and this type of warehouse was a common sight around the local area. Some of the warehouses still remain to this day but are now being used for other purposes, such as up-market apartments, gyms, restaurants and nightclubs.

Just to the right of my cousin's head is Prophet Street, again featuring the same two-up, two-down houses similar to the ones we lived in on the right of the photo. This was where Lilian lived with her parents - John and Martha Erlis - in number 13, opposite the sweet shop on the corner of Prophet and Fernie Street.

Apart from the people, lots of good memories of growing up in that street come flooding back to me when I look at this photo. For example, I used to have races with my mates around the blocks of houses on my first two-wheeler bike. I also recall the sound of the horse and cart of the rag and bone man-- his voice calling 'any old cloth, any old iron!' as they trundled along the cobbled street at walking pace, a group of kids running along behind. 

I also remember playing with those gas pipes which entered the houses alongside the front door. They were bound in black cloth tape and sealed with a tar-like paint which used to melt in hot weather. We'd sit outside in the sunshine, pulling and twisting the tape into sticky shapes with our fingers. Nearly always receiving a telling off from the adults when they saw we had sticky tar all over our fingers and clothes!

These small memories of happy times were all triggered by looking at that photo.

Even the simplest photograph from a family album should be treasured, because behind each one of them is a story just waiting to be told...

FRIDAY FOTO 15 - ELIZABETH WELSH, BUDGIES AND A CONCEALED RADIO

(My gran, Elizabeth Welsh)

There are a number of things in this photo which bring back memories for me.

The first, obviously, is my gran. In this photograph, which has been taken from a colour negative, Elizabeth is pictured sitting in her favourite chair in the front room of her house-- a two-up, two-down rented property in Hughson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool 8.   

I remember Lizzie, (as close family and friends knew her), as being a quiet, loving woman. She would most often be seen busying herself around the house, wearing her trademark 'pinnie'-- either preparing meals for the family or involved with general household cleaning duties. She loved to cook, and I remember standing or sitting beside her in the kitchen, while she allowed me to stick a spoon into a tub of cooking malt or sugary apple pie mix. I would have a smile on my face a mile wide as I sucked and licked the spoon dry afterwards.

But as I mentioned previously, I am reminded of a couple of other things on the photograph too.

The budgie, for a start.

There were three sets of animals in residence in Hughson Street at various times. Budgies, cats and Fred the tortoise (who had an unfortunate end while hibernating in the coal-shed). I remember a green budgie (Georgie-porgie), a yellow one whose name escapes me, and the blue one in this picture-- predictably named Bluey. He was a noisy specimen and can be heard twittering away to himself on a couple of audio tapes I still have. But he also had a bit of a mean streak in him-- and would viciously nip at our fingers if my brother or I were asked to change his cuttlefish bone for a fresh one.

The other memory I have is of the curtain behind my gran, or rather, what the curtain concealed.

There was a shelf built into this alcove and on it, my Dad-- who was well used to working with electrical equipment-- had installed a large valve radio set, and later a gramophone for the family's entertainment.

My Mum recalls that my Dad once fitted a microphone into the amplifier circuits of the equipment. During a family party, my grandad made an announcement through the radio while it was playing music, to play a trick on a relative-- Bridget Price, a cousin of my grandmother.

"Here is an official announcement. Would Mrs Bridie Price please contact the nearest police station. They have information which will be beneficial to her if she attends at her earliest convenience."

Thinking that the announcement was real, Bridie apparently almost fell off the couch in shock and became quite flustered at the thought of having to appear at the police station the following morning. But Mum recalls that everyone at the party had tears of laughter after Grandad's joke had been revealed, none more so than Bridie, who possessed quite a sense of humour herself as I recall. 

There is another memory of this equipment... involving a three-year-old, a mains lead, and a pair of nail clippers. But you can read more of this particular tale <here>.  

FRIDAY FOTO 11 - BETTY WELSH IN TOXTETH STREET, L8

(Toxteth Street, Liverpool 8)

Betty Welsh (right) and her friend Ruby out for a stroll in the sunshine. 

There is no date on the photo, but the presence of bunting and age of my aunt 

(around 19 years of age) seems to indicate that this was around the time of the 

VE day celebrations in May 1945. 

The location of the photo is believed to be Toxteth Street, 

which ran between Park Street and Harlow Street, Liverpool 8.

FRIDAY FOTO 10 - THE ERLIS FAMILY, LIVERPOOL

A family photograph of the ERLIS family of Toxteth.

Thomas & Frances Midwood Erlis are pictured sitting outside their home, the outside of which has been decorated to celebrate a royal event - 

possibly the Silver Jubilee of George V of 1935. 

It was a normal, happy family moment caught by the camera. 

But along with many other families who lived in Liverpool at the time, the Erlis' were to suffer tragedy during the Second World War.

On the 6 May 1941 the family home at 12 Gaskell Street, Toxteth took a direct hit during a German air raid.

Their daughter Lilian, seen here standing proudly next to her Mum, was killed as a result of the bombing. She is officially listed among the war dead of Liverpool for 1941. A separate post about Lilian can be found <here>.

But the mother of the family was also badly injured. Frances tragically lost both her legs during the incident, and was forced to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair - a fact remembered by my own mother.

(photo courtesy of Lilian Wilson and Marion Wilkinson)

FRIDAY FOTO 7 - ELIZABETH WELSH (nee ENGLEBRETSEN)

 

Two photographs of my grandmother, Elizabeth Welsh (nee Englebretsen).

The first photo shows her photographed in a professional studio in Liverpool. It is estimated that she was around nineteen years of age when the photo was taken, which-- with Elizabeth's year of birth being 1895 --would put the date to be around 1914.

In the second photo, my grandmother is pictured standing on the steps of one of the large houses she used to serve. It is believed that she worked with an agency who provided service staff to families - for example, cooks, maids, cleaners, housekeepers etc. My aunt also informed me that she had been directly employed to at least one family as a general maid.

The houses were said to be those in the Princes Park area of Liverpool, which at the time were owned by prosperous businessmen and their families.

I'd love to be able to trace the property itself and see whether it is still there.

#familyhistory #genealogy #englebretsen    

FRIDAY FOTO 6 - MARTHA ERLIS (nee ENGLEBRETSEN)

Martha ENGLEBRETSEN (married name, ERLIS), and her daughter Marion.

Martha (b.1912) was the youngest daughter of my Norwegian great-grandfather, Peder Gerhard INGEBRETSEN and his wife Elizabeth DOUGLAS. 

Like her two surviving sisters, Hannah and Elizabeth (my grandmother), she was named ENGLEBRETSEN at birth, as this was the Anglicised version of the surname which her father adopted in this country.

Martha and her husband, John Frederick ERLIS (b.1913), lived in Prophet Street in Toxteth, Liverpool 8 with their family - daughters Marion and Lilian.

We only lived around the corner in Hughson Street and I remember the family fondly, our two families growing up, remaining close and sharing many happy times. 

FAMILY HISTORY - ELIZABETH ENGLEBRETSEN IN SERVICE

The above photo shows my gran, Elizabeth ENGLEBRETSEN, on the right of the picture. This was taken when she was a teenager, aged about 16 years old, long before she married my grandfather William John WELSH in 1925.

This was taken when she worked 'in service', helping to look after one of the families who lived in the large mansion houses around Toxteth in Liverpool during the early part of the last century.

She obtained work through a local agency, and this is said to be a copy of a formal advertising photograph, used by the agency to advertise its services.

None of the other girls are immediately recognisable from within our own family, but they must belong to somebody. 

I wonder if anybody can put a name to one of the faces?  

CHARTER TO JERICHO LANE

The other day I was driving back home from town and I passed the playing field in the photograph below. Seeing it in this light, on such a bright sunny day, brought back fond memories for me, for this was the place I was brought to by the school to play football. 

Playing field - Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman

My first school was Upper Park Street in Toxteth, which I attended until I was around seven years old. At the time our family was living with my grandparents in their rented house in Hughson Street, Toxteth in Liverpool 8. The school was an old building which dated back to Victorian times and stood in an ordinary inner city street off Park Road. It had a concrete playground where P.E. lessons occasionally took place, but apart from the odd bomb-site (or ‘bommie’ as we called them), there were certainly no wide open spaces available in the area for undertaking team sports such as football. And that is where the playing field, featured in the photo above comes into the story.

Upper Park Street School - (Best Memories of Park Road - Facebook)


As the crow flies the playing fields are actually only around two miles away from the school itself. By car it is not very far at all. Travel south along Park Road, turning right into Aigburth Road to then follow on straight down to the junction with Jericho Lane itself.

Former MPTE buses (photo Merseyside Transport Trust - Facebook)

Every week the excitement would build in our class as we knew that the bus would be coming to take us out there. I recall being in the playground over lunch. As the afternoon bell drew near, as if by magic the vehicle would suddenly appear in the road outside - a huge, green and shining double decker! Once lunch was over, the teachers would make us line up in the playground with our PE kit bags over our shoulders or held within sweaty palms; each one of us jostling for position, eager to get onto the vehicle as quickly as possible and grab the prime seats.

Parking bay - Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman


My mates and I had a simple but brilliant plan, and that was to sit on one of the two long seats nearest to the rear platform. We did this so that we would then be the first group allowed onto the exit platform of the vehicle, each one of us primed and ready to jump off when the bus finally slowed down as it arrived at its stop outside the changing rooms in Jericho Lane. Boys being boys, we had to push the boundaries, so we dared each other to jump off before the bus had actually stopped. More often than not the teacher would stand across the platform, holding us back behind the safety chain until the brakes had been fully applied by the driver. But every now and again we would be able to edge closer while holding onto the handrail, our excitement building as we felt the breeze on our faces as the bus started to slow, getting ready to step off as soon as the teacher pulled the chain back from in front of us.    

Parking bay and field (c) G.Seaman


By the time the bus had finally stopped, as many of us as possible would have jumped off onto the pavement and hopefully lived to tell the tale… if we were lucky. If we were not so lucky, we’d be held back and receive a stern telling off from the teacher!

Changing rooms Jericho Lane (c) G.Seaman


The rest of the days' proceedings would be mostly irrelevant and completely forgettable, as I was generally hopeless at football. Consequently I spent the majority of my time on the field standing between two sticks while a gang of bigger lads fired a heavy leather football at me. This generally wasn’t good and it never ended well. I always seemed to come off worse and get blamed every time the opposition scored a goal. Needless to say I was always glad when we were back on the bus and heading home - tired, hungry and ready for our dinner.

And now? All these years afterwards?

I could never have imagined that I would be standing here in the sunshine, thinking back to those times which I remember as if they were only yesterday. When I was eight years old - feeling cold and shivering like a jelly - trying to play football in a snow-covered field with the rest of my mates from school, and failing miserably.

Maybe, just maybe, this could possibly be the reason why I now don’t like football? 

SCHOOLBOOKS - UPPER PARK STREET SCHOOL, TOXTETH

As part of my ongoing task to ‘sort out the garage’, I went through some papers I’d put away in storage for archiving, and found a few of my old school books buried away within them. I’d pretty much forgotten that I had documents, as they were from the very first school I attended which was Upper Park Street school in Toxteth, Liverpool.

Nestled within the neatly laid out rows of terraced housing around Devenport and Upper Park Streets in what is known locally as Liverpool 8, the original school building had been built in 1878 and then extended in 1885. My time there comes a bit later however, and I attended between 1960 and 1965 - just prior to my family moving out to the leafy suburbs of Childwall, where we have lived ever since.  

School building - (UPSSFB)

There were two sections to the school - infants and juniors - and I went to both of them when I was little. The external view of the building above brings back memories of the external metal stairways, used to access some of the classrooms. Also the gate - being taunted by my mates when my aunt insisted on giving me a kiss when she dropped me off at school. We also piled out of this regularly during the summer, all climbing aboard a fabulous green and cream double-decker bus to take us to the playing fields at Jericho Lane in Otterspool to play football.   

School classroom (UPSSFB)

The photograph above also brings memories of the school right back to me. The days were filled with a mixture of learning and play - the teacher splitting us up into groups to play board games, work on specific learning tasks or do ‘proper’ schoolwork - which is where my schoolbooks come into the story.



Outside cover - (c) G Seaman

The book above is different to the other two I also have, as the original cover of this one is intact. It has been signed on the outside by the teacher and as can be seen by the photograph below, someone has written the date of the book on the interior ‘Nov 62’. There is also a handwritten note within it from me requesting 6d to pay for a Puppet show later in the week!

Internal cover and note (c) G Seaman

School coursework (c) G Seaman

As can be seen in the photograph above, the rest of the book contains a mixture of drawings which I’ve coloured in, and also word exercises which the class completed, copying the teachers as they wrote the words up on the blackboards.

The other two books contain a seemingly random selection of stories and diary entries I have recorded into the pages over a period of time. The above photograph shows my grand-daughter Paige - now 7 years old - reading the words I wrote down 55 years ago, when I was almost the same age as she is now.

After she’d finished, Paige made a number of constructive comments about my writing skills which caused quite a lot of hilarity at the time, but can be summarised into the undermentioned points as follows:

1) “Your writing is SO BIG Grampy! If you made your letters smaller you could fit more onto the page!”

2) “What does …’ Won dey dey wend…’ mean?” (translation = One Day They Went....)

3) “I can’t understand this! It makes no sense!”

Reading the books now I know exactly what she meant, but I still love the fact that the two of us are able to discuss them in the first place! 

Memories of my very first school, now long since gone.

All I can say is thanks to my Mum and Dad for keeping them safe.

Sources:

Liverpool Schools website

Upper Park Street School Facebook Group

OCCUPATIONS IN GENEALOGY - HORSE COOK

One of the more unusual occupations I have come across while researching my family history has to be that of ‘horse cook’ (see below).

Birth certificate details - Joseph SEAMAN (1903)

When I first saw this occupation written on the birth certificate of my grandfather Joseph SEAMAN, I must say that I was a bit surprised, and at first drew the wrong conclusions as to what the job could possibly be. After all, I’m well aware that in certain countries it is perfectly acceptable for horse meat to be cooked and eaten, and I was not really surprised to find it is considered a delicacy in countries like Italy, China and Iceland. However, as far as I knew, even back in 1903 this notion had not as yet extended to these shores - the recent furore in the U.K. about unscrupulous meat processor’s adding horsemeat to burgers, being a prime example of this. With this in mind I took a breath, settled down with a mug of tea, and began to consider what the job could actually consist of.



Joseph Frederick SEAMAN

The description ‘horse cook’ was reportedly the occupation of my great-grandfather Joseph Frederick SEAMAN in Liverpool, England in 1903. He was 25 years old at the time of his son’s birth, and I had discovered evidence that he had been working previously as a carter on several occasions since the year 1900. At the time, the carting profession was one of the most important jobs in Liverpool to have.

Landing Stage, Pier Head, Liverpool

In this modern age where the car rules the roadways, it is perhaps difficult to imagine that this was a period prior to petrol driven transport being commonly available, and at its peak there were around 250,000 horses working in the city, shifting everything from freight to people around the cobbled streets. This might seem a staggering number when considered today, but in 1903 Liverpool was still acknowledged to be the second city of the British Isles next to London, and the amount of passengers and freight which passed through its many docks was huge indeed. Each of these items needed to be moved as quickly as possible either into the city, or away from it onto the ships. With this in mind it is certainly not so difficult to understand just why so much horsepower was needed to help shift these goods from site to site. 

Stables - Cains Brewery, Grafton Street, Liverpool - (c. PolkaDot Pink)

In the early twentieth century therefore, almost every neighbourhood in Liverpool would have had stable buildings situated within it. Such buildings would be used by private companies - breweries, coal merchants, and also individual horse owners - to house their animals between their periods of work. Stable-masters, and the men and women who worked with them, tended to the needs of the horses twenty-four hours a day. 
There is no doubt in my mind that it was in one of these stable blocks that my great-grandfather Joseph worked to help prepare the food for the horses, making sure that the animals received the sustenance they would need to help them through a long day’s work on the roads of this great city.

And so, after completing my research and considering all the evidence I’ve found, I think we can safely assume that Joseph was not cooking horses for a living. Indeed the occupation of ‘horse cook’ does not now seem so unusual at all!

#seamanfamilyhistory #josephfrederickseaman #familyhistory #cainsbrewery   

Text Sources:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/look-back-memories-liverpools-carters-9167182

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/incoming/gallery/carters-9168102

http://www.scottiepress.org/sr2003/carters.htm

Cains Stable's photo: 

Donna @ PolkaDot Pink.com (http://polkadot-pink.com/2014/07/07/mark-it-liverpool-street-art-festival/)

   

HILLMAN MINX AND COBBLES IN TOXTETH (1964)

For the 'Wordless Wednesday' blog prompt today I submit this beauty from the early 1960's. Hughson Street, Toxteth... the row of neat two-up two-down houses where we lived... Mum, little bro and I on the step in dubious socks and short trousers... and a Hillman Minx from around 1964.

And of course, the cobbles. 

It was just murder trying to ride your bike on those!

Hughson Street, Toxteth,  Liverpool 8