Once the biggest town in Cheshire now a shitty part of Merseyside, 40 years of neglect. Like most northern towns we gave our all to help build and sustain the empire and this is how they treat us.
i remember the summer school holidays the fairground the eternal summers "as it felt" the ice-creams simpler times, wirral has so much to offer for kids then, i felt really lucky to have all these opportunities on the peninsula, great times to be alive (70s) a lot has changed since then, but i still have the beautiful amazing memories, thanks for giving me the chance to revisit my childhood, never STOP Loving,,xxxx,
born in '72 in St.Caths birkenhead, lived in rock ferry as a kid then moved to wallasey in 1980, loved new brighton outdoor baths (always cold water and dead flies) but great memories, my mum used to take us to the baths firework display on bonifre night shortly before the storm destroyed it. also did a few seasons for dave wilkie in the fairground in my teens :) it's a shame new brighton is basically a ghost town in comparison to the good days.
I have heard Liverpool want more connection with wirral birkenhead I think a new CENTRAL MAINLINE is in ORDER for the people and community of wirral BIRKENHEAD I think it is a good Idea to have a bus INTERCHANGE at WOODSIDE area since the TRAMS will be reused for transport again I think that these Ideas are amazing 😊😊😊👍👍👍
Correction: The "secret" little underground bar at The Palace Amusement building was called "The Creep Inn", I now seem to recall. A fine social atmosphere, with a great moniker. Neat for the documentary to well-address the major Wilkie contribution to New Brighton. There was also (Councillor) Tommy Mann. He ran (owned?) the big boating pool by Fort Perch Rock, and other ventures. Another asset to the resort. Fort Perch Rock, built as a defence against Napoleon I think, saw service in WW2. It had a little WW2 museum and "club" for vets. John Stanley (The Kraal Club) ran a few rock shows in the courtyard there.
Thank you for such a wonderful documentary. It brought back so many memories. When I worked at Wallasey Borough Council Town Hall, 1958-63, Joy Hockey would come in frequently seeking planning approval for her plans. A very talented architect and a lovely person. My mother told me that, just before WW2, one of the Figure of Eight buggies flew off the top tight bend and sailed out over the promenade to crash onto the beach, with the loss of lives. Great to see the WW2 DUKW being a tourist attraction immediately post-war. I have always remembered my ride, but never seen a video of one in action there. After the war, there was often a sign on the promenade "Don't forget the diver". A legless man would seek donations for jumping off the prom into the sea. I expect that he was an injured war vet. R.I.P. The Tower Grounds were always a delight, especially the miniature railway, the dodgems; The Wall of Death and The Waltzer. The Tower ballroom was incredible; the finest in the North of England and possibly in the UK. It has a sprung floor that continually "creaked" if there were few dancers; 2,000 folk dancers and it seemed quite "empty". Superb sound system. That was a very fine dance band. Wednesday nights were typically free entrance - one just needed to find the man who went around handing out free tickets at the nearby Lakeside Bar or other bars, or in the road. Weekend dancing was usually tremendous for the dancing and meeting folk. The came The Skiffle Craze and then Rock, with many fine top-rank shows. So many incredible nights there. The Palace Amusement building had some fine rides .... dodgems, car racing, and a fierce "giant bullet" that spun, tilted and swung around fiercely. And a "secret" bar underground, "The Creep". I think it was supposed to be only for Palace employees and their guests. Then The Bowling Alley was built on the circus/ car park next door. And all the local scallies were running around town wearing pinkish/reddish bowling pumps. (The Bowling Alley itself was built a few feet in the wrong place. Building Inspector's error. Bit embarrassing that. There was a pretty tough Rock Band place above a shop at the lower end of Victoria Street, "The Empress". One night I saw "Derry/Howie Casey and The Seniors" with their new-singer Freddy Fowell (later Freddy Starr). I was near the front and a, fortunately empty, flying glass pitcher smashed against the wall by me. The band did not miss a beat. The Brighton Pier a classic. And it was reputed that its draught Guinness was the finest on The Mainland, "brought in straight from Dublin" so the local cognoscente said. I have often wondered how high the top diving board was. It seemed terrifyingly high. The Royal - a fine little cinema that showed "B" horror movies every Sunday night. Often with some "encouragement" from the thoughtful management. I recall on one Sunday there being a large "bucket of blood" in the foyer, in keeping with the movie's title. So, so much in the documentary. Possibly the only other thing that I was hoping to see was something of The Kraal Club (set up by John Stanley and John Pennington), that I always felt was far finer than The Cavern. Resident band were The Pressmen, with Aynsley Dunbar on drums; but other fine bands like The Undertakers and The Roadrunners were regulars. Another fine place was The Grosvenor in Liscard. Regulars were Cass and The Casanovas/The Big Three. It might have not seemed like it at the time, but it was a special town. It had about 350 pubs. We planned on having a pint in each before our 18th birthday. The target was almost achieved before the first in the group had his 18th. Cheapest pint of mild was 11 pence, a small pub with a sandstone cellar wall near Seacombe Ferry. So, thank you so much.
Wirral borough council what a joke they have done nothing for wàllasey but sell it out for their own gains now it is getting better but with liverpool drug money being used to open bars but even that has changed when they first opened where nice but now no so with an uneasy vibe about if and feral kids wearing balaclavas on mountain bikes things need to change and people need to look after what they have or will soon have nothing like in the early 80s
ive seen those binlids on motorbike 3 tiny kids Ballied up razzing about without a worry in the world, just like its a normal thing to do, police where no where to be seen
Hi great photos of past being I used to live in 1 princes road ust to fish in prinny park for carp, last time I was the Id seen a very good friend off at st margrets his wake 2015 RIP Norman-B peace from spain
Was that Eli at 2:35, he had a stall on Birkenhead market selling China and other stuff from boxes that he claimed not to know the contents before opening. Always a big crowd there begging to buy from him
Born in Wallasey 62 living in Canada now but remember so much of the place. Learned to waterski right to the west of the pier at the Wallasey power boat and ski club. Jumped off the top of the diving tower at the baths. Went back for holiday in 91-92 it was such a shame to see all the things that I grew up with destroyed but I knew the people there would rebuild better. Thanks for the memories 👍.
those diving boards at the open-air baths was CRAZY HIGH,you must be brave i never managed the top one,just looking over the edge would give me jelly legs,we the family would spend the whole day there, simpler times brother, seems a lot of my piers emigrated maybe they saw what was coming lol you can take the man out the Wirral but not the Wirral out the man, love and contentment from Llanberis north wales, we only move to wales but i live in a tiny valley and have built my own magic place, couldn't be more content, keep on keeping on Kidda
My memories of this exact area involve flashers in their macs sticking their knobs through the school fence on Ullet Road most weeks, my dads car getting broken into every time he parked it on Belvedere Road, it looking an absolute shit hole in the early 80’ and still in early 2000’s, me getting assaulted and my nose broken by two teenagers when I was at uni and numerous other incidents. Despite that I also remember fab times in Princes Park with the dogs and it’s home 🖤
Watched this afew times now grew up in Birkenhead worked on market and delivered papers on swan hill great place when I was Kidd till 80s came and went to Australia
If you look at a map of the Mersey Basin you'll see the exact area of influence of the Scouse accent which you can hear in the voices of people from as far as Rhyl to Southport and somewhere between Runcorn and Winsford, now if you draw a circle with those places on the outer edge of the circle then you will see that the exact "epicentre" of the Mersey Basin is the Wirral. On that point it's easy to see that the local accents all emanate from the Wirral and extend outwards and so Liverpool actually speaks with a variation of a Birkenhead accent and not the other way around but as we all know he who shouts loudest and all that yeah!
@@wirralnomad Liverpudlians spoke with Lancastrian (Mancunian) accents until the Irish came in 1847 thenbthe Welsh throughout the 1850's. So it is a highbrid of Northern English, Southern Irish, and North Wallian. Having said that I'm a Wirral lad and I consider our accent to be a Cheshire accent rather than a Lancastrian one. Peace man. 👍
@@theshamanarchist5441 Yes they did, but still it was a borderline Lancastrian accent with a crossover with a Cheshire accent, and yet geographically speaking the Wirral is still the epicentre of the Mersey Basin area. By your reckoning Mancunian, Liverpool Lancastrian and the accent spoken in today's Lancashire were all the same, exactly the same with no deviations whatsoever, that is no true in the slightest, Mancunian was and still is a borderline accent which is as mix between the traditional Lanky accent and the Yorkie accent but being on the Lancashire side of the border it had more influence from Lanky. Similarly, a Huddersfield accent too is a borderline accent that borders both Lanky, Mancunian and Yorkie, in the case of Huddersfield though their accent is more influenced by the Yorkie accent due to being on the Yorkie side of the border, and having lived in Liverpool, Manchester, Huddersfield and Preston and the Wirral for prolonged periods of my life I have been surrounded by all of these accents and all of their nuances where I am able to hear both similarities and differences in all. All of my Grandparents were Liverpool born and three of them I knew and even with their Scouse twang I could still hear Old Lancastrian remnants which I have not heard in any Liverpool born accent for almost 30 to 40 years now and yet, the accent I hear now I live in Manchester is not the same accent I remember hearing when I first lived in Manchester in the early 1980's, or that same Mancunian accent we hear in old episodes of Coronation Street from the early 1960's and old newsreels.
My grandmother worked on the crosville buses as a clicky..then in list property at Woodside. Also I remember the old Birkenhead market that got burnt to the ground.not the one now. We used to have a great day out at the current market. Hot dogs and onions was everyone's favourite. I watched oak and Eldon get blown down by Ogden demolition. It's crazy how things stay in your head from childhood??.
My great grandfather,Samuel Oxton -Langley,died in 1910 Stuart,he was on his way back to Birkenhead after a visit to the Zoo,he had a pony and trap,and coming over the Four Bridges,he was in collision with a railway shunt,and was thrown from the trap,he died a few months later,his Death Certificate states,that” He died from exhaustion,following upon insanity,due to being thrown from his trap,after collision with certain goods wagons on Tower Road “
Unfortunately, as a wallasey lad, NONE of my memories or New Brighton resemble any of this! My memories of Newbo are seagulls robbin ya chips, old people giving you funny looks as you're playin on the rocks and dodgy fair grounds rides on milk creates during the wirral show.
