Greasby, Greasby Road c1958

Our Wedding Day.

I was married in St. Joseph's 9th February 1963. The Priest who married us was Father Mc'Gonigal. Such a nice gentleman. The weather that day was snowy & very cold.

Thermopylae

I was brought up in Claughton Village (Wirral) and in the holidays as children we regularly walked through Bidston Hill to Thermopylae Pass.  We would spend all day on the Hill and at Thermopylae and walk home at the end of the day exhausted and happy after playing and running about all day.  At the time we didn't know its real name, and called it The Moppoly Paths.  Sometimes we called it "The Mops".  The grandmother of a friend used to live in the house in this picture, I recall that there were stables on the west side of the house. I am not sure whether she owned it or just lived there. We used to love Thermopylae, it was wild and free, more so than Bidston Hill.  Even as a child I felt disappointed that housing in Noctorum was encroaching on the Thermopylae Pass as I felt it spoilt the vista and the wildness of the place. It was then truly a beautiful place and I hope it still is (what remains).  I currently live in Australia but after seeing this photograph on your website plan to visit "The Mops" next time I am in England.

Irby

I moved to Irby in 1957 and remember the sandstone cottage that was there before the library. I think a lovely girl called Prudence Cottrell lived there and she had a strawberry roan pony that was always in the garden. Mrs Matthews had the corner shop at the top of the road into the village and the hardware store was owned by the Carter family, The Oak Tub was definitely right and next to the hardware shop was a little cafe place where my mother used to stop and chat with her buddies each day. I think this was owned by Mrs. Steele. I can remember the Post Office in a little cottage that was pulled down quite soon after we moved there. I don't remember Dawpool Farm but I used to work for Henry Rogers at Benty Farm on the common at the weekend when I was at school. I thought at one time I'd like to go into farming but I was hopeless! We lived in Heathbank Avenue then and I now live just around the corner from there. My house is part of an estate that was built in the 1970s on the fields where we used to pay as kids and where I would walk home from the bus stop in the village from school. We moved from Irby to Greasby in 1962 but came back to Irby after my father died. We lived in a bungalow in South Hey Road which is the other side of Irby towards Pensby and Pensby Schools.  When I married I moved to my present address off Far Meadow Road (as described above). Those early days in Irby were great but it was the early 1960s and I started to work in Liverpool which was the place to be in those days. Irby isn't the same now, but what is?