Irby

The Village c1955
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

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?