Weston Point c1955, Runcorn
Weston Point c1955, Runcorn Ref: R67019
Memories of Weston Point c1955, Runcorn
ICI Recreation Club And Grounds
When I look at this photo it brings back happy memories of when the club was a hive of activity of bowling greens, tennis courts, football pitches (middle of photo).
As a young girl growing up in Weston Point I always looked forward to the Annual Rose Fete Shows, that were laid on by ICI. Every Thursday evening we would attend the ICI Club and Mr Dunning and our next door neighbour Mrs Rees would take us through our routine around the room, until we were perfect for the day of the show, and Mrs Bellfield on the piano (I was carrying the train for the queen along with six other young girls). When the day finally arrived the field was full of stalls, all the locals came along, the band was playing, the air was full of laughter, the smell of hot dogs, candy floss, and we never seemed to have rain. We would take our places at the top of the field by the white gates, the band... Read more
Delivering Our Daily Bread
The picture shown is of Russell Road which runs left to right centre of the picture. Every day except Sunday during the early 1960s I used to deliver bread all around Weston Point and remember well reversing my Co-op van up all the avenues off Russell Road. I may be wrong but the avenue in the lower right hand corner of the picture looks like Hazel Avenue. It was a job that I loved to do, getting up in the morning to go to the bakery in Mersey Road near the old Boathouse Inn. I think the bakery is a Kwik-Fit tyre depot nowadays. This brings back happy memories of those days when there were lots of bread vans from different companies doing the rounds such as 'Champion', 'Sunblest' etc, and our own which was 'Wheatsheaf'. Happy days!
Runcorn & local memories
Read and share memories of Runcorn and Cheshire inspired by Frith photos.
Oh Happy Days
Yes I remember spending most of our (my brother John and I) summer holidays playing on Runcorn Hills. Both parents worked and so most mornings, weather permitting, we would head off to the hills from our home in Weston Village, armed with a bottle of water and usually a jam butty and an apple. We would spend the day there, often meeting up with other kids who were on a similar day out. One very powerful memory that I have is the smell of the ferns that grew in abundance on the hills amongst which we hid and built our "dens", the smell of the ferns has lived with me since those days to the extent that I have many of them in my own garden due to the nostalgia that they generate. On those hills I was John Wayne, Davy Crockett, Cochise, Geronimo and Billy the Kid, all heroes from the many black and white films that we had seen on the screens of the Scala and... Read more
Building The Bridge
I was sat in my classroom at the parish school in church street and I had just put away my plastic counters after a hard maths lesson ,I was only 5 ( and 1+1 was very hard)my teachers name was mrs oats she was lovely and as I sat gazing out of the window I noticed this huge construction being built in the distance ,I asked my dad when I got home that evening what it was , now , as we traveled on the transporter bridge every saturday to visit my grandparents in simms cross Widnes this was of great concern to me and dad explained as best he could to a 5yr old what it was and that we would have to walk over it instead of using the transporter The next day in school I noticed the big arch hovering in the sky and I cried my eyes out . The teacher called for my parents to take me home as I was inconsolable, when... Read more
Rose Street
I was brought up in Rose Street - I was born in 1969. I used to drink in the Queens. Walk down Rose Street now, hardly know anyone. I moved from Widnes in 2000 to Southport.
Charlie The Drake...
How we looked forward to a walk to the Town Hall park to feed the ducks, there was one really old and bedraggled one called "charlie the drake"?? or so my nan said!! Once in the Town Hall grounds, we were allowed to run ahead along the roadway in the picture to reach the water fountain, stopping off and getting in line with the other kids to get a drink. We would feed the ducks, play on the lawns, admire the plants, before returning back to the water fountain. Having sat on the bench in the picture, I can still smell the cut lawns. Time to go, stopping off at the toilets situated at the end of the drive way. A walk back along Heath Rd, stopping off at the "chocolate box" sweet shop to get some Hamblintons humbugs for grandad. You know it was just lovelly, so much so, I am going to buy this print.
Weston Road Memories
I also remember Weston Road, that is the road leading from Weston Village down into Runcorn, via the Isolation Hospital and then down into Greenway Road. My father Owen Roberts worked all his life at the ICI Castner Kelner works, "Castners" as it was known and he also had a part time job as a gardener at the big house on lower part of Weston Road called called - Beaconsfield, not sure who owned Beaconsfield but it certainly was a large house and my father worked there for many years.
In our school holidays when we used to go and play in the quarry on Runcorn Hills the route which we took was from Weston along Weston Road and then climb up into the hills - happy days !
When I attended Balfour Road Secondary Modern school, we had classes which were held in the old Isolation Hospital which was a sort of annex for the school and when we had classes there in afternoon... Read more
The Opening of The Bridge Memories...
My memories of the Bridge are of when I used to travel from where my family lived in Weston Village into Runcorn (circa 1956) to do our shopping and watch the construction taking place, increasing in size each time we saw it - usually on a Saturday morning when we went into town to do the weekly shop in the market which was situated under cover next to the Runcorn swimming baths. Mine and my brother's "treat" was to buy tuppence worth of broken biscuits off the biscuit stall. Little did I know that 5 years later in 1961 I would make a bit of history. When I was 18 years old I became a bus conductor (remember them) on the Crosville buses and on the day that the Bridge was opened and it was closed to traffic to allow pedestrians to walk across it, I was told by my traffic supervisor that the following morning I would be the conductor on the first Crosville bus to travel over... Read more
Weston Road
This photo brings back memories for me. This picture must have been taken from opposite my home. I was born on Weston Road and my father still lives in the old family house.
Transporter Bridge
I do not remember the Transporter Bridge but it holds a special place in my heart as my dear late grandfather, Rueben Stubbs, was the head of maintenance for forty years. He told me many stories about his time working there. It was a job that he really enjoyed.
Growing up in Runcorn
I was born and bred in Runcorn. I lived on Weston Road. I was born in 1963 and left the town in 1984. What a great place it was. You could buy just about anything in Runcorn from food, furnishing, a new car, you name it and a shop sold it. Does anyone remember Johnsons Meat Pies. They were the best. Geoff Monks Delli and Organs the bakers in Greenway Road. Such happy days. It is hard to believe that such a great place could go downhill like it has done in recent years. All the great names have gone. Tesco, Boots, Claverts, Co-op, Dawsons, Woolworths, Bensons, Army & Navy Store, The Hobby Shop, Dewhursts, MeDermotts, all gone from Church Street and Regent Street. So very sad.
Ferry Hut
I, too, remember playing in the sand at Ferry Hut, probably around 1948. I remember the "tide" coming in when a ship went past. I cut my toe on some hidden glass and there was blood everywhere. There really was a Ferry Hut, and I've seen pictures of it on the internet. It was before the Ship Canal was built. The ferry was immortalised in the monologue "Tuppence per Person per Trip".
Bridge Water Canal.
Yes, my grandad used to be a foreman.of one of the barges on the canal, his name was Thomas Hayes, he lived on Wiven Place.
Brickfield Cottage
Yea, I used to live in Brickfield Cottage just across from the swing bridge, and I remember carrying Nipper over that bridge with a compound fracture of his thigh, as he fell off the Wigs sheds, lol, we were borrowing pigeons from the sheds, lol.
The New Bridge
Boy, that pic brings back old times, I worked on the building of that bridge and the demolition of the old transporter bridge. I was born in Runcorn in 1942, Stonehills Crescent.
The Monkey Run
Yea, brings back the old times, the good times, in Runcorn. On a Sunday night up the Monkey Run lol, the old people will know the name.
Bridge Being Built
Funny you thinking you had to go across the arch, I remember saying to my dad that I wasn't going to cross that bridge over the arch, funny things you think of when you are young.
Runcorn at Its Best ...
This is how I remember Runcorn as a young person. You could buy anything you needed from clothes to furniture, carpets, anything! The streets were wide and chokka block full of people - especially on Saturday. As a teenager, leaving school at 15 years of age in 1970, I went to work at Lunts Chemist and earned either two pounds twelve and sixpence, or three pounds twelve and six, either way, my mum let me have my first week's wage and I thought I would never see a poor day again, ha ha. From Lunts I then went to work in Calverts, my best friend Val Tildsley working across the road in Army and Navy Stores, aaah! the best memories....
Haywoods shoe shop holds particularly fond memories for me, as my mum (in her youth) worked there with her best friend. Mum was Joan Gilhooley, nee Clucas, best friend is Agnes (sorry can't remember surname). She worked there happily for years and I remember all my school shoes etc... Read more
Weston Point I.C.I Recreation Club And Runcorn Town
Memory, Saturday Night Old Time dance upstairs in theI.C.I Club. My father played there on the drums. I was there with a girlfriend and her mother and father and grandmother, the old lady taught me a lot of the old time dances and the dance was led by the organizers, we could always follow them if not sure of the steps. I lived in Sandy Lane, near the top, 142. My father worked at I.C.I most of his career, he was in the office as a accountant. We lived in High Field Terrace for 14 years next to the Tannery off Canal Street, with my great-grandmother in a Tannery House, he had his name down for 14 years for a works house, it was great when we got it, toilet next to the back door, and the first bathroom downstairs off the kitchen, a lot better than the tin bath or weekly visit to the rented baths at the swiming pool. I still think it was the best place a... Read more
Transporter Bridge
As a child brought up in Yorkshire, we spent holidays visiting family across the Pennines; mother's family in Liverpool and father's in Runcorn.
Although he had done well, now a country doctor, father always seemed to think he was the poor relation, and the drive to Runcorn, back to his roots always felt a bit tense. The stress levels would rise when he saw a big ship; catching the transporter bridge just at the right time was an art, but a ship could mean more delay. Never mind - there was not much you could do about it except drive on and let the mechanics of the thing take you over to the other side. I loved it, the sounds and movement of it was like no other bridge I had ever seen.
Years later on a passage back from South America, steering a ship up to Salford docks I have the pleasure of causing the same delays, but not as acute, as the big road bridge... Read more
A Little Unmodernised Terrace House
Ah! How I well remember sharing times in a little unmodernised terraced house that my friend rented in Highlands Road in the early 1970s. The house was a little 2 up / 2 down with an outside loo & a little back garden. Many's the time we'd pop to the PO / shop on the corner.
She, her son & I spent many a happy hour there ~ arrh! those were the days. We're still in touch, even though I'm now in North Wales, she's in Spain & spends much of his time dashing round the world due to his commitments to his career as an internationally famous stunt performer.
Sandcastles
Here is the sand we called Ferry Hut. I don't know of any hut ever being there so how it got its name is a mystery to me, maybe someone will tell me some day, but sand castles and paddling and big ocean going ships I do remember, they was enormous with a tug on the bow and a tug on the stern, a fantastic sight, and waves to jump over, the sailors would wave and shout "Jagaraho" whatever that meant. Wwonderful days but the water was dirty and the water left an oily mark on the sand, but now it's clean with fish and swans on the canal. I hope one day more use will be made of the canal.
Watched From A Distance
What a wonderful bridge it was going to be, a copy of Sydney Harbour bridge, it will take hours off the time going to Widnes, that's what they said, whoever they were. I sat on Halton Castle and watched through my Uncle Derrick's binoculars as they built it from both sides, it rose to meet in the middle, a great feet of engineering. I use it quite regular on my travels but it's overcrowded, in these days we could do with more bridges over the canal.
Ferry Hut
The year is a guess, but I have fond memories of playing in the sand at Ferry Hut, waiting for my dad to go by on his tug boat, when the Manchester ship canal was in its heyday. He would wave to me my sister and mum. The tugs I remember was the Bison/Quarry/Panther, they were all stern tugs used to steer the big ships that went from Eastham to Salford docks and back again. I remember the big boys that would hold on to the Transporter as it carried cars across the canal, they would drop into the canal before the wall and swim back to the side and climb up to wait for the next go, I don't know if other people called it Ferry Hut but just over those railings was a patch of sand, that's the nearest I got to a beach in those days. The moments that stay embedded in your mind forever.
Cemetary on Greenway Rd
Resting place of Mary Myers, wife of Arthur of Sandy Lane, Weston Point.
Runcorn Hill on A Summer's Day
Runcorn Hill was a wild place when I knew it back in the early 1960s. I remember even now the smell of the trees and the shade they brought on hot summer days. Yes, we had them back then, when spring came after winter and summer followed on, before autumn reminded us it was time to prepare for winter again. As a child I loved going "up the hill" to play, even on my own. We didn't worry about what might happen to us; we believed if anything did go wrong we could call on a nearby adult for help. Innocent days! The park wasn't far away, with its bandstand and tennis courts. Go the other way off the hill on Highlands Rd and there was the paddling pool not far from the swings and big slide. Well, it felt big to a kid 6 or 7yrs old. Sadly it wasn't long before we were banned from the pool due to vandals throwing glass bottles in for a laugh. But... Read more
Parish School Sports Day
when I was 9yrs old my 1st memories of top locks were very frightening. We had our sports days on the fields in picow farm road which are still there today, but with the parish school being in Church street we had to walk up ashridge street and along top locks and walk across the very narrow lock gates to the other side to reach the field .When you looked down off the gates it was a very very long way down especially when you are only 9 and the boys in my class wre very boistrous pushing and shoving and trying to be king of the castle so I used to hang back to the end ,I wasn,t going in that lock for anyone .
Chapel
I went to Balfour Road school in the late 1950s. I remember going to the "annex" for some lessons. This was as far as I can recall a chapel in Station Road (?) nearly opposite the cinema. Can anyone recall its name please? Thanks.
