The Opening Of The Bridge Memories...

A Memory of Runcorn.

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 the Bridge and go to the Pier Head in Liverpool. It was the first time that buses had had a route from Runcorn to Liverpool, it was the H31 bus route and in the coming months I also had the exciting happening of being on the same route when who should get on the bus in Gateacre but Paul McCartney. I recognised Paul as I was a member of the famous Cavern Club and had seen him play their with his famous colleagues known as the Beatles...