Days Gone By

A Memory of Seaforth.

My family arrived in Seaforth late in 1939 after we were shipped back from Gibraltar where my father was stationed with the Kings Regiment. Early memories of our house in Holly Grove are vague. My sister Maureen and I, along with hundreds of other kids, were evacuateed to Radnorshire in Wales. There were still air raids when we returned to Seaforth and I remember spending many a night in the communal air raid shelter in the street or down in the coal cellar of our house. An area of Elm Road and Gladstone Road were destroyed as was Church Road next to the RC church. Ewart Road and many other streets were badly damaged. Boys being boys we had plenty of places to play in even though we were always being told to stay out of the bombed sites. I attended the old Star of the Sea RC school, and remember with affection the head master Mr Williams. The Americans arrived during the war and were stationed at Seaforth Barracks. When the war ended we had huge street parties to celebrate. To this day I am still surprised as to where all the lovely cakes and sweets etc came from, as rationing was very severe.
The street we lived on was one of four grove named after trees and all branched off Elm Road. We had a football team then that we called Elm United. I wonder if any of the old team are still around.
There was a huge fire in one of the nearby docks one year, I think it was full of rubber, and then some time after, the 'Empress of Canada' caught fire and turned on its side in the dock. I can still remember the flames and the heat. Bowersdale Park was a popular place for us boys as we used to play bowls on the greens there.
We used to pay a halfpenny for a bottle of milk at school but some of us did not like milk so we would buy a halfpenny barm cake from Simpsons or was it Samsons the bakery on Seaforth Road. Mother found out about me deviousness and dragged me down to the police station just past the old Paladium cinema, where I was promptly marched into a cell and had the riot act read to me by 'old Sam' our local bobby. I took a great liking for milk after that little adventure.
Seaforth Station down by the cinder path was a popular place on a Saturday when late in the afternoon newspapers with all the football results would arrive to be sold, and everyone's mam and dad were eager to see if they had won on the pools.
I left school in 1950 and did a number of jobs around the place, the old Pioneer Laundry, Hewletts the Butchers and then joined the Royal Air Force. Of course everything changes, and most of the old friends themselves had moved on to different areas, and lots of new housing was being built, which itself brought in new faces. I finally left Seaforth in 1956, and after a number of years eventually emigrated  to Western Australia with my famil. During the forty odd years I have been here I have made a few trips back and visited Seaforth, its not the same though, is it. New docks, Elm Road blocked off from Seaforth Road, the new Princess Road, worst of all the overhead railway. Gosh! The fun we had on that and seeing all the docks so busy. We could even walk into the docks and just about board any ship that was moored there and scrounge a meal off the cooks in the galleys, and we would pick up match and cigarette packets to collect, from all over the world that had been dropped by the sailors off the boats. Yes, everything changes, my old school is no longer in use and I visited the new Star of the Sea school on my last trip back in 2006. Memories eh!