Looking For Family And Friends From 'old' Birkenhead

A Memory of Birkenhead.

Hi, I have just found this great site - thank you! I am trying to write some family history, especially about our life in Birkenhead, for my two daughters - who have grown up in Scotland - where my own father came from.

I was born in June 1939 at our house in 2 Huskisson Street - where the imposing St John’s Church once stood before the whole region was demolished to create the Pyramids shopping area. I was the youngest - of ELEVEN! I had six bothers and four sisters - and was the luckiest kid in town. I attended St John’s Primary School from 19944 -1950. I passed the then eleven plus - and went to Rock Ferry High School from 1950 - 1957 - and it was a wonderful experience! Later, after National Service in Malaya (1958 - 1960) I taught for a year at Gautby Road Primary (Head was George Audley) My sister Helen had the sweet shop on the nearby main road. After my teacher training I taught at Prenton Boys (by Tranmere Rovers) 1964 - 1967. I was a keen member of the well known Birkenhead Photographic Society - which met a tiny room in Market Street. In 1967 I went to Liverpool University to study for a degree and then a Ph.D - researching the rare Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda and Congo.

In 1974, for work reasons, I moved to Scotland where I was an academic at Paisley College and later Strathclyde University. Now I am retired and lucky enough to live in the French Alps. I am busy doing background research to help me write these accounts of happy memories in Birkenhead - especially the era of ‘You have never had it so good” - and, perhaps nowadays, we never will!

I look forward to exploring this great resource site more now. I do hope I can make contact with old friends, lost family members, former fellow pupils At RFHS and those I may have taught.

My mother was Martha (Molly) or Ninny Goodall to many grandchildren, Mum was nee Farley. She had two sisters - Kathleen and Mary - whose husbands were Ses Davies and Sonny Dawson, and I am keen to make contact with that lost side of my family. She also had a brother ? Tommy? Farley who I think lived in the North end area.

PLEASE - try and make contact so that we can catch up with lost time.

Thanks again

Alan Goodall