Fred Foley remembers Edge Hill just after the war
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 25th July 2012 by Jenny Porter
Fred Foley remembers a yard where war surplus was kept at the bottom of Overbury Street. He also explains how he was born on the Wirral because his family were evacuated.
Interviewee: Fred Foley
Interviewee Gender: Male
Interview Transcript
Fred: We were taken away in the war, we had to go over to the Wirral. My brother was born in Prestatyn, I was born over the water because we were getting bombed but at the bottom of Overbury Street there was a big yard and it was where they would store all the old tanks and all armaments.
Jenny: Oh yeah
Fred: Just on the bottom of Overbury Street, see you might want to look that up, I don’t know if you have anything on that?
Jenny: No, and I’ve never heard anyone mention that…No.
Fred: They haven’t mentioned that…At the bottom of Overbury Street, on your right by Angela Street, and we used to climb over the wall, the kids..
Jenny: And they used to have…er…store tanks there?
Fred: All wrecked things… what would you call it? War surplus
Jenny: Oh year…
Fred: War surplus stuff.
Jenny: Oh right
Fred: Who was that fellow during the war who (indecipherable) made a fortune out of it…War surplus, you know like the old jeeps and the tanks (indecipherable) and oil drums …All things like that..That was at the bottom of Overbury Street and just round there was Martindale’s coal yard.
Categorised under: Change & Communities, The War
Comments
nice one Fred. The place where you mean was the Pheonix safe works, later called Milners. It was a huge area filled with scrap steel things, we called them tank parts, but I don’t know if they were.
At the side of the place ran Aigburth street, between Smithdown lane and Upper Parliment street. All the offices and workshops were on the right, as you went towards Parliment street.