Mary Connolly remembers living in Myrtle gardens and shopping on Wavertree Road
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 24th July 2012 by Jodie Mellor
Mary Connolly remembers living in Myrtle Gardens and shopping on Wavertree Road.
Interview Transcript
I lived up there till I was married and we did our shopping in Wavertree Road we went to Freemans, we’d get a cheque off the cheque man as we called him and he’d come round and we’d pay weekly, you paid 10% of whatever your cheque was it was ten pound you paid and so much off it. A pound. . . not a pound. You paid ten shillings a week if it was ten pound and that was the way we got our school uniforms and our clothes but those days you only bought clothes for like, Easter, Whit, Christmas and used your uniforms in between. Its funny because when we first moved there because I went to a college and me walking through the tenements in my college uniform they’d ne shouting “Lends ya hat, we’re avin soup” but then we got on well with all the people they were the salt of the earth they really were. My mother had had a massive stroke when she was only young and she was an invalid and all the neighbours used to come in and help her and the next door neighbour there she had a baby not long after we moved in so she was able to take my mother out and let my mother hold on and push the pram and that was the way she got around. It was great that. And now and again, bonfire night and things like that. Each block would have their own bonfire, Myrtle gardens was split into two the new block and the old block and they’d be fighting each other to try and steal each other’s wood. (Laughs)
Apparently they had shelters in the playground there and below those just the old air raid shelter on the top but if you went in them there was stairs going down and the underneath was a huge big air raid shelter because having tenements and having all those people living there they would need a lot of accommodation for them and there was underground shelters there. The Myrtle gardens were apparently built over an old orphanage and we had some people whose houses were infested with cockroaches and they reckon theirs were built over where the kitchens were and the cockroaches would come into their houses they didn’t reach ours cos ours was on the top.
But erm only for, there was another cheque shop down Wavertree Road called Stirlers and we used to go down to there as well. Wavertree Road was a hive and Myrtle St itself it was a hive of really good shopping. You know, good friendly shopping but now its all gone.
JP: What are your impressions of the area now?
Well its sad to see the demise of all the old places but then you know as progress is, they
People are more mobile now so they can go to the big supermarkets and things so those days people didn’t have cars they had to shop on their doorstep. It was a nice place to grow up and lovely people in that area.
Categorised under: Change & Communities, Shops & Shopping
Comments
hi i also lived in myrtle gardens with my mum and dad and my mums ,mum called minnie wall we lived in 30b i think it was the 3rd floor we moved to norris green in 1967 i was 8 years old and still remember ...
My name was Brenda Abraham we lived at 16d I loved it they were good times we used to go to the Rialto dance and the graft on I went to granby st school…
Hi I also lived in myrtle gardens 16d my maiden name was Abraham I have good memories to i went to granby st school…
My name was Brenda Abraham we lived in 16d happy memories l went to granny st school…