The Last Chapter

by Robert Lawson

lot of the comedy was slapstick stuff, so it was quite funny. My dad used to like going to the Empire just to see big bands like Ambrose & his Orchestra, Lew Stone, Joe Loss and others. Ambrose had a young woman singer who my dad liked called Vera Lynn. Later on in years she became famous and was the “Forces Sweetheart” during the oncoming war.

  It was coming to the end of the thirties Hitler was looking to invade the small countries of Europe. Around this time I joined the Boys Brigade Liverpool 8th Troop. I managed to play the drums in the band and enjoyed the gymnasium work we did to keep fit. We went on camping trips, once we went to Ilkley in Yorkshire. It was a very small town but there was a few shops including a Woolworths. One day two of the boys and myself went through “Woolies” and I noticed they were looking to steal something. They picked up a toy pipe each and move d to the door and legged it, with me after them. Why I was running I don’t know, because I didn’t take anything, we were never caught anyway.

  In 1936 I moved to senior school at Lambeth Road. This was a new school built about a year before I got there. It was a modern school in every way. I’d never heard of Science, Biology, Poetry (heard of it never done it) and a teacher for every subject. Mr Rigby was the English teacher S.H. Williams was Maths, the other Mr Williams was Biology/Geography, Mr Ellison was History and Mr Last was P.T. Instruction. Mr Rigby was an absolute terror who would have us recite poetry and if you said a word wrong he’d bang his cane on the desk and would crook his finger and call you out. When you got within arm’s length he’d grab you by the sideboards and twist until you were on your toes. It hurt and brought tears to your eyes. I used to sweat every time I went into his class. He was quite tall with a hook nose and I believe he was killed during the Second World War. D.H. Williams was a footballer who was centre half and captain for Marine F.C. in Crosby. I remember once it was his birthday and between all the class we bought him an alarm clock, he was delighted. The lad who gave him the clock got the cane later in the day for misbehaving. Another day we settled down in our desks and he told us to get our books out for a maths lesson. Someone said “Please sir can we play football. At first he said “No” but kept looking out of the window, in the end he said “Go and get the ball”. We all cheered and finished up playing a smashing game of football, because the playground was almost as big as a football pitch. Mr Last was a tall stocky man who used to have us doing all sorts of exercises in the gym. One of them was a very complicated routine which I found hard to follow. We were going through this routine when I was given an almighty smack on my back. It completely knocked the breath out of me and I was so frightened it was going to happen again I got down to doing the routine. I could do it so good, after a while he had me out in front showing the rest how to do it. This proves that if you concentrate enough you can do anything. The imprint of his hand was evident for anyone to see on my back. Mr Ellison was History teacher who was quite a sportsman and liked a game of football, but a good teacher. The other Mr Williams was a Geography teacher which was my favourite subject. To this day I love to look through Atlas’s and books to do with Geography. Lambeth Road school also had a girls dept. as well as a boys. I believe it was pulled down in the Sixties and houses were but on the site. Just before the war broke out, we were in class and we heard something that sounded like and explosion. Later, through the radio and newspapers we learnt that a fighter plane piloted by a twenty one year old who was just testing the plane, crashed into a house in Royal Street off Walton Road, and Everton Valley. He was killed instantly and he was a minute from Stanley Park.

  In 1939 I was 14 yrs. old. I was in bed one Sunday morning when my mother came upstairs crying and said “The War’s started” the P.M. Mr Neville Chamberlain had given Hitler an ultimatum that if he invaded Poland we would declare war against Germany. He Invaded Poland.

  With the war everything was topsy turvy especially the schools, they were closed for a while. My school was closed and about this time Mr Harrison Captain of B.B. came to see me and offered me a job in his office on the docks at Canada South 2 Shed. My mother went to the school to get my reference from the headmaster. My job was office boy who stuck stamps on envelopes and commuted between Bankhall Station to Pier Head on the overhead railway (Dockers umbrella) four or five times a day, delivering letters to West Africa House where the main office of the American Steamship Lines Ageway (ASLA) this was the name of the company.

  The dock road was bouncing them days, horse & carts everywhere, ships galore coming in. Our particular dock brought in American Ships and the sheds were crammed full of bales of cotton from the Southern States of USA. Being so young I used to like to go on board the ships and the sailors were good to me. I can only remember the name of one ship that used to come from America and that was The “Cripple Creek”.

  When I was in the office for any length of time I would practice signatures. There were four men in the office and I could do all their signatures quite good. This job was interesting because during my trips on the overhead I met other office boys doing the same job. One lad had the same name as me R. Lawson only “R” was for Ronny, he got me smoking for the first time on the train.

  About this time my mother’s brother was having trouble with his wife for quite a while, but now she’d left him with 3 kids Betty, Leonard and Irene was only a baby less than two. He was in a fix and needed someone to take the kids on. My mother said she’d do it, so she took them in. She had problems with the two eldest but that could be expected. Their mother had gone off with someone to London but about 12 months or so afterwards she came back and was threatening to take the kids away. At the time I was 14 and my mother got me in the back kitchen and told me to get on my bike and go to Jims and tell him what was going on. He lived off the Queens Drive and I had to knock him up, he worked nights. When I told him, I couldn’t believe how cool he was, he just said “I’ll be down soon”. I rode home and now that I look back, he must have got a taxi, he was there at the same time as me. He walked up the hall at Stour Street called her out and knocked her half way up the stairs and then proceeded to beat her up and then threw her out. She did come back again but mostly to see the kids. My social life changed a bit too, I started to go to the north park for ballroom dancing in a huge marquee. The “Anniversary Waltz” is a tune I always associate with those days. A lady would play piano in the corner of the room for us to dance to. Most of the kids were only from 13-16 and to see them all dancing the waltz, tango and quickstep was nice to see. I couldn’t see it today.

  The job lasted 6 months and the firm went bust so I needed another job, I’d got used to my wages of 10 shillings a week (50p). I used to buy my mother a bar of Aero and a magazine every pay day, not bad out of 2/6 (25p) the rest went to my mother.

  My dad asked me, would I fancy working in Tyson’s builders, and I said I wouldn’t mind. He only worked around the corner from Tyson’s and knew the manager Jack Smith. I had my interview on a Saturday morning along with my dad and Mr Smith; he outlined what I would be doing. The first couple of years I would work with the woodcutting machinists and then at 16 I would start my apprenticeship. I remember being disappointed because the money was less than my previous job, five old pennies less. My dad said “don’t worry, you’re in a trade now”. I started work on Monday morning and I made the mistake of going in a suit, I don’t know what I expected to happen. We were using “Jarrah” an African hardwood. Peter used to set the machine up so he’d put a rough sawn 4 x 1 through and it would come out planed all round with a tongue and groove. It was so hard it threw up a dust instead of shavings. So consequently every orifice on my body was covered in “Jarra Dust”. I walked home along Great Homer Street into Smith Street and Westminster Road, I made sure the next day I wore something more suitable for the job. I enjoyed my job even though Peter was very strict, he was very funny at times. After a bad night during the blitz Peter was full of it and started with his stories. He said “Thi
s fighter/bomber chased him up the street so he ran through an entry and the plane folded its wings in and carried on chasing him. Another time, he got one of the joiners to make him a tool box and then he had it painted. When he went to get it, it had gone Bobby Skello had pinched it. Peter went mad and swore he’d find out who it was and what he’d do to them. Bobby went in the army soon after and it was later that Peter found out who it was that took his box. Bobby came home in 1947 but Peter conveniently forgot about it.

  During my time working on the machines, I met a few lads who ended up lifelong friends. Bobby Hoyland was an apprentice machinist who wasn’t very popular, he was sarcastic and was just plain nasty to everyone. One day he upset me with something he said and I had a go at him, ever since then we got on ok and became good friends and went out at night together. Bobby Skelton was another machinist apprentice who I made good friends with. Bobby lived at the bottom end of Rose Vale with his parents and brothers (3) and sisters (2). Joe Doran was an apprentice joiner