The Last Chapter

by Robert Lawson

did the same again and as I did, a police vehicle passed me. When I arrived at the end of the tunnel a Sergeant stopped me and asked me could I read, and pointed to six foot letters “NO OVERTAKING”. I said, “if you’re going to book me, do it because I’ve only got a couple of minutes left”, he did book me and I only just made it to work. About a week later, I was in the local pub and a neighbour came up to me and said “I see you were fined for overtaking in the tunnel on your motorbike”. When I said “It was my pushbike I go an unbelieving look from him. That’s what I got most times when the told that story, I was only 25-26 yrs. old and fit, otherwise, I couldn’t have done it. I think I was fined £3, it was actually in the Liverpool Echo, that’s how my neighbour knew before me, I paid it at Birkenhead courts.”

  My mother-in-law noticed in the Echo that the “Liverpool Opera Co.” were looking for singers and suggested I try for it. I wrote to them and they asked me to go down for an audition, I had a sort of congestion in my chest at the time but I still went. They asked me for sheet music and I gave the “Come back to Sorrento”, I only sang 2 or 3 lines and they told me I had got through and landed in the chorus. I was with them until we moved to Gorsey Lane in Ford and I decided not to leave Marie and the kids, it was a bit out in the wilds at the time.

  Through doing the Charity Show in Everton Valley Church I met a comic, his name was Jimmy Pullen who asked me did I want to get some experience going on bookings with him. He did his act and then introduced me to sing a song or two, I enjoyed it while it lasted.

  We did a few factories in Birkenhead on suspended ceilings. A joiner called Harry Thompson used to like to hear me sing, I was keen on opera, especially tenor soles and used to try and sing songs I liked. Harry was my critic on the job and used to tell me if I was rubbish or not. We did a school one time putting ceilings in a couple of the classrooms, one of the lads who’s name escapes me was getting married and wanted to take us all for a drink. We made the mistake of starting in the dinner hour and carrying on until late on Friday night (after work), we couldn’t afford taxis so we had to get buses. Eventually, I made it home and Marie was at the front door, she was obviously worried and I was in the dog house for quite a long time. Peter Moylan was a mate of mine who was working with me and he had the same problem, mobile phones were unheard of them days.

  I joined up with a lad called Tommy Minns who served his time in Tyson’s but he was a few years younger than me. We went looking for work on his tandem (Bicycle–mad-for-two) and we covered some miles while we were together. We lost touch after a while and when I started with Knowsley Caravans he was already there, he didn’t stay long because he was a bit of a wanderer.

  It was in the middle of the 1950s and an epidemic of “Asian Flu” had arrived from the far east, it caused havoc all over Europe, people young and old were dying. I was down in the bowels of a ship when I started to feel bad, I started to sweat and yet felt cold. One of the men advised me to go home, but my first thought was what I would lose in wages. Eventually, I had to go home and I was off for something like 3 week. When the doctor first came, he said to Marie “He’s the worst of all I’ve seen today”.

  We arrived at Gorsey Lane with 2 kids Tommy and Paul, we were made up to get our own house although there was a lot of work to do with the garden back and front. Just a couple of shops and that was it. The neighbours were from out of town they were key men in the English Electric in Netherton. Iris lived next door and was a good friend to Marie, she had 3 boys, the youngest was Christopher, and we often used to bring him to safety away from the main road. I remember being in Iris’s and her husband (she called him dids) was talking about wages, he said “I don’t know how they expect a man to bring a family up on £15 a week”, and I was dumb struck. My wages were less that £9 a week, Marie worked wonders with what I gave her. Now, I wonder how she managed the kids, sometimes, while I was at work. Bobby and Anne were both born in Gorsey Lane. Except for Tommy all our family were born at home, that’s the way it was then. Marie rationed the food to suit everybody and I remember Tommy asking “When can I have a full meat pie”, because any pies were cut in half.

  In 1953 Everton played Villa at Villa Park, John Duggan and I went by coach, when we got there, we joined a big line when we got to the turnstile the policeman stopped us, and said “That’s it full up”. He then told us to join another line on the other side of the ground, which we did and that was twice as big. It started to mushroom when it got near to the turnstiles and an old man was getting squashed, me and John kept the crowd off him to give him air. The outcome was , we missed out again we didn’t get in and to top it all, a mounted policeman’s horse reared up, I slipped and was almost killed, only that John pulled me out. When we got our breath back, we realised the next best thing was to go to the Park at the back of the ground, we could actually see some of the game. Anyway, with about 20-25 minutes to go they opened the gates, it was like the charge of the light brigade and me and John were in front. We got ourselves in a nice spot in the ground and a clearance out of defence was met by Ted Buckle who run from the right wing to the left and then slotted the ball in front of Dave Hickson who had started to run in a race with the centre half, Dave banged it home for the goal of the game. It was a consolation after not getting in earlier. The next round was just as good, we won against Manchester United at Goodison 2-1. Dave Hickson scored the winner with a bandage on his head. We went out in the next round, but I don’t recall who it was, anyway, 1953-54 season we were back up and Liverpool went down. We had to beat Oldham 6-0 to win 2nd Division Championship, but could only win 4-0, Leicester won the Championship.

  Another interesting job was converting a troop ship into a luxurious liner for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip to go to the Far East – Australia/New Zealand, and after all these years I’ve forgotten the name of the ship. Some of the work was classy, but the work was slow because of the lack of materials, but we still worked overtime. However, the King died and Princess Elizabeth was next in line, so the job was abandoned.

  In 1952 I applied for a job shop fitting for Dewhurst (Butchers), I was interviewed by the manager, a straight lased stuffed shirt sort of man who always looked miserable . I got the job and enjoyed the work I was doing. Jack Hussin was on the next bench to me, he did he counters for the shops, a decent joiner but when it came to the machine shop he was too cocky, he should have had more respect for machinery, future events will prove this. About 18 months after I started, a young lad came to finish his apprenticeship after the firm he started with folded up, they made wooden pulleys for shipping, and his name was Jerry Carr. Jerry and I got on great, maybe because he was a good Evertonian had something to do with it.

  Jerry and I got a start in Cammell Lairds in the new yard, the work was interesting, we were building cabins and then fitting the furniture inside, it was near to Christmas and I said to Jerry “Keep your head down and do your work. There were about 50 joiners on board and half of them didn’t want to work, all they did was have sly smokes. When the ship finished, the foreman pulled six of us out and told us to go to Queens dock, to work on a ship doing some insulation work, this seen us over Christmas so it paid off to keep our heads down. Another time we were at Lairds and we the “Mauretania” had gone and docked at Gladstone Dock. J.D. Insulation was doing an insulation job over the weekend and a couple of all-nighters. It was short term, but the money was good, the job wasn’t comfortable. We were lagging the pipes in the engine room, being the smallest I was in amongst the pipes and Jerry was cutting the cork to fit and between us we got things done.

  The “Empress of France” had docked at Gladstone Cock and Jerry and I went down to see if there was any work. I always said to Jerry “always say you’ve done it before”, so when the foreman asked us, we said we could do it, the work was polished panelling and looked good. The following morning we arrived for work and brought our boxes on board. This man came over to us and introduc
ed himself as the jobs steward, he asked us if we had been sent from the Labour Exchange, we said no. He proceeded to tell us that we couldn’t start, because we hadn’t been through the proper channels. The foreman was furious he said they’ll probably send me 2 old fogeys and as we were going towards the gangway these two old fogeys were coming up, so much for self-enterprise.

  After the ships we found ourselves out of work, at this time we lived in Ford, jerry came up and he’d got us a start building caravans, it was new move to Kirkby. I was put on the erecting gang, jerry was furniture fitter and we enjoyed the work. We did some special vans for some gypsy’s who always paid cash. I worked with a young man called Eddie Hare who was quite a funny lad, Eddie was only 21, and I was in my middle thirties. One of our gang was vehicle builder who thought he was better than any joiner. He was a very good sculpture in wood, but the problem with him was he was doing foreigners while working on a bonus scheme. He actually built a crib for his friend’s baby. I was charge hand, so I had to tell him, he