The Last Chapter

by Robert Lawson

Wembley.

  Bobby had started to learn the guitar, getting lessons off Alan Wright who had his own band, after a while he was playing with the band, he was about 16yrs old. One particular booking his drummer didn’t turn up and they asked Steve O’Hanlon , who was our Pauls mate, to sit in. He wasn’t good enough, so Bobby took over and Alan reckoned he was better than the original drummer, from then on he was the drummer for the band. He was a pain for me at that time because I couldn’t get him out of bed to look for a job. It wasn’t until I realised that all he wanted to do was entertain people that I gave up. He progressed through the years from band to band, but the most successful period was when he was with “Elliot”. They were an excellent band and managed to get on T.V. with “Opportunity Knocks” run by Hughie Green. Now he’s gone solo and is making a living.

  Our Bobby met Francis McAvoy while he was with “Elliot” and she was student teacher at the time, I remember going to her 21st birthday party up in Croxteth. They got married and moved about from one place to another and eventually bought a house in Aintree, where Francis is still living. They had two girls, Michelle and Amanda. Unfortunately they divorced and now live apart but are good friends. Bobby is now a grandad he has three granddaughters Amy, Olivia and Sophie and their lovely. Francis is a deputy head in Kirkby and has been for a number of years.

  Our Paul started an apprenticeship in Wall & Floor tiling at Davison’s and stuck it out until he came out of his time. He then, for some unknown reason went into scaffolding working for John Duggan, he worked on various sites around Runcorn and Widnes. During his teens he had a couple of good mates, Steve O’Hanlon and Alan Wilson and they liked a drink together, and had a couple of holidays abroad. During his teens he met a few girls but nothing came out of it, he knew Chris from when they were younger and they eventually got together. They got married and Jenny was born later on when they were living with us in Bailey Drive, approximately three years later Suzanne was born.

  A year or so after Altitude started, they managed to get some work on Tate & Lyle in Love Lane. One of the jobs was on a flat roof 100ft up and the materials had to be pulled up on a rope and wheel, at the time I was starting my first two week holiday. John asked me if I would help them out in one of my weeks off and I said yes. It was Stan Fruin and me pulling up on the rope and wheel, it must have looked funny, Stan was 6’2” and me 5ft something. We got the job done and finished and they were both made up. The next week John turned up at our house and said he couldn’t pay me for helping them out, but would I like to learn to drive in an old Bradford Jowett van. Although it surprised me, I agreed and so we ran all over Liverpool. Now in them days if a vehicle didn’t start on the key you used a cranking handle to turn the engine over. The Bradford didn’t have a starter motor, so if you let the clutch out while it was ticking over, it would stall, then you would have to crank it. So when we were going up Church St. toward Bold St., we came to a zebra crossing and there were hundreds of people milling around and the engine stalled. I looked at John and he looked at me and then he said “You’re the driver, you know where the handle is”, I felt a right fool trying to turn it over but eventually it did. I passed my test at Crosby in 1962.

  I was knocking a wall down in Clare Road, I looked through a hole in the wall and seen my future daughter-in-law for the first time her name was Beverley. Tommy and Bev were married at St. Francis De Sales in Walton. My mother and dad were there because it wasn’t long before he died. Our Anne was only 14yrs and was a bridesmaid. Their first baby was born in February 1971, my dad died in that year but got to cradle the baby (Mark) in his arms before he died. He’d be quite proud of Mark if he was alive to-day, he has done very well for himself. They went to live in Parbold near Wigan and are still there after 30 years, Tracey was born around the same time as they moved in. Tracey is married now and lives in Tarleton Nr. Preston with Chris her husband. Mark is also married with 2 children to Vanessa who comes from Wigan, they live in Parbold and Mark is quite successful in work.

  A few good friends have died, Harry Millington first then Fred Walker and later on Frank Mithcell and Frank Dorman. A few years later after a long illness John Duggan died in Southport hospital, John’s wife Kathleen did a great job, visiting him every day while he was ill. I owed a lot to John, he did his best for me while I worked for Altitude. I never really liked scaffolding, but John always used to say the only people you can trust are your family.

  Going back to when I worked in Altitude, there was a Liverpool driver and he was a great help we worked well together, his name was Peter Corkill. One particular job we did was a church in Wigan, we delivered the material and I made a list of everything, a couple of weeks later we picked the materials up and gave it into the office. The next day I was called into the office and the secretary told me there was lot of fittings missing, John wasn’t too happy about it. But I asked her to check it again, she did and apologised to me, because she had made a mistake, I was relieved, so was John. Another time I worked on a power station with a couple of Manchester scaffolders, we were having breakfast in the canteen when one of them said “How come you have to come from Liverpool every day when they could use a Manchester man”. I then proceeded to tell them I was related to John, the silence was deafening, one them said “We’ve got a spy in the camp. I told them I was there to earn a living and not to spy on anybody, as the years went on I had to tell quite a lot the same thing.

  I went off the job for a while, for what reason I don’t know, while I was away the gang on site were robbing lead and copper from where ever they could. They were caught by security, stripping lightening conductors, consequently they were fired, Altitude were lucky to be still on site. They needed a new foreman and asked me would I do it, I took over and things went on alright. We had a four man gang, the labourer was Johnny Cooke ex British Welterweight Champion. We were there until the “English Electric” closed down, I was put on “Bibbys” on the dock road,

  We went on holiday to the I.O.M. with a party of 36 including all the kids, to put it in a nutshell, it was awful everything went wrong. The weather was terrible and Marie and I fell out and it lasted the full holiday. My parents were with us, I think my dad was the only one who enjoyed the holiday.

  During the time my dad was ill, he had to go to Clatterbridge Hospital for treatment and to get there was awkward for us because we didn’t have a car. However, Tommy had an old banger he offered to lend me to over to the hospital, it was a godsend and served the purpose. Believe it or not Tommy got in it after we finished using it, and the car packed up on him.

  My dad died the following year of cancer, we looked after him between us, Marie, Ethel, Frank and myself, we looked after him a couple of hours each time until he died. It was something you couldn’t imagine, it was unbelievable. I was working on my own, which was worse I couldn’t stop crying. It took a long time to get over my dad’s death but they say time is a great healer. My mother continued to live in 43 Ripon Street in Walton, where she lived with my dad for approximately 7 yrs. after moving from Carisbrooke Road.

  My family were growing up, Tommy was 20 and had finished his time as a fitter at Scotts Bakery, Netherton, and was married, Paul was working as an apprentice tiler, Bobby was pursuing his show business career, Anne was 14-15 and still at school, John was around 7 and a live wire.

  That year we went on our first holiday abroad, John Duggan talked us into it and helped us financially. We went to Pinada in the Costa Brava in northern Spain, all the kids except Tommy went with us and it was fabulous, being August it was hot. I remember walking down the steps from the plane at something like midnight and at first couldn’t understand why it was so hot. It was a great holiday, one we will never forget. We went to a massive barby, it so happened it was my birthday and our John (7yrs) thought they’d all come to my birthday party, there was at least 500-600 people there.

  John Duggan asked me if I fancied starting my
own business along with Brian his youngest brother. We decided to do it, we bought a lease on a shop in Linacre Road and started a building company with a D.I.Y. shop. Marie ran the shop and she did it exceptionally well. We started doing grant work and made a load of mistakes on some of the jobs. Neither of us were good for business, I only knew one aspect of the building trade and that was joinery. I found myself pointing brickwork, laying concrete and other things I wasn’t conversant with. We were on minimum money, which was hard going, Marie was on buttons for what she done in the shop. On top of everything we had a couple of break-ins , one in particular was over Christmas and completely cleaned us out. The insurance had run out, so that was a blow, after everything else. The police said they knew who it was but they couldn’t do anything because if they walked in the pub the thieves would know them, they asked if we would go in and bring them out. We told them where to go. There was some friction between Brian and me which made it uncomfortable to work together. Overall I wanted out, the sooner the better, I wasn’t enjoying it and