The Last Chapter

by Robert Lawson

died. She was riddled with arthritis but had a wonderful spirit and was always cheerful. While I was with Litherland M.V.C. we took her to a couple of our concerts at Crosby Civic Hall. Our other neighbours were a family called Baker, Dave and Pauline had two girls and a boy. Dave was a good gardener and worked on it a lot and consequently he had a good crop of everything, they both worked for the Metal Box in Bootle.

  I was working for Knotty Ash when we moved and the driver offered to move us, what a mess the place was when he’d finished, it took us a long time to get ourselves straight. We enjoyed our stay in Jubilee and got on alright with all the neighbours. I bought an old banger off a friend of our Tommy’s who lived in skelmersdale, with a respray it only cost me £100. It was quite reliable for the time I had it and I was still driving it when we started the Chippy in Skem. We used it for a short while and eventually traded it in, I was allowed £700 on it. Tommy and I got two Maestro’s and Marie and I used to pick up stock in the car, we did that for quite a while. We decided to get some kind of a van for the stock, Tommy’s car was wrecked, so I gave him mine and traded his in for a new Honda Van. What a difference putting stock in the van as opposed to the car.

  A story from when we lived in Bailey Drive. They were pulling down the houses in Marmion Avenue around the corner from where we lived, and then building new ones. Any timber stripped out was put on a bonfire and burnt, I’d seen a back gate, I thought I could use, so I took it and fitted it, it looked tidy. The only thing missing was the receiver for the thumb latch, our John was about 13-14 and I asked him to take a screw driver and get me the receiver, which he did. The next thing, the police were knocking on our door and were asking questions. Apparently a neighbour had seen John and his mate fiddling and alerted the police. I explained to the Sergeant other than see it destroyed by fire, I could put the gate to good use, his response was “We are going outside now to decide whether to charge you with theft”. I was gobsmacked when he came back to tell me I was being charged along with our John, we had to go to Bootle Police Station and go through the humiliating experience of getting my fingerprints taken. We were summoned to Bootle Magistrates Court. In the meantime I contacted Rex Makin and after we were allowed Legal Aid, we were represented by Rex Makin’s son, I think we must have been his first case. When we got to the courts he told me to plead guilty and I would just be fined a small amount. I said there was no way I was doing that and when I went in they read the charges and asked me how I pleaded, I said “Not Guilty”. The next week we had to go through it all again and eventually we were referred to the Crown Courts in town. When we got there, the case before us was murder case and went on for longer that was expected, so we had to go over to Birkenhead Courts. Young Makin got us a barrister and I sat and told him the story, when we got in, being a crown court there was a jury of 12 people. The barrister was brilliant and made everything sound so easy. Then I had to take the stand and the judge asked me did I think I was stealing when I took the gate and I said “No I didn’t” It took the jury about 5 minutes to find us “Not Guilty”, what a relief for us both, but my argument is, it was not necessary, just because a mindless idiot as that Sergeant was, decided to charge us. I would like to know how much of the tax payers money was spent on the case. I could have gone the easy way by pleading guilty but we weren’t , so I didn’t, apart from that we would have had a criminal record.

  Another part of my life I didn’t enjoy was Christmas of 1972, the previous year my dad had died. Without going into detail me and my sister Ethel had a fall out which lasted 14yrs, but gladly all is fine between us now.

  Another site I worked on, was Sandbach I actually ran that job, I had a good gang of men from Manchester. When I arrived there were people screaming for their jobs to be done, it took me some time to organise things. Eventually things settled down and we did ok, the job lasted about a year.

  I.C.I Widnes was dominated by North West Scaffolding when we landed some work on the site. It was an uphill battle, because N.W.S. were favourites for the best jobs. Their supervisor Bobby Stewart was there every day and used to take the bosses out for drinks or a meal, it worked. I gave our office all this information but nothing happened.

  Crossfields in Warrington was a similar situation, Liverpool Depot were running it and for some reason, the powers that be wanted them off the site and Manchester was going to take over. The foreman Liverpool had been using, was fired, so he starts up on his own with brand new gear and he used rock bottom prices, his face was known on site. I approached inspectors and foreman every day but it was like banging your head against the wall, once again, no visits from the office. I actually got the blame for us not being successful on the site. I challenged the person who told me, I said I’d take the 2 bosses and anyone else who wanted to come to the site and introduce them to the inspectors and foremen to prove my word. Needless to say no one took me up on it, they were alright talking from behind a desk. The real problem was none of them had the enthusiasm John Duggan had, if they had, things may have been different.

  Brian Duggan had become manager of the Manchester yard and was instrumental in my getting on some of these sites. The rumours were going around that they were selling out to Cape a worldwide concern and a clean out was inevitable. Brian had to put me and his father-in-law on notice, I was 56yrs and I wasn’t sorry, the staff in the office all Manchester men didn’t like scousers anyway. Brian was ousted out and they brought their own people in, I was glad to be out of it. There is no way I would have stayed in scaffolding if it hadn’t had been for John Duggan. Every time I thought about leaving I felt I’d be letting him down. I may have been wrong but I felt a certain resentment towards me from some in the Liverpool Office.

  I was out of work, we were living in Bailey Drive, Bootle after leaving Clare Road. My mother-in-law was ill and needed looking after. She’d lived with Brian and his family in Fernhill Road and for the most part, could look after herself. She had a stroke and was deteriating slowly and they couldn’t cope, we took her home with us and looked after her until she died in Feb 1982.

  I was out of work and our neighbour next door had his own joinery firm in Bootle, he’d bought a big house in Stanley Park, Litherland and asked me if I want to work on it for £80 a week. I accepted, the weather was shocking, we’d had heavy snow falls and I used to walk from Bailey Drive to the job. The work varied, but I was enjoying myself, he asked me would I go to London with his partner’s son to a building site, to bead hundreds of windows that hadn’t been finished. We went by car and we made a few bob out of it.

  While I was working on the house, I was taking our John on driving lessons, he was only 18yrs and to cut a long story short, he passed first time and we were all delighted.

  I applied for a job with Knotty Ash Joinery, after seeing it in the Echo, I got the job. I was to start in a house off Edge Lane, our John took me up there in a car he’d got hold of. I was a bit nervous, but it only took a couple of hours before I felt I’d never been away. I worked there for a few weeks, then went to Hornby Road, Walton close to Walton Jail. It was a block of terraced houses and they were being converted into flats, that lasted a couple of months and then they asked me if I wanted to work in the Joiners shop and I accepted. Mike Blanchflower was the foreman in the shop and he was an excellent tradesman. We did various jobs there, but it was mostly making window, box frame type etc. I enjoyed it in the shop, there was Mike, myself, a lad just out of his time and an apprentice. After a few months Mike asked me to show the apprentice how to do the windows, which I did, as soon as he’d got the hang of them, I was moved to a job outside. There was very little for me to do and I feared the worst, Vinnie was one of the bosses and it was him who gave me some excuse and fired me. What it was, I’d been there 1yr 11 months and after 2 years, they have to give you severance pay, I’m sure that was the reason. Mike was quite happy with me in the shop and told me so.

  It didn’t take me long
to land another job, the Sefton Council were wanting men to work on the flats in Marsh Lane, Bootle. Mainly, it was maintenance work, like hanging new doors, fitting kitchen units, repairs to windows etc., I was there about 2 yrs. up to 1984.

  Our Tommy had been running a mobile chippy van, but there was a chance he may be able to buy and existing business. It was a chippy come corner shop and appeared to be doing well, he asked Marie and me did we want to go in on it. I was nearing 60yrs and we were undecided, so we went up one day and watched scores of school kids going in and out in their dinner hour. We were convinced it would be alright so we agreed, I suppose the extra collateral was needed for the bank to let us have the money. We decided it would be 2 on days and 2 on nights, Tommy had a girl who helped him on the van and she agreed to fall in with us. Our Anne helped for quite a long time, and our Paul came up occasionally. The first year was unbelievable, the takes were brilliant especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Marie and myself went to the cash & carry places to get stock, and were not getting home until