Thank heavens for the power of the internet. Sometimes it is quite literally like the proverbial time machine, throwing up things from ages past. I have a great memory for most things, but sometimes, even the best memories need a little jog. I have been a member of several local history sites on social media for some time, now as I am still desperate to find a photograph of my old house in Dingle, Liverpool, from the sixties. I am still searching, but amazingly, I have turned up a couple of wonderful shots of the immediate area, which bring pleasant memories flooding back.
The top photograph shows the main shopping street, Park Road in Dingle, where me and my mum would go on a regular basis and I would almost invariably come home with some small toy. Part way down this line of shops - its not clear where - there would have been a fantastic toy shop, packed to the rafters with all kinds of goodies and a regular haunt for me.
Just down the road from my house was the corner shop, owned by a Mr and Mrs Grace, a lovely middle aged couple who had a grocery section on one side of the shop and a big sweet counter on the other and a 'penny tray' of sweets and novelties which I could choose to spend my ill-gotten pocket money on. Here I would find the likes of these chewing gum filled plastic tanks, or capsule toys with rubber monsters inside.
Graces also sold ice creams and lolly ices such as Sea Jet, Zoom and Fab and I distinctly recall the shopkeeper telling my mum that a new lolly was due to arrive to coincide with tv debut of Captain Scarlet - the Orbit!
But it was just today, that I finally found an image of one of my real favourite shops, 'Walters' - a real treasure trove of all kinds of stuff, including Hong Kong toys and mail order items. In these hallowed windows there would always be a great range of Imperial Space sets or a Project SWORD model, prominently displayed front and centre. Xmas was especially exciting as the window would be full to bursting with the latest imports and weird and wonderful toys he had secured from the local warehouses - always the more obscure and cheaper items such as LP, Multiple Toymakers or other foreign makes. Its a shame the photograph is so blurred, i'd love to look in that window one more time!
Great stuff. I found a photo online recently that I think does show the house I lived in until I was about 6. It was the place I remember getting the JR21 Thunderbirds for Christmas, opening them in the back room on Christmas morning! The house in question was demolished when I was still very young, so that the council could build maisonettes!
ReplyDeleteAhh - lucky Kevin ! The house I vividly recall went under the bulldozers blade in about 1971. Such a shame. Ive realised that this pic of Walters shop must be from the 1950's and is of an earlier premises, about 10 doors away. But its the same owner! I'm fairly sure there is another photo in the Liverpool City archives that shows the shop I recall in about 1969.
ReplyDeleteYEA the Internet! I'd forgotten about those plastic tanks which I used in my models as a kid!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I found a photo of my childhood Railway Station in Richmond through the power of Mr. Google! (now if only I could track down that Tanker/Submarine toy set from my youth!)
Here's my Railway station (through the entrance to the right is (was) a kiosk selling Budgie toys!)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28083135@N06/28323313209/
Sometimes, planning departments of Councils took photographic records of shops (to monitor whether they were changing their advertising without permission!). It might be worth asking your Council (planning and conservation departments) whether they did, and whether any records survive. I know this took place in some areas between 1963 and up to around 1972.
ReplyDeleteI suspect this is what the corner shop photo is Andy - certainly a lot of the area was photographed by Liverpool Council before it was bulldozed in the seventies. I'm hoping a shot of my house on Bowring St will appear soon!
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