Towering over our house at the bottom of Shand Street there was a huge grey gas tank which used to rise up and then sink back down again depending on how much gas was inside. The tank was sealed off from the street by a high fence made of corrugated tin sheets. One day our ‘mad’ cat crawled into the gas meter cupboard, lay down and just died.
    I suppose it must have been old, looking back now it is obvious that it was a lot older than I was at the time. My dad, being ever so practical, decided that the best way to dispose of the remains was to bag it up and launch it over the big fence next to the tank. I presume the reasoning around this decision was that the ever present whiff of gas would mask any smell of decay as the old tom slowly returned to the earth.
    I watched with a child’s morbid curiosity as my dad swung his huge arm back - He had been a Blacksmith’s Striker in the past and had developed huge biceps - and let the sack fly over the fence.
I will never forget the look of shock on Dad’s face as the sack – with the old tom still inside – came hurtling back over the fence almost immediately.
Being caught doing something like that was not something my dad could easily take. I think he actually blushed with embarrassment.
I like to imagine a gas works worker being hit on the head by our old tom and angrily tossing the sack back over the fence. My dad didn’t hang around to find out, snatching me up with those huge arms he executed a sort of running walk into the alley and through the back gate to our yard.
Later that night he did finally see the funny side and the smile on his face looked as though it would stick for ever.

    Turning right at the King Street end of Shand Street would take you past the tannery and then right into the docks. Passing the large wagon entrance to the tannery was an assault on the senses, both visual and olfactory. The smell of hundreds of salted hides hanging over every available rack, mixed with the liming and tanning chemicals is one never forgotten.
Garston Docks was to me the most exciting place in the world, it certainly seemed to be the busiest. Wherever you went in the docks the noise and frantic activity would almost overwhelm you. Huge, noisy trains would cross the road just in front of you carrying timber, hides, nuts of all kinds in great big sacks. Hundreds ( it seemed like) of burly Dockers would pass back and forth, laughing and shouting to each other, and sometimes to you.
There really was no place on Earth quite like the Docks.
Exciting adventures were waiting to be had along the waterfront every day of the week. It was way too much temptation for a couple of impressionable young boys like Ronnie Massey and myself. I admit it freely, we did ‘Sag’ school quite a lot in the summer and wind our way along the docks and shoreline of the Mersey.
Once every couple of weeks certain local ‘Lads’ would come around door to door selling huge bunches of green bananas. Dad would usually buy a bunch of them if he had the money. That’s when we knew that the banana boat had come in. The lads would get themselves down to the docks and ‘acquire’ their stock in trade to be plied around the streets. Of course, you had to leave the bananas in the dark pantry for a week before they could be eaten otherwise the gripes they would give you could be unmerciful.

    Past the docks, heading south to Speke along the banks of the Mersey, we would find mysterious pipes coming out of the low cliffs, spilling all sorts of green and brown liquids onto the shore. Smelly stuff, sulphurous and acrid sometimes.
If we went far enough we could lie back on top of the sandstone defence wall right at the end of the airport runway and watch the planes skim the fence just above our heads as they came in to land on the short runway.
If the wind was right we could stand and watch the planes come over the hump in the runway at take-off and pass over us, engines screaming as they powered into the sky above the water. On the opposite bank of the river always, was that far away place on the Wirral Peninsular, a better place, posher! Somewhere over there was New Brighton, Moreton, sand and sweet rock and the funfair.
By far the best place along the shore was right next to the Bottleworks.
This is where the big ships came to be broken up.
One summer Ronnie and I watched as this big, black, spooky hulk sitting in the mud disappeared bit by bit as the summer weeks wore on. [Recent research has indicated to me that this could possibly have been the last ship to be broken on the Cassie. I feel privileged to have seen this event at all.]
Summer holidays were always never ending and adventures were to be had every day of those long breaks.

    We walked everywhere, even as far as camp hill in Woolton. I remember the smell of scented flowers along the entrance road as we walked into the park.
It was always hot enough to have your jumper off and tied around your shoulders. Clarkes Gardens was another far off place we visited during the holidays.
The fantastic aviary there was something not to be missed with its exotic grouse from all over the world. Of course these far away places were short diversions from our everyday lives, lived around the docks and the shore back at Garston.
The Dale Street entrance to the docks was the place were the multitudes of foreign sailors entered the City of Liverpool after docking at Garston.
In a vision which would horrify any responsible parent of today I can still see my elder sister and I standing on the long cobbled approach road to the gates begging sixpences from the Russian sailors coming as they left the port on their way to the town.
    Many of them were unfamiliar with the currency and shelled out silver shillings instead! These ill gotten gains were soon exchanged for chocolate and sweets in the King Street shops, especially Rollo’s shop, which was a treasure trove of sweets, broken biscuits and even catapults with ‘Blocky’ elastic.
Once a week my mum would get all of the laundry together and pile it into a huge carriage built pram sporting silver springs for suspension and a thick hood and apron.

    Electricity had arrived the year before, installed by sweating labourers who dug up the pavement in front of our house for the cabling. The workie who dug right in front of our step allowed me to help bale out the flooded trench using an implement that has long since vanished with the advent of mobile pumps. It was a huge ladle made by attaching a large stainless steel bowl shaped chalice to a long wooden handle. I struck up a great relationship with this workie who, looking back now must have been no older that seventeen or eighteen. I was saddened to wake up one morning to find the holes filled in, the street tidied up and the workers with all of their fantastically noisy jackhammers gone forever. Still, there were compensations, our house now sported a half moon shaped light right over the front door to light up the street. This meant that I could ‘read’ my Hotspur by its blue light while sitting on the step during autumn evenings. Not every house got one of these over the door. I remember feeling so proud that ours was one of the houses to get one.

    Despite this new electricity we never did get a washing machine, not even one with a hand cranked mangle. We were stuck with the ‘Bagwash’. Mum would always take the fully loaded pram out of the back gate and up the alley so the posh one over the road - who had an electric washing machine standing by even before they put the lecky in – couldn’t see us going out.
I didn’t care about all of that. I loved going to the wash house. I remember the smell of bleach and Aunt Sally at the bagwash. It was steamy and noisy, so noisy that the women did that mouthy thing they do at each other when it was difficult to hear. The wooden drying racks were a marvel for us youngsters, we would climb all over them and play games for hours. It was a magical place with dark corners and places to hide everywhere.
It was a place of gossip and friendships made and lost. Women would help each other with the wringing out, folding and hanging of sheets and curtains. The Launderette’s of today just don’t make it when it comes to the encouragement of community spirit. Arriving home with the laundry all washed and steam pressed, mum would then hang it all on a large wooden rack hung from the ceiling over the fire. It had pulleys and long strings attached to help hoist it up when it was full and heavy with garments and sheets.
For some reason bath time always seemed to coincide with bagwash day. Maybe it was because the damp and heat of the bagwash made it easier to remove the grime that a six year old picked up living around the docks, and of course, it would take less hot water to perform the whole bath time routine.