… or 50+ year-old negatives brought back from the brink.
These pics are from my first roll of 35mm colour film. I thought they were lost forever but during a sort out I came across them in an envelope marked “for repair”. The story goes that my dad bought me a £2 saleroom camera (see first pic). It had two faults: it tore the film when it wound on frames and err all pictures were out of focus! …mmm so that’s why it was £2. However, by very careful treatment I managed to get some images off the negs, and they had their own story…
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“Netherton Mutt” – thrown out by its owners and he wandered as a wild dog around Marian Square for months (until my Mum befriended him). Hey, we’re getting a dog! His lifetime achievement was coming last in the Crosby Dog Show (“the dog you would most like to take home”) …after that little performance in the ring
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Dad got in on the act with probably a fake demo of the Black and Decker hedge trimmer he’d picked up (from the saleroom). The prefab had very long hedges on three sides, and they needed keeping down! At some point clippers didn’t work.
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Yes, this is definitely a fake lawn-mowing pic – dad was not known for that. Of historical interest that lawnmower is a Suffolk Punch Colt, as dismantled and reassembled by James May in The Reassembler – https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4256hv Amazing thing about that show is I recognised every part. Our mower spent more time on the workbench getting fixed than lawn mowing.
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A nice one of Skip (or to give him his full name: Skippy Bongalows Conley). He was my mate in those long summer holidays.
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Pointing my Emi K camera above the hedges and across the road diagonally from the prefab, a lady crosses over next to number 92 Hatton Hill Road. Someone on MOGUIL will be able to identify the car, I’m sure. I remember number 92 had a lovely red setter called Kerry.
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And so, on this July sunny Sunday I set off around Hatton Hill Park for a walk to test the “new” camera – capturing what it looked like 51 years ago. All photos from this point on have been “de-blurred” using software, without it you can’t see much. It does introduce little glitches though. Not many kids in the park. You can see the grain terminal at Seaforth under construction and the initial appearance of the flats.
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Next stop on the photo-walk was a peek inside the tennis courts – there were four courts, and generally only occupied for a few weeks after Wimbledon each year. These pics were blurry beyond recognition on the original negative.
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Ahhh…. and the beautiful uplifting flowers of Hatton Hill Park. These pics were very blurred and not even software could save them, however they are included to trigger a memory of just how nice they were. A small team of gardeners maintained the whole park from their base in a large greenhouse near the town hall. One of the first victims of losing Litherland Council is all this quality disappeared.
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Walking to the centre of the park, we look up the hedged path between the bowling green and rockery (left) and the children’s play area (right). All very special.
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An example of a wonderful flowerbed cultivated by the park gardeners. There was never any vandalism, it provided a spectacle and relaxed atmosphere. This was my world and I’ve never forgotten it.
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Another example of an elaborate display. Of course, with that many flowers there were thousands of honeybees about.
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Even the simple borders had flowers, I’m still amazed at the amount of effort this took and how lucky we were to have this. Remember this is just a few years after flower power.
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This is a composite of shots so blurry they couldn’t be rescued but included for memories sake. I wish the shots of the Parkie’s Pavilion were in focus, it never looked this good and security measures did not dominate everything.
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I must have popped out of the park and took this one of Sefton Street shops. This would have been humming with activity all week with prams outside. If I win the lottery, I’d restore this to what it was (with awnings!). There are some eyesores there now. I loved the diversity of businesses there and tidy look.
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Here I’m doubling back up Hatton Hill Road next to the doctors. Amazing to see the chap smoking a pipe with tie on, I wonder if the any super-sleuths can name him?!
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Crossing to a mid-point of a very quiet Hatton Hill Road, not over-dominated by the car, looking up towards the houses where the next pics were taken.
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Here is the Sunday 58 Corpy bus with not many passengers. The 58 was mostly a “red Ribble route” so you knew when it was the weekend. It’s also a pic of what we used to call “The Goodgens” – the green space between the park and the road with an amazing variety of trees and bushes brimming with wildlife.
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Composite of the beautiful roses outside of 62 Hatton Hill Road. These pics can’t do justice to the blast of colour and scent that came from nearly every house cultivating roses. It was very much of its time and as you can see many households took pride in their flowers.
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What an amazing variety of flowers. They looked great next to those traditional houses and windows. As for the cute little wooden fence, you could always go to the woody (Owens Peck) or Quinlans (DIY store in Sefton Street) and replace bits that fell off.
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A composite of more flowers that were too blurry to rescue from the negatives.
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nd here is a chap tending his roses. My mum was the same – she was always banging on about pruning and deadheading.
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Close to journey’s end now – this is the house next to the entry that used to cut through to Litherland Park (the old house) – we went to school that way for several years.
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And finally, this is Mr. Cleggs roses (he was the Funeral Director – the original L. J. Clegg) living at No. 86, diagonally opposite the prefab on Hatton Hill Road. The allotments entrance and police house (No. 88) is in the background. All-in-all I was surprised by this “for repair” roll of film, most of the prints had been lost and most were chucked out because they were so blurry, but software saved the day.
