A LOOKBACK appeal for memories of former Southport nightspots yielded a fascinating response from one Mornington Road resident.
Proud Sandgrounder Mrs M Kenton wrote to tell readers about nights out she enjoyed in “lovely old Southport” and a clutch of long-gone venues.
Once in the 1950s, she visited the ‘Vic Dive’, the underground bar at The Victoria Hotel in Nevill Street.
Her mother had worked as a cleaner at The Victoria, which she remembers being part of a TB hospital during World War Two.
It has long since been demolished and replaced by flats.
The Victoria Hotel is on the right of this 1910 image of Nevill Street
Mrs Kenton, 79, remembers the hotel having a “lovely lounge”, with other features of 1950s Nevill Street including Rossi’s ice cream shop – which is still open today – the Coliseum Cinema and Thorpe’s bar.
Other venues popular with Mrs Kenton and her peers were ‘Diamond Lil’s’ bar at the side of the Carlton Hotel and the Top Hot Club on Duke Street, near Lord Street United Reform Church.
While these nightspots are now gone, Mrs Kenton remembers one Lord Street location before it became a public house.
As a 14-year-old during World War Two, she laboured in what she called the ‘War Factory’, a site more recently occupied by JD Wetherspoon.
“I packed haversacks for soldiers and my eldest sister did camouflage nets,” she said.
Another of Mrs Kenton’s war memories is of recovering US Army airmen at the Palace Hotel in Birkdale.
The bar at the long-demolished Palace Hotel in Birkdale
The hotel – which was opened in 1866 and finally demolished in 1969 – was taken over by the American Red Cross in 1942 and more than 15,000 personnel recuperated from active flying service there.
“The pilots sat on the low wall, which is still there,” she said.
Mrs Kenton also toasted her “luck” at once seeing silver-screen idol Clark Gable walk down Lord Street.
Gable, star of ‘Gone With the Wind’, is known to have once stayed at the Palace Hotel – as did Frank Sinatra – and spent most of the Second World War stationed as an airman in the UK.
Clark Gable, who was seen walking down Lord Street, as he appeared alongside Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind
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