July 2008 Archives

A LOOKBACK reader has given a fascinating recollection of her time as a 'lumberjill' during the Second World War.
In 1940, Jean Lee from Southport became one of the 4,000 women who joined the Women's Timber Corps and toiled on the Home Front to provide timber for the nation as the male workers went to war.
Often referred to as 'the forgotten army', they worked tirelessly in the forests felling, sawing timber, driving trucks and tractors and working with horses.
At 19, Jean was sent to forestry school for a month in Gloucestershire and was then based in the Welsh Marches in Herefordshire and Radnorshire throughout the war until 1945.
"It was hard work and long hours - we worked 12 hour shifts a day," said Jean, who was a foreman in charge of 40 people.
"And of course it was work that was traditionally done by men, so it was a challenge.
"Not only did we have to learn how to drive tractors, but we had to learn how to fix them if they broke."
The work was done in all kinds of weather.
"I remember the cold winters of the war, when the roads were blocked by snow, but the work had to be done," said Jean.

Jean Lee

"And we often had to walk or cycle several miles to and from work when petrol reserves ran low."
The lumberjills wore the same uniform as the Land Girls, except for a green beret with a wooden tree badge to show the difference.
Jean, now 86, is amazed it was just last year that the British Government recognised the contributions of the Timber Corps and the Land Army to the war effort, by offering commemorative badges to their former members.
But despite the time it has taken, Jean said the greater reward was the friendships she made and the laughs she had.

Jean Lee at the Herefordshire farm where she lodged as a young 'lumberjill'

She said: "I'm expecting my badge in July, which will be nice.
"But the real reward was that it taught me how to get on with different people.
"There were plenty of dances and parties and I made some good friends.
"There was a great spirit of all mucking in together, a 'get on with it' attitude.
Jean added: "It would be lovely to speak to anyone from the local area who was in the Women's Land Army or the Women's Timber Corps. I'm sure we'd have a lot in common."

Jean Lee (far right) with the Women's Timber Corps during the Second World War

Wallasey-born Jean, who moved to Southport with her family during the Blitz, has been a member of Southport Soroptimists since 1965.
To contact Jean call 01704-514561.
For more information about the badge available to those who served in the Women's Land Army and Women's Timber Corps call 08459-335577 or email: womenslandarmy@defra.gsi.gov.uk
WEBSHOUT: DO you, or does a loved one, have a wartime story to tell LookBack? Call Robert Alcock on 01704-398287, email: robert.alcock@southportvisiter.co.uk, or leave a message on the LookBack section of our website

A LOCAL historian is seeking to track down information about a Southport man who documented his war experiences.
Bev Gregory, of Ainsdale, has transcribed and edited the diary of the late Roy Hidderley, which covered his years in the RAF during the Second World War.
Mr Hidderley's service took him to Italy and North Africa and his original diary is on public display at the Botanic Gardens Museum.
A company is now interested in publishing the edited transcript and a search has begun for more biographical information about Mr Hidderley to accompany the project.
It is known that he was born locally and once lived in Pool Hey Lane, Scarisbrick before moving to Clarence Road, Birkdale, in the late 1980s.
He owned a newsagent in Eastbank Street until the 1990s and is believed to have been unmarried.
Mr Hidderley died in January 2002.
Anyone who can offer any help in building up a portrait of Roy Hidderley should call Bev Gregory on 01704-578451 or email: bev23197833@yahoo.com

THE Open at Royal Birkdale may be over for now, but here we continue the theme of last week's LookBack with one last installment of memories from Britain's premier golf tournament.
Peter Wroe chartered flights for the cream of the US golf world to the 1983 Open at Royal Birkdale - and knows that the drama of the championship isn't always confined to the course.
To make sure that legends including Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were returned to their home country with supersonic speed, Peter was responsible for laying on the first flight of Concorde from Manchester to New York to tie in with the tournament.
But as the action heated-up on the course, he remembers tensions rising over the looming prospect of a three-way tie leading to an 18-hole play-off.
That would have been held on the Monday after the usual end of the tournament - the very day Concorde was due to jet back to the Big Apple.
Peter faced the headache of either a delayed departure or flying back with half his complement of America's leading golfers, their wives, officials, VIPs and ABC television crews missing.
It was the playing panache of one of those passengers, Tom Watson, which averted a final showdown, and Peter remembers the relief at Manchester Airport being palpable.
"Watson hit a two-iron online and into the wind," he said.
"And for those involved in the Concorde charter that was the difference between a joyful flight at 55,000- ft and a public relations nightmare."
Peter, now living in Derbyshire, told LookBack how a survey of the cabin on the flight revealed "the cream of American golf enjoying the speed, charter convenience and prestige of Britain's finest aircraft.
"Here on one aircraft were a group of golfers responsible for over 250 Tour victories and over 50 Majors," he recalled.
"Tom Watson, an avid aviator, took the Claret Jug up into the cockpit and spent time with Captain Monty Burton and his crew and posed for photographs at Mach 2.
"Like the 2-iron to the green at the 18th, it was a flight no one would forget."

Five-times Open Championship winner Tom Watson on his return to Royal Birkdale last week

SOUTHPORT is a golfing town - a status never more in evidence than when it hosts The British Open.
Yet despite many aficionados regarding Royal Birkdale as the finest championship course, its addition to the circuit is relatively recent.
Royal Birkdale Golf Club first hosted The Open in 1954 and this week marks the ninth time the tournament has been held on the greens and fairways nestled amid the sand dunes of the Sefton coast.
The golfing highlights of those championships have been many - from the Australian legend Peter Thomson corr winning the first of his five Open titles in 1954 to the then 17-year-old UK amateur Justin Rose coming an amazing fourth in 1998.

British teenage sensation Justin Rose in action on the third round of the 1998 Open

Yet while a golfing feast is always guaranteed, the weather has not proved so certain.
In 1976, spectators basked beneath raging sunshine as the American Johnny Miller triumphed over an initially unknown Spanish teenager named Severiano 'Seve' Ballesteros.
But the heavens opened during the last two Opens at Royal Birkdale, in 1991 and 1998.
Phil Todd found that out to his cost in 1991, when as an eager 19-year-old entrepreneur he bought about a hundred cardboard periscopes to sell to spectators seeking an even better view of the action.
"It started teeming down with rain and they all went soggy," remembered Phil, who lives in Scarisbrick and works as children's entertainer Tricky.

Umbrellas were opened at Royal Birkdale in 1998

Phil and a friend bought a cache of golfing umbrellas in advance of this week's Open, in the expectation of turning a profit if the rain returns.
Churchtown resident Harold Brough is golf correspondent for the Liverpool Daily Post, a sister paper of the Southport Visiter.
He told LookBack of two anecdotes he had gleaned from a retiring former secretary of Royal Birkdale Golf Club.
The setting for the first was the 1971 Open and concerned the tournament's winner Lee Trevino, who was brought up in a run-down shack on the outskirts of Dallas.

Lee Trevino waits for a ruling at Royal Birkdale in 1971

Trevino was on a practice round, standing on the 18th tee which looks up on to Waterloo Road and its famous Round House, and was deciding where best to aim his shot.
Harold recounted: "The story goes that Lee Trevino asked his caddy, 'What's the line in from here?'.
"The caddy said that it was the Round House, and Lee Trevino replied, 'I know, but which window in the Round House?'"
The star in the second anecdote was the victor in the 1991 Open at Royal Birkdale, the Australian Ian Baker- Finch.

Ian Baker-Finch with his daughter Hayley after winning the 1991 Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale

Harold said: "When Ian Baker-Finch won he was well remembered for a lovely picture of him holding the Claret Jug with his daughter.
"Of all the people who faded from the Championship scene I don't think anyone faded as quickly as him - he just vanished out of sight, although he did become a commentator for Australian TV at one time.
"He was obviously thinking of his very sudden and dramatic collapse from being number one in the world when he was at Royal Birkdale on one of his return visits.
"He said to the club secretary, 'What locker was I in [in 1991]?' and the secretary replied with the number and asked, 'Why do you want to know, Ian?'
"Well," he said, "I think I left my golf swing in there!'"

LISA Winder was a student at Meols Cop High in 1991 when her artwork skills landed her and a friend tickets to The Open at Royal Birkdale.
Lisa, then 13, and pal Colette Hall found themselves in the company of the stars when they got to wander in the VIP tent courtesy of a competition organised by Merseyside Police and the R&A.
The tickets plus a £25 cheque came on the back of Lisa's victory in her age group in a contest to design an eye-catching crime prevention poster.
Lisa, from Birkdale, remembered it was "great" to get aboard a train and see her work warning 'Beware of Pickpockets'.
Today Lisa, 30, still produces artwork for pleasure and works in hospitality at Formby Men's Golf Club.
She remembered standing behind Nick Faldo on the course "egging him on".
"We were just giggly 13-year-old girls - we just stood out," added Lisa.

Lisa Winder

PAUL and Karen Howard will never forget the 1991 Open at Royal Birkdale.
The couple decided early on to let their home out during the tournament - only to discover soon after that Karen was pregnant, with their second child due just days before the action teed off.
So, while Australian contender Brett Ogle and his wife spent The Open at the Howards' then home in Russell Avenue, High Park, Paul and Karen awaited the arrival of their son, Jonathan, in a caravan in Scarisbrick.
Paul was also working long hours as the head porter at the Prince of Wales Hotel, which as the headquarters of the R&A was where many of golf's top pros were staying.
He recalled: "All the week of The Open we expected Karen to have our baby any day - but there was no sign of it coming.
"We finally moved back in to our house the day after The Open with Karen now 10 days overdue.
"The next day she went into the Christiana Hartley maternity hospital and the morning after our son Jonathan was born."
Another feature of Paul and Karen's drama was returning to find the kitchen window of their house cracked, and a note of apology from Ogle's wife.
The reason for the damage - which was paid for via the player's management company - remained unexplained.

Paul and Karen Howard had a memorable 1991 Open at Royal Birkdale

"He was doing quite well, he was in quite a good position but faded in the last two days," said Paul.
Today, the Howards live in Baytree Close, Crossens.
Paul, 50, is employed by HM Customs & Revenue in Preston while Karen works at the Spinal Unit at Southport & Formby District General Hospital.
They have a daughter, 19-year-old Charlotte, while Jonathan is now 16 and studies IT at Southport College as well as working part-time for Caterforce.
One lasting legacy of Paul's time working at the Prince of Wales is the signatures of stars including Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus he collected at the 1991 Open, which are featured on the mirror on the wall of the hotel bar.

THE Open at Royal Birkdale forms the backdrop for a Southport success story spanning four generations.
Premier putting coach Harold Swash has been training golfers for more than 40 years and is the innovator of putters and training aids to boost performance on the green.
His creation of the C- Groove putter in 1995 gave rise to a family firm and a line-up of models bearing the names of his daughter, granddaughter and great- granddaughter.
Harold's daughter, Heather Allison, is the credit controller of Yes! Golf (UK& Europe) Ltd - independent distributors of the C-Groove - and her husband Peter is the firm's managing director.
Heather, 47, said: "We always feel our lives have been defined by The Open."
Peter and Heather had been childhood sweethearts and both worked for her father demonstrating an earlier range of putters at the 1976 Open at Royal Birkdale.
She recalled: "1976 was a red- hot summer. We had a house full of Americans and they couldn't understand why we didn't have air conditioning!"
Heather was again at The Open when it returned to Royal Birkdale seven years later, and was heavily pregnant with her son, Andrew Sumner.
Andrew is today a 'category one' amateur golfer, Yes! Golf's European Tour co-ordinator and the father of two-year-old Abbie, after whom Harold named the Abbie putter.
When The Open again came to town in 1991, Harold was coaching British great Nick Faldo and ensured Andrew received the star's autograph.
And before the 1998 tournament, Andrew walked the then 17-year-old amateur Justin Rose around his home course, Hillside.
Rose, whose skills Harold helped to hone, went on to finish in an amazing fourth place and soon turned pro.

Veteran 'putting doctor' Harold Swash (front left) with daughter Heather Allison (front right) and son-in-law and Yes! Golf managing director Peter Allison (back right). Joining them are Harold's grandson Andrew Sumner and great-granddaughter Abbie

By then, Harold had developed the C-Groove in the garage of his home in Hastings Road, less than half a mile from Royal Birkdale.
The patent was bought by a US company and Retief Goosen putted his way to victory in the US Open in 2001 and 2004 using a C- Groove, the success of which hinges on its early application of topspin to the ball.
In 2000 - the year that Peter and Heather again became a couple - Harold gave Peter a C-Groove putter as a Christmas gift, and Yes! Golf (UK& Europe) was soon born.
Bowled over by its effectiveness, Peter decided to take time off from his then garage business to sell the product in the UK.
"I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss - it's too good a product," he said.
Keeping with a trend that has seen the naming of a C- Groove after Goosen's wife Tracy, Harold has named putters after Heather and Heather's daughter, Emma, 19, a stylist at Chapel Street's Toni & Guy salon.
The Abbie putter is the latest addition to that range.
Yes! Golf, based on Banastre Road, has seen a surge in demand from top pros for custom C-Groove fittings ahead of this week's Open.
Harold said: "It's great to have The Open here, as for many players Royal Birkdale is the best championship course of them all."

DAVID Hall owes two superb anecdotes to his attendance at The Open at Royal Birkdale 25 years ago.
Mr Hall, 56, is a seasoned spectator of Britain's premier golfing tournament and is marshalling at this week's event at the 17th hole, with his wife Andrea.
Both play at Southport & Ainsdale Golf Club.
One of Mr Hall's memories from the 1983 Open was of the late Alfie Fyles - the Southport caddy who accompanied US icon Tom Watson on a string of his Open victories.
He said: "A short while after leaving the 18th green at Royal Birkdale after Tom Watson's fine victory [his fifth and final Open win] I was having a pint, when who should walk in but Alfie.
"It seemed strange to me that no more than an hour had passed and he was out of the limelight and having a pint in the Park pub.
"When I asked Alfie why he was not with the victory party, he said it was not for him - he preferred to be with his friends.
"He then produced the ball that Tom had hit his last shots with in The Open - a good drive, a two iron from 213 yards and two putts to clinch the Championship.
"The ball was pristine, it looked like it had not been hit."

Southport's late caddying brothers Albert (left) and Alfie Fyles

Mr Hall added: "I thought afterwards what a humble character Alfie was, a good Lancashire lad."
One of Alfie's seven siblings was his brother Albert, a fellow caddy to golfing stars who died last year aged 70.
Mr Hall also told LookBack how it was Tom Watson's crowning performance at the 1983 Open that encouraged one spectator to land himself well and truly in the rough.
The man was one of the dozen-or-so guests at a customer event Mr Hall was hosting for the Liverpool firm he worked for.
The customer took to following Watson enthusiastically, and at one point disappeared from the group in order to keep up with the golfing idol.
Mr Hall, who lives in the Hesketh Park area, said: "I heard he had run down a sand dune and put his foot down a rabbit hole and broken his leg.
"He disappeared from the party but not in the right fashion."

A WOMAN has fond memories of living in a house in Southport that had once served as the town's Victorian-era hospital.
Sheila Buckley, from Banks, lived with her late husband Eddie and four sons at 42-44 Virginia Street from 1972-83, while Eddie worked as a caretaker for the adjoining premises of the Drury Smart furniture removal company.
Their home, which was opposite Arbour Street, has since been demolished.
But it was steeped in historical significance, having served from 1870 as Southport Infirmary, before the later building of a much bigger hospital on Scarisbrick New Road.
Sheila remembers her sons' bedrooms were built out of part of the old wards, with other relics included the word 'infirmary' remaining visible on the front gatepost and the remains of the operating theatre in the section of the building housing Drury Smart's furniture store.
She told LookBack: "In our kitchen we used to hear water running until we had it examined by someone.
"Underneath the kitchen floor was a giant well, which was the water supply for the hospital. It held rainwater that had come in from round the back somewhere."
Sheila, 70, added: "We have got very, very happy memories of Virginia Street.
"My husband once dug up the garden and found hundreds and hundreds of medicine bottles from the hospital.
"It's sad that something wasn't done to preserve the building."
The foundation stone of Southport Infirmary was laid in Virginia Street in March 1870 and it opened on January 2, 1871.

An artist's impression of Virginia Street Infirmary
Image courtesy of Southport & Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust

It accommodated six male and six female patients and had two spacious isolation wards for the reception of those with fever and infectious diseases.
It also had a mortuary, a disinfecting house and its own laundry.
The numbers treated on Virginia Street rose from 115 inpatients in its first year to 219 by 1894, of which 30 were cases of infectious diseases.
Concerns over the adequacy of arrangements for infections cases led to the hospital's whole attention being turned towards the treatment of accident and non-infectious medical cases.
Yet by 1892, concerns over Virginia Street Infirmary's capacity and the state of its building had led to the launch of an appeal for a new hospital.
That led to the donation of the five-acre site off Scarisbrick New Road by the Scarisbrick family, and the construction of a new Southport General Infirmary - a building which is itself now being demolished.

A CHURCHTOWN woman was born into a new dawn for healthcare in the UK, 60 years ago.
Jean Kershaw, who celebrated her birthday last Saturday, was one of the first local 'NHS babies' who were delivered into the world on July 5, 1948.
She was born at Ormskirk Hospital soon after midnight on the 'Appointed Day' when the new, state-funded service came into being.
The timing ensured Jean's mother, Audrey Prescott née Livesley was saved from having to pay for midwife services.
Audrey, then of New Cut Lane, Ormskirk, but now living in Lincolnshire, was admitted to Ormskirk Hospital to have her first child on July 4.

Jean Kershaw née Livesley aged six months - she was one of the first NHS babies born locally

Jean said: "She told me that the midwife said to her that if you hang on to her long enough you won't have to pay a fee - otherwise you will have to pay a shilling."
Jean, a mother-of-two who works in reception and sales support at the Southport Visiter offices in Tulketh Street, said she was proud to share her birthday with that of the NHS, which had been "an improvement on what went before".
She added: "I'm pleased that my birth coincided with a milestone in history."

Jean Kershaw, who celebrated her 60th birthday last Saturday