November 2008 Archives

DELVING into the history of Birkdale fire brigade LookBack came across these lovely pictures.
Southport Visiter reader Mr Robinson sent in a picture of Birkdale's volunteer fire
brigade from around 1880.
He said: "They say that 'Peace hath it's heroes no less than war', and here are some of them. Conspicuous is the steam boiler for the fire pump, the fire station was in Weld Road near to the level crossing on the north side.
"Despite their somewhat theatrical helmets they were brave men."

Birkdale's eight-man volunteer fire brigade was created in 1876 when the Local Board spent £141-14s-06d on fire equipment from William Rose & Co of Manchester including a hand-drawn reel cart - but no helmets for the firefighters.
Fire historian Simon Ryan explained that because the volunteers lived on Birkdale Common they were too far away to hear the alarm bell and so in 1894 a hooter was fitted to the sewage works on Compton Road to call out the brigade.
In 1898 the brigade was re-organised with Mr Keeley appointed as Captain and eight new recruits enlisted. Electric alarm bells were now put in the firemen's houses and a steam powered buzzer was installed.
Under the new system the first man to arrive at a fire was made Sergeant in charge and received slightly more money.
By 1900 the station on Weld Road was completed by Messrs Fairbridge & Hatch, at a cost of £415 and new appliances were ordered including a horse-drawn hose carriage, horse-drawn steam fire engine and an escape ladder.

From the Weld Road station the Birkdale fire brigade fought huge blazes at the 1905 rail disaster on Hall Road and the King Street market fire in 1913, until the station was closed in 1919 and the volunteer service was disbanded in 1920.
The station was brought back to life to aid the war effort in 1939 when the Auxiliary Fire Service expanded, and later Weld Road was used for training, closing its doors for the last time in 1958 before being demolished in 1971.
Nowadays Southport fire station is responsible for the safety of the public in Birkdale, and in 1979 it took the delivery of a new engine which was named Red Rum at a ceremony attended by the racehorse himself, Salamander and Salvor also serving the station.
DO you have any memories or photos of serving in the Fire Service in Southport?
Get in touch with LookBack at the usual address.

By Philip Kirkbride
LOOKBACK this week takes on a sporting theme thanks to Visiter reader Dave Gilbert.
Dave, who owns the gents' hairdressers on Bispham Road in High Park, sent in some pictures he took of Blowick Football Club in the 1960s.

Pictured is club captain Bobby Lloyd being presented with a cup by Southport and District League chairman Gerry Formby.
Maybe you were part of the team or were in attendance on the day, like Dave.
Do you remember the score and who got the goals for the victorious Blowick side?
Share your memories of the Blowick team - or send us your photos or memories of Southport in years past
- by e-mailing us at: visiternews@
southportvisiter.co.uk or write to us at: LookBack, Southport Visiter, 26-32 Tulketh St PR8 1BT.

WHILE many associate Remembrance Sunday with the world wars, one Southport family was at the service to pay tribute to a young soldier who was killed last year.
Corporal Michael Gilyeat, from the Royal Military Police, died with American and Canadian crew members when the helicopter they were in crashed in Northern Helmand in Afghanistan.
He had been working as a photographer with the media operations team at the time.
The 28-year-old's name was added the Southport War Memorial this year.
His father, also Mike, who served for 18 years in the Royal Signal Corps himself, was invited along to lay a wreath in Michael's memory.

Mike, who is now secretary of Birkdale Golf Club, said: "I always go to the Remembrance Sunday service because I've lost friends in the army.
"But this year was a really poignant day for me as this was the first year that Mike's name was on the memorial.
"The Mayor invited us to come along this year and lay the wreath. It was a very proud day as I was very proud of Michael."
Corporal Mike Gilyeat was born in Hanover in Germany and came to Southport when his parents settled there.
He had previously served in Iraq and Northern Ireland.

POLISH families remembered their own war dead as well as British servicemen and women on Remembrance Sunday.
The Southport Anglo-Polish Society and the Polish Combatants Association gathered at the war memorial on Lord Street on Remembrance Sunday and laid wreaths.
Members of the Anglo-Polish society then went to the Garden of Remembrance to watch Sefton Council chief executive Graham Haywood lay a wreath on the new stone memorial to Polish war victims.
Armistice Day itself has a double significance for Polish people as it is also Polish Independence Day.

Society members went to an Armistice Day service in Formby on Tuesday to pay tribute to six Polish airmen who died while serving at Woodvale air station.
Beata Kowalska, the society's treasurer, said: "On Remembrance Sunday we feel it is important to remember British and Polish soldiers who fought in World War Two.
"My father Stanislav Sobolewski, who was in the Polish cadet force during World War Two, died earlier this year so the ceremony was particularly poignant for us.
"He used to lay a wreath every year as chairman of the Polish Combatants Association. Our daughter Ligia laid a wreath in his memory."

By MICHAEL BYRNE
LARGE crowds gathered to pay tribute to Southport servicemen and women who lost their lives serving their country.
Hundreds of people attended the town's Remembrance Sunday parades in Southport and Ainsdale.
In Southport veterans lined up on parade outside Sainsbury's Car Park on Hill Street before marching to the memorial.

Southport MP John Pugh was among the dignitaries in attendance along with the Mayor of Sefton Cllr Paul Tweed and Graham Haywood, Sefton Council chief executive.
British Legion members were at the parade along with members of the Normandy and Dunkirk veterans associations along with Royal Naval Association.
They were joined by young sea and army cadets while the Salvation Army band played the music.
The Last Post and Reveille was played and a two minute silence was observed in silent tribute to fallen comrades.
Rev John Burgess, formerly vicar at St Phillip's Church in Scarisbrick New Road, Southport, and Father Phillip Gregory, from Holy Family Church also attended.
Graham Marten, Royal British Legion Southport branch chairman, said: "It was a very moving service. The people of Southport always give good support to the Remembrance Sunday Service and I was very pleased to see so many people at the memorial.
"We also had a good turnout for the two minutes silence on Armistice Day itself in Southport."
Children helped make the Ainsdale service extra special by putting crosses on the memorial as their tribute.
The choir from St John's CE Church in Ainsdale sang at the service, which was conducted by St John's vicar Rev Graham Birch.
Eric Lewis, Royal British Legion Southport branch president, said: "The service was excellent and I was really pleased to so many children at the memorial."

ARCHEOLOGIST Gary Andrews will appear on the Channel 4 show 'The Lost Dugout: A Time Team Special'.
The programme has been scheduled to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day and will follow the team as they uncover the underground world of the Great War battlefields.

The 47-year-old Churchtown builder brought his health and safety and engineering know-how to the project, fronted by Tony Robinson.
"He's a nice enough guy, but this was something new for him," said Gary.
"It's modern archeology, really, because you're going back just 90 years."
Gary and other experts were the first people to enter the French tunnels since fighting ended in 1918.
As veterans and their families prepare to mark 90 years since the guns fell silent at 11am on November 11, 1918, the Time Team documentary will serve as a stark reminder of the harrowing and hellish conditions of that truly horrendous conflict.
Gary said: "Few people have been down there and it's an honour to go, but to be in the first group entering since the war, and to not know what you're going to find is nerve-wracking.
"Coming across an unexploded bomb is an emotive thing and that's when you think about how daunting and frightening it is."
Since filming for Channel 4, Gary has become involved with an even more emotively charged project - working with Glasgow University and the Australian army to find the final resting place of 400 Allied troops.
He took part in a dig at Fromelles where bodies of almost 400 Allied troops were found in a mass grave.
The men died during a mission in North East France in July, 1916 in the first battle fought by Australian troops on the Western Front.
The Australian War Memorial describes the battle as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history" because more than 5,000 troops were killed, injured or captured there.
Speaking of the sight of contorted bodies that met the team as they excavated the site, Gary said: "It was emotional and you do connect with it - I get a tingle down my spine now just talking about it."
A special team of forensic archeologists were brought in to start the process of identifying the bodies of the fallen.
"They are amazing people," he said.
"They've worked on the Twin Towers and the Jersey children's home."
Gary expects to return to the French battlefield again to continue the work started by the Glasgow University team.
The Lost Dugout: A Time Team Special will be shown on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday evening (November 10).

THERE may not be any First World War veterans left in Southport as the resort prepares to mark the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, but the town has not forgotten its heroes.
Last year LookBack reported on Paul Edwards's amazing discovery of a pair of medals belonging to Private Frank Webb.
Despite their best efforts, the Royal British Legion and Mr Edwards were unable to restore the medals to Pte Webb's family, and so his Allied Victory Medal and the British War Medal were donated to the Royal Logistics Corps Museum at Deepcut barracks in Surrey.
Since the medals arrived at the museum, curators say that no enquiries have been made about them by possible relatives.
In a plea to find the family of Pte Webb on the 90th anniversary of the war Eric Lewis, president of the Royal British Legion, said: "I would be personally very happy to have been involved with restoring them to the family."
Pte Webb was not the only Southport serviceman to acquit himself with honour during the First World War - Captain Harold Ackroyd, Private R. George Masters and Commander Percy Thompson Dean were all awarded the Victoria Cross for their acts of bravery.
Their fearless acts are recounted in the 1923 Book of Remembrance, with tributes paid to the men "utterly regardless of danger" on the Western Front, France and the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

By JOHN SIDDLE
AFTER spending hours in libraries across the North West, a local cricket enthusiast is on the verge of assembling the complete playing history of one of the town's oldest sides.
Dave Addison, treasurer of New Victoria Cricket Club, has just 130 results left to dig out in the club's 87 year existence.
Following tens of thousands of runs scored in over 2,600 games, Dave, a retired geography teacher, is close to compiling a full record of the historic club.
But gaps in newspaper archives are leaving him stumped - and he needs your help.

Dave said: "I doubt I will ever get all of them but if I can be satisfied that I have done all I can, that'll do. The big problems are when we have played another team in Southport, because if the Visiter hasn't carried the result then it's unlikely to be in the public domain.
"The last fifteen years have been covered by our own scorebooks but there are big gaps in the 1970s and early 1980s.
"I'm just hopeful a reader out there will have records of our matches stored away in a scorebook that's hidden away at home."
Dave spent two years researching the club's history and published a book earlier this year to raise club funds.
The book reveals that, although becoming New Victoria in 1952, the club's roots go back before World War II to teams such as Blowick Wesleyans and Blowick Methodists. Blowick were reformed as Victoria Methodists in 1946 and changed their name to New Victoria in 1952.
Dave said: "The book has sold well and it has been well received by cricketers and cricket lovers far and wide.
"I never thought that when I moved to Southport I'd end up spending most of my time in libraries researching the history of an amateur cricket club, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it."
The club fields two senior teams in the Southport & District Amateur League from their home in Crossens. On various week nights the club runs a number of junior teams, including under 11s, 13s, 15s and 18s.
Dave added: "New Victoria certainly has a future indicated by committed seniors, the thriving junior section and attractive ventures, such as our tour to Bulgaria last year."
To order the book or for more information on the club, contact David Addison on 01704-546293.