One of the most important aspects of this blog has been to give voice to the experience and views of council estate residents, so often ignored, too often maligned. I’m pleased to feature today a post from Tom – in response to posts on Speke on the blog in April and May this year – who describes his own experience of growing up on the Estate and his views on the mistakes that were made in its planning and design.
Thank you Municipal Dreams for remembering the Liverpool suburb of Speke: a forgotten part of a forgotten city.
I was born in 1951 in, now demolished, Mill Road Maternity Hospital, Liverpool. My parents lived in the Dingle, a wartime bomb-damaged part of Liverpool 8, in a one-room bedsit with an outside toilet. They registered for a new city corporation rental house. For two and a half years my mother attended council surgeries for an update on the request. In 1954 we were allocated a two-bedroom house in Speke, on the city’s southern limit.
Properties in Speke were several orders of magnitude better than accommodation most of its residents had lived in previously. Houses were well built, brick throughout, and had front and back gardens. There were indoor toilets and plumbing for hot and cold water. If you wanted hot water however, you had to light the coal fire an hour before: electric immersion heaters were some time off yet.
Growing up as a child in Speke was idyllic. We lived on the northern perimeter road opposite a farm. Childhood was exploring woodland and playing ‘hide and seek’ in wheat fields. South of Speke was more farmland, more woods and the River Mersey, three miles wide at that point. The river was too polluted to swim in, but it had a sandy shoreline and off in the distance up river, an afternoon’s walk away, Hale lighthouse. What more could a child ask for?
Alderfield Drive from Speke Boulevard, February 1972 (c) Tom Speke
Speke Town predates the City of Liverpool, and had been fertile farmland for centuries. The genesis of Speke as a Council Housing Estate dates from the 1930s when Liverpool City Planners became enamoured with the ‘Garden City’ concept as a solution to the problems of a post Industrial Revolution inner city full of overcrowded slums. Plans were made for a ‘self-contained satellite town’.
The desperate need for new housing was exacerbated by Second World War bomb damage and further hastened by the post war ‘baby boom’ population explosion. In the space of a few years (c.1938-1953), Speke mushroomed from a pre-war census of ‘400 souls’ to 25,000 people. In the process, any vestige of old Speke, or its farming history, was bulldozed off the map. Speke Town was buried under the intersection of the newly constructed Speke Boulevard and Speke Hall Avenue.
Close scrutiny of the 1952 photograph, Dunlop’s factory in an earlier post, reveals that large chunks of Speke had still to be built, specifically the central shopping area known as the Parade. From memory, I was nine or ten years old before there were any central shops to go to. There were vans driving around Speke selling groceries, a practice that lasted until the mid 1970s. I have a cine film record.
This ‘Garden City’ idealism never progressed beyond the drawing board. Houses were built and then the building stopped: schools, shops, churches and community centres, all took up to a decade to build. The promise of a ‘self-contained’ Speke went unfulfilled.
The ‘Garden City’ idealism also contained an ill-founded assumption that city people would prefer to live in the country and could be transposed en masse. The ‘self-contained satellite town’ of Speke degenerated into isolated, urban, frontier country, still within the city limits, but a bus ride away from its nearest residential city neighbour.
Rear south-west corner of Stapleton Avenue and Ganworth Road, 21 November 1973 (c) Liverpool Echo
This ‘open play area’ (above) had been left fallow since the day the flats were built, twenty years previous. Within another twenty years, all the blocks of flats would be gone.
Tenement blocks surrounding open play areas besotted Lancelot Keay, Liverpool City Council Chief Architect responsible for Speke, and a knighthood for his efforts. Watch Sir Lancelot make his case: Liverpool Tenements of the 1930s.
Lancelot Keay was a nineteenth century dinosaur trying to solve a twentieth century problem. Speke residents didn’t share his enthusiasm for living in tenement blocks. By the 1980s, just thirty odd years after they were built, low-rise blocks of flats in Speke lay abandoned and derelict awaiting demolition. Structurally they would have been good for a hundred years, but within less than two generations they were considered not fit for purpose. People didn’t want to live in them. People wanted to live in houses.
All the low-rise blocks of flats in Stapleton Avenue and Ganworth Road (photo above), East Mains, West Mains, Millwood Road, Alderwood Avenue, Central Avenue, Central Way and Conleach Road were demolished and replaced by houses with gardens. Testament that ‘tenement blocks surrounding open play areas’ was a failure.
In the mid ’70s I made a cine film record of Speke. It was an Art School rant intended to show the estate in a less than favourable light: not a difficult task. The irony is that it has become historically significant, as less than half of what was filmed still exists.
Ganworth Road looking south, October 1973 (c) Tom Speke
Above is a street view of Ganworth Road with Speke’s signature three storey blocks of flats either side. It may look odd, from a 2017 perspective, to see two children and a toddler wandering around unaccompanied, but it was nothing out of the ordinary in the 1960s and 1970s. The legacy of living in flats was that children had no back gardens to play in, and resorted to playing in the streets.
A child admires ‘Speke Castle’, 13 November 1974 (c) Liverpool Echo
This concrete eyesore, above, is a 1960s’ interpretation of a children’s play area. By 1974 it was condemned by the National Playing Fields Association as grotesquely dangerous and only fit for demolition. The low-rise blocks of flats behind (West Mains) would soon join it awaiting demolition.
The 1950s and 1960s presented a paradox for Liverpool. The ring of housing estates that surrounded the city, of which Speke was but one, were overflowing with children, yet the population of Liverpool had been in steady decline since the 1930s, and continued to decline for the rest of the century. The inner city was being rehoused further and further afield, outside of the city. The population of Liverpool went from a 1931 peak of 855,688 to a 2001 census of 439,473. (2)
The ‘baby boom’ years were followed by a shift to smaller families. This left a problem for Speke: what to do with all the three storey ‘large family’ houses, of which there were many. After abandonment, these were reduced to two storeys.
The section of Speke in the aerial shot (below) was built in the 1950s, but I doubt if anyone younger than forty can remember it as such. Half of what you see is no more. The white roofed rectangular buildings, centre, was All Hallows Secondary School, boys and girls, now All Hallows Drive houses. The school was demolished, not enough students.
The open space two blocks above the school was Speke Park, now Morrison’s shopping precinct. The retail hub of Speke shifted from the centre to its edge to access Speke Boulevard, top right diagonal. Fords [Jaguar/Land Rover] off picture, right.
To the left of Speke Park is the ‘open play area’ behind the flats, in the top photograph. The main road in the picture, top to bottom, is Stapleton Avenue / Alder Wood Avenue which runs east-west. Just visible at bottom right of the picture is Eastern Avenue. Check Google Maps and see what little remains.
North central Speke estate, c.1963, looking west (c) Lancashire Records Office, Preston
For ‘Beatles’ cognoscenti, the street second from the bottom, on the left, is Ardwick Road, the McCartneys’ second residence in Speke (1950-1955). Half way up on the left is Upton Green, surrounded by three storey blocks of flats, and home to the Harrisons (1950-1962).
On 20th December, 1958, on the occasion of George’s brother Harry’s wedding reception, 25 Upton Green, Speke, was the venue of a pre-Beatles Quarrymen performance with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison – drummer, if any, not known. (2)
George Harrison and Paul McCartney spent most of their formative years in the Liverpool suburb of Speke (George 12 years, Paul 9 years), but you have to look hard in the plethora of biographies to find any mention of their early childhood in Speke. Phoney Beatle mania has produced two ‘Caverns’ in Mathew Street, but ‘Beatles’ tour buses don’t go anywhere near Speke.
In the early 1960s, the Ford Motor Company car plant [now Jaguar/Land Rover] replaced the farm on the northern side of Speke. Speke Boulevard, forever known to my generation as ‘Ford’s Road’, was extended to run between the car factory and the estate, for the full length of Speke and beyond. To compound Speke’s isolation, this arterial road prohibited pedestrians for five miles or so, all the way to Widnes.
Eastern Avenue bus terminus from Speke Boulevard, February 1972. The sign reads ‘Any Person found damaging this fence will be prosecuted’ (c) Tom Speke
One of the consequences of this pedestrian prohibited road was that it separated the factory from the workers arriving by bus at the Eastern Avenue bus terminus. There was an underpass 200 yards away, but for whatever reason, people insisted on making their way through the fence to cross the road. This conflict persisted for thirty odd years until the terminus relocated to Morrison’s at the new shopping precinct. Progressively stronger fences were built with ever more ingenious ways found to get through them. It would have been cheaper to build a footbridge. I viewed this perennial conflict as individual protest against imposed isolation.
When I visit Speke, the difference I find most striking between now and even up to the 1980s, is not the missing or changed dwellings, but the amount of trees there are. Driving along Speke Boulevard is like driving through woodland. Trees now obscure all the sight lines of my childhood memories. Belatedly, the city has made amends for wiping a thousand years of history off the face of the earth in Speke’s construction. I cannot see, or remember there being, a single mature tree in the 1963 aerial photograph of Speke.
The 1960s’ Speke of my teenage years was a depressingly bleak, isolated, rectangular Gulag, devoid of any sense of history or community, built to house factory fodder. By the time I was sixteen, my life’s objective was to get out of Speke. Three years later I went away to Art School, never to return. I did visit, but never lived. My Mother, give her a medal, is still there: Speke resident for 63 years and counting. (RIP Father, 2010).
Speke as a Housing Estate did have two redeeming features:
- All the properties were solidly built with brick throughout.
- The estate was built before the advent of the ubiquitous high-rise tower blocks that blighted other estates.
The failings however were legion, chief among them was that it didn’t comply with the house buyers’ mantra of ‘location, location, location’: Speke Estate was built in the wrong place. Its isolation was, and remains, its handicap.
If there are Town Planners out there who still adhere to ‘self-contained satellite town’ thinking, I will happily maroon them on the eastern edge of Speke, without a car, to experience what isolation feels like.
Speke’s contribution to town planning dogma is a nail in the coffin of the ‘Garden City’ concept. Speke was designed as a solution to a problem, but resulted in generating its own problems. Speke planners may not have anticipated the changing shift in family sizes, but they are guilty of not ensuring that Speke would become a solution.
Speke could never develop as a community because Speke was never self-contained. If you wanted to do anything, you had to find somewhere else that catered for your interest.
The founding vision of Speke as a township ‘planned to accommodate all classes of the community’ was as delusional as its ‘self-contained’ status. Speke, and all the other post war housing estates around Liverpool, were not communities, they were overspill.
In the absence of any community identity, people from Speke, and all the other Liverpool estates, were perceived differently. In a time of full employment, people living on estates were not accorded the ‘working class’ designation, but were thought of in the then unused demographic of ‘underclass’. Like the estates themselves geographically, people from the estates were regarded as ‘peripheral’, not part of the mainstream. You came from ‘an estate’. It didn’t matter which one, we were all tarnished with the same brush. I lived all my teenage years with this, and left at the first opportunity.
My parents tried for years to get out of Speke, but eventually resigned to staying when they were able to buy their house. My siblings left Speke, and Liverpool. I took it a stage further and emigrated.
I still talk ‘Scouse’. My accent was set in concrete by the age of six, and I have yet to find an alternative that I would want to emulate. I still follow Liverpool FC from a distance, but I could never live there again. Morrison’s precinct in Speke, and the Liverpool ONE complex, are commendable and possible turning point improvements. The irreconcilable is remembering the fifty years it took to get to there.
The Orient public house, Eastern Avenue (December 2016) and bar (November 2013) (c) Tom Speke
The Orient is the last remaining pub in Speke, and worth a visit if just to see a bar dedicated to both Liverpool and Everton football clubs. It is difficult to say how much longer The Orient can last. For decades, supermarkets in Britain, Morrison’s included, have been underpricing pubs out of existence.
Speke Estate is suffering the malaise experienced by small towns after a bypass is built. The fulcrum relocates: people leave, schools close, pubs shut, churches downsize. Speke in the 21st century has half the population it had in the 1950s. St. Christopher’s Church (capacity 1,000) has the distinction of being built and demolished in a single lifetime. Schools are torn down as the numbers of children plummet. I had intended to show my film and photographs to the students at Parkland’s School, but it closed, only twelve years after it opened. Depending on whom you ask, it was either falling intake or falling standards. Either way, Speke no longer has a secondary school.
Speke’s fate was sealed on the drawing board: it was designed to have a bypass. No one ever goes through Speke: making a brief detour off Speke Boulevard to shop in Morrison’s doesn’t count. The problem was there from its inception. Speke, as the city planners envisioned it, never should have been built.
Sources
(1) A Vision of Britain through Time: Liverpool population
(2) Gratitude to the Quarrymen website for information.
Municipal Dreams 
Great article, and thanks for the video of the city planner. Do you intend to share your art school movie? Aw, gwan, gwan…
Thank you for a fascinating and informative post.
This is a fantastic piece, the sense of isolation you describe so well and rightly identify as being endemic to the city garden/ post war estate concept resonates very well with my recollections of childhood in skelmersdale and Runcorn Newtowns…that sense of being out of the mainstream especially if you didn’t have a car. Great piece thank you for sharing.
And excellent article.
Now I’m looking forward to one about the tragedy which is Skelmersdale.
Thank you all for your feedback.
The Art School film is in the process of being converted from a rant to a documentary, but it could take a while. I might post short clips on Vimeo.
Much as I decry Speke’s absence of history, there is a paradox in that it was the first of Liverpool’s post war estates, and therefore had more history than the likes of Halewood or Kirkby estates. Skelmersdale and Runcorn Newtown were off the scale in newness.
Town Planners responsible for grandiose schemes like Speke should be compelled to live in their creation. I would have subjected Lancelot Keay to a third floor flat on Ganworth Road over looking the unbuilt shopping centre and the fallow nothingness surrounding it.
The Children’s History Society found my perspective of interest on Twitter.
What I took for granted as a child sixty years ago, on an estate overflowing with children, is probably not taken for granted now. It wasn’t Dickensian, just less cotton wool. Our parents had lived through the Second World War. We children were expected to look after ourselves, as they had done.
As chance would have it, I go back to Speke tomorrow, for a month. Here’s hoping I find something positive to say about the place.
Tom.
You and I are the same age . born in 1951. I was born in the flats on alderwood avenue and later moved into a house in Heston close. My sister still lives there. As a boy I spent most of my summers in the millwoods or at oglet shore.or playing on the fields before Fords was built. I too left Speke and have lived in wales for the last 39 years.
Morning Tom
I was sent your article by Les Dawes whom I have known since 1969. I lived in WEstern Ave and came to London n 1970 in order to go to collage.
Here are some initial thoughts. The estate was built over a period of time. The better designed houses were at the western side of the estate with houses in All Saints Rd having garages although no-one in the 50’s had cars.
Most of the facilities for teenagers were also eithor in the centre of westrn side of the estate. Alderwood Ave and Eatern Ave were thoroughly lacking. Even the Spekde Boys Club moved to a purpose built building between Conleach & Ganworth at the Damwood Road side of this block near the British Legion. The community centre which wasn’t built until the 60’s near the baths and fire station excluded lads in particular from the eastend of the estate, particulalry if they were involved with the Alderwood and Eastern gangs. Access to these facilities was controlled by members of the Central and Western gangs.
Speke is mentioned in the Domesday and had a population of some 600 until the 1930’s developments. There were aspects of the old village certainly until the new airpost was built. The vbranch library I used to go to near The Crescent ws formerly the village blacksmith. There were old cottages aroun, particulalry Oglet Lane as well as farms, Critchleys adn Cartwrights
Liverpool City Council until the mid 60’s was run by a unholy alliance of tories adn protestants. The Orange Lodge had their own political party with soem 9/10 councillors so not much thought or funding to areas such as Speke. The m.p. for the area was also a tory. Speke was known as the “red toe in a blue sock”
St. Christophers Church was an architectural disaster; the grandiose fantasy of Fr. James McCarthy. No-one had knowledge of “acid 4ain” in those days but the residue from ICI at Runcorn made for a disaster on the roof of the church
There were certainly problems of environmental, social and cultural limitations. I think it’s also worth noting taht in the mid 30’s Liverpool City Council built soem 35,00 homes. New Labour from 1997-2010 nationally only built just over 7,000 homes.
I’ll be visiting Speke with Les Dawes in late September for a triip up the Ship Canal to “Salford Quays”; this is a trip which many of did in secondary school with the day spent at Belle Vue.
Thanks for the article. It will be the subject of many reflections and conversations.
John Dowling
tom.
great article as i had a great childhood in speke and also born in 1951 lived in speke from 1954 in alderfield drive.
we had corn fields in front of the house and i would watch all the steam train accross the open fields in the distance years before fords was build. we even had cows grazing one year.
i even remember the fair at the farm opposite clough rood by he farm. i used to walk down hut lane towards halewood to do some fishing on the ponds figure 8 with my brother chris and dad.
we had some amazing sprtman and teams around with speke old boys rugby and baseball team who i played with both with the baseball winning the english premier league 3 times while playing.
it was a recent trip back to speke to work on the new gemencia building at the back of the old libary so sad to see that speke has not been kept when i was a boy. the old comprehensive school has gone where i was one of the head prefects and replaced by new housing. but like everything in speke its changing with the times.
i’m still working in a job i love and will be back in speke to look over the new building for a 12 mths check.
kind regards
rob t
Great article.
Thanks for the great blog Tom,
Maybe Im remembering growing up in Speke in the 60s and 70s through rose tinted glasses,
I lived in a house not one of the blocks you mention in the article,si maybe Im not really qualified to have an opinion on living in them,
I do recall how run down the areas around some of the flats were, where folk had dumped rubbish the likes of old prams carpets and furniture,
Im sure this was due to folk who didnt live in them as much as some who did also,
On the whole I loved growing up there,I have fond memories of my friends, some now passed on,
It was a tough area, but it was workig class, so not suprising really, nothing wrong with that what so ever
Going back there from time to time, its a shock to see no large St Christphers church, which was more like a Cathederal and the large park gone, now a failed school and super market complex,
I look so much to viewing your video,
The kids slide in the Mains are brought a smile back to me, one of my mates did himself an injury on that sliding down it as a 16 year old idiot ;-)
This is Brilliant Tom thanks for sharing this. I have lived in speke all of my life but I wasn’t born untill the 80s so it’s very interesting reading for me
Just found this post thought it was interesting but Speke shown here not the Speke I knew.
I was born in 1939 and lived in Tewit Hall Road up till I left when married in 1963 leaving to live in Leyland because of getting a job there.
The Speke I grew up in consisisted of playing cricket and footy in the road, knowing everybodies name in the road.
Going to Stocktonwood nursery then the school there and moving to school in Central Avenue after it was built.
Playing in fields that later became Central Avenue.
Walking to Oglet down Oglet lane with my mother and neighbours for a picnic, remember the British legion down Oglet lane. Other times going to the shore down Dungion lane and swimming in the mersey there.
When a bit older playing in the Dam woods all day also the woods where the Dove and Olive was built.
Being in the cubs then scouts at All Saints church and church youth club inhall across from church.
Prefabs on fields alongside SpekeHall avenue, friends who lived there thought they were great. Playing games on the field near them.
Going to early St. Christopher s church to watch cowboy films, nobaths in Speke had to go to Garston or Woolton, no trouble getting there plenty of busses.
Could go on but recall a happy childhood there.
My family moved from Everton in 1954 and we lived in Catford Green. My brother and I went to Millwood county primary school literally five minutes or less to walk to around the corner. We both have fond memories of it, sadly it has now gone. We were lucky and our house had larger back and front gardens than most. My mother aided by my father turned it into a beautiful place to live and play. We too went often to Oglet down Dungeon Lane and the lighthouse. The nearby bluebell woods was also a favourire haunt. Contrary to any feelings of isolation living there we found a good array of shops at Alderwood Road and also in Central Way. We used the very frequent bus service to go into town and visit relatives all the time. In fact at age 11 I caught the 82c every morning to my new school Blackburne House in the city centre as many other kids at the time did. We learned to be responsible quicker in those days. I think my brother and I were lucky. There was certainly a mixture of families then but we learned very quickly to be street wise and stay away from the wrong ones. Fortunately most families were decent, the houses well kept with a sense of pride. We both remember an idyllic childhood although I know Speke suffered from gangs and deprivation after we moved from there in 1963 due to my father’s job. The 50s was still a growing period for Speke and it’s sad it didn’t reach the full potential promised but I still remenber a very happy life there.
Council and before it the corporation so so guilty, lack of transport links and investment, 1966-1984 for my sins, applying for jobs as a teenager i use to try and hide the L24 millstone. coldest house I have ever lived in!
Tom, I grew up in Speke, born 1952, first in a three story town house on Tarbock Road till I was 18 then I went to sea and Mum and Dad moved to Speke Town Lane I never really went back, your article is bang on the button but painful to read. mum (94) and younger sister still live in Speke I however live in Didcot just south of Oxford. I will always be a Liverpool lad and I mourn the lost opportunities that politico’s missed either inadvertently or by design. I recently visited Berlin and the city is populated within the centre and is vibrant and full of hope we all need to feel we belong and it is sad to realise that chance was denied to me and many others like me, thanks again, great article.
Kevin,
A school friend lived in one of those three storey houses.
I spent many hours / days kicking a ball in the road at the back.
Send me an email. We might even know each other.
tomspeke@yahoo.com
I was also brought up in Speke 60s-70’s and stayed till my 30s (late 90s). While it was in some ways an idyllic place to grow up, there were obvious issues even to my youthful perspective.
Tbf to Sir Lancelot keays, it wasn’t just his vision. The garden city movement was a national one during the interwar years, and had its merits. The self contained township concept required mixed densities of flats and houses to provide sustainability. If the whole estate had been garden housing it would’ve sprawled over an even larger area with the ensuing problem of providing public transport and amenities over a larger catchment…. plus of course most areas need a mix of accommodation types. Unfortunately, it was the City’s and Speke’s general decline that caused the depopulation and not so much the type of housing stock…. the same types of property have thrived elsewhere where they’ve been fully occupied and better managed or supported. The loss of this population has been highly detrimental to the estate… not least the loss of secondary education. The loss of pubs also psrtly demonstrates the unsustainable densities of the garden suburb.
I now live in San Francisco and I am probably the same age as you Tom. I attended Speke Comp which I understand now has gone because of lack of students. Maybe we were in the same class. But I grew up in Elloway Road, the three story flats between East and West Mains which you show in your pictures and the “park” shown no one played in because of the garbage. But I still have fond memories of Speke and yes it was true that real life lay on catching the 82c or 500 to town.
It would be interesting to know if anyone on this site knows me.
I lived on the top floor of the three storey flats opposite the fire station on Conleach Road. We moved in in 1955 having been homeless after being evicted from Myrtle Gardens. The intervention of Bessie Braddock enabling us to jump the que on the waiting list. Interesting the mention of the gangs which really did run the estate from our perspective. I “ escaped” by joining the army at fifteen, migrating to South Australia in 1966 aged seventeen. Luckily not to the new garden city of Elizabeth which repeated a lot of the mistakes made in Speke, especially the social isolation.
Download my free App “Zedpin” on Apple or Android, search Speke from 1955-64 and read my autobiography.
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I grew up and was schooled in Speke (born 1955 one of 7 kids) We started in Greyhound farm rd and finished in welton green. An amazing place to have lived and thrive. Never really looked back at it with the sense of political cynicism you appear to do, but as I get older, I have become more savvy ( I hope !) and sadly you are absolutely spot on. If anyone remembers me from Stockton wood or Speke comp, please feel free to contact me Jeff Williams
Hi Jeff just looking through the old speke blogs then your name came up im Brian Ellis i used to( hang around) as that was the saying in them days with jay or russell lloyd as he was known ,i now live in Bangor North wales its a far cry from Tarbock rd !Many happy memories of Speke though what a great place to grow up !
Hi Brian , just came across this blog which was a good read and very interesting, just scrolling through the messages and noticed your name , I lived next door to you in Croyde road for 10yrs , Ann Gilroy … hope your keeping well
Hi there fellow bloggers lol ( if that’s the word ? ). I was browsing and your names seemed very familiar , my name is Keith Strachan , molyneux house speke comp . Brian Ellis ? Your name is familiar , do you have a brother at all ? And have fair hair . Also the name Jay rings a bell too . And not to leave Jeff Williams out also ? I used to hang around at break times with Frank Anderson , Kenna Baily , and a fella called Carl Grey I think his name was not too sure . I was at Speke Comp from 1968– 1973 .
Recently moving to Speke with my partner as ‘Young Professionals’, this article has been a really interesting read, comparing the old with the new.
We moved to Speke in summer 2018 due to the ludicrously cheap market value of properties in the area; bought a home which needed some serious TLC and have enjoyed the process of renovating it, to bring it up to a modern feel.
I think the stigma of the old Speke is still massively influential on the house prices in the area. I dare anyone to find a good sized 3 bed house, with a large front and rear garden for under £90k anywhere else in south Liverpool. But from our personal experience, we really think Speke now is becoming an area of Liverpool somewhat under-rated. Western Avenue, is fairly ‘leafy’ and feels quite peaceful. Its not quite as enjoyable walking the dog, as it was in our previous rented accommodation in Aigburth, but it is not unpleasant. Homes are well built, roomy and feel solid.
Our neighbours have lived there for a couple of decades now and do not have a bad word to say about the area. Yes it still has that ‘council estate’ feel to it, and there are still many council houses in the area but an air of ‘potential’ has now transcended onto this area of south Liverpool. Commercial and pockets of new-build residential properties are springing up in and around Speke, and I think more young professionals like myself are finding the house prices a realistic value for first time buyers.
Although I do not intend to reside in Speke for the remainder of my working life, I am very interested to see how it develops and transforms over the coming decade, which can add many more personal perspectives of living in Speke.
I found this a fascinating post,having been brought up in Speke,I left in 79, I still have great memories of living there, I lived in Harland Green my dad’s still there same house. Speke was a tough place to live ,but then again what housing estate wasn’t in the sixties and seventies, I went to Millwood then Speke Comp and am still in contact with friends from those days,Speke will never leave me no matter how many years I’ve been away.I’ll be there for Christmas this year looking forward to seeing the old place might even have a pint in my old local the Orient.
Thanks for a great post,
And a merry Christmas to all Spekites past and present.
An excellent article on Speke. I was born in Speke in 1955 & remember all the things you relate. Being left to fend for yourself from a very young age – which meant walks to Speke Hall, Oglet Shore, across farmers fields to go to Hale & playing in the woods. 8 of us in a 3 bedroom council house but that wasn’t unusual. Isolated from the rest of Liverpool – the route out was by bus as few people had cars. When going into town, we’d say we were going into Liverpool, which shows deep down we didn’t feel part of Liverpool. I left Speke at the age of 19 (to live in another part of the City) & have witnessed many changes – not all for the better. The latest “progress” is the blocking-off (by Peel) of Dungeon Lane so that access to the shore has to be made via Hale. Also, Peel (who own the airport & much else) are going to extend the airport by concreting over the farmland between the airport & Oglet Shore – leaving a narrow strip which will be almost impossible to access.
A great article Tom, thank you, I came here looking for fond memories and maybe find information on old school friends. I am probably the same age as you, having moved to Speke from South Wales. I was at Speke Comp so it’s sad to hear it is no longer there and to read a very accurate account of life there back in the day. I did manage to get away but not as far as you, living now in West Yorkshire surrounded by the moors. The comments here from others also take me back and mirror my feelings on how Speke was and is today. I visited once, many years ago and was shocked at what I saw, I’m grateful never to have seen the concrete castle.
Hi Tom I moved to Speke from Kirkdale in 1950 at the age of 3 years.My first memory was the coronation when all of our end of Damwood rd.seemed to cram into the one house that had a Tele,The only thing that As a child annoyed me was that due to a shortage of schools I went to three schools in two years,not realizing till many years later I was a baby boomers.I started at S Stockton,then Alderwood then Millwood which because of lack of space we were based at Stapleton school,I ended up back at Alderwood until I went to senior school in 1958.Apart from that little hiccup I had a great time down the shore ,birds eggs in the big woods all kinds of stuff.The fact that my Mum had to walk to the Crescent or use a mobile was not my problem nor the fact that my Dad who was fireman based in town literally made a bike from spare parts to go to work. As a child Speke was a great place,I left in 1972 when I married.Looking back as a 71 year-old I realize what a tough time my parents had,I can now see that as a child I,by today’s standards. had nothing but didn’t know it at the time.
As a six year old I moved with my parents and four year old brother from Gwendoline Street Dingle and Upper Park Street school to Wellbrook Close prefabs Speke and Stocktonwood Road primary in summer 1950. I didn’t want to go and spent a lot of the subsequent ten years paying 3 pence scholars fare on the 82 or the Crosville 120 visiting grandparents in Gwendoline Street and Collins Street. After a year we had moved again to All Saints Road; grass verges, wide avenues, solidly built brick houses – the ‘posh’ part of Speke, having gone from a tin bath in front of the fire and gas mantles to the luxury of indoor plumbing and electricity in little more than twelve months. Stocktonwood primary was an enormous school, with many pupils per class. The head was the kindly, benign Mr Bell. The teacher I remember most was Miss Thomas who seemed permanently crabby and furious and not averse to pulling up a little boys pants leg to slap his thigh. I don’t know whether she felt under pressure trying to cope with the numbers even though children were more compliant then. Coming from a small school and the lovely teacher Miss Chatterton it was difficult to adjust but of course it was probably the same for a lot of the other kids. After failing the 11 plus the majority of us boys went on to Stapleton Avenue Secondary Modern and the head, Mr Harry Kneale, ran a very tight ship. This huge school was run on classical lines, in that like Stocktonwood Road it had a house system, prefects and a belief in liberal use of the cane and slipper. We were instructed in poetry and music, football, cricket, athletics, baseball, swimming and I didn’t know of anyone who wasn’t literate and numerate. Having earlier been to Loggerheads we were able to go to Isle of Man school camp every year and once famously to Switzerland. Half way through our time here we metaphorically tread water when our learning went on hold to facilitate overseas students instructing us by rehashing information with which we were familiar. Broadly, I enjoyed school and was a reluctant leaver but at that time the numbers that went on to university and further education was in a single figure percentage. I haven’t moved too far away and now live in Woolton which unlike Speke grew naturally and organically at a far slower pace. A big criticism of Speke at the time centered around the lack of pubs and social outlets but pub culture was just beginning to peak and give way to the rise of the T.V age so perhaps old Sir Lancelot was quite prescient. In any case he deserves to be cut some slack especially because of war time intervention. Looking back I didn’t realise how great it was at the time. Loads of woods and open spaces, we played footie on ‘stocko’ (scarpering when the old caretaker shook his stick at us) Dunlops and Butlins Rec – how was the Council able to ever sell that off. Best of all there were plenty of other like minded kids to play with. Finally, yes, if you wish you can look at your self as a victim – factory fodder was the term used – or you can adopt a Shanklyism and regard “every day you can get out of bed as a holiday”.
Great article Alec we were in the same class in Stapleton Avenue great days
“Don’t want to go to Kirby, don’t want to go to Speke ‘just want to stay with all I know in…..”
I left Liverpool 40 years ago to come and teach in NZ. The last place I taught in the UK was as a relief teacher in Speke Comp teaching P.E. It was a tough school took a while for kids to accept you, but I had taught in Netherley and an Approved School before that! The teachers were the saving grace of that community, especially those who did long stints there, but the thing that stuck in my mind most was that the school had no glass in the front, only fibreglass sheets! When I arrived in the Pacific Islander communities of South Auckland, the kids couldn’t understand my Scouse accent, but they had flowerbeds in the school grounds, and the tennis court nets had been left up all the holidays so they could be used! It was a different planet! Very much now a Scouse Kiwi.
Moved to Little Heath Rd in May 1955 aged 4. We were from Mt Pleasant (May St), small terraced house with tin bath and outside toilet. My mum hated Speke due to the isolation, but us kids loved Whitfield Farm with the cornfield and the ponds. I remember the farmhouse being demolished in 1960 to make way for Ford’s, but before then, in the light nights, someone would say, “Let’s go and get the Shammy.” The Shamrock Express from London would go under the “table bridge” at 8pm and we wanted to see what was pulling it. Kids further up the line would shout, “It’s a namer” or “it’s a Brit” which was a Britannia class locomotive. The namer was a loco with its own name. Clough Rd was the nearest to the cornfield, and I played with the Sullivans from Keithley Walk.
does anyone know what the chandlers in the speke cresent ( 1960s) was called
Sewells ?
That’s correct Mr Sewell and his son Alan , next door was Dunkan Kirkman butchers. then Gourley’s.. scots, Nursalls, chemist and hairdressers Waterworths was the first shop with Wilmot’s fish on one side of the shop
lovely article brings back some memories thank you
Lovely article to read. Happy days growing up in Speke. Peter Bell…. I was at Alderwood at the same time as you…we were in Mr Haworths class together. I lived in Ardwick Road from 1953 until late 1970s. My mum left in 1990.
Hi Ann
Susan Yeardsley here-you took my sister Frances to Childwall Valley on her first day there. We lived in Oldbridge Road and still say that our education at Alderwood Avenue was the best ever. Don’t remember Mr Haworth though!
Enjoyed reading your article brings back great memories of childhood spent in alder field drive orient end. We used to spend hours in the corn fields facing our house before Ford was built. We used to play in the bluebell woods and walk to the dogs home in halewood or walk to oglet shore or speke hall. I was one of those screaming teenagers who was on the roof of the old airport when the Beatles came to liverpool. I went to mill wood school and then speke sec mod.
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How wonderful these comments are. My family [johnstons] moved to Speke [ perhaps during the war] to 1 central Avenue. I was born in 1952 and lived at the same house for 65 yrs before moving to a the Dymchurch to a bungalow due to health reasons.
Very happy memories indeed to what shaped my life, best wishes to you all, Paul Hitchmough
Lived in Damwood Road from 1949 – 1965, my mum hated it, I thought it was OK, buses 500, 82c, 82e, crosville H1 to town. Loved Oglet Shore, went to a youth club in All Saints Church, then in the 60’s went to dances in St Aidan’s church hall. Left in 1965 to live in Garston when we got married.
A great read. As a family of 5, living in a condemned one-bed room top floor flat in Everton Valley, you can imagine the thrill and excitement (as a 5yr old) when we moved to School Way in the summer of 1965. It was heaven. The space (3 bedrooms, living room, kitchen, larder, an inside bathroom and gardens front and back) was phenomenal.
My picture of Speke comprised of me running through the old corn fields with my mate Richie who lived in the prefabs just off Speke Boulevard, playing footy/cricket/tennis in our road with the Jennings, Mellings, Merediths, Talbots, McGovans and Cooks to name but a tiny few. And spending long hot summer holidays playing football in the fields that lay between us and the airport and the incredible views towards North Wales.
Whenever and wherever I smell ferns, it transports me straight back to the long drive that led down to Speke Hall. I never knew what that smell was, for years I associated it with the Dunlop factory that ran alongside the Hall grounds.
On the other side of the drive, was the airport perimeter fence and next to it, there used to be 2 old planes – an old fighter jet and the body of a passenger plane. For a curious kid, it was just too tempting and often required closer attention.
At the bottom of our road was a high-walled area comprising garages, Church Hall, lots of trees and across the way was Hale Road and All Saints Church surrounded by “the woods” with a row of old cottages leading up to the Fox pub and the Dunlop Sports and Social Club. Oh how I aspired to play football there one day.
I went to St Christophers infant and junior school. I remember the cavernous church but most of all, I recall the Monday morning roll call where the teacher asked the class what service each of us had gone to the previous Sunday and the snitches who would never hesitate to call me out when I said I’d gone to the one at 11:15 but hadn’t.
We had great shops in the crescent. The laundrette was a godsend! we had a chandlers, veg shop, butchers, Scotts and Gourleys (the Aldi and Lidl of their day) a sweet shop cum post office and a pharmacy. Anything else meant a trip to town on the 80, 82c, 500 or H1.
Those were days when there were few cars, having a bike was a prize possession. I walked/ran everywhere and like all your other commentators, I too roamed all over Speke, visiting Hale, Oglet Shore, swimming in the baths at the Parade meeting school mates etc.
At age 11, I passed the 11+ and went to school in leafy Woolton. It was so different! I began to see a very different world that would one day open my eyes to new opportunities which were as equally exciting as the very first time we moved to Speke.
I left the area in 1983 and have gradually moved further and further away over the intervening years. My folks/siblings too, have moved to other parts of Liverpool, so I still get to visit.
Much in Speke has long since changed – sadly the playing field has been built on, St Christophers church has become a small version of what we used to call the catholic cathedral – Paddy’s wigwam – and everywhere seems so much smaller than I remember. That said, I love showing my family the place that I grew up in – without doubt, it shaped me into the fortunate and contented person I am today.
Tommy, do you have a brother called Vinny who I think would be about 58 now?
Yes I do.
I was a mate of a mate of his…. Bobby Burke. Nice fella.
I WAS BORN 1960 AS JOHN MILLIGAN AND GIVEN UP FOR ADOPTION IT SEEMS IM A DUFFY THATS ALL I KNOW MY BIOLOGICAL MOTHER NORMA MOVED TO AMERICA AND REFUSES TO NAME MY FATHER ALL I KNOW IS THAT HE CAME FROM GARSTON
TONY FARLEY
I am trying to find a long lost friend tina and dave Lakin they lived in ganworth road and l lived in 38 ganworth road speke tina had a brother called jimmy and tony l baby sat for her one Christmas jimmy Lakin also had a friend antony deegan lived on hale road my mum was called esther and l had a brother lan a few years ago l bumped into her in asda hunts cross she called me by my name which is Lynda so l am trying so desperately to find her l miss them so much also she would only no me as
My maiden name cain l have put it on Facebook and speke past and present please please if you no her where abouts please contact me my email address is Marlow lynda311@gmail.com l would be grateful if anybody new where she was and dave please contact me it has been so long since l seen her l was 16 years old then and l am now 68 years old wish with all my heart l could find her thankyou
I am trying to find a long lost friend tina and dave Lakin they lived in ganworth road and l lived in 38 ganworth road speke tina had a brother called jimmy and tony l baby sat for her one Christmas jimmy Lakin also had a friend antony deegan lived on hale road my mum was called esther and l had a brother lan a few years ago l bumped into her in asda hunts cross she called me by my name which is Lynda so l am trying so desperately to find her l miss them so much also she would only no me as
My maiden name cain l have put it on Facebook and speke past and present please please if you no her where abouts please contact me my email address is Marlow lynda311@gmail.com l would be grateful if anybody new where she was and dave please contact me it has been so long since l seen her l was 16 years old then and l am now 68 years old wish with all my heart l could find her thankyou
I was born in Western Ave in 1948 guess who my midwife was?
In 1949 we moved to Little Heath Rd. Just around the corner from George Harrison, my best friend lived next door to him.in fact I am sure it is me in the photo Georges mum took outside his house. My aunty used to run the busmans tea caravan at the end of Western Ave.
We left for Australia when I was 12. I would love to hear from anyone that remembers me.