Kathleen Fidler

[Boatbuilder]

Thanks Daisy, the second will hopefully be here tomorrow.

[Boatbuilder]

My Look to the West - Tales of Liverpool arrived today. It looks an interesting book based on fact but each 'Tale' is written in the format of a novel. Below are pictures of the front inside flap of the dustjacket and the contents page. For its age the book is in a good clean condition and I am looking forward to reading it.

[Courtenay]

Sounds good, John! I see the slave traders definitely do feature in it. It would also be interesting to compare Fidler's "What will the future bring?" chapter with what has happened in Liverpool since. (I've never been there myself, but it is on my list. I wish I could take my dad there, as he's a big fan of the Beatles.)

[Rob Houghton]

It looks a fascinating book, John - very interesting and entertaining I should imagine!

[Daisy]

That looks very interesting John. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

[Boatbuilder]

I will report back on the book when I have read it all Daisy.

In the meantime, "What will the future bring?" is just three pages long, Courtenay. I have just glimpsed through it following your post. I can tell you, it is not making any real predictions. It is where the 'story' ends in 1954 - probably not that long before Kathleen Fidler started to pen the book which was first published in 1957 - and where she writes about a boy and a girl standing on the platform of the Gladstone Dock station on the Liverpool Overhead Railway watching the liner Empress of Canada being lifted from the dock where it had caught fire and capsized a little over a year before, an incident I remember from my childhood, although I would have only been about 6 at the time, as I lived no more than about a mile from that dock and my father also worked there.

Had the book been written just a few years later, I would have imagined the final chapter might have been something about the closing down of the aforementioned railway on 30th December 1956, which was a very sad occasion in the city. I used to love travelling on it as a child seeing all the ships in the docks. When I read of the two children mentioned in the book, it reminded me of my sister and myself watching the workmen demolishing the last station at the northern end of the line - Seaforth Sands - probably sometime in 1957 or 58. I can still see all the sparks coming from the Oxy-Acetylene torches that were being used to cut through the steel girders. So sad, sad, sad to see it go.

If you are interested, there is a video of that railway here on Youtube which I originally bought on VHS video some years ago and a few years ago I managed to get it on DVD. It lasts for some 37 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1zayd4eR1Y" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On the subject of the ships, in 1964 when I was 17, I obtained a permit from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board to enable me go onto the dock estate to take photographs of the ships. Here are three pictures of two liners that were operated by Canadian Pacific - the same company that had operated the Empress of Canada. These are of the two sister ships Empress of Britain and Empress of England.

There is also an interesting article about the somewhat colourful life of the Empress of Canada HERE which started her life as the Duchess of Richmond in 1926.

Empress of Britain


Empress of Britain


Empress of England

[Daisy]

Very interesting John, and I bet in those early days you had no idea you would end up building ships for a very different market.

[Boatbuilder]

Thanks Daisy. I certainly wouldn't have thought that, even when I was 50. It's strange how things evolve in life.

[Lenoir]

The Queen Elizabeth and MSC Musica are here in Cape Town harbour for a day or two. Massive ships.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Look to the West - Tales of Liverpool sounds very interesting, John (Boatbuilder). Thanks for the details.

As teenagers in the 1980s, my sister and I visited Liverpool a few times when we went to stay with friends who lived in Southport. We loved taking the ferry across the Mersey. It was in the mid 1980s that I collected and read a series of books by Helen Forrester about her poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s Liverpool - Twopence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By the Waters of Liverpool and Lime Street at Two. About five years ago I lent them to a friend and she found them fascinating, just as I always have.

[Courtenay]

We loved taking the ferry across the Mersey.

Isn't that a song?

[Anita Bensoussane]

I know you're dying to give a YouTube link! And yes - we did used to sing the song while on the ferry!

[Courtenay]

I was working on the assumption that everyone here would know exactly what I was talking about, so therefore a link wouldn't be necessary. I'm sure I'll be singing it too, anyway, if I ever catch that ferry myself!

[Boatbuilder]

I spent a lot of time in Southport, Anita - 1960's though. I met my first girlfriend and later my wife there. Happy days!

My wife has read some of Helen Forrester's books - the name sounds familiar to me. There are several authors of similar books set in Liverpool that she has read. Ruth Hamilton, Ann Groves and Katie Flynn to name a few (they're in our Kindle library ) as she enjoys the books of the era they are written about.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I haven't read the other authors but have heard of a couple of them.

I'm glad you have happy memories of Southport, John. I particularly used to like a dark, crowded shop down a little alley off Lord Street, which was stuffed with spooky curios (think "witch doctors"!), carved ornaments, pottery, jewellery and piles of old books. It felt like a magic shop from a story, where you might come across absolutely anything.