THOSE WHO GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS

I've recently returned from a holiday on Anglesey, off the coast of North Wales. We stayed in a holiday cottage at Treaddur Bay which was owned by a woman who was a native if the island and her husband who was from the Wirral. They actually live about halfway between Liverpool and Anglesey as he works out of Liverpool as a pilot guiding large ships up the Mersey to the port.
     That knowledge went a good way to explaining the presence of maps on the walls of the cottage. In the living room there was a large map of the world which fascinated, not only me but my husband and two eldest sons. Other maps were of places such as the approaches to Bristol, Glasgow and Gibraltar.
     Since I was a young girl growing up in Liverpool I have found much enjoyment visiting the Pierhead and other places situated on the Mersey, the Dee and Welsh coast.
     My grandfather Milburn was a stoker on one of the dredgers that helped keep open the ways between the sandbanks in the Mersey, paths the pilots had to be conversant with. In Medieval times it was Chester on the Dee that was the premier port not Liverpool but when the Dee silted up, Liverpool went from being a fishing village to
a town given a royal charter by King John and it is from Liverpool that most business was done with Dublin. Cattle would come by boat and be driven through the streets of Liverpool to the abattoir even within living memory.
     When I was doing research for one of my sagas I read about a paddle steamer that used to be a mecca for gamblers that sailed to Wales. There were also ferry boats that travelled to Llandudno taking people on day trips and I don't think I'm mistaken but once up on a time there was a ferry between Liverpool and Holyhead, Anglesey, too.
      I remember after the war there were buoys in the Mersey showing the sites where ships had been sunk, another danger that pilots had to be aware of.
      Finally I must mention that although Liverpool no longer has the number of ships in the Mersey that it once did, it has resurrected itself and visitors, whether by air, train, bus or boat still find the city and its environs worth a visit.
    At time of writing we've just had two of the hottest days of the year so far, so son No 2 took himself off first to the beach at Waterloo/Crosby and then the next day across the Mersey to New Brighton. Needless to say, he wasn't the only one making the most of sun, sand and glistening sea.
      

The sun is shining on Merseyside again.

Despite the elections for the Metro mayor for Liverpool and its surrounding area I haven't been down in the dumps because the sun seems to be shining most days here lately and it certainly lifts one's spirits. I'm reminded of days in the past when on such days in summer it would melt the tar between the cobbles in Whitefield Road and we'd burst the tar bubbles with lolly ice sticks and I'd end up going tar on my ankle socks. Mam would almost have a fit and I'd get a clout while she attempted to get rid of the tar by rubbing it with butter.
      The only thing I remember about elections in my childhood was the name Bessie Braddock. She was a large woman in the days when obesity was not the bugbear it is today. In my mind's eye I see her wearing a navy blue frock with white spots on it. I've a feeling too the word Battling was connected to her name in those days too. She was said to fight for the rights of the people. My dad was a labour man but I took little interest in politics.
     I was one of the people but I never thought about my rights but just got on with my life and didn't expect anyone else to fight my battles for me. We were poor but there were no food banks or social workers visiting. Some might say I was lucky. I would say I was blessed in having a father who had a trade, being a journeyman plasterer, who was only out of work occasionally in winter when the weather meant he was laid off. We had scarcely any toys but being a reader I spent a lot of time in the library or at home reading.  Of course, there were few cars around then so the street was our playground as was Newsham Park were we made up games. My mam didn't go out to work until my youngest sister was at secondary school. We'd come home and just finish cooking the meal which was all prepared for us. Our house was rented and if it needed fixing my dad did it.
So is it surprising that I, along with many others of my generation, have little sympathy with those who want to mollycoddle the poor. I'm not saying there aren't people who need help because of course there are and I'm grateful for the National Health Service and all the technical advantages of today and that I and my brothers and sister and our spouses were able to work so we could afford to buy our own houses.
   My books are generally about working women or girls who have to overcome difficulties to win through to a happy ending within a family setting. Most are not utterly poverty stricken. But all readers like to see the heroine or hero overcome difficulties by them making an effort but they also have some help.
    Check out my website www.junefrancis.com

where did all the time go?

Last time I blogged was four months ago: I can scarcely believe it. Pre-Christmas and I was having some time off from actual writing but doing a lot of thinking about what the next book was going to be about. For a while I had been considering writing about my ancestry, only to come to the decision that most likely it wouldn't be interesting or exciting enough for those who read my novels. Perhaps I should write a faction book - a mixture of fact and fiction - the truth is that I still want to write about my ancestors' story as it really happened but I don't have the whole story - just snippets - that I could set against historical Liverpool during the period they lived and the places they came from. I made a start only to set it aside because I've been convinced for a goodly while that there was a novel worth writing based on my mother-in-law's early life. She passed away a few years ago but I've never forgotten the tales she used to tell me when my husband brought her to visit on Sunday afternoons.

The difficulty was where to begin and what names to give the people involved because I've always said at talks when asked that I never write about real people because I don't want to be accused of libel or is it slander, and should I change the era when events took place and what should I keep of her story and what should I miss out and what should I add to it? I began the actual writing at the beginning of January and I am 37000 words in and enjoying the challenge. But I have done little writing the last week, not because spring is in the air and the sun is shining and the garden needs work on it but because I've done something to my shoulder which is making typing painful.
So I've been doing a fair amount of reading Golden Age Detective Fiction. Now we are in Lent I am also attending weekly Lenten meeting as well as thinking about and preparing for the publication of my books that are due out at the end of this month, March 2017.
MERSEY GIRL paperback reissue of the former Going Home to Liverpool, also out for the first time in Ebook format by Ebury.
Also my latest hardback WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS published by Severn House.
MANY A TEAR HAS TO FALL is also out in trade paperback by Severn House.
 In April STEP BY STEP and A DREAM TO SHARE will be published in ebook format for the first time by Canelo. These books are the first two in my Chester/Liverpool series.
EVENT: Liverpool will be having a Litfest in Autumn and I will be a guest speaker 2pm on October 3rd in Penny Lane Community centre - do keep alert for more information about this event . I will also feature as visiting author on the Chicklit Chat website during the week before the publication of MERSEY GIRL  23rd March.

One of the things about getting out and about is meeting people

I've just returned from a week in Keswick, Lake District and no, it didn't rain all the time. Hopefully there won't be the floods there were last year. There is still a bridge not in place from last year.  The trees were still ablaze with colour and Derwentwater was not as high and on my birthday was calm and shimmered in the sunlight. People strolled about enjoying the fresh air and scenery, pausing to converse with complete strangers now and again. There were a few moments when we enjoyed watching some children attempting to feed some geese, not the common or garden Canadian kind but those my son, Iain, thought were called Graylings. I was a bit concerned for the smallest child because I remembered staying with my aunt Agnes, uncle Jack and my cousin Patsy in the Old Roan which was country to me living in the back streets of Liverpool. My uncle took us for a drive to a farm where there were geese and one pecked me. It hurt! Which is what happened to the little lad when a goose took bread from his hand.


One of my most enjoyable conversations was when Iain and I went into a small art gallery. The young man behind the reception desk was painting and so we took a peek and asked him about his work and what was his name. He told us that it was Chris Nelson and that interested me because my maiden name is Nelson. I knew there were painting in the gallery by an artist by the name of Nelson and Chris said he was his father. Their styles were very different. I told Chris that my great-grandfather was a Norwegian mariner who had sailed into Liverpool and married a local girl. He told me that he had visited Norway three times and that one of his favourite places is Bergen. One of my ambitions is to visit Norway myself but I don't want to go on a fjords cruise but to stay in Norway and one of the places I'd like to visit is Arundel as I believe it possible that my great-grandfather's ship sailed from there in Victorian times. I also mentioned that my brothers and father and two of my sons were artistic and had done a fair amount of drawing and painting pictures as a hobby.
     Naturally I bought one of Chris's paintings which he kindly reduced the price of as it was my birthday. I can't say that I'm much of a painter but I did treat myself to a colouring book for adults at one of the shops as well as buying a jigsaw from a Dr Barnardo's charity shop and chattered to the women in both places.


I've found most walkers are prepared to pass the time of day for a short time and on one of our walks along the old railway trail a couple stopped to talk to us. My husband had gone on ahead of me and Iain and Tim as the latter had set up his tripod and was taking some photos. The river Greta was roaring over some rocks and worth a shot or two. Anyway, the couple remembered meeting us all earlier and  told us they had seen a man in a red jacket further on where a bridge was closed due to a landslide but they had not seen him on the way back and he had mentioned not waiting for us any longer. We said we hadn't seen him so we were all puzzled to where he was but I then reckoned he had managed to get the other side of the river and was walking through the woods on the other side and gone back to the house but he was not there when we got back but arrived shortly after and said he hadn't crossed the river but found a track that took him to the road and had come back that way.


When in Liverpool I'm always falling into conversation with people on the street or in the cathedral but it's good to know that it's not only us Scousers who enjoy a gab.

Memories that Time and Distance can Never Destroy

A few days ago I had a visitor from New Jersey. It was great to see my cousin Irene who I hadn't seen for several years. It's true that these days we can keep in touch via email or on facebook but it isn't the same as actually seeing someone in the flesh and chatting and giving each other a hug. Interesting, her middle sister lives miles away on the west coast of America in California, New Jersey is on the east coast. Two scousers who have chosen to live near the sea when they emigrated. It's in the blood. My mother was fond of saying that Liverpudlians have salt water in their veins. Their eldest sister lives in Liverpool. My eldest brother, Ron, when he went south, ending up living in Westcliff -on- Sea, on the outskirts of Southend in Essex. my other brother, Don, went to sea, following in the footsteps of our maternal grandfather.








When we were kids we used to go camping to Towyn, nr Rhyl, N. Wales. Our mothers being sisters meant we were all very close and those camping holidays remain strong in our memories and we remind each other of those happy days whenever we meet up.
This time my cousin said to me, 'You were always singing when we were on holiday.'
I thought 'Always!'  I know I love music and have been in various choirs in my time and never miss 'Songs of Praise' and singing along if I can but I'd soon be sat on if I never shut up by my menfolk. Then my cousin reminded me of the times when we had a choice of catching the bus from Rhyl to the campsite or walking and having a bag of chips. More often than not we chose to have the chips. On the walk I would start singing 'Take me back to the Black Hills, the beautiful hills of Wales,' to the tune of the Doris Day hit, 'Take me back to the Black Hills of Dakota,' from 'Calamity Jane'.
She had been reminded of that the other year when my cousin who lived in California and her husband decided to go on a road trip and asked her along. When looking at a map they spotted Dakota and immediately my cousin recalled those days in Wales and us singing and eating chips as we walked home to the campsite from which we could clearly see the hills of Wales dark against the sky, so straightaway, Dakota was one of the places they had to visit.




It was my brother, Don, who reminded us of visits to the outdoor swimming pool of Rhos-on-Sea, nr Abergele, and how we dared each other into climbing higher and higher until we stood on the uttermost highest diving board. I do still remember jumping from it but no way would I have dared to dive. Another place we liked to go during the evening was to the penny slots arcade near the beach at Towyn. We never had much money to become addicted to gambling and some of our money went into the juke box. One of the hits of the time was 'A White Sports coat and a Pink carnation'.  He and my elder cousin Maureen recalled outings to the Pivvie after Christmases to see a pantomime when part of the entertainment was a sing-a-long to words on a sheet dropped in front of the stage.





At times as we remembered those days so long ago for a while we forgot our health problems, the hip replacement, the new knee, high blood pressure and stroke and were
back together as children and the Atlantic ocean that separates us can never take that away.

Queues have their upsides; Part 71

A few days ago I was in Manchester airport having landed from a flight from Rhodes in the Greek isles where we had left a chaotic airport only to find a different kind of chaos here in the good ol' UK. The queues to get through passport control were unbelievable long and John and I had visions of being stuck there for hours, knowing son Tim was waiting for us in Arrivals. I imagined that the cost for the car parking would be outrageous, just as the cost for 3kilos of baggage over the limit had been in Rhodes (54 euros) I think the carpark charges were around £9. At least there were no terrorists. Thank God!


Anyway, as one does in queues, we got talking and the woman I was speaking to said that she was from Blackpool. I mentioned that I had been born in Blackpool because Mam had been evacuated doing the war to have me as the local maternity hospital had been bombed. The woman asked where in Blackpool had I been born and I told her in a hotel on the front. This surprised her. But in those days, of course, no doubt the hospitals in the resort had run out of beds and hence my being born in what in those days had been a guesthouse but is now a hotel. I found a photo of it when doing my ancestry. And no - there isn't a blue plaque on the wall saying June Francis born here. I have no idea what I looked like as a baby because Dad wasn't around to take photos even if he'd had the lolly to afford a camera. Mam did tell me that I was dainty and had curly blonde hair.


We discussed our holidays and I said that I'd had enough of going abroad. I'm not that keen on the heat and flying and airports, although John loves the heat. She said that I should take my holidays in Blackpool. I said we were going to the Lakes in November for my birthday. Besides I know that I'll never get John to Blackpool as he has to have mountains or hills to climb and we like to get out of towns. The other suggestion I've had for holidays is to go on a cruise which is another no, no. as no hills to run up for John. For me it would be a nightmare trapped at sea with hundreds of people.


I couldn't help thinking back to those days when cruising from Liverpool was popular, even if it was only a trip to Llandudno or an evening trip along the Mersey on the Royal Iris. Of course, if you had money you could go further afield. In researching my books I even discovered that there used to be gambling cruises, where ships would go out as far as necessary to where people were safe from the law to have a flutter.

Also I was remembering those years after the war when British housewives were still having to queue up at the shops. My outstanding memory is queuing up with Mam at the fish shop on a Friday in Breck Road. The shop was called Charles' and there was a padded bench alongside one wall for us to rest our weary legs and backs. The shop not only sold lots of different kinds of fish, included salted fish for Dad's Sunday breakfast but also rabbits with their fur on. Mam loved a bit of skate and hake. I remember skate was sticky and hake was delicious white fish. I loved kippers. Perhaps  that's the Manx in me. I remember our Don working on the I.O.M boats bringing home kippers. My only trip to I.O.M was when John used to skindive and Liverpool subaqua club went there for a weekend of diving at Port Erin. I wish I'd known then I had Manx blood I'd have found it a whole lot more interesting. Anyway, I'll have to get to work on John to visit there again. As it is we've had several holidays in Anglesey before I knew I had ancestry from there as well as the Lakes where some of my maternal forebears come from.
  As for Blackpool when I worked as a cash clerk for Littlewoods, we had a works outing there every year, so I know the resort reasonable well and have never forgotten screaming my head off on the Big Dipper.  The one and only time I have been on one and I won't be queuing up to go on ever again.


www.junefrancis.com

Skinny-me-link - Those were the days; part 70

I was watching Trust Me I'm a Doctor last evening and of course, Obesity, exercise and diet was on their menu for discussion. This morning as John and I were having or early morning walk I was thinking about the programme and remembered being called Skinny-me-link when I was a young girl. Despite being an avid reader and spending time curled up in a chair in our parlour, I still got plenty of exercise daily without thinking about.
     At the moment I've going through my agents' comments on my latest book WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS and one of the comments she made was to do with some children playing out in the evening towards the end of winter. Surely they wouldn't be playing out in the dark? she had typed. This is the very early sixties and in my opinion children still played out with their friends. Television hadn't a strong grip on their minds as there were few TVs around, neither were there that many cars. I know I was a child of the forties and fifties but it wasn't until later in the sixties that so many things began to change and the lives of many working class children didn't change that much.
       I look back to times when children and teenagers often remained outside playing or just hanging around beneath a lamp post and talking because it was preferable to going indoors where our parents would be listening to the wireless, so we'd have to be quiet. It was much more fun and exciting outside with friends and we could get the fidgets out of our legs after a day spent sitting at a desk. On the whole we were fearless. We avoided going up back entries because our mothers warned us against doing so, having told us girls that there were men who weren't very nice, so never to go with those who offered us sweets. During the long summer holidays we would go in a group together to the park or play street games whilst our mothers gossiped as  they brushed or washed the front step.
     There is much that is good and enjoyable about today but years ago we didn't seem to need advice on doing what should come naturally, exercise and eat sensibly.
     I didn't lose my Skinny-me-link nickname until puberty when I started to get curves and had a sedentary job in an  office, watched telly evenings or went to the pictures which also meant eating a bag of sweets during the films or having a romantic meal for two at a restaurant in town. I did walk there and back to the cinema like most of those who went. Unlike today when we go in the car to one of the multi cinemas on the outskirts of the city.   Reason enough for me these days to have that early morning walk and to visit Total Fitness for a swim three times a week.
     As for children playing in the street at any time these days it is a rarity, except at Halloween and that's not playing, unless one calls dressing up play and knocking on doors and asking Trick or Treat?