1. my recollections of Birkenhead remind me it was often called the 1 eyed city does anyone have any explanations or references to this?
2. does anyone remember Olivera's cafe? I think I remember my dad taking me there for ice cream I think?

I read somehere that Birkenhead was called the one-eyed city because only one clock face there can be seen from Liverpool.

Another explanation was the Dock rivetters often had accidents and would lose an eye.

found this explanation on an other forum - Birkenhead trams stopped running in 1937, the overhead wires were taken down and the supports were converted into lamp standards. These supports were only on one side of the road. It was not long before the thousands of Liverpool shipworkers and dockers who travelled along the A41 to Cammell Lairds and Cleveland Street for the Docks from Woodside and Hamilton Square coined the phrase "One Eyed City" for having street lamps only on one side of the highway

I think I prefer the clock-face/industrial accident explanation

Think its purely a Liverpudlian expression. Possibly to do with Birkenhead only having the one main inlet for shipping, unlike Liverpool.

The answer will be in one of those 'Lern Yerself Scouse' books, if anyone's got one they can check?

This is NOT a purely Liverpudlian expression . It was certainly in use long BEFORE 1937.
The renowned Irish patriot , Pearce Beasley, was born in Everton but grew up and went to
school in Egremont,Wallasey. He moved back to the Lancashire side of the river as soon as he
started work . He learned Irish Gaelic and denounced his English birthright. He referred
sneeringly to the "one-eyed English on the Cheshire side of the Mersey. This is in the early
1900s so the expression was in use then-and probably is even older than that when applied
to The English as viewed by the Irish !! Beasley became a prolific writer and fought for Irish
independence . He was present at the signing of the Treaty in 1922 which created The Free
State. A huge collection of his written work is now held in the Museum of The Working Class
in Salford and other papers in the National Library of Ireland,Dublin BUT FORGOTTEN IN WIRRAL !

Another(and well known)theory was in the first world war a German Sub sailed up the Mersey and was spotted from Liverpool but not from Birkenhead. It meant that the people of Birkenhead only watched the river with one eye.

The version I heard many years ago is that if anything was stolen
and potetial witnesses were questioned, they said that they never saw anything.This lead to the suggestion that they turned a "blind eye" to criminal activities, hence one-eyed city. This especially applied to the docks.
Anyone remember the Black cat cafe on Lime Kiln Lane Wallasey,
much used by dockers.

Do you mean Olivieri's, opposite Hamilton Square station? There is a picture here.

Used to go there for lunch sometimes when I was on day release at Birkenhead Tech. Coll.

Very interesting thoughts on the 'one eyed city', littlestan. Like I always say, you learn something new on Wiki everyday.

Still think I've seen an alternative explanation in the 'Lern Yerself Scouse' books, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those books are right. If your theory is correct, it must have more to do with the poor treatment of the Irish in Victorian Cheshire. I wonder if the Cheshire authorities turned a blind eye to the sufferings of the Irish?

Could it not just be that there is one letter 'i' in the name & it finishes with 'head'?

Hence - "the one i'd city"

There's an excellent book by Roderick Mackay called The One-Eyed City, a memoir of his time as a policeman in post-war Birkenhead.
Liverpool, he says, was 'the Big City over the river.'
He adds: 'Birkenhead was a riverside melting pot then, ramshackle at one end and rural at the other. Slickers sometimes called it the One-Eyed City - maybe to match the disdainful glances it got from across the river.'

I worked in Liverpool and when Birkenhead was mentioned I always ended getting , "oh your a woolyback from the one eyed city",so my reply was "it's better than being a scouse git from wheel trim town" for some reason it didn't go down too well.

Oliveri's I remember well used to go for a cuppa and a sarny when I visited Bert's Ault's emporium of electronic surplus a few door's down.

Whenever I mention to Scousers that I am from the Wirral they react by putting their fingers to their nose as though there was a bad odour! I guess that may stem from the smell from Port Sunlight....

I favour the "turning a blind eye" theory, many of the other explanations post date the usage of the term.

I am sure more than one clock was visible from Liverpool, though I've heard this in reverse that only one clock of the Liver building was visible from Birkenhead.

Riveters losing eyes I suppose is equally plausible.

I think the reason why I've always associated the term 'one eyed city' as being "purely a Liverpudlian expression" is because I've only ever really heard it said by Scousers about Birkenhead. I've always thought of it as being quite a derogatory term and it's not one we would normally use ourselves as davew3 so aptly suggests.

Birkenhead always had aspirations to become a great city of the future but these hopes were largely mocked, particulary in Liverpool. Historically, there was always a great rival between the two ports and it's well known that the Liverpool authorities did everything they could to prevent Birkenhead threatening their monopoly. Littlestan could well be right in his suggestion that this is quite an old expression and linked with Irish politics and the Fennians but perhaps there's also an element of this mockery in the way it's come to be used.

Although Beasley may have spoken of the "one eyed English on the Cheshire side of the Mersey", the expression 'one eyed city' is only ever used in reference to Birkenhead, and so I'm assuming that he was refering directly to the English people of Birkenhead rather than Cheshire as a whole.

Maybe because Birkenhead was so fixated (with one eye always on its own future) it was blind to the needs of others. In that sense it was a bit of a cyclops and not so focused on the greater good???

A recent (2008) novel by Liverpudlian Tom Stevens called “Oxfords Circus” which is about the Police and is set against the backdrop of the 1981 Toxteth Riots, has a couple of more down-to-earth interpretations:

http://books.google.com/books?id=vt...one-eyed%20city%20birkenhead&f=false

I thought phrases such as "one eyed hole" etc meant the place smelled like pi$$ or was full of pricks. I could be wrong though.

You're a cultured man nightwalker! I'll read that one myself when me migraine gets better...

Can't say I'm as cultured as you. Bacterial, yes. Cultured, no!

I'm blind in one eye, would that have anything to do with it?

Could it have been a jealous remark belittling the fact that Birkenhead was one of the main ports for the import of cattle compared to Liverpool - one hide becoming one eyed.

thanks special K that's what I thought I remebered being told, but the other stories are very intersting as well, so thanks everyone who contributed

thank you uptoncx, thats the place

I often wondered what it meant? "when as the saying goes " you have got one eye in birkenhead, I always thought it was because you had a turn in your eye? OH WELL

The Wirral is kind of phallic in shape and the word peninsular almost starts with penis...

The term "One eyed trouser snake" is fairly recent, probably the middle of the last century - although made famous by Monty Python later on. One eyed city, predates this considerably

Found throughout years away that the terms for each other changed. An uncle of mine, died quite recently at 98 yrs, always referred to Liverpudlians as "Hodge Eaters", shortened in his fashion to "'odge 'aters".
I think Woolly Backs were originally those Scousers who emigrated to North Wales and their offsprings, who still spoke with Liverpool accents but over the years it has been used to refer to anyone the other side of the Mersey.
Always found that Scousers like to dish it out but can't take it when you have a go back, that's why I liked the City of Culture one "Instead of bricks your cars left on stacks of books".
Listen to Roger Phillips and you've never heard such a city full of victims i.e. it's never their fault.
By the way I am married to one, so mixed marriages do work.

I’ve been asking around my old Birkonian mates about where One-Eyed City comes from. Most haven’t a clue and others come up with the standard Mersey Tunnel and Cammel Lairds riveters stories. However, one clever sod pointed me in the direction of a novel called ‘Waterfront’ written in 1934 by a Liverpudlian, John Brophy, who is apparently pretty famous in literary circles. Apparently he is credited with putting a lot of scouse slang in print for the first time. Sure enough, I found the following in ‘A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’:

“One-Eyed City, the. Birkenhead: C.20. (John Brophy, Waterfront, 1934.) Mostly among ‘Liverpudlians’. In full, the one-eyed city of undiscovered crime: while the city was very rapidly expanding, the city’s police force was constantly inadequate.”

This could tie in with the ‘turning a blind eye’ suggestions. In truth, this is probably one of those questions which will never be satisfactorily answered.

i remember Olivieris my mum worked in cafe a bit further along from there ,you went down some steps to it next door to taxi s that was in the 70s

Info on Olivieri's at
http://www.olivieri.co.uk/

I can't find any support for these, they are based on something I read or was told years ago.

The One Eyed City:

1. Something to do with the clock face on the Liver Building

2. The direction of the Liver Birds, one of them has an eye on Birkenhead

3. Foot passengers/pedestrians walking through the tunnel into Liverpool had been in the dim light for some time, as they came out of the tunnel into the (bright) light they closed one eye or squinted, so everyone coming out of the tunnel, from Birkenhead looked as if they had one eye....

One eyed city
Could it refer to Birkenhead people having one eye on the clock when at work or having an eye for seeing an opportunity to make a profit out of something before someone else does
Not that there are any clockwatchers or opportunists here nowadays

Would that be The Copper Kettle on the corner of Mortimer Street and Hamilton Street? I worked in Hamilton Square and would go there for a business man's lunch maybe once a month or so. 50p for a two course lunch in the 70s if I remember correctly. It was great food.

AS a kid my mums brother would would take over to Liverpool and we would go on the Overhead railway and get the tram back to the city.I once asked him why they called Birkenhead the one eyed town and he told me because we keep one eye on that crowd over the water