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I can understand your nostalgia for Fussels Conny Onny condensed milk. It's always disappointing when a favorite product seems to disappear from the market.

1911,

SSFA is still going today, it was renamed to SSAFA in 1919 after the military decided it should start flapping its arms and become a triservice.

I agree on Council pay, it should top out at around £80,000 but if that happened the work would be contracted out and not only would the execs be paid more, shareholders would get a cut as well

I'd disagree to an extant on severance pay, I think it should be a minimum of three years salary plus three years pension payments all tax free. Why should a worker lose out and often been thrown on the scrapheap because of a lack of ability of top management? Why should the Government get a cut of a compensatory payment?

Not forgetting that severance pay is taxable, in 2013 £100,000 would probably have incurred around £24,000 tax unless it was agreed to be paid over a number of years (a tax fiddle not often allowed to any other than senior management). However the £100,000 might not have been purely severance pay eg it may have had pension elements in it as well.

Councils are chickenfeed compared to industry. Look at Thames Water, a public services provider.....

£14.7Bn pounds in debt
£1.3Bn pounds a year operating revenue (so over 10 years in arrears)
Haven't been meeting their obligations - hence they manage to show a small "operating profit" by not spending on things they are obliged to do.
Still paying dividends to their investors.

Thames Water recovery plan? Borrow more money to pay more in dividends. This will result in increased debt, less ability to meet their obligations and when they eventually go chest-up the public will end up paying that debt. Senior management make a killing, shareholders make a killing all paid for by failure.

How are they allowed to charge for something they are not providing?
How can you pay dividends out of borrowing?
How are they allowed to continue a spiral of borrowing which is clearly beyond the point of no return.
How can you justify a £2M salary plus 40% bonus to the boss of this company?

I'll give the Birkenhead News a look, very interested to research it. It sounds like it was good thing for all those affected by losing parents in the war.

It was the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association. In 1885, Queen Victoria became patron. I think prior there was a Patriotic Fund dating back to the 1800s. In 1914 there was 1800 families in Birkenhead receiving assistance from the fund. There are many snippets in the Birkenhead News which I haven't got access to, you will have to subscribe to FMP or British Newspaper Online.

A quick google search of a FOI request for Wirral Council back in 2011 showed this:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/requ...t%20Titles%20and%20Sals%2058000.xls.html

They were paying their director of technical services £112,849 PA. It's absolutely laughable (if it wasn't our taxes paying for it).

This was the one I referred to in my last post:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/wirral_council_departure_circums

David Green, Director of Technical Services (£103,234.60)

David Taylor Smith, Deputy Director of Finance (£68,660.39)

Ian Brand, Head of Asset Management (£68,368)

Geoff Paterson, Head of IT Services (£72,166)

Jim Lester, Head of Cultural Services (£72,166)

Rob Beresford, Head of Regulation (£70,900)

That's 6 men, being paid severance a combined total of £455,494.99. Not far off half a million quid just to get rid of them! It's scandalous.

And this woman (https://johnbrace.com/category/martin-morton/) got paid £48k to leave back in 2014. You could literally write a book on how Wirral Council abuses tax payers money. It's disturbing and disgusting and the people of Wirral suffer.

I dread to think what the figures look like now in terms of salaries and outsourcing and training, along with IT equipment and building costs.

Couldn't agree more. I like to think I've got some level of "insider knowledge" as I know several people who work(ed) for Wirral Council in different roles and at different levels. Something they've all got in common across all different departments are the stories of wasted cash...you wouldn't believe it if I told you. Unfortunately the people of Wirral vote in Labour at every twist and turn and they claim to not have enough money, yet waste it at every opportunity.

I remember being told about an old IT guy who left the council and was paid a 6 figure salary to go. I laughed it off and didn't believe it until I saw the public record of it and did a double-take. Someone did a freedom of information request for it and it was posted on the web somewhere.

I've had experience working in private sector and 6 figure salaries are usually exceptionally hard to get, reserved for people making massive profits year on year without fail and having huge responsibilities to boot, yet the council splurge 6 figures to get rid of one single person! As Ste said, corrupt to the rotten core.

Whilst researching another topic, I stumbled across the fact that Birkenhead Town Hall seemed to be used a lot for charitable events. One of which was a "Sailors and Soldiers" event, which was for orphans in the town. Which makes sense, because World War I was actively going on during this time and must have created many orphans. I read a figure that said 600 were invited to one of the events.

The "Sailors and Soldiers" events ran throughout the 1920's from what I can see. There's little to no information on the web about these events. Does anyone have a list of all these events? Photographs or newspaper clippings would be great to see. Or if anyone knows where I can find more information about these events? Surely this information must be archived somewhere. It seems like a big part of our WWI history, not just for the army themselves, but for their families back home in Birkenhead.

Last post on graves that has nothing to do with Nellie, after this back on topic.

Example, Landican Cemetery, NC2, public grave, 1934-1941 grave 691, 9 occupants, grave 726, at least 5 occupants, gave up looking then.

I've just subscribed to the forum, so hopefully once it kicks in I'll be able to view the attachments. Really appreciate you taking the time to go there and take a photograph. It's interesting reading about the different classes of graves. I read online that there was a fund raiser made for the family at the time, but I don't think most / all of it was spent on the funeral itself. There's lots of contradicting information out there. Regarding the burial itself, I did find a newspaper that reported it took place at 8am, intentionally early so it didn't attract too many on-lookers, although it sounds like it still attracted people who wanted to see and/or pay their respects.

I'm talking about yesteryear and public graves had more than one occupant, many cemeteries had pits with perhaps 10 plus and not always associated with pandemic, etc. In the past paupers graves were never marked with headstones unless special permission was sought, example, family members only heard of the death later.

I was looking at the two public grave sections at Landican, the older one at the northern end has headstones on every grave. The newer one at the southern end has small wooden markers. but as they are recent, gravestones may or may not arrive later, I will keep my eye out as I'm there regularly.

Its up to the council whether they pay for a pauper's headstone, as the grave is owned by the council only they can put a headstone in place ie. everybody else is banned from placing a headstone.

I presume there are very few pauper burials these days, most will be cremated. I think the only pauper burials will be where the religion is known and the religion forbids it such as Orthodox Jews (but I presume they would be in a Jewish Cemetery?), Eastern Orthodox and Muslim (but they would be in the Muslim section for directional reasons).

Well done DD, with it being a Class 3 grave it's very unlikely ever to have had a headstone, though a paid for burial it was just a step up from a public grave (Paupers grave). For those who are not aware, Public graves are not allowed headstones. Being Class 3 the family had no say where the grave was sited, it was the cemetery management that decided, Private graves; the grave purchaser had some input.

No obvious signs of the remains of a headstone or marker, It was raining so I didn't poke around too much.

my family lived in byrom street school place census show that a number of familys would live in one house occupying one or two rooms .the houses where built on clay deposits owned by local brickworks .my grandparents lived met and married in byrom street and appear to have moved frequently .i am trying to obtain photos of byrom st.which was demolished to make way for oak and eldon gardens vittoria court etc in the early sixtys.

Are the drawers still available, please?

Thanks, I've just looked on the website above and it actually has a map of where the grave is/should be located. Very sad to think there's no headstone. And reading through the thread, I'm surprised Nellie's brother was buried in Manchester and not in Bebington with his sister.

I don't think there is a headstone, you may find some help here,

https://www.fobc1868.uk/

Nellie's grave is H 610.

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I read about the story and being of Scottish descent myself, and hearing about how the family left Scotland hoping for a better life in England, I thought I would go and place some flowers on the grave. Unfortunately, even with the rough location, I was unable to find it.

The section of the cemetery should be "H" from what I read on the previous pages. Does anyone know exactly where the grave and tombstone is? Or if the headstone does indeed have the Carr name on? Unfortunately some of the headstones have fell down and there are a few that are unreadable due to age, and some without names.

I'm doing a bit of research into all things history / wirral and I was looking at some of the stunning ferries that were traveling to and from Liverpool in the 1920's. Does anyone happen to have any news articles or information about the travel times from Liverpool to Rock Ferry Pier and vice versa - specifically in the 1920's?

Thanks in advance

AC/DC Thunderstruck.
Morning.
Bus Stop trashed again, I thought it might last a few month's as it's only been mended.

Very likely DD, if you look at the burial snippet above, J5 and K4 have multiple occupancy. They will have CWGA headstones side by side. Find the gentleman below and that is NC 6.

The only service section I'm aware off is the Commonwealth Graves section which is quite small. I'm wondering if NC6 was mass graves, a few of the War Graves Commission NC6 entries have the abbreviation "Coll" which could be "collective"? If so I suspect NC6 is part of what is now NC8 (which contains the Commonwealth Graves).

It is weird that there is a NC8 but no NC4 thru NC7, you would expect it to be common knowledge within Landican how that has come about.

I need to do similar with my car. Sometimes I wonder why I don't just ride a bike!