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Wild guess but despite there being no shortage of steam shovels and dragline cranes in industrial east Wirral I can't see prisoners-of war in the WW1 having access to them.

140 men is quite a large task force but as they did their own support services (cooking, washing, supervision etc) it may account for only one yard per man per day which doesn't sound much for what is essentially forced labour. Also they may have been disposing of waste some distance, I can't imagine they would risk much of it flowing into the Great Culvert.

Thanks for that DD, I forgot about it being a sewer. It must have been very unpleasant labour, perhaps it was thought no more than they deserve. I wonder if they had some sort of a Jurassic JCB or in you go boys start digging.

This was while the Birkett still flowed into the Great Culvert which was a combined river and sewage tunnel to divert sewage away from the docks, both the Fender and the Birkett were open sewers. The Birkett had been channelised around when the Great Culvert was built in 1846 although for some time there was still an outflow at Poulton, this underwent further changes when Bidston Dock was built around 1933.

By 1999 the Birkett was no longer a sewer (other than overflows) and was diverted back to its former route going into the West Float dock system with the assistance of a lift pump. The Great Culvert then became a sewage and surface water tunnel feeding the new treatment works at Morpeth Dock.

In 1917 the government had plans to lay down another 3 million acres to corn. The Wirral Wartime Agricultural sub committee realised 2,000 acres had diminished productivity along the course of the River Birkett due to weeds, rush grass and silt. It fell in to this state because private landowners had never done anything about it. The committee applied to the government for German prisoners of war to do the clearing of the Birkett. The government obliged and about 140 prisoners were sent, the majority had been captured at Vimy Ridge. Initially they were going to be kept in huts at Moreton, the Army having looked around decided to billet them at Leasowe Castle.

Work started near to Bidston Station and the prisoners wore their own uniforms, on the front left trouser leg and the back right trouser leg red patches were sewn, overcoats were provided by the government and had a blue patch sewn on the back. They were guarded by 8 armed British soldiers. They were kept in order by their own NCO's. No trouble was reported and they cleared about 150 yards a day.

Now doing a trial on collecting recycling clean flexible plastics like bags etc. This is while heavy items like microwave ovens, computers and other metal items have no collection facility and routinely go to landfill.

A recycling company would probably pay the Council to be licensed to collect items like computers, microwaves and metals placed beside bins on collection day.

Thanks Joney, handy to have first hand knowledge.

I was reading about a shop damaged by the bombing in Chester St, 1941. The shopkeeper had to vacate, children effectively broke in and one particular lad went back twice. They were caught and the parents had to pay compensation to the shop owner. The lad who went in twice got 6 strokes of the birch.

I remember when shop windows were broken they were boarded up and a glass panel left in the middle so people could still look in. There was not enough glass to repair them properly.

If he had his windows blown in, The Electricity Committee in 1941 decided if the windows were boarded up and artificial light was being used during the day the rate would be 1d per unit as opposed to the usual rate of 3-3/4d per unit.

Dad's house in Wallasey had a bomb land in his garden. He was away . Not sure when, probably the May blitz.
33, Penkett Road.

Liverpool Echo,

New facts now disclosed, 1944.

Up to 1944 £600,000 spent on repairs to moderately damaged houses and still a large number of houses beyond first aid repairs.

In 1939 Birkenhead had 37,727 houses, flats and shops, 2,079 demolished by enemy action and over 26,000 damaged.
25,000 have received first aid repairs. These do not include properties that have suffered broken windows.
It is estimated 1,000,000 square feet of glass has been used since November 1941.

The only person I know that has to do this is my sister in law in Scotland, the bin they have to put out is about 24 inches high and about 12 inches by 10 inches, it has a white plastic bag inside which the binmen remove and replace with a new one. Their binmen come about mid day so it can be put out that morning, our binmen come about 6.50 am, we all put our bins out the night before, Mr Fox is going to have a field day, I'm sure their bins have a push down lid.

If you have any physical problems that make it difficult to manoeuvrer bins you can register and the bin men knock on your door to assist you - means you have to be up when they come!

No idea on the "caddy" size for the kitchen nor the food recycle bin, tie-able bin liners are used. I don't know if liner is caddy liner or bin liner. There is obviously no obligation to use the supplied caddy, as long as your food ends up in the the food recycle bin you can do it how you like.

There may be no legal requirement for you to recycle food, all the wording I have seen puts an obligation on the Council to provide a method of collecting food waste, not the householders to provide it. I'll look into this further when I feel the impassible need to do so.

At the moment I have access to the papers, there's plenty of snippets between 1940 and 45 of their exploits, too numerous to mention. Just a couple I decided to read reports on a couple of scouts receiving the Silver Cross Medal for bravery, delivering messages while the bombs were falling during the blitz. The Birkenhead news hasn't popped up with a snippet, below is the Liverpool Echo, 1941.

You’d think something like this would have been more publicised.

I lived through the war years but did not know of any of any involvement with scouts assisting the armed services or the civil defence and I was a scout myself . It was a surprise for me