Top Photo: 1926 - Bottom Photo: 2007


Cheers to Mark who has placed dot's on the photo to represent part's of the photograph that havent changed and also lightened the original photograph.

The original photograph was taken in 1926 when the entire area surrounding the house seen in the recent photograph was full of caravan's and basically a shanty town full of caravan's and makeshift house's (on stilts due to the local flooding), known as the fellowship fields.

The entire place was condemned by the Ministry of Health in the late 1940's due to severe hygiene problem's, and in light of the mass development of new house's in Moreton and Leasowe after the war.

I took the photograph a few months back when me and Pomp went up the lighthouse; not a very good comparison because I didnt intend to use it for this (I only saw the 1926 photograph whilst looking through a book recently). However, you can see the house on the left of the recent photograph, is the same house that is in the centre of the 1926 photograph.

Still a very good match
Funny how these chance pictures are appearing more and more.

With Out the Dots
Matty's Orginal.

Yes I was lucky to get the shot tbh, because when me and Pompus went up it was really bad weather and raining and windy and they wouldnt have opened the window, but it died down for a few minutes, just enough for me to get the shot haha!

aNYONE REMEMBER THE TRAVELLING FAIR THAT USED TO BE IN MORETON IN THE 60'S? {If you are older enough}.

BIG AL ROBBO

I cant remember the travelling fair but that reminded me of the gypsy camp of old wooden painted caravans that used to be parked on the land on corporation road, just by the new police custody suite. Do you remember that, must have been late 60s early 70s. I remember an old woman sitting on the steps of her caravan smoking a pipe.

I remember a travelling fair used to come every summer for 2 weeks on the shore at moreton back in seventies up to eighties.

Didnt the fair used to change location sometimes to the park on the sandbrook estate?

I can`t remember it being on the sandbrook. My auntie lived there whilst i remember the fair but i remember the fair either used to be on the big field along Leasowe road or on the field infront of the cafe. Good times.

My aunt lived in Glasier Road and we used to go to the shore, '40s, down Lingham Lane. It was a quite exciting walk for a little kid because we had to cross the ELECTRIC railway line, safe as long as you didn't stray sideways to the live rails. What did the sign say? 'LOOK LEFT, LOOK RIGHT, PROCEED WITH CAUTION' or similar. One of the few places where you could mix it with speeding electric trains!
Then further down the lane you had to avoid the tipper wagons on the brick works cableway. Admittedly they went a lot slower, but I suppose a nipper could be killed under the wheels of one! No sound of an engine or motor propelling them, just the clank of the wheels. Then through the farm and on to the smelly marshland behind the embankment. There were some spooky black water ponds in the area. It was great to reach the sand after all those hazards! No 'Health and Safety' in those days to spoil the excitement!

Happy days
Bri

I found this advert only last week for building a 16mm Hudson tipper wagon from a kit in an old Railway Modeller' mag. An upward-pointing fork arrangement was attached to the top rim, where the small rectangle is, and in this the steel cable was wedged to give the grip. Crude but effective!

I can remember the fair, it was there year after year, i can also remember a girl being killed on one of the rides, as far as i know she was thrown of the ride and her hair got tangled in the machinery and she was dragged in.

It was on the waltzers. My grandad worked on the funerals and he dealt with the case so I`m told.

I remember the same walk to the shore. We lived in Wastdale Drive but (thank goodness) we had the iron bridge to walk over the lines. When was that erected? The scariest part for us was the walk through the farm because of the guard dogs. 2 german shepherds ( i remember 1 at least) but there was another dog and they scared the bejezuz out of us kids coz they just ran at you barking and showing their teeth.

uh those dogs were not good for my health, that gate was a pain to scale over especially when your little and the barbed wire didn't exactly help. that bridge is starting to look a little rusty though.

the fair was mainly wallis,s traveling fairground. there best place to stay was always moreton.
became less and less as the council didnt really want them there in the end.
great memorys

Fair at Moreton Shore in the 1930s:

anybody remember when all the travellers were on the shore and the council gave them all free tanks of petrol and deisel from the garage to get them to move on,think maybe late 80's early 90's but could be way out on them dates,then when they had all gone they shoved big boulders all over the place.

They do like using the big boulders. They used them to stop the meat man by the 4 bridges.

If I remember correctly this poor lass was a friend of my sister's from school and she was a Birkenhead girl. A lot of people knew her so she was probably from the Cathcart Street area.

Just got the name provided, I was quite right about the poor lass. R.I.P.

oh yeah i remember that, kind of...good times great party

And to stop people parking to buy fish from Arthur on his boat. Wouldn't mind but what else is that space used for?

Once whilst driving past the boat selling fish i asked the wife "should we stop and buy some fish", She replied "no, you don't know where it comes from" and with that life goes on.

I'm very pleased to see another picture of the shanty town - a fascinating, if not very salubrious, part of Wirral's history. There are some pictures of it on the wall and in the archive in Leasowe lighthouse, too. Some of my mother's family lived there, on Birds Field I think it was, in a tent initially, then in something more solid. When it was cleared they went to live in a little prefab in Edge Hill Road, which had a privy that was *cough* dealt with every week by another family member. I'm new to this forum - when I work out how to post a pic, I will. (Not of the privy!)

I remember the young girl being killed on the rides it was front news in the paper at the time, i think her name was Norma Twidale.