Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Laird Street Memories

There were a lot more jobs around then, Ste. Before the massive de-instrialisation of the 1980s. Massive job losses and rising unemployment do tend to lead less community spirit and all the nicer things of the recent past.

yes stu,

Those blocks of flats pee me off too!

Look how crap it looks now compared too the 70's, yet they keep knocking the good buildings down to make the new, cheap crappy ones we have today which are damn right ugly and out of place.

Bring back the 70's.

think the factory was called tin box ,and in the 80s it was a yts place but cant remember the name of it

D.K.S. containers (tin box)

In 60s-70s i used to get the number 46 bus home from my nans at that bus stop used to have to wait for the drivers to change over just spoke to my mum in that building, she thinks there were three factorys.victory kidder,the auto ticket works which used to make the bus tickets and lampson & parragon a little further up towards st james church i remember a cycle shop i think was called shallcross.

remember shallcrosses me nan used to take me there on a saturday to gab with mrs shallcross.

That factory was the Victory Kidder factory,it made printing presses and also made the bus tickets, and guillotine machines
they relocated to Arrowe Brooke rd in Upton in 1971 when they were taken over by the Simon group and became Simon V-K.

They closed their new factory in 1981 and in 1988 it became The Wirral Business Park as it remains to this day.

my father was the maintenance man at both sites.

Great info torryman - thanks for sharing

The factory on Malleby Street was called Serve Wirral Training. It was the SWT's base for wood working etc.. They used the old building in Central Park in wallasey also. Which i think was knocked down..

Metal Box.

It was burnt down by Wirral council who employed arsonists and then they had no choice to knock it down.
I would of made them rebuild it brick by brick personally.

there was a vegetable shop called Nearys at the top end near the church. It was called Fleetwoods before that (I lived there in corporation road from 1954 ) there was a sweet shop called Cleavers which was Griffiths before that, there was a motorbike shop (this was before the library as I left the area in 1964 and the library wasnt there then it was just a field. There was a cobblers called Claytons , there was a hairdressers. a wool shop called langtons I think. There was another sweet shop run by Derek Cowell. This was also before the turntable club. The chip shop was called Haydons.

I was born on Laird Street (3) and now live on Brill street with my missus and kids, think I just can't keep myself away from here. I can remember some of the shops mentioned, Dave Sheridan of the funeral shop is my girlfriemds uncle.

If anyone has more photos that aren't already up on here I'd love to see them

took me a while, bit slow don't forget me girlfriends auntie