Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral Now and Then gone but not so long ago

Great Pictures guys!

What year where the pictures taken?

these were taken by my brother I think about 1989/90 ish

Thanks. What year was the fly over demolished?

I think the building on top right used to be a picture house, then it was a bingo i think. there used to be a cinema on the other side also and one just round the corner on argyle street.

wow asda car park!!! that was our playground every sunday when we were kids such a great place for bikes and roller boots

Just been looking at the original pics off clicky

and have enlarged the car park on top of the old Asda now Wilkinsons.
As a matter of interest can anyone name the blocks of flats please?

From left to right they were called Meliden Gardens, Sidney Gardens, Hadlow Gardens and Hillside Court. The other block on Sidney Road was Norbury Gardens, just out of shot on the left.

what pissed me off was they nocked down a great boozer called the conway arms[flat iron] to put the flyover up then a few years later that came down.

Last one is extraordinary, taken from right behind my house. Thanks man!

This pic must have been taken before 1987 as Green Lane Junction signal box (the white building near to the W in the bottom right corner) was closed in December 1986 and burnt down a couple of months later.

To think that schoolchildren were taken to the leather works as career guidance/education! The stench lingers still!

Is it my imagination or does Birkenhead have a series of 'mysterious' fires that occur followed by development?

Sometime between 1958 and 1962 I went with the school to a launching at Cammell Lairds and on the way back to school we passed an open doorway in the tannery where I saw a worker iwearing an apron and wellies dipping large pieces of leather into a large wooden container full of brown liquid and I thought I wouldn't like to work there.
Guess what?
When I left school I got a job there as Trainee Transport Manager and was the only job I had until 1993 when it closed.
You got used to the smell of leather except maybe once a month when they stirred the tanning pits which where nearest to the main road, but the worst smell (like rotten eggs) came from Thomson Bros next door.

Whole families often worked there and besides those jobs that handled the wet hides there were typists,joiners, fitters, mechanics and stacker truck and lorry drivers and apprenticeships to these.
I think the wages were above the average going rate in Birkenhead

Indeed, seen during the period as decent work and as you say with a regular, not to be sniffed at wage. The other job options that schools presented included, Prices Candles,Lever Brothers, and was it British Aerospace (Hawker Siddley) out Chester way? Ah and Shotton steelworks, talk about Hades