John Lennon

1940 - 1980

The Vanished World of a Woolton Childhood with John Lennon

by DAVID ASHTON

Page 5

As many of you will know John was in a choir from time to time. He used to turn up with Nige Whalley especially when we had a wedding to sing for. Then we used to get two shillings and sixpence per wedding, a lot of money in those days when most of us only got sixpence or a shilling pocket money a week.

I remember one Saturday we thought we had hit the jackpot! We got three weddings on the trot and got seven shillings and sixpence paid out after the last service by choirmaster Eric Humphrey's who I think was agnostic and did not reckon much to religion as he said it caused wars.

He was a lovely man and loved church music. His brother, Ernie Humphrey's was Ringing Master of the Bells in Woolton St Peter's Belfry. Their father, Enoch Humphrey's, was gardener to Harry Pilkington of the Pilkington Glass firm of St Helens.

Pilkington's had a lovely house at the corner of Beaconsfield Road and Quarry Street and also had a wonderful orchard where we lads scrumped apples if Enoch did not catch us.

The Choir and Sunday School trips were big events in our lives when few folks had holidays in the 1950s. Soon after the schools broke up for the Summer holidays we choirboys were shepherded early in the morning onto the 121 Crossville bus from Woolton village by the Rev Prycee Jones, Miss Cynthia Pilkington and Bertha Radley.

My dad said that the Pilkington's helped pay for the trip as they did when he had been a choirboy at St Peter's Church.

The bus took us to the Pier Head and Liverpool's Floating Landing stage next to the great liners - Canadian Pacific, Cunard and P&O liners coming back from Canada and North America or the 'Rena del Mar' from its long journey to Tierra del Fuego at the Southern tip of South America ... 'Welsh Wales beyond the seas, the land of fire and brimstone where Welsh people lived as they did in Wales' Prycee would say in his lovely lilting Welsh voice.

Next to the great liners were the smaller Isle of Man boats like 'Lady of Man' or 'King Orry' with red funnels like the proud, boastful, eminent Cunard liner just home from New York.

Then the steamboat of the North Wales Steamship Company with its dark yellow funnels. Usually it was the 'St Tudno' but it could be 'St Trillo' and on occasions it was the little 'St Seriol' - all named after the Welsh Celtic saints.

"The Welsh were Christians long before the English and most of Europe" Prycee would say as he changed over to speaking his beloved Welsh language to the crew of these little Welsh boats as we got on board. How I loved to hear Prycee speaking Welsh. He was a new man - a man liberated.

I suppose all us kids living in Liverpool knew some Welsh but not enough to understand the conversation on the 2 to 3 hour journey to Llandudno in North Wales, that beautiful seaside resort.

As long as we kept clear of Big Bertha Radley and her Gamp and the flick behind the lughole we were safe so we sat on the prow and let the Irish Sea spray fly over us as we drank our pop, sitting on the ship's ropes watching the Welsh coast appear as we passed Hoylake, Point of Air and Rhyl and then just past Colwyn Bay the Great Orme Head appeared.

"Home of the Celtic saints is the Great Orme" Prycee would say as we berthed at the beautiful Llandudno pier next to the Grand Hotel.

I never forget the alluring beauty of the turquoise-blue water at Llandudno. It was clean! We choirboys were used to the grimy, dirty River Mersey water as it was then (it's much cleaner nowadays) .

John Lennon's comment was 'Shakespeare said 'The quality of Mersey is not pure' and I got in to trouble at school later for saying it and had to write out a hundred times the correct Shakespeare quotation 'The quality of Mercy is not strained'.

Some times we would go for a swim at Llandudno and then go into a hotel for tea and cakes and to use their toilet. Prycee knew the manager and used to talk to him in Welsh.

Other times we would take the smaller 'St Trillo' or 'St Seriol' around Great Ormes Head to watch the puffins, cormorants, little terns and myriad other nesting birds feeding their young on the Head or would see porpoises, basking sharks and seals as we passed the Conway Estuary and Penmaenmawr and then down the Menai Strait passing Prycee's home at Beaumaris to berth at Menai Bridge with thousand of scented flowers.

I used to think that we had arrived in Paradise as I listened to folk talking their lovely Welsh language. I always remember with surprise all the women rushing to see our bachelor Minister Pryce Jones, to talk to him in Welsh.

"Go away" he would say to us "This is a very private conversation". We lads had not a clue what he was talking about in Welsh but we made up some amazing stories. 'The quality of innocence is pure' I think John would have said.

Then the journey to Llandudno, on to the bigger 'St Tudno' and, tired, we would arrive home ready for bed at about 10 p.m. What days! what memories!. If I ever get to Paradise I hope to talk to our rector Prycee Jones and John about those day trips to North Wales by steam boat - sadly, no longer available.

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