Life's a beach

I grew up at the seaside as many of my avid readers will know from my teen diaries. I now live inland and the nearest I get to water is the Manchester Ship Canal or the River Irwell adjacent to work (I have actually worked out I can get to work by water!! Interesting!!).... it is not the same as miles of sandy beaches.
Thankfully my family still live on the coast and take every opportunity to get onto the sands.

It is November and still it glorious to get out there and smell the clean air.....My pup was born in Southport and she is the happiest ever dog when let loose on the beach, you can almost see her laughing. However, she has developed this weird obsession of picking up shells off the beach... last time it was a clam shell

It was the first time that she wore her gorgeous coat courtesy of FuelMyBlog and Nutrecare. 

Oh btw she ditched the shell and ended up with a piece of coal instead... 

28th September 1979

Friday 28
Boring day at college
Got a 'B' for my Sociology essay (blooming heck that was some quick marking)
Bought a shirt from Clobber £5.99 (Clobber was the shop to buy from in Southport then along with Van Allan.. Clobber had a prime site at the entrance of the train station so you just had to pop in on the way home)
Sam phoned at 9.00
Said he had done 3 hours work & now he was going to the Woolpack
I was supposed to be going down there this weekend
Watched Bonnie & Clyde

After the news yesterday that Paul Newman had I died I thought I would have a hunt around and see who was born and died in 1979 (up to September that is)


Births
Nora Jones ...I love 'Come Away with me'

Sophie Ellis- Bextor .. I saw her in support of Take That last year. She was good but the acoustics were shocking at the MEN arena
Robyn
Shane from Westlife .. my Mum thinks he sings like a girl but you can't take that away from the sucess they have had
Pink..... what a fabulous eccentric gal

Deaths
Conrad Hilton .. grand father to a rather spoilt Paris
Donny Hathaway .. a soulful chap who produced some fabulous music
This is done by Will Young

Sid Vicious ... I remember it so well but it didn't hit my diaries. Punk was at its hilt and he did and done a stupid thing

Richard Beckinsale... I remember the shock of this as he was young and up and coming. Very famous in his roll in 'Porridge'.. very sudden

Airey Neave and Earl Mountbatten were both assasinated by the IRA. We complain about troubles now with suicide bombings but I was brought up with indiscriminate IRA bombings in the 70s & 80s which still went on after my teen was born in the 90s (Warrington and Manchester bombings... the Warrington bomb I was shopping in Manchester and the Manchester bomb I was shopping in Warrington..(I live equal distance from both places) someone is looking over me I think? )


Mary Pickford... a star of black and white stage and screen

& dear old John Wayne .. get off your horse and drink your milk .. the man born called Marion.... Saturday afternoon Westerns would never seem the same again

29th June 1979

Friday 29
College at 9.30
Got my report = very average (mmmm! don't seem to have kept that one??)
Walked round town
Came home for dinner
Sam phoned
Phoned him at 7.30 to tell him I was going to Fi's and not the Brick 'do'
he didn't ring back!

As you know I have had Annie Mouse staying this weekend. We have ghost hunted, shopped, drank Pimms and today we went to Southport where we both spent our teen years.
It absolutely poured down en route. But the sun shone whilst we were there.

Ah! The Gallary Grill. It was the place to hang out for hours with one cup of coffee or hot chocolate. If you couldn't get a window seat it was a disaster... nowadays my teen and her mates use Starbucks for the same experience



This is 'The 'Brick'



where the sign says 'Baron's bar' this is where we would hang out


The Art Centre had the best bar back in the 70s/80s.... didn't get a chance today to go in there



The Shell Shop where 'J' and I spent hours in our teens...... mmmm spent hours in their today too... then it was all shells and you would go up the iron staircase to the shop. The new owner is a book addict so mostly books but when we were there today he did sell a coral for £90.
The conversation was priceless.
Buyer 'if she doesn't like it she can give it away'
Owner 'if you break it en route she will still have two lovely pieces'
There was a lot more convo but it was too surreal for words!






The oldest Eubank cleaner I have seen!!
.
Then onto Wayfarers Arcade. As a teen this was where you would be followed by store detectives or shop assistants as it is soooo posh ... teens were not tolerated!




a statue of Red Rum ... 3 times winner of the Grand National



& on the way home we stopped to look at the sea. It was so clear you could see Blackpool across the sea. The reflections were very clear but the photos do not pick it up quite so well

3rd February 1979

Saturday 3
Worked 11.00 - 5.00 £4.10 wages (ooo I had a 10p pay rise)
Got up at 9.00
Sam met me at lunch time
He was pissed (oops)
We went to the Houghton (the Houghton Arms pub, Southport)
At night we went to Follies = ok
The stupid girl that has been following Sam about apologised to me
She said she hadn't realised that me & Sam were so in love (hee hee pass me a bucket)



I started this blog at the end of April 2007 when I stumbled upon my teen diaries. It has grown and evolved since then with no particular plan or place to go in mind, which is great fun.

Yesterday Jeremy Jacobs asked if I was from Kent? & then popped me up on his site as 'Blog of the Week'... cool.

For those who may have not guessed I am not from Kent I am from the North West of England. I was born in a terraced house, with a small back yard in Liverpool. Which this year is the
European City of Culture.
There has been so much building work going on I hardly recognise my old city with its history of the Beatles.
The events planned seem endless, I am at a loss to catch up with it all. But I will be hunting out & planning regular jaunts over there this year.

Early doors we moved to the sea side resort of Southport. What a privileged place to grow up in. Sea, sand, fairground, amusements, sunshine and fresh air away from the city.We even used have an outdoor pool or lido... sadly no longer

Southport was 'born' in the late 1700's and became popular with the Victorians who would bathe in the sea, stroll along the promenade and Lord Street and take afternon tea in the very fashionable tearooms of the era.Apparently Napoleon Boneparte sought refuge in Southport and it is rumoured he based Paris's boulevards on Southport's Lord Street.

Then of course there was always the fairground. I found this wonderful site which has historic postcards of Fairground rides some of which are of Southport. It really is worth a look.

The British Open is being held in Southport this year too. A busy time in the North West....

2007 Interlude

I interupt this 70's adventure as I have just been tagged by Bill and I am thinking so hard for suitable eateries

Not on a 70s theme but a fab resturant I have been to and is whacky as hell............... Sarastro
The Murals in the toilets are amazing.. ... a huge favourite when I am in London on more than a whistle stop tour..... not had that opportunity in a while ........ I hope it is not spoilt

Gallery Grill Eastbank Street Southport...... looked for a link but came up with only their location. Spent hours ... nay days... in my teens, sipping coffee in the window seat (if the window seats were taken we wouldn't stay)

The Outdoor cafe at the Townhall Southport ... not a particularly nice place to eat but an excellent place to sit and people watch in the heart of Southport's Lord Street. I worked there from 1975 - 1982 in my holidays .... fabulous. If you ever bought an ice cream from there during that time it was probably me who served you

Bill I will have to pinch your OX (ooo I say!) one of my fav lunchtime haunts

El rincon superb

and lastly Cafe Pop it is a trip down memory lane. Lava lamps, gordy crockery, 60s/70s clothing. I just love it,,,,,,,,,,,,,, when I shop til I drop in Manchester with my teenager this is our very favourite haunt

Don't know 5 other bloggers so can't pass this on

But at least Bill will be happy :-)

Getting to Here!

I guess the next step in this to set the scene how I got to where I appear in the diaries.

Out I popped into the World in the early 60s in swinging, happening Liverpool, the third child & only girl. I had bronchial pneumonia as a baby and continual chesty coughs, Dad looked for a job on the coast and finally managed to gain a good position as an engineer in Southport Circa March 1965.
Off we all went with the excitement of sandhills, beach and occasionally the sea, as small people we could not often walk that far …. This excitement and new life was swiftly removed 2 years later when my Dad died very suddenly aged 44.

So faced with raising 3 kids, no income (no insurance then that paid off the house) and no family living near, Mum had the choice of either selling up and taking us back to Liverpool or staying put to carry on Dads dream of a healthier life for his children at the coast.
Thankfully for us we stayed. Let this never at anytime appear as though I am ashamed of my Scouse roots, because no further from the truth could you get …….. but lets face it as a kid growing up at the sea side ..what more could you ask it was sooooooooooooo cool

Mum got cleaning jobs, which she could do in school hours

‘I will not have you being latch key kids’ she would say

Growing up in a middle class village for a Scouse family was tough. At that time my brother and I were the only kids on free school meals (our Primary School had braided blazers, shirt and tie and the boys wore caps), my Mum was ignored in the bread shop as Mrs Cooper, Mrs Thornby et al where called in front of her at the bakers for their bread order, I was constantly corrected on my speech by my best friends' mothers …

‘now come along dear it is Barth .. not bath, Garrargge .. not Garage!’.. they would say

I was not allowed in some of my mates homes because I was from Liverpool …. I would sit on the step whilst the rest went in the house…

All this was stored in the memory banks and has made me the person I am now .. I expect that is what has given me my levels of tolerance of people and all our differences … and certainly I must confess as have seen some of these parents now as an adult I think

‘You made my life hell as a child with your bias… but look at me now !’ & smile to myself

Along the way we got by with clothes from the families Mum cleaned for, the Church and a lady that owned one of the big sea front Hotels

(Early check in here!! .. was given a head scarf from one such charitable family to use for my Cindy doll… I cut it up to make sheets for her bed I had made out of a cornflake packet after watching Blue Peter. The scarf was a Hermes !!!!!)

Once I went to Secondary School Mum did get a full time job in the Civil Service and she also met a man (she was 36 when Dad died ) … He was the widowed son of a neighbour and our life changed again………………….. He had a car……….. a tan Ford Cortina 2000E OEM 59L…..


Will get around to the secrets of the diaries over the next posts……….. just to say the first is the ‘Summer of 1974’... I didn't get bitter .. I just got better :-)