Childhood in the Liverpool Slums

By Bob Dunn

The author was born just after the Second World War at the Mill Road Maternity Hospital Liverpool. His childhood years were spent in the slum housing of the Everton District of Liverpool where he attended Primary and then Secondary School until 1961. On leaving school he had a number of jobs before working for the City Council in their Children’s Homes, then running a residential unit at the Cotswold therapeutic Community in Wiltshire, before returning to Liverpool as a social work Staff Development and Training Officer. Before taking retirement Bob was a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood, Childhood and Youth Studies at Edge Hill University in Lancashire.

Bob and his partner have four sons and five grandchildren.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035835935

Book preview

About the Author

Bob Dunn was born at 6 A.M. on 27 May 1947 at the Mill Road Maternity Hospital in Liverpool (closed 1993). He has two younger brothers, Graham and Trevor and they lived at the family home at 16 Louis Street, Everton, Liverpool 5, with their parents, William (Bill) and Ethel. It is worth noting that Trevor, the youngest brother, was actually born in this house.

After leaving school, he worked in one of Liverpool’s first small supermarkets situated on Granby Street (Scotts). He then worked for the Midland Bank (Dale Street) before joining the Liverpool City Council, first in their Children’s Homes and later as a Social Services Staff Training and Development Officer. His previous responsibilities included running a unit at the Cotswold Therapeutic Community for disturbed adolescent boys.

Before taking retirement, Bob was a senior lecturer in Childhood and Early Childhood Studies at Edge Hill University’s Faculty of Social and Psychological Science.

Bob and his partner have four sons and five grandchildren.

Dedication

Dedicated to all the parents who struggled and worked hard to bring their children up successfully in difficult circumstances.

Copyright Information ©

Bob Dunn 2024

The right of Bob Dunn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The story, experiences, and words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035835928 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035835935 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Acknowledgement

And thanks to:

The Liverpool Archive Records Office staff for their time and the provision of many historical photographs.

The Liverpool Fire and Rescue Museum.

The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo Newspaper. Mirrorpix.

Dr Alana Barton and Dr Howard Davis of Edge Hill University for their advice and support.

Not least of all to my son, Jonathan, for his patience and technical support.

Abstract

The idea of childhood is a social construction. The word means different things to different people. To some it means happy memories, to others it is best forgotten. The childhoods identified here are set in the realms of poverty, bad housing, little material benefits and little prospects for the future. This is a description of fortitude, hope and survival against the odds, of those childhoods that took place in the Liverpool slums.

The text contains a background history supported by photographic evidence, of childhood in Liverpool’s slum housing. It covers the culture, events and its music during the 1950s and 1960s. These are interspersed with and linked to, personal experiences of the author and some theoretical perspectives on childhood.

To those from Liverpool, it is a reminder of how things used to be in an entirely different age and world. To those not from the area it is a window on a unique way of life that came and went. For researchers it is a supply of rich first-hand data and hopefully, for all, a good interesting read.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Life and

Times in General

Liverpool as a port and city came to importance with the development of the industrial revolution in Britain. It became the main trading port for the transit of goods around the world.

As a result of this, the port saw sailors and traders from literally all over the world come to the city and, of course, they brought their own cultures and traditions with them. Many of them married and settled here, producing the diverse population that exists today. The city also took delivery of a mass of people from Ireland that settled here to escape the Great Potato Famine of 1845 or to see others pass through on their way to a better life in Canada. America and other parts of the world.

However, it must be remembered that prior to this event, at least 50,000 Irish people were born in the city and had families there already (Belcham, 2007). It also needs to be said that much of the city’s wealth was earned from its major involvement with slavery.

This writing is principally about the post-war period and the area where I and others spent our formative years, known as Everton, in the city of Liverpool. This was a large area that contained very poor, often unsanitary, overcrowded housing, described mostly as slums or as Macilwee (2021) called them ‘A little hell’.

The area covered mainly Netherfield Road, Great Homer Street and Scotland Road, but the details almost certainly apply to other parts of the city. The writing is about childhoods, mine and those around in such an environment. However, such childhoods need also to be seen within the wider economic, social and cultural background of the 1950s and 1960s in Britain, for this is what determined how childhood and children were perceived at the time.

P1

(Everton District L5)

To have a childhood in the slums and suffer material and other deprivations does not always mean that children grow up to be criminals and deviants. However, it was at the time ‘the widespread view that crime was an almost inevitable consequence of poverty,’ James and James (2004:73).

Though at times life could be grim, the text here hopefully shows how children and families made the best of things, so that ‘life in the slums’ was not as bad as outsiders may have imagined.

In a wider context, it is worth remembering while considering events here, that in 1959 the United Nations proclaimed that ‘childhood is entitled to special care and assistance’. Furthermore, in its declaration of the Rights of the Child, it stated that:

‘The child shall enjoy special protection and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and other means to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity.’ It can be questioned as to whether children in a deprived slum area were afforded such essentials.

See map and photos.

These were times that many today would not recognise. In the 1950s in this area, hardly anybody had a telephone, a car, a fridge, a washing machine, a television, three full meals a day or a holiday. Families had to use the ‘hand-me-down’ clothes system for children and some children in the larger families had to cope with the ‘first up best dressed’ system.

It was a time before the age of the mobile phone, the microwave and the world wide web. Times were hard and people had to sometimes rely on each other to get by, i.e. survive. Poverty reigned supreme and housing was squalid, both of which contributed to poor health.

(2yr old girl sits by toilet used by nine families)

Pooley and Irish (1994:200) show that the infant mortality rate in Liverpool remained consistently above national levels. Women and children had little legal protection and though Acts protecting children had been passed in 1908 and 1933, there is no doubt, but little recorded evidence, that child abuse and domestic abuse occurred.

The Children Act of 1948 made better progress in the protection of children because it made it the duty of every city to appoint a Children’s Officer and Child Care Officers to implement the Act. Liverpool’s Brougham Terrace on West Derby Road housed its Children’s Department offices.

Our Family

I consider myself lucky to have had the parents I had, as they were principally kind and caring people who cared for their children to the best of their ability.

Dad was a hard-working man who worked to pay the bills and put food on the table and clothes on our backs. He was not ‘a drinker’ who spent hours in the boozer and spent the housekeeping money on gambling or football and neither was he violent. He smoked Kensitas and Senior Service cigarettes. He was good at woodwork and loved his allotment (plot) and would spend any spare time there growing lots of produce.

Mum was a good cook and a very competent seamstress and because of this, dad had cleverly converted her treadle sewing machine to run with an electric motor. She used to do repairs for other people for a ‘few bob’. She enjoyed writing and had a good clear ‘hand’, always writing with a Waterman fountain pen. She did not drink or smoke and had a strong belief in God, redemption, salvation and said her prayers daily and attended church regularly.

At one point, she had a part-time job working for Woolworths and we used to enjoy the broken biscuits she used to buy cheaply and bring home for us. My younger brother is three years younger than me and had to wear glasses from an early age, I used to do my best to look after him.

Paternal grandparents did not exist (no info about this) but our maternal grandparents were very much part of our family and we spent a lot of time with them; we also had aunties and uncles that lived nearby. What I can say categorically, is that our parents loved us and tried their very best to bring us up as best they could in very difficult circumstances, for which I will always be grateful.

Little did I know it at the time but I was learning about the social and economic effects of the environment on people and especially children and their childhoods. If parents were drinkers and smoked and gambled and had fights in the street, then there was a strong possibility that their children would follow the model set for them and replicate it in adulthood.

Post-War Years and Recovery after the Blitz

The Second World War had changed the world and even more so when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945, thrusting the world into the atomic-nuclear age.

Liverpool itself had suffered extensive bombing during the War, the recovery from which would not be quick nor easy. Consequently, in the 1950s, many bombed-out areas existed as the city struggled to clear the debris and devastation that remained.

Ironically, such areas became playgrounds for children growing up in these areas as they were often flat and therefore ideal as football or cricket pitches with no nearby windows to break. Liverpool Corporation had to decide on a housing recovery plan for this area. With the housing stock in such poor condition, they settled for mass clearance, relocation and rebuilding. Little thought was given at this stage to the inevitable disruption, dislocation and community destruction, to the inhabitants involved.

Equally at the same time, Liverpool’s population itself was declining:

1931 856,000—1951 788,660—1961 745,750.

With its biggest loss in 1971 down to 590,240, a loss of 155,510 in ten years. Such figures have considerable importance for planning and social services.

Chapter 2

Housing

Liverpool was regarded as the most unhealthy English city with, in 1841, 34% of its population living in filthy overcrowded cellars without light, ventilation or fresh water Thompson (2020:29).

Karl Marx’s colleague, Frederick Engels came to Liverpool in 1844 to document the terrible conditions related to industrial capitalism. In his ‘Conditions of the working class in England’, he wrote:

‘Liverpool with all its wealth and commerce—treats its workers with the same barbarity. A full fifth of the population, more than 45,000 live in narrow, dark, damp, badly ventilated cellar dwellings,’ Thompson, M. (2020, Ch2).

It must be remembered however that not all wealthy employers treated their workers badly and though in a minority in Liverpool, John Criddle and William Lever were notable exceptions who created good working conditions, built good housing and provided welfare support to their workers (Criddles Village and Port Sunlight).

(Bathtime in front of a hot stove)

Most properties in Everton were primitive ‘back to back—two up two down’ terraced properties, meaning that there were two bedrooms upstairs and two living rooms downstairs. They had an outside toilet, no bathroom and a small coal shed.

Many people lived in cellars with no windows.

Evans (2020) comments that ‘of all the major cities in Victorian Britain Liverpool had the highest proportion of cellar accommodation, dark, damp and disease ridden’. These houses were owned, rented out and run by landlords who