Morecambeology Episode 49: Tea-time Treats with Peter Wade

Memories from the 1950s of some of Heysham’s tea gardens (popular with holidaymakers from Morecambe) were passed on earlier this year by Liz Bryan of Grange U3A.

There were three tea gardens facing a row of cottages. My job was with one owned by the Haddath family and, at the time I worked there as a weekend/school holiday waitress, it was run by Mr and Mrs Henderson, the daughter and son-in-law of the Haddaths. A lovely family, excessively busy but gentle with their guests and their employees.

Visitors who walked up the prom from Morecambe for a salad tea and famous custard tart were mainly from the wakes weeks holiday crowds, sometimes from Scotland, more often from the Lancashire cotton mill towns. One week they would be from Nelson, another from Colne, Burnley, or neighbouring towns.

The Haddaths’ garden was nearest the shore, overlooking the rocky beach and the whole of Morecambe Bay. Wooden tables with benches were set outside and there was a large, glass-walled conservatory with indoor seating. My neighbour, Kath, and I arrived on our bikes from 12 noon. We reported to the cottage where the living room was given over to a large wooden table which was filled with empty white pottery plates ready for the orders to come in as people arrived. Huge bowls of salad leaves, tomatoes, shelled boiled eggs, and cooked new potatoes were standing by. Mrs Henderson and her mother-in-law would be in the scullery/kitchen, buttering mountains of brown and white bread. Kettles were simmering and cups and saucers were piled at the ready. We donned aprons and washed our hands, then filled up small milk jugs from a large jug of milk, and salad cream pots from a big jar of Heinz Salad Cream.

As people strolled in, Kath, another friend, Sheila, and I took orders for meals and walked back to the cottage door. The choices of salads were egg, chicken, salmon (from the Lune) and roast ham. It was so soon after the Second World War and food like these meals was never served at home. The sizes of the meat portions were generous to say the least, and more often than not, hard boiled eggs were included with all choices. I have no memory of rubber gloves being used to serve the meat but all was performed in a very hygienic manner.

The Haddaths kept their live chickens in the field around my home garden along with horses that in summer months pulled landaus along Morecambe promenade.

Meals were seven shillings and sixpence, and massive slices of large round home-baked egg custards were extra (but worth every penny). Tea, coffee and lemonade were offered. We took the money (always cash) to, and got change from, a china bowl on a sideboard – which, by the end of each afternoon was piled high with ten shilling and pound notes and lots of ‘silver’.

We were paid fine shillings an afternoon, but were also given a meal the same size for which the visitors had been paying – worth the happy labour if no wages had been paid. We sat and ate outside or in, where the visitors, long gone, had been sitting earlier. We stayed to fill salt, pepper and sugar containers. Other people did all the washing up, by hand, in very hot water, and everything was rinsed. We had tips from customers and, at the end of each day, these were shared out to just the three of us. There was no work on rainy days so each day we had worked, we went home well fed and with our money in our pockets.

I remember one day there was a tragedy out on the Bay, not far from where we were working. A boy had overturned his canoe in the receding tide and he had drowned. He had been in my class at primary school a few years previously.

A busy, young Mrs Henderson with her own little girl of pre-school age at her feet, was rushed and responsible but never raised her voice or got flustered. She worked most efficiently. The overwhelming memory of the tea gardens for me is happiness.

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MORECAMBEOLOGY LIVE IN HEYSHAM A guided walk, Hidden Heysham, will start from the bus turnaround in Heysham Village at 2pm this Saturday June 30. The walk includes rock carvings from the time of the Great War as well as memories of tea gardens, fairy grottoes and puppet superstars. Places on the walk are priced £3 per person. For further details contact the tour guide Peter Wade, telephone 01524 4209045.

Morecambeology Episode 43: The Best Show in Town by Peter Wade

I once passed artists Kate Drummond and Shane Johnstone busy decorating the toilet block at the Battery with a harlequin-patterned arrow pointing the way to the promenade. Their inspiration came from a sign (now half-hidden by another building) which advertised shows at the Palace Theatre on Sandylands Promenade, The West End Frolics – Best Show in Town.

The Palace was built in a subdued Art Deco style by Alderman JW Carleton in 1933. Under his daughter, Mrs Sybil Sheldon, the Palace became home to Hedley Claxton’s Gaytime, the longest-running summer show in the whole country.

Gaytime was staged at various seaside towns including Babbacombe, Newquay and Weston-super-Mare as well as Eastbourne, Margate, Paignton, Plymouth, Worthing and, of course, Morecambe. By changing the programme twice a week, anyone staying for a week’s holiday could go along to three different Gaytime shows during their stay.

When drummer Michael Dynan joined Gaytime in Morecambe in the late 1950s he was impressed by the amount of live entertainment in the town, second only he reckoned to Blackpool. The Central Pier, West End Pier, the Winter Gardens and Alhambra all had shows. Then there was an ice show and aqua show as well as repertory theatre at the Royalty and puppet shows at Heysham head. Together these catered for every possible taste.

Top of the bill at the Palace then was comedian Stanley Massey, barely known outside Morecambe but who had a tremendous local following. Hedley Claxton had an instinct for spotting talent, some of his finds including Dave Allen, Bruce Forsyth, Benny Hill, Ted Rogers and Reg Varney. Gaytime was built around its comics with singers, an impressionist or ventriloquist, musical act, dancers and musicians, often tried and tested from other Gaytime shows.

Though its audience was aging, Gaytime still drew the crowds in the 1960s and into the early 1970s with such performers as Bryan Burdon and Ann Emery (sister of TV comedian Dick Emery).

With the passing of Gaytime the Palace staged This is Show Business, This is Music Hall and This is Command Performance with local entertainer and performer, Ronné Coyles. The Palace closed in 1982.

Morecambeology Episode 37: Borderline by Peter Wade

Between 189 and 191 Westminster Road there’s a narrow gap, barely wide enough for someone to squeeze through. Byron Road ends in a wall. Another gap is to be found between 29 and 27 Brunswick Road, wide enough this time for a newer house to be fitted in. These dislocations map out an old boundary, that between Morecambe and Heysham.

Much of the boundary line can still be walked provided you’re prepared to navigate some of the back streets and alleyways of Morecambe’s West End. Starting inland at the end of Osborne Road, the boundary separates the allotments from neighbouring houses. On the other side, the boundary forms an edge to the grounds of Heysham High School.

The boundary emerges again to cross Balmoral Road and then follow a back alley paralleling Avondale Road. Ahead you see the gap between the houses on Westminster Road while passing Balmoral Garage to your left and a small area of modern houses on the site of a monumental mason.

To follow the boundary further go along Westminster Road to the funeral directors and into the alley leading to Grafton Place. Here you’ll see iron rings set into the wall of a former blacksmiths. Following the alleyways towards Byron Road you get glimpses of the boundary wall. The other side of the wall (the Morecambe side) carries Gardner Road which leads into Brunswick Road.

A detour via Alexandra Road and Salisbury Terrace (another of Morecambe’s forgotten terraces) leads to Bold Street where we again pick up the boundary with the Battery (the traditional boundary marker) ahead. Looking back towards the modern housing along Marlborough Road shows the boundary marked again as 2-storey properties in Morecambe step up to 3-storey ones in Heysham.

The Battery was the site of a windmill (Heysham Mill) from at least the 18th century. It took advantage of its exposed position to grind grain from neighbouring farms. The name Battery comes from a gun battery used for firing practice which was set up in the second half of the 19th century (one of several locally). The mill, by then reduced to a stump known as the Round House, was used for storage.

The Battery Inn of 1863 and larger adjoining Battery Hotel of 1900 kept the name long after the guns fell silent.

OUR FAMOUS MORECAMBEOLOGIST REVEALED!!!

Morecambe Heritage lifts the lid on our self-styled Morecambeologist and asks who is Peter Wade?

* * * * *

Peter

* * * * *

Was born on Trafalgar Day a few years before the beginning of the Space Age

Lives in a 1930s semi originally rented by his grandparents

Is about to start his 23^rd season of guided walks in and around Morecambe, Heysham and Lancaster

Is a cross between a Yorkshire Terrier and a Great Dane (or so his mum always said, not sure his dad agreed)

Is currently reading The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott, a book borrowed from Heysham Library

Was born in the Queen Vic, so can claim to be a sand grown ‘un

Is contemplating the switch from winter soups to summer salads

Was schooled at Sandylands Mixed Infants and Morecambe Grammar

Is currently listening to London Grammar’s 2013 album If you wait and recordings of The Beggar’s Opera, both part of a growing vinyl collection

Finished his formal education at Warwick University with a joint degree in Physics and Philosophy

Leads the team at the Winter Gardens hosting paranormal investigations, a major fundraising activity

Has had a varied career in education ranging from the Adult Education Centre in Morecambe to Lancaster University

Is an occasional LuneTube presenter. His first attempt, Poulton – a Place of Pebbles has had over a thousand views. Others in the pipeline are about war memorials in Heysham, lost buildings in Poulton and Carnforth’s iron industry

Has designed and painted scenery for Lancaster Footlights and the Grand theatre. Plays include Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, Molière’s Tartuffe, and Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan as well as many pantomimes and touring shows.

Is currently writing his next column for the July/August issue of Popular Astronomy , a magazine he has contributed to for over 30 years

Can often be found helping out at Morecambe Heritage Centre

Has written several booklets about aspects of the area’s history, one of which (Echoes of Art Deco) has sold over 3,000 copies

Leads tours of the Winter Gardens and Morecambe Town Hall

Used to walk regularly to and from Lancaster University, much to the amazement of his head of department

Has a royal coat of arms over his bed, salvaged from a production of Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III

Once did a Roman route march following the Roman road over High Street from Ambleside to Penrith

Is to paint Lancaster Grand Theatre’s new safety curtain in a rococo style over the summer (the keen-sighted may have spotted the initials PW in the corner of the old one)

Morecambeology Episode 25: A Treasure Trove of Names by Peter Wade

We get excited by news of buried hoards and so on, but place names are a kind of hoard or time capsule as well, leaving messages from the past and the people who went before us.

The earliest names to have survived locally are from Roman times such as Moricambe Aestium (Morecambe Estuary) as we saw in Morecambeology 19.

Many of our local place names come from the people who moved in once the Romans had left. Poulton is a classic example of an Anglo Saxon name with the ending ton meaning farm or settlement. Less obviously Anglo Saxon is Bare meaning a grove of trees. Other Anglo Saxon names nearby include Heysham (estate in a wood), Middleton (middle farm), Overton (upper or further farm) and Sunderland (separate land).

The Angles and Saxons were originally from southern Jutland and northern Germany, and may have settled locally as early as the 6th century AD.

From the 9th century another group of migrants, the Vikings, began to make their mark, at first as raiders and later perhaps as settlers. Torrisholme is an obvious Viking name with its ending holme meaning island. It may not though literally mean an island surrounded by water, perhaps instead higher and drier land rising out of marshes. The first part is someone’s name such as Thorald or Torvald.

Another of these islands, Trailholme, marks a farm on a slight rise on the way to Sunderland Point while Anstable Holme referred to the rise on Lancaster Road before the Shrimp Roundabout.

Other Viking names are to be found in Schola Green Lane which comes from shieling meaning grazing land, Mears Beck (a stream or beck which drained onto Sandylands), White Lund (the white grove) and, out in Morecambe Bay, the skears or skerries (rocky outcrops left from hills which have been eroded away by the sea). This last word conjures up ideas of both Viking ships sailing the bay and of an even older landscape lost to the waves.

 

 

Morecambeology Part 12: Morecambe at the Movies (Reel 2) by Peter Wade

Morecambe film programmes were quite elaborate by today’s standards. The main film would often have a supporting film (the notorious B-movie), perhaps a short film such as a travelogue, and the adverts. The latter might have been a selection from Pearl & Dean with the addition of customised local adverts (one I remember was for the Old Hall at Heysham along with a very plummy voiceover).

These were rolling programmes with people often arriving and departing in mid-film. Films I particularly remember were Snow White (my first) and the other classic Disney animations (also Disney’s wildlife films which were often part of supporting programmes), A Hard day’s Night at the Odeon (the first Beatles’ film which was all the more striking for being shot in black-and-white, Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music (treats for birthdays), Dr Zhivago and many, many more.

As time passed cinemas like the Empire became multi-screened (precursors of the modern multiplex) and the Odeon became the Classic. Meanwhile I was defecting to the artier offerings at the Duke’s, the British Film Institute’s northern outpost in Lancaster.

There were other cinemas I might have gone to but never did (the Gaumont and Royalty) as well as those from earlier times I never could have visited (the Whitehall, Astoria, Winter Gardens and Palace).

My abiding cinema memory is of a screening of 2001: a Space Odyssey at the Empire in 1968. A new deep-curved screen took the images from 70mm film across several projectors (the equivalent then of a modern IMAX screening). The film opens in the darkness of an eclipse and my memory is of a fully darkened auditorium where even the exit lights had been temporarily switched off. The curtains opened in darkness onto darkness as the audience peered out into the depths of space not quite sure about what was about to happen to them – a truly magical spine-tingling cinema moment.

Morecambeology Part 6: Stormy Weather with Peter Wade ;-)

The clue is in the name: Poulton – a settlement by a pond or pool. With no sea defences as such, Poulton and its neighbours had to make the most of the landscape, setting themselves on hills or behind higher ground, seeking shelter from storm and flood.

Caught between the sea and storms on one side and the flood plain of the Lune estuary on the other, there must have been many past inundations which have gone unrecorded.

From the 1850s onwards as Morecambe began to be established, there are regular reports of damage to new sea walls, wind damage and flooding (some as far inland as what is now the Shrimp Roundabout.

Many people still remember the storm of 1977 with gales of up to 92 mph and widespread flooding as the central promenade was breached. The most notable casualty was the West End Pier. This had suffered various mishaps over the years but finally fell victim to the storm, apparently because it had been fixed too rigidly to the promenade – with a bit more flexibility it might have survived. The morning after, the beach was alive with scavengers, many searching for pennies lost overboard from the slot machines.

Another notable storm took place on Mothering Sunday in 1907. A spring tide, south westerly gale and the Lune in flood after a month’s rainfall all combined to cause a breach in the West End promenade and widespread flooding inland. Around the Stone Jetty stone blocks were thrown about by the waves and the workshops of Wards Shipbreakers were damaged. The Ben-my-Chree, a paddle steamer with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company awaiting scrapping, broke its moorings and had to be scuppered to stop it being carried away.

Inland there was flooding around Charles Street and Out Moss Lane resulting in the loss of livestock, as well as floods on White Lund, around Woodhill, Overton and Snatchems. Food and supplies had to be brought to stranded householders by boat.

Along Sandylands, front gardens were wrecked, and cellars and lower floors flooded. Furniture was to be seen floating down streets (a similar sight was reported in Parliament Street in 1977).

Sandylands Promenade was again wrecked by a storm at the very end of 1925. Its repair and, more importantly, its repair bill, led to the amalgamation of Morecambe and Heysham in 1928.

Morecambeology Part 1

In 1967, the year of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act which resulted in the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality, the official Holiday Guide to Morecambe and Heysham described the resort as Gay and Go Ahead.

Six years later, Morecambe found itself going gay in quite another way when the Central Pier hosted the first national conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) from 6-8 April 1973. The event attracted some 250 delegates and was the largest gathering of its kind up to then. Among those attending was the broadcaster and campaigner Ray Gosling who chaired a working group on Women in Society.

Concerns about the event were expressed by Morecambe and Heysham Town Council and there was an exchange of letters in the local paper, The Visitor. Despite these and the presence of anti-gay protesters, the event went ahead as planned at the privately owned Central Pier. Paul Temperton, General Chair of the CHE, commented on it being a ‘victory for the right of free discussion and free assembly. Above all it is a victory for common sense’.