Introduction

This narrative, which began as a humble letter, but quickly took on an existence of its own, is an attempt to describe the muddled life I've led. I make no claim to be accurate, especially since the first part dates back almost to prehistoric times; it is merely my impressions of events which I stumbled into along the way.

The name Spike Island in some ways is a misnomer - and perhaps a trifle ambitious. It is a six-mile long rasher of land sliced on one side by the canal - or cut, as it is locally known - and washed on the other by the river Mersey. The point where the river and the canal meet is marked by two locks which once did grand service to the barge trade as they plied up and down the two waterways carrying their loads of precious cargo. They would pass through the giant gates from the river and be raised to the level of the canal, then chug away inland to their destinations. And when they had disgorged their cargoes, and perhaps taken on others, they would return to await the tide until they could sail down-river again.

Slightly further away from the locks there was a dry-dock - at least it appeared to be one, but no boat in my memory ever used it as such.1 Beside the locks stood two cottages joined as Siamese twins, bonded together for a life of servitude. Directly in front of the houses, about ten yards away, was a small storage-shed, and behind that an office building, long since abandoned and in an advanced state of disrepair. Further to the left, across the railway lines, the pump-house stood, lounging for the most part in idleness.2

Behind the cottages, and as far as the eye could see, were the bombed ruins of buildings flattened during the recent spat with the chap with the funny moustache and half a fringe. (I have since been told that no bombs landed on Spike Island and that the ruins were just that - ruins) To the right of them a web of railway lines spread out into the distance, and further to the right were the marshlands on which, from time to time, cattle or horses roamed.

It was on this historic island on the 28th May in the year of Our Lord 1946 that I came into the world kicking and screaming; no doubt protesting the fact that the war had ended before I could march to patriotic glory.

My earliest memories are of my being lifted out of a dark-green pram and then being jiggled up and down on someone's knee. I was either two weeks or two years old, but since my education was not yet complete the age must remain necessarily vague.

My next memory is of my father encouraging me to climb a mountain and upon failing to do so, bursting in to tears - much to his disgust. I must have been three years old at the time and the mountain to any grown-up would have appeared as no more than a tiny mound two or three feet high.

The rest of this account of life on the island does not follow any chronological order; they are merely impressions of some of the many incidents which took place. It follows generally the years of recovery from the shock of war; a time when those who had survived the great conflict had, perforce, to hack a meagre living out of what was left.

They were lean times, not just for us, but for everybody. In fact, it was such a poor neighbourhood that at night even the light from the windows could barely afford to reach down to the ground. But we did not feel hardly done by - we knew no other life. It was a time of school days and grubby faces, with adventure being sought, and found, around every corner.

My brother, Mike, was born in October, 1943, right smack in the middle of the war and was weaned on bomb fragments. He was a great influence in my early life and taught me many things in order to survive the rigours of growing up in such an environment. He knew so many useful things too, for example: he not only knew the moon was made of cheese, he also knew which kind of cheese it was - it was cheddar. He was a veteran indian-fighter; he had been a sheriff in the western frontier; he taught me how to make bows and arrows in case we were ever called upon to defend the island. I learned from him that the barges which came up the river had cargoes, not of sugar, or coal, or ground-nuts, as Dad had said, but slaves from Africa. At least that was how it was in the early days - they ceased the slave-trade as I got older. And a good thing, too. How they must have suffered. The only thing that puzzles me about that is that I never actually saw one of them. But then Mike had, and that was good enough for me. All in all, he played a very important part in my education. Without him it is difficult to imagine how I would have come through it all.

Dad, however, was a very different proposition. Whenever we referred to him he was always, "me Dad", as will later be seen when the well-known English phrase, "Me Dad'll kill me", is used. He had attended advanced courses in "How to stop your children from enjoying themselves" and had passed with honours. He had six eyes, four of which were in the back of his head, and he could read minds with frightening accuracy. He could detect a mischievous thought about five and a half minutes before it entered your head - that really impressed me.

He was the lock-keeper on the island and as such ruled the territory with an iron fist. Our house, 1 Canal cottages, came with the job. There was no electricity on the island, just gas, but we did have the only telephone in the northern hemisphere (owned by the railways,of course), which was enormously prestigious in that climate.

His reputation as a fighter was such that even grown men used to call him, "Mr. Riley"; only his closest friends could call him "Billy", if the wind was right and the ale was poured correctly, and often. Many's the time I saw him cower men who were half his age and twice as fit. He would send fear into their hearts with his favourite expression reserved for just such occasions: "I'll kill you, and drink your blood!" How the colour would go from their faces on hearing this chilling promise.

There was another brother named Colin but, sadly, he passed away at the pitiful age of four months. He came before me. I never knew him, but, oh, how I wish he had survived.

Mother, too, was spared the anguish six months after I was born. She succumbed, as many others did at that time, to tuberculosis. I never knew her either. But she was always with me in spirit. I used to think that she was looking down on me, making sure that I was being taken care of. Even today, as an adult, I think of her like that sometimes.

So, there were just the three of us at the time of which I write; it was often a bitter triangle, a fight for recognition; yet other times there would be peace, even if it came in short bursts only. But above all the family strains and forgetting about the hardships everyone had to bear, the years on Spike Island were truly adventurous for me. I hope you find the following pages of some slight interest.

Notes: 1 Not a dry dock, but the wet dock opened in 1830 by the St. Helens Railway Co.
2 Diesel-engined pumps renewed the water supply above the locks from the Mersey. [Ed.]