Hankin Redden Blog

32 Family Secrets Bootle and Litherland - Part 4: 29 September 2024 Cliff joined the RAF on 27 September 1940 and was immediately sent to RAF Padgate for basic training.   Padgate is now a suburb of Warrington in Cheshire.   Padgate is 19.5 miles (or 31.5 kilometres) east of Liverpool and Warrington is located on the boundary line between the County of Cheshire and the County of Lancashire. Dad was granted a few days of leave and permitted to go home for Christmas 1940.   Cliff hitched a ride on an RAF plane to Speke Airport (now called John Lennon Airport) and got the train from Speke Airport into the centre of Liverpool.   From Liverpool centre, Cliff got another train running on the Liverpool Overhead Railway and got off the Overhead Railway train at the southern end of Seaforth Road, opposite the Caradoc Hotel.   My guess is that he may have got off the train at the then Sandhills Station. After leaving the train, Cliff began walking up Seaforth Road t...

  31 Family Secrets Bootle and Litherland - Part 3: 28 September 2024 In most fairytales, the main characters meet each other, overcome the significant obstacles facing them,   and then live happily ever after.   Unfortunately, that did not happen when Josephine Wood married Thomas Clifford Hankin on 10 March 1945. Josephine was broken hearted because she had lost both her lover and her child, the child who was the son (or possibly the daughter) of her lover.   Her lover might well have also been dead - another innocent victim wiped out by the pathological insanity of a man who had allowed himself to be completely taken over by the forces of evil.   Even if mum's lover Anthony was not dead in 1945, he might as well have been dead.   I am certain mum never saw him again. In addition to having lost Anthony and her baby immediately after her baby was born, Josephine had been completely cancelled by all of the friends that she grew up with and knew throug...

30 – Alfred Pearson Enlists in World War 1, Part 1: 27 September 2024 Alfred Pearson was born on 5 May 1893 at his parents’ home at 12 Stockbridge Avenue, Everton, Liverpool.   Alfred was baptized around the corner from where he was born in Saint Saviour Church, Everton. This is a photo of Stockbridge Avenue as it was on 25 September 2024. Nearly 100 years after Alfred died, Stockbridge Avenue has not yet been populated by wealthy, inner city dwellers. Alfred’s father Thomas Pearson was a Hanson cab driver – the kind of horse drawn cab often shown in Sherlock Holmes movies.   Alfred’s mother Jane Scott was the daughter of John Scott.   John had fled Ireland in the 1840s to escape the Potato Famine and earned a living by labouring in a timber yard in Birkenhead. This is a photo of Saint George Church Everton which I took on 25 September 2024. Saint George Church is – literally - around the corner from where Alfred lived in Stockbridge Avenue.   It is certain...

  29 – Family Secrets from Bootle and Seaforth - Part 2: 26 September 2024 When WW 2 commenced on 1 September 1939, mum was age 15 and dad was age 18.   Mum was working as a clerk at Littlewoods Football Pools, as were many other semi skilled women. She was then   transferred into manufacturing weapons for the war – mostly bombs.   She was constantly covered by a yellow sheen from the explosives that she had to insert into the bombs and armaments she helped to make.   She worked in munitions throughout the war and this was her job when she met dad in 1944. The first American troops arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland in February 1941.   Thousands of American troops began landing in Liverpool soon after then.   Liverpool was the major port for all trans Atlantic trade.   It was the logical place for the Americans to disembark, even if they were later transferred elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Mum was 16 when the Americans began arriving ...

28 – Family Secrets from Bootle and Seaforth = Part 1: 25 September 2024 When I was under age 10, mum told me once that if she had accepted a marriage proposal from an American serviceman, I would have been born in America in a mid western State the name of which I cannot remember. On a different occasion, she told me that I had an older sister, but that she had been born dead. Being only a child, I asked no questions and accepted at face value what my mother had said. I assumed mum had rejected the marriage proposal from the American serviceman because she was in love with dad and wanted to marry dad. I assumed that after mum and dad married, mum had given birth to an older sister of mine who had unfortunately been dead at birth. **** Many years after both mum and dad had died, I began researching my family history and discovered that many of the “facts” I thought I knew, were nothing of the kind.   Here is some background information. **** Mum was born in 19...

  27 – Bootle, Liverpool: 24 September 2024 My long journey to find the Moon Man began in Bootle, a suburb of Liverpool that lies in the north of Liverpool.   In years long before I was born, Bootle was a village in its own right rather than a part of the Liverpool urban sprawl, but even when my mother was born, Bootle’s independent status had already been swallowed up by the growing expanse of Liverpool.   In a sense, this was inevitable. Liverpool kept growing as a city because it was the major port in Britain for importing and exporting goods across the Atlantic Ocean.   As the volume of trade through Liverpool grew, so too did the number of docks needed to handle all of the trade.   At one time, the docks sprawled well north and south of Liverpool city centre.   Many of my ancestors were dependent on the docks for their survival. Eliza Hankin was born in Bootle and she was baptized in Saint Leonard Church, Bootle on 10 April 1895, shortly after he...

  26 – Newlands School in Hoylake: 23 September 2024 If there are plenty of signs urging you to visit Chester, the signs pointing towards Hoylake are not really designed to attract tourists.   Hoylake lacks most of the features that help create a tourist magnet. These photos show one of the most attractive features of Hoylake.   The Postcard sent on 14 August 1914 to Eliza Hankin was addressed to “Liz Hankin, Newlands, Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.” I went to Hoylake today looking for traces of “Newlands”.   Although the houses which were once called Newlands still exist, they are no longer home any school. **** I found all three of the houses which once carried the Newlands name.   They are at 37 Trinity Road, 49 Trinity Road and 3 Clydesdale Road Hoylake.   They are all within easy walking distance of each other.   The day was filled with rain and gusting winds, but it was obvious why Elea...