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 towards his home at Date Street, Seaforth.  Cliff had reached the intersection of Seaforth Road and Muspratt Road when an air raid warning sounded.  Dad took shelter in an air raid shelter near the Seaforth Road/ Muspratt Road intersection.  Muspratt Road actually has two separate intersections with Seaforth Road because it is shaped like a right angled triangle with Seaforth Road acting as the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by its two separate intersections with Muspratt Road.

Cliff’s stay in the air raid shelter was uneventful and he resumed walking home when the all clear sounded.

Near the top of Seaforth Road, Cliff walked down Rossini Street in the direction of Church Road.  Church Road is called Church Road because at the top of the street, near the intersection of Rossini Street and Church Road is the local Catholic Church – Our Lady Star of the Sea.  Somewhere near the intersection of Rossini Street and Church Road, another air raid warning sounded and once again Cliff sought shelter in a nearby air raid shelter.  Once again, Cliff’s stay in the air raid shelter was uneventful and he walked home safely to Date Street once the all clear was again sounded.

Next day, Cliff learned that BOTH of the air raid shelters in which he had endured the German bombing raids that night had later been hit by German bombs and if he had stayed, he would be dead just like all the other people who had taken shelter that night.

Cliff suffered from Survivor’s Guilt for the remainder of his life because he had NOT died like everyone else in those two shelters.  This was one of the many incidents which kept replaying in his mind as the years rolled by.  He never forgot those who died that night.  How could he?

Cliff told me about the air raids and the destruction of the air raid shelters, but he never gave me any details.  in 2019, Uncle Eric drove me to Seaforth Road and identified the places where those seeking shelter from the bombs had died that night.  Here are some photos I took in 2019 of the intersection of Muspratt Road and Seaforth Road where one of the shelters was located.

 

 

It was not easy to take photos of the location where the second air raid shelter was destroyed.  Uncle Eric was adamant that this photo accurately shows the location of the second air raid shelter which was destroyed that dreadful night.  The church in the background of the photo is Our Lady Star of the Sea.

 

Wiki says this about the Liverpool Blitz.

Liverpool was the most heavily bombed area of the country outside London, due to the city having, along with Birkenhead, the largest port on the west coast and being of significant importance to the British war effort. Descriptions of damage were kept vague to hide information from the Germans, and downplayed in the newspapers for propaganda purposes; any Liverpudlians thus felt that their suffering was overlooked compared to other places. Around 4,000 people were killed in the Merseyside area during the Blitz. This death toll was second only to London, which suffered over 40,000 by the end of the war. Liverpool, Bootle and the Wallasey Pool complex were strategically very important locations during the Second World War. The Port of Liverpool had for many years been the United Kingdom's main link with North America, and proved to be a key part in the British participation in the Battle of the Atlantic. As well as providing anchorage for naval ships from many nations, the port's quays and dockers handled over 90 per cent of all the war material brought into Britain from abroad with some 75 million tons passing through its 11 miles (18 km) of quays. Liverpool was the eastern end of a Transatlantic chain of supplies from North America. Other industries were also heavily concentrated in Liverpool and across the Mersey in Birkenhead. Christmas Blitz A series of heavy raids took place in December 1940, referred to as the Christmas Blitz, when 365 people were killed between 20–22 December. The raids saw several instances of direct hits on air raid shelters; on 20 December, 42 people died when a shelter was hit, while another 40 died when a bomb struck railway arches on Bentinck Street, where local people were sheltering. On 21 December, another hit on a shelter which killed 74 people.

 When I was there in 2019 with Uncle Eric, there was nothing at either of the spots where the doomed air raid shelters had once been located.  When some locals stopped to ask why I was taking photos, they were surprised when Eric told them what had happened at these two spots.  The dead and what had happened to them, had slipped through the cracks of history - forgotten.

I presume that somewhere there are records which narrate the dry facts of that night – facts such as the names of the dead and the names of the injured.  Surely, they deserve to be remembered.  I know for certain that Cliff never forgot their names or their faces.

 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 throughout her life in Liverpool.  She was a social outcast who “decent” people refused to have any dealings with.

I know from hard personal experience how hard it has been for me to lose my beautiful Margaret after having known and loved her wholeheartedly for 25 years.  I also know from personal experience what it feels like to be a social outcast and a cancelled human being.  I too have been cancelled for many years by most of those I thought were friends.

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Cliff was at least as broken hearted as Josephine.  The war against Hitler exacted a harsh toll on him.

Bomber Command dropped 1,030,500 tons of bombs on Germany during WW 2 and suffered a very high casualty rate - 55,573 were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew, a 44.4% death rate. A further 8,403 men were wounded in action, and 9,838 became prisoners of war.  In 1943, Bomber Command lost 3,031 aircrew, a casualty rate which exceeded the casualty rate on the Western Front in World War 1.  

Cliff knew all of the aircrew whose planes he kept flying.  He mourned grievously when they did not come home.

Death was not simply a remote event which happened when aircrew flew into the night on missions.  Death was also an event that occurred among ground crew.  

One night when he a was drunk, I extracted from dad the information that one of his work colleagues - a ground crew member - had walked backwards one day into a propellor and was sliced to pieces.  Dad would not tell me his friend's name. 

Although his Service Record does not indicate that he served as aircrew, I know Cliff did serve as aircrew.  He briefly returned home to Liverpool for Christmas 1943 and told his family that a Notice had been put up on the Base Noticeboard seeking volunteers from ground crew who were willing to serve as aircrew.  Dad told his family, he had volunteered. 

The Service Record shows Cliff transferred to RAF Feltwell on 13 February 1944.  I believe that while at Feltwell, Cliff was trained as an Official Observer and he then served as an Official Observer as an aircrew member. 

Dad’s duties as recounted by dad to his brother Eric were to watch for enemy aircraft and sound the alarm if he saw any.  He also had to take photos of damage done to enemy targets bombed during missions. 

When I was a child, dad had a metal camera which he never used and which he never explained.  I believe he used this camera when he acted as aircrew on Bomber Command missions.  Uncle Eric Hankin told me in 2019 that dad had flown three missions as an aircrew member and he then sketched dad’s war service medals.

One of the medals described by Uncle Eric was the Aircrew Europe Star; this medal was awarded only to crew members who served as aircrew prior to 5 June 1944 (D Day).  He was also awarded the two standard RAF service medals for service as ground crew.

Dad definitely served as aircrew during the Dresden Bombing which took place on 13, 14 and 15 February 1945.  In these raids, Dresden was destroyed by fire and an estimated 25,000 people were killed.  Dad revealed this information to my brother Patrick.

I think it is likely that Cliff also acted as aircrew during what is called Big Week (Operation Argument).  Big Week is not as well known as Dresden, but it was an essential forerunner to the success of D Day.  For D Day to succeed, one of the essential factors needed was air superiority.  This meant the Luftwaffe had to be eliminated as much as possible before D Day.  This is the wiki description of Big Week.

Operation Argument, after the war dubbed Big Week, was a sequence of raids by the United States Army Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command from 20 to 25 February 1944, as part of the Combined Bomber Offensive against Nazi Germany. The objective of Operation Argument was to destroy aircraft factories in central and southern Germany in order to defeat the Luftwaffe before the Normandy landings during Operation Overlord were to take place later in 1944.

 Initial Bomber Command losses during the early stages of Big Week were very large and all available personnel were needed to ensure the success of the operation.  

Cliff's short period of duty at Feltwell took place just before Big Week.

By the end of Big Week, the Allies had destroyed so much of the Luftwaffe that the Allies had complete air superiority from that point onwards – although the Luftwaffe very definitely continued to be a dangerous opponent.

I am unable to estimate the precise dates when Cliff’s third mission as aircrew might have occurred.  Obviously, it was after Big Week and before the end of the war in Europe in May 1945.

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For many years when I was a child, a photo of Cliff and Josephine on their wedding day sat on a shelf in the living room.  I do not have that photo, but parts of it are available through Ancestry.

This is Clifford Hankin on 10 March 1945 when he married mum.

This is Josephine Wood on 10 March 1945 when she married dad.

 

When I first got a copy of dad and mum’s marriage certificate, I noticed that his “Best Man” was Henry Wood.  Henry was mum’s brother Henry.  In March 1945, Henry Wood was age 18.  I wondered why dad’s best man was not one of his own brothers or perhaps a close friend.  I thought it was unlikely that dad would have been a close friend of Henry given the significant gap in their life experiences, plus Henry’s relative youth compared to Cliff who in 1945 had served in Bomber Command for the last three years.

I speculated that the marriage must have caused some sort of rift in dad’s family.  I found out when I met Uncle Eric in 2019 that my speculation had been correct. 

Dad’s mother was Mary Jane Ethel Robson.  She had met my paternal grandfather when he worked as a sheet metal worker in the shipyards at Newcastle on Tyne.  Mary Jane had been horrified at the idea of her son Cliff marrying a woman who had given birth to a child outside of marriage.  Mary Jane issued an order that no member of the Hankin family was allowed to go to mum and dad’s wedding – or else a cancellation just like that which had already been imposed on Josephine would be imposed on the family member who defied her orders.

No members of the Hankin family dared to attend the marriage which took place on 10 March 1945 apart from Cliff himself.

I am immensely proud at my good fortune in having been the son of a man who defied his mother to marry the woman he loved while he was at that very moment engaged in a battle to stamp out the most monstrous movement of evil that the world had ever known.

If Josephine ever learned any lessons from the behaviour of her mother in law, she completely forgot them.  In 1970, Josephine did to me what her mother in law had done to her.  Like dad, I defied my mother's commands and acted as my heart said I should.  Like dad, I married against my mother's wishes.

They could not know it then, but on 10 March 1945 Josephine and Cliff were like these two love birds. 

Like the two love birds, they had no way of knowing that a monstrous wall of unstoppable events already had a momentum which would crush them.  Like The Titanic, they were about to be smashed by a wall of ice.

(I took both of these bird photos when Margaret and I finally had our trip to Alaska in 2016 - this was the trip which we shelved in 2009 so we could get married in Ireland.) 

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 that he and his family regularly worshipped in Saint George even though he was baptized in Saint Saviour.  Saint Saviour is no longer a consecrated church.

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Alfred tried to enlist in the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment on 31 August 1914, but like thousands of others, he was sent home because the numbers trying to volunteer were far in excess of the capacity for enlistment processing.

Alfred managed to enlist for the duration of the war in the 18^th Battalion of the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment on 2 September 1914.  When he enlisted, he was a teacher at Boaler Street School.

This photo of the mass enlistment in the Liverpool Pals Battalions is provided by courtesy of https://liverpoolpals.com

 

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Alfred and his Battalion were shipped to France on SS Invicta on 7 November 1915.  Alfred suffered a shrapnel wound on 12 January 1916 and spent 3 days in a field ambulance and then returned to duty.

Between the arrival in France on 7 November 1915 of the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and 20^th Battalions of the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment (the Liverpool Pals Battalions) and 30 June 1916, the Pals suffered 140 deaths while on active service.   

Alfred died on 1 July 1916 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.  He was one of 225 soldiers from the Liverpool Pals who died on that dreadful day.  An additional 32 soldiers from the Liverpool Pals were wounded on 1 July 1916, but died after 1 July. 

Although 1 July 1916 was the first day of the Battle of the Somme, it was NOT the day on which the Liverpool Pals suffered their highest casualties.  450 Liverpool Pals soldiers died on 30 July 1916 in battles to take the village of Guillemont; this was the highest death toll the Pals suffered on any single day.

Apart from the memorial to Alfred which is located in the Chapel at Cheshire University, Alfred and the thousands of other Pals who died in World War 1, are also honoured in the Liverpool City Council Building.

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Liverpool Pals has ensured the installation of a dedicated two part sculpted memorial to the Liverpool Pals Battalions at Liverpool Lime Street Station.  The memorial is by Liverpool artist Tom Murphy and it is on the wall at Liverpool Lime Street Station. 

The Panel next to the wall sculptures says this.

The Liverpool Pls Unveiled by HRH The Earl of Wessex KG GCVO On 31st August 2014   Between August and November 1914 more than 6,000 men and boys mainly from the business community of Liverpool, answered Lord Derby’s call for volunteers to join his “Liverpool Pals” battalions, with some 1050 enlisting at St George’s Hall at the very first opportunity on 31st August 1914.   Four battalions, the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Battalions of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, were formed together with two reserve battalions, the 21st and 22nd.   Over 2800 men died as Liverpool Pals during the course of the Great War and the campaign in Russia. The remainder returned home, many wounded, to pick up the pieces of their lives.   This frieze tells the story of their euphoric reception at St George’s Hall; and the Cenotaph during present day Remembrance commemorations.   This memorial is a handsome tribute to the Liverpool Pals – the first Pals battalions formed and the last to be stood down.  May it stand for many years to come as a testament to the memory of every Liverpool Pal, ensuring they are never forgotten.   The Liverpool Pals Memorial Fund would like to thank everybody who helped to place this memorial to these brave men.

 

These photos of the memorial were taken by me today (Friday 27 September 2024).  The two separate panels show the Pals departing after enlistment and then returning after the war had finally finished.

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Today, I had the great pleasure and honour of a personal introduction to the Liverpool Pals memorial by Mt Tony Wainwright, Secretary of Liverpool Pals. 

Tony is not only highly intelligent, he is also truly honourable and decent. 

Thank you, Tony, for lunching with me, for showing me the work done by Liverpool Pals and for demonstrating yet again why the world somehow manages to keep functioning despite all of its multiple problems.

Decent human beings like Tony exist everywhere, usually uncelebrated.  They quietly and efficiently ensure that what is needed to ensure the continued existence of love and compassion in the world is provided, simply by living the lives of love and compassion that we should all live.

God bless you Tony and thank you for an uplifting day.

 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 in 1941; she turned 17 in May 1941.  She fell in love with an American soldier whose Christian name was probably Anthony.  My brother Bill’s second name is Anthony and Anthony is unknown as a Christian name in either mum or dad’s families.  I think Bill got his second name in remembrance of mum’s American soldier lover.

I have not been able to discover when mum gave birth to my sibling, but contrary to what mum told me, I am confident that my sibling was NOT a girl.  I am also confident that my sibling was NOT born dead.

I have made a thorough search for my “sister” on the basis that she was born between late 1941 and the middle of 1944.  The British General Registry Office keeps records of all still births.  GRO has no record of any still born female whose mother had the surname, “Wood”.  I have also received confirmation from dad’s youngest brother – who was then still alive – that mum had a child before she met dad, that the child was born alive and that “the nuns took care of everything.”

Logic says that mum’s child was forcibly taken from her shortly after birth and given to a couple who wanted to adopt a child.

I believe mum’s subsequent endemic mental health issues can be traced to the loss of her very first child.  This is a photo of a bird that I took in the Falklands Islands on Monday 7 March 2016.  By having her baby taken away from her, mum was like this seabird circling high in the sky thousands of miles away from any place of safety.  Unlike the bird though, mum had been deprived of any inner compass that might have guided her safely home.  Can you spot the bird?

Mum did not lose only her baby. She lost her lover too. Servicemen were not permitted to marry without permission from their senior officers.  Permission to marry was routinely refused.  Soldiers like Anthony were needed for a much higher cause than marrying their lovers.  They were needed in great numbers for the upcoming slaughter on D Day, 1944.

Mum was just another war casualty, just another victim of Hitler like all of the other millions of Hitler victims – but with a slight difference.  Mum was a woman who had brought shame upon herself.  In the small world of Northfield Road, Bootle, everyone knew she had given birth to a child without having been married.  In 1940s Liverpool, this was a social stigma which would never be erased.

 

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According to the 1939 British Registration records, in 1939 dad was a “sheet metal worker, ship repairing, heavy worker”.  I think he had probably finished his apprenticeship when the Registration took place on 29 September 1939.

Dad initially tried to join the British Army but his enlistment attempt was rejected.  He was a skilled tradesman and was not allowed to join the army.  In 1940, dad discovered that he would be permitted to join the RAF and he joined the RAF on 27 September 1940.  His occupation as listed on his service record is “Sheet Metal Worker”. 

After his initial training, dad was stationed at Mildenhall, Feltwell and Methwald where he worked as “Ground Crew” with RAF Bomber Command.  Dad’s job was to help RAF planes before and after they had taken part in war missions – if they managed to fly back to Britain.  Dad knew intimately the Air Crew who flew the planes he had to repair.  They were not simply statistics to him; they were his close friends and the air crew valued dad and dad’s colleagues very highly.  The air crew knew that their planes would - literally – fall out of the sky without the work done by dad and his colleagues. 

Dad helped the aircrew land safely.  His work helped ensure the RAF birds could land safely and then get back into the air again so they could undertake more missions against the Nazis.  I also took this photo of a bird landing safely in the Falkland Islands on Monday 7 March 2016.  It captures perfectly dad’s primary job in the RAF.

 

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Dad was introduced to Josephine Wood in late 1944 by a former work colleague Henry (Harry) Bellew.  Harry arranged the meeting at the urging of his wife, mum’s older sister Veronica (Vera) Bellew.  Vera knew every detail of mum’s story.  The initial introduction took place at The Red Lion Bar, 121 Bridge Road Liverpool (Litherland).

Dad and mum married on 10 March 1945.  mum was age 20 and dad had turned 24 on 25 February 1945, just13 days before the wedding.   

Although dad was ground crew in Bomber Command, he sometimes acted as aircrew.  Dad had flown as aircrew during the Dresden Bombings that happened on 13, 14 and 15 February 1945. 

Dad and mum's marriage on 10 March 1945 took place 22 completed days after the final bombing of Dresden on 15 February1945. 

Dad certainly loved mum, but mum certainly did not love him.  The marriage was destined for disaster from the very day it took place.  Mum was mentally ill for the rest of her life after she lost Anthony and his baby.  Dad loved her anyway.

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How to Find Your Biological Birth Certificate

If you were adopted after birth, you probably want to know who your biological parents were. In most cases, getting a copy of your original birth certificate will let you do this. Your original birth certificate will almost certainly identify your biological mother, and it may also identify your biological father. Your original birth certificate may contain additional details such as the addresses of your parents and their occupations.

While researching “Sailing to The Moon” I worked out many strategies to make progress in my research after I started looking for my “sister”. My research resulted in a paper called “You Have Been Adopted: How Can You Find Your Original Birth Certificate?”. If you click on this link, you can read and download a free copy of my paper https://hankinredden.au/documents

Unfortunately, because of limits imposed in most countries on the availability of birth records, I cannot promise that you will always be able to locate your original birth record – but if you follow the steps set out in my paper, many of you will finally be able to identify your biological mother and (perhaps) your biological father.

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.

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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.

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Mum was born in 1924 and in 1939 she lived at15 Northfield Road, Bootle north of Liverpool city centre. 

This was 15 Northfield Road Bootle on 24 September 2024. 

When mum lived in this house, her parents rented it from the local Council.  They did not own it and it is implausible that they would have ever been able to buy their own home.

 

Even allowing for the improvements and updating that have taken place since mum lived there until 1946, it is obvious that by local standards, this was never a slum dwelling.  It even had a feature that most houses in Liverpool certainly lacked in the 1930s when this house was built.  It had a bathroom inside the house.

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By contrast, dad lived at 18 Date Street Seaforth, a suburb adjoining Bootle.  In August 2019, Date Street no longer existed except as a short stretch of road leading to a locked entrance to Our Lady Star of the Sea School, Seaforth.  The official address of Our Lady Star of the Sea is Kepler Street, Seaforth, Liverpool L21 3TE.

This is a photo of what was left of Date Street in August 2019.

 

 

Number 18 Date Street once stood just below the sign on the railway station saying “Seaforth & Litherland, Way Out”.  Heading north on Seaforth Road with the River Mersey behind you, turn left into a street called Seaforth Vale West.  When Seaforth Vale West comes to a T junction with Kepler Street, turn right at the very first (unnamed) street.  When this unnamed street comes to a T junction, turn right and you are now in the remains of Date Street. 

On the right as you look at the locked gate to Our Lady Star of the Sea School, in 2019 there were some derelict houses.  They were more modern and much newer than the house at 18 Date Street where dad was brought up in.  Here are the derelict houses as they looked in 2019.  The cars did not belong to anyone in the street.  They were the cars that brought me there.  No one could live in Date Street in 2019.

18 Date Street had no bathroom at all,

 

 

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My maternal grandfather William Wood was the Chief Ship’s Electrician on a ship called MV Leighton in May 1938.  He had been appointed to this position after the Great Depression had rendered him and thousands of others, unemployed.  The story mum told me was that a shipmate had taught him the Freemasons’ handshake and he had used this handshake to get his job on the Leighton.  My grandfather had a heart attack while serving on the Leighton and was transferred to Saint Elizabeth Hospital Antwerp, in Belgium.  He died in Belgium on 20 May 1938.

Mum was age 14 when her father died.

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Dad was age 17 in 1938 when my maternal grandfather died and he had already completed 3 years of his apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker.  As an apprentice, he often had to work on ships on the southern side of the River Mersey.  He did not have the money to pay for the ferry fare to cross the Mersey – so he walked all 3,751 yards of the tunnel - then he did his very hard day’s work and walked back through the tunnel so he could then catch the train home.

Dad was one of the poorest of the poor in Liverpool at that time.  He was not the very poorest because he had a trade and that meant he would usually be able to earn a living.

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 Dad and mum married on 10 March 1945.  World War 2 had not yet finished and dad was still a serving member of RAF Bomber Command.  He was not demobilized by the RAF until 1946.

When dad finally returned to Liverpool, mum and dad rented a house at 13 Lawler Street Litherland.  The house we lived in was demolished many years ago, but Lawler Street still exists.  This is a photo of the more modern, rebuilt version of 13 Lawler Street Litherland (right of photo).

 

 

 

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Why then did my mother, who lived in a comfortable house all of her life, fall in love with and marry a man who was raised in abject poverty?

I uncovered the answer to this question only by investigating mum’s claims that if she had accepted a marriage proposal from an American serviceman, I would have been born in America and that I had an older sister who had been born dead.  My research is not yet finished, but I have many answers to questions I never knew I needed to ask.

 

 

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 her birth.  Her parents were John Hankin and Mary Ellen McGillicuddy. 

Eliza had been age 19 when she received the Postcard from Alfred Pearson in August 1914. The front of the Postcard contained a photo of Saint Mary Anglican Church, Bootle.  This is the Postcard photo of Saint Mary Church.

The photo can be enlarged and when it is, details begin to emerge of the individuals shown in the photo.

Unfortunately, the only way in which Saint Mary Church can now be seen is by looking at this or similar photos.  Saint Mary Church no longer exists.  I found this information at the website https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Bootle/StMary

St. Mary's Church and churchyard were situated on Church Street, at an angle between the present Strand Road and Irlam Road, leading into Merton Road, not far from that part of the shore on which Alexandra Dock opened in 1881. The church was built with town towers, possibly as a navigational aid for shipping approaching the Mersey, but these were replaced at a later date with a spire. Early in the Second World War this spire was seriously damaged when the trailing cable from a barrage balloon became wound around it and the top of the spire dropped through the church roof. In 1940 St. Mary's was wrecked '...by enemy bombs and the resultant fires'. The congregation continued to worship in temporary accommodation and on the 20th March 1949 the Bishop of Liverpool dedicated the '..austerity parish church, the new St. Mary's, Derby Road, Bootle'. The congregation subsequently moved again to premises dedicated in 1981 and the parish is now united with that of the former parish of St. Paul's, North Shore, (St. Paul's, Kirkdale) to form the parish of St. Mary with St. Paul, Bootle (see 'Diocese of Liverpool Year Book, 1996 - 1997,

 The site where Saint Mary once stood is now designated as Church Gardens.  This is what Church Gardens, site of Saint Mary Church, looked like today. 

 There is a memorial plaque on the site that gives brief information about the building that once stood there. The plaque says this.

HERE STOOD THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY FROM 1827 UNTIL IT WAS DESTROYED IN 1941 BY ENEMY ACTION WITHIN THESE HALLOWED GROUNDS ARE BURIED THE EARTHLY REMAINS OF 760 PERSONS THE CHURCHYARD AND GROUNDS WERE RESTORED IN THE YEAR 1960 BY THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND BURGESSES OF THE COUNTY BOROUGH OF BOOTLE IN COOPERATION WITH THE VICAR AND CHURCHWARDENS OF THE PARISH OF MARY WITH ST JOHN

 

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Eliza was age 21 when she became a war widow on 2 July 1916.  She probably did not find out she was a widow until some weeks later because information travelled much more slowly in 1916 and because she was not officially married to Alfred.  This meant the authorities probably knew nothing about her existence. 

Eliza probably learned about her widowhood only when she was told by Alfred’s family that he was dead.

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When Eliza received the Postcard, she was employed as a domestic servant in Newlands School in Hoylake on the southern side of the River Mersey.

At some point prior to March 1920, she stopped working at Newlands in Hoylake and moved back to Bootle and worked in the Hamilton Jam Factory located in Park Street, Bootle.

While working at Hamilton Jam Factory in Bootle, Eliza met and had a love affair with a returned soldier called William Henry Cooban.  Two of William Cooban's sisters worked at Hamilton Jam Factory and Eliza met William through his sisters.  Although Eliza never revealed the name of her lover, modern DNA testing has unlocked this secret from her past.  Violet Hankin was born at 143 Strand Road Bootle on 30 March 1921.

This is what 143 Strand Road looked like today.  When Violet was born, 143 Strand Road was The Maypole Shop.  Although the McDonald’s outlet is not visible in the photo, it too is now located at 143 Strand Road.

 

 Not far from 143 Strand Road is a sign that provides some insight into the changes that have occurred in the area of 143 Strand Road since Violet was born in 1921.  This photo needs no comment.

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William Cooban was a veteran soldier from World War 1.  His service records were destroyed by German bombing during World War 2.   William did not work in Hamilton Jam Factory.

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Unfortunately, the love affair between Eliza and William Cooban was not able to erase past memories for either of them. 

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Eliza Hankin married William Hyslop on 6 October 1924 in Saint Matthew Church, Bootle.

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William Cooban married Martha Bullen on 26 December 1923 in Christ Church Bootle.  Christ Church Bootle looked old and neglected when I visited it today.

 

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.

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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 Eleanor Edwards and her husband Richard Reece Roberts chose to live in this area.  Visually, Hoylake is a very pleasant location.  It is not beautiful in the manner of Cwm Penmachno and Penmachno, but if you MUST live in a city environment, Hoylake is a much better place to live in than most streets in most suburbs of most cities.

I think the order in which Newlands began life and then moved locations twice was as follows

·       49 Church Road – now called Trinity Road

·       37 Church Road/ Trinity Road

·       3 Clydesdale Road.

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Here is a photo of 49 Trinity (Church) Road) today.

When Eleanor and Richard moved from Birkenhead to Hoylake, they lived at first at 49 Trinity (Church) Road.  I think they may have owned the house rather than merely having a lease, but I cannot be sure.  The house shown above may have been modernized inside, but it is certainly the same house that stood on this site about 100 years ago.

 

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This is 37 Trinity/ Church Road today.

I am certain that Eleanor and Richard owned 49 Trinity/ Church Road because this is the address shown on Eleanor’s electoral enrolment in 1911.  Even though women were still not legal permitted to vote in national elections for the Parliament at Westminster, they were able to vote in local council elections if they satisfied the “Property Franchise” requirements.  Essentially, this meant they needed to have enough property to be classified as wealthy enough to be permitted to vote in local council elections.

Eleanor was enrolled to vote in 1911 and her address was 49 Church (now Trinity) Road, Hoylake.

The house currently at 49 Trinity Road is clearly the same house as that which existed on the same spot in 1911.

 

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Later in 1911, Eleanor changed her address from 49 Church Road to 3 Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.

Even the street signs in Hoylake indicate a more prosperous strata of society than exists in nearby Birkenhead or Liverpool.   This is the sign for Clydesdale Road.  The local council in Hoylake obviously has the ability to spend more than the bare minimum on street signs.

Finally, with the rain pouring down and doing its best to drown the camera, I arrived at 3 Clydesdale Road.  It too seems to be in its original condition although presumably it has beeb]=n updated and modernized on the inside.

The UK Ordnance Survey Map for Hoylake in the early 20^th century indicated once substantial building which was divided into two separate dwellings.  Number 3 Clydesdale Road is still part of a substantial building that is divided into two separate dwellings.

I do not know whether or not my relative Eliza Hankin worked for Richard and Eleanor at 37 or 49 Church Road, but she definitely worked at 3 Clydesdale Road when it was the location of Newlands School

I know this because the Postcard was addressed to her at Newlands in Clydesdale Road, Hoylake.

 

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I first received the Postcard a few days after Margaret was diagnosed with terminal cancer and told that she would probably be dead before Christmas 2020. 

I initially tried to translate the writing on the Postcard to try and divert myself from the news of Margaret’s impending death. 

As she kept defying death and refusing to die, I kept widening my search about the origins of the Postcard. 

I researched the origins of Eliza Hankin, tracing her family tree back to the early 1700s. 

Thinking that the signature on the Postcard might possibly be “Dobson”, I desperately looked for some called Dobson who might have sent the Postcard to Eliza.  After thorough searching, it became clear there was no one called Dobson who could have sent the Postcard.

Having hit a complete dead end in my search for “Dobson”, I then commenced a forensic examination of the signature on the Postcard.  I did a grid containing every possible letter that each scrawl in the signature might perhaps represent.

This finally revealed that perhaps the Postcard was signed by ”A Pearson” – so I went looking for someone called A Pearson who was close enough in age to Eliza Hankin to have fallen in love with her and written the Postcard to tell her he was doing his patriotic duty and joining the Army to fight against Germany in World War 1.

I eventually found Alfred Pearson who enlisted in the King’s Own Liverpool Regiment on 1 September 1914.

Alfred was blown to pieces by a shell on 2 July 1916 on day 2 of the Battle of the Somme – one of the vilest and most deadly of all battles in a war that had zero battles which were not vile and deadly.

Number 3 Clydesdale Road Hoylake is a very special place because this is where Eliza Hankin and Alfred Pearson fell in love.

Although she lost her lover so cruelly, Eliza Hankin never forgot him.  Her granddaughter still has the Postcard she got from Alfred in August 1914.

They may be gone, but they are definitely not forgotten.

The Postcard from the Moon was finished before Margaret died.