I can remember the "one man band" who used to walk around the suburb occasionally and of course the local Bobbie, a very familiar sight. Grandad had a "cats whiskers" radio and my sister and I shared a set of earphones to listen to the children's radio hour with Auntie Muriel. Later my mother assembled a radio from a kit with great big condensers and valves. It was run by accumulators which had to be charged.

In 1926 things began to change, the Corporation started building houses north of our estate. The ones built beyond the wicket gate at the top of Northway were also named Northway and our numbers were changed. Uproar on the part of the suburbites. After much fuss and bother it was decided that the new houses would be called Northway and the suburb part Southway with the old numbering. We also got shops in Wavertree Nook and Northway, Abbeystead Road and Westway were built and the vacant spaces on Thingwall Road were filled in. Childwall Road was widened and the large house just this side of Mill Lane disappeared. Trams were extended along Childwall Road and Childwall Valley Road was built so that with the existing Priory Road (now built on) it made the "Fiveways". Buses were now running down Thingwall Road and although you might not believe it the part from Southway to Childwall Road was "straightened" and widened before the new houses were built.

The suburb itself was spared during the war although one of the first bombs landed on two houses in Abbeystead Road. An aerial torpedo caused a lot of damage to houses when it hit the Fiveways end of the tram track. A landmine in the Holt field caused damage to the suburb houses where I live now and Southway houses had some damage from the blast of the landmine which landed in Valencia Road off Mill Lane.

After the war there was a big party at the Institute to welcome everybody home (myself included) and life carried on again.


Mrs JOAN WILLIAMS
of Wavertree Nook Road

January 2002