Introduction: Memories of Sutton is a series of recollections of Sutton's past that have been contributed by visitors to this website. If you have any memories or personal experiences - perhaps from your childhood - that you'd like to share, do please contact me. I'll be delighted to hear from you! SRW
‘Being A Child And Teenager In Pre-1960s Junction Lane’ by Mike Crampton
An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St Helens
Part 78 (of 95 parts) - Memories of Sutton Part 28
Introduction: Memories of Sutton is a series of recollections of Sutton's past that have been contributed by visitors to this website. If you have any memories or personal experiences - perhaps from your childhood - that you'd like to share, do please contact me. I'll be delighted to hear from you! SRW
’Being A Child And Teenager In Pre-1960s Junction Lane’ by Mike Crampton
Introduction: Memories of Sutton is a 29-part series of recollections of Sutton's past contributed by visitors to this website. If you have any memories or personal experiences that you'd like to share, do please get in touch.
‘Being A Child And Teenager In Pre-1960s Junction Lane’ by Mike Crampton
Although I was born in London in 1940, my mother moved up to St Helens during the Blitz. After a brief spell living in Baxters Lane with my Aunt Nora, we moved to no. 50 Junction Lane, three doors away from the Sutton Empire – or Sutton "Bug" as it was known locally.
My Mum married Thomas Murphy, one of the six Murphy brothers of Murphy's garage, which was also in Junction Lane. My dad’s brother, Joseph Murphy, became the mayor of St Helens in 1959 and the photograph above was printed in the local papers (L to R: Bet Murphy, Joe Murphy, and his brothers Tom (my dad), Jim, Edward, Bill and Wilf.)
I attended St Anne’s RC school from 1945 until 1955 and lived next door to the Sunshine Dairy, which at that time was owned by Mr Makin (Henry Makin, I think), followed by a Mr Sefton. The dairy sold everything from sweets to groceries but I remember it mostly for the penny drinks. These were provided by a rather exotic-looking gas-filled, glass contraption on the counter, which hissed and bubbled as it produced sparking glasses of fruit drinks.
Our back entry faced the side entrance to the Sutton Bug and as a child I used to sit on our back yard wall and wait for Tom Waring, the cinema doorman (pictured above), to make his appearance. He would often come to the door and beckon me over, give me a jug or a bottle and send me to the Junction Inn (known as "Teddy Mac's" after licensee Edward McDermott) with a shilling for a pint of Greenall's mild. For this service I was allowed into the cinema for free.
As well as Tom Waring, there were three other part-time doormen working intermittently at the Bug. There was Joe Foster, Jimmy Fish and Eric Fish, who all lived in Wilbur Street. Although at times, they acted more like bouncers than regular doormen.
The Bug's manager was a dour, solemn-looking woman known only as Miss Bates. The Bug showed three programmes per week on Mondays and Tuesday / Wednesdays (usually "X" certificates) and on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. Mondays and Fridays were practically always "crush nights", when everyone pushed as hard as they could towards the entrance. I think sometimes people joined in the crush just for the fun of it, whether they were going to the cinema or not!
I must admit I don't remember an awful lot about going to school, although I suppose I must have enjoyed it. St Anne's school doesn't really hold many memories for me, neither good nor bad. However, I do remember the teachers very well. There was a Miss Connolly in year 1, Frank Duffy, Tom Murphy (the same name as my dad but not related), Billy Bold, Pat Booth and Tom Kinsella. There were a couple more who came and went, but their names escape me.
My favourite teachers, I think, were Pat Booth, Frank Duffy and Tom Kinsella. They were great teachers, lovely men. I do remember I sang in the church choir right up to leaving school, and also appeared in the "Black & White Minstrel Show" (very non-PC nowadays), which were both run by Pat Booth. I also remember attending St Anne's Summer Camp at St Non's retreat in St David's, South Wales, which also seemed to be run by Billy Bold and Pat Booth.
The above photograph taken in front of St Anne's grotto shows the class of 1950 when we were ten years old. Back Row (L to R): Terry Flannigan, ?, Jimmy Kendal, Mike Crampton (me), Ged Doyle, Peter Molyneux and Denis Stanton. Row 3: Tom Gavin, Ian Campbell, Melvin Stachcovic, Tony Cunliffe, James Aldred, Tom O’Keefe, Albert Hadfield, Jimmy Grice, Kevin Jackson and Roland Pennington. Row 2: Les?, Richard Martland, Tony Ward, John Geoghegan, Leo Morley, Bernard Morris, Brian Forber, ?, ? Front Row: John Hoban, ? Tony Brown, Alan Williams, Ken Glover, John Appleton, ? and Basil Stanton.
Junction Lane in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s was the main shopping area for Sutton. Those were the days before supermarkets. There were two family butchers, Billy Rigby's and Billy Hatton's – the latter being next door but one to our house. There were two greengrocer's in Tilly Shawcross's and Fishwick's and Jack Heyes and Stan Bagshaw had barber's shops.
Also in Junction Lane were Winstanley's cake shop, Whalley's chippy (later Bailey's), Mike O’Hare’s toffee shop, Twist’s clothes shop, Glover’s clothes shop, Sunshine Dairy, Tunstalls, Richardson’s and the Sunshine Dairy sweetshop, Len Davis's bike shop, Mrs Brownbill's clothes shop and Spencer's Chemist and many more.
Not to mention two pubs, The Junction Inn (landlord Teddy McDermott) and The Prince of Wales (landlord Eric Moore). There was also a "Doctor Who"-type police box at the top of Junction Lane, opposite the Prince of Wales, next door to the Red Rose electrical shop.
The policeman I seem to remember the most was a big guy, who I can only remember as Constable Jack. He seemed to be a friend of my dad’s and often used to stand on our front talking to my dad and my uncle Jim Murphy – who lived at no. 52 – whilst my mother, or my aunt Ada, filled up his flask with fresh tea.
The traffic used to be both ways in those days, unlike the one-way system of today and Jack used to stand in the open doorway of his hut like a palace guard. In those days the police actually walked their beat, unlike the police of today who seem to drive everywhere. I'm not sure whether ‘Jack’ could actually drive a car, few people could in those days. He did however have a pushbike, but I think he only ever used that to get to work and back.
Back in the forties you didn’t have to stray far from Junction Lane to be in open fields, filled with plots and allotments. As kids we played for hours on Sutton Moss, an old peat bog, filled with wild life and birds of every description. Nowadays it would probably be regarded as a nature reserve. But the powers that were in the late fifties decided to dump thousands of tons of ash from the newly built coal-powered Bold Power Station on it. What a sacrilege that was.
The kids of Sutton roamed about huge areas of wide-open spaces from Sutton Park, to Burtonwood American airbase. Being a kid in Sutton seemed like one long adventure but as with many childhood memories, you only seem to remember the good times, when the sun always seemed to be shining. Like most families in Sutton, we never regarded ourselves as poor, although we didn’t have an awful lot. But back in the forties, for a working class family, there wasn't an awful lot to be had.
I left school in 1955 and started work immediately as an apprentice fitter and turner at Crone and Taylor's engineering (Conveyor Specialists) works in Sutton Road and Lancots Lane. In those days Crone & Taylors had a workforce of around a hundred – a quarter of which were apprentices. The workforce travelled from all over St Helens, many from Haydock.
Family cars were very scarce in those days. You either travelled to work by bus, on foot, or pedalled. The only motorised transport at Crone's seemed to be motorcycles, and there were lots of those. As boy of fifteen, one of my main aspirations was to own a motorcycle.
I remember as an apprentice working in the noisy atmosphere of the huge five sectioned corrugated workshops. The noise of the jackhammers, the flash of the welding sets and the heavy whir of the machinery. The foremen at that time were John Varnem from Haydock, Tom Unsworth from Belvedere Avenue in Sutton, Jack Eagan also Haydock, and John Killalea from Sutton.
There wasn’t an awful lot of health and safety in those days, and yet, apart from the odd cuts and bruises, we didn't seem to have too many bad accidents. But during the dinner hour, the factory turned into a motorbike club, with people tuning engines and running their bikes up and down Sutton Road.
The ‘50s in Sutton were great times to be a teenager. Rock & Roll had arrived and music and more stylish and colourful clothes seemed to dominate the youth culture. The dull navy blue and grey clothes of our parents were no longer tolerated by the youth of the day. Both girls and boys now dressed in very smart Italian suits and Americanized casual wear. Every church hall seemed to be holding dances and the once boring Rothery's radio shop in Ormskirk Street became a Mecca for the record buying youth of St Helens. Every cafe seemed have a jukebox. Our favourite hang-out was the Cosy Corner cafe on Peckershill Road and Powell Street. We used to dance at the Methodist mission in Sutton Road; St Theresa's in Sutton Manor, plus of course the Co-op, the YMCA and the New Town Cons in St Helens. When I was eighteen, I did finally buy a motorbike, which for me, was the icing on the cake. There seemed to be quite a large motorcycle culture in St Helens in the fifties. I can remember sometimes sixty or seventy motorcyclists congregating on the forecourt of the Cat’s Whiskers by Carr Mill Dam. The years 1958, 1959 and 1960 were good ones for me. Money in my pocket, a fast bike and a beautiful girl on the pillion. What else could any young lad want?
Mike Crampton in 2020The young ones of today would find it very hard to comprehend what life was like back in the 1940s and early fifties. We were far from poor as both my parents worked. My mother was a cook at the Cottage Hospital, the annexe across the road from the main hospital, and my dad was a long distance truck driver. It was only Wales but that was a long distance in those days. So as I said, we were not rich but far from poor. But still we had no phone, no car, no central heating, no double-glazing and no TV. We had no garden, plastic was unheard of and even Bic ball point pens were considered hi-tec. Pizzas and pasta were just foreign words. Throughout the long winter evenings, my parents would listen to the radio (it was called the wireless in those days) and I played with toy cars and lead soldiers.
My dad had a thing about shiny shoes, and polished his for hours on end in front of the fire. Shoes were all leather in those days. One of my dad's "tricks" when I became a teenager was to polish just one of my shoes until it shone, leaving me to try to match it with the other. And yet despite all the things we didn't have, we were very happy. And Sutton was a great place to grow up in.
MIKE CRAMPTON
’Celebrating Coronation Day in Sutton Leach’ by Wilf Powell
I was born in August 1947 at 21 Wheatsheaf Avenue, Sutton Leach, which is a cul de sac off Leach Lane close to the Wheatsheaf pub. One of my early memories is being dressed up as a page boy for a procession celebrating the Queen's coronation in June 1953, when I was aged 5.
Among the many photos left by my late mother Jessie Powell (nee Critchley) when she died in 2016 at the age of 102 were souvenir photos taken of this celebration, which took place in Leach Lane. In the above photograph I am the left hand page boy holding the Queen's' cape, with a sticking plaster over my right eye, after I had fallen off my bike!
I think the other two page boys holding the cape are Donald Hosker in the middle and Billy Robinson, both of whom lived in Leach Lane. Behind the boy holding the crown there are two more page boys who I believe are Terence Williams on the left with the trumpet, who lived opposite me at the top end of Wheatsheaf Avenue, and my cousin Brian Davies who lived at 106 Leach Lane.
Brian’s mother Ruth Davies (nee Critchley) was one of my mother's four sisters and was married to Joe Davies. The other sisters were Tamar who married Harry Lily and lived in Bold Road; Minnie who married Ernie Hughes and lived in Crawford Street, Clock Face and Irene who married Harold Gill and lived in Southport.
Their father Tommy Critchley lived in Gerards Lane and came every day to our house for his dinner. Grandad lived in the left hand house of the semis immediately on your right as you turn left into Gerards Lane from Leach Lane. He was a regular at the Wheatsheaf pub.
In this photograph my brother is at the back on the right, wearing a paper hat and standing next to the gentleman in the dark suit at the end. Sadly, my brother was killed two years later when he was hit by a motor cycle that mounted the pavement as he was walking with a group of friends from the Sutton Youth Fellowship, commonly known as the “8-15 club”.
I’m not sure where this group photograph was taken but the brick building on which the flag is draped looks suspiciously like one of the air raid shelters behind the houses on Leach Lane, between the houses and Mill Brook. In the article Memories of Sutton Part 9, entitled Memories of Sutton Leach by Harry Hickson, there is a photo of a canoe on the flooded Mill Brook which shows this air raid shelter and the back of my auntie Ruth's house, which is the right hand half of the semi immediately above the canoeist's head.
WILF POWELL
’Memories of Pudding Bag’ by Terry Almond
Oh boy! What memories I have of Pudding Bag, as my mother Edith's family called Parfit lived there. She married my father, Vic Almond, and we all lived in Woodcock Street. Our house was exactly where the photo of the steel bridge was taken and directly opposite the home of my mum's family. The very end house opposite to us was occupied by the Campbells.
The bridge in Woodcock Street in Pudding Bag in Sutton, St Helens and Gordon Roberts the radio and TV engineer
The bridge in Pudding Bag and Gordon Roberts the radio and TV engineer
Pudding Bag bridge and Gordon Roberts
My father Vic Almond was a musician and well known in the street. In fact Gordon Roberts the electrician, pictured next to his van, made a set of electric pickups for my dad's acoustic guitar. His band called 'The Westerners' needed some extra volume as they were becoming more popular. I still have that guitar.
Although we moved to Penketh when I was 5 years old, I have many happy memories of Pudding Bag, both when I lived there and for many more years when we visited my granny Parfit. I remember going into Gordon's house as a very young boy with my dad and looking at a bare TV set that Gordon had put together on the kitchen table. A bare chassis with no box. That must have been around 1957 or 8.
I remember The Westerners playing at a wedding in the pub and me, about 4 years old tasting my dad's beer. Horrible. I put that down to me being tee total to this day!
I recall running up the bridge when a train was approaching and getting completely covered in smoke and steam; getting my head stuck in the railings on the bridge; walking over the bridge with my mum in my sailor's uniform aged about three and a lady saying to her, "Oh doesn't he look lovely".
Why do these memories stay with us? Penlake and the Sheeting Sheds. I could go on and on. I remember the geese behind my granny Parfit's back yard and the shunting that took place night and day.
I will end with some family members names that might ring a few bells with readers. Cathleen Parfit, Lilian Parfit, Gerald Parfit, Henry Parfit, Alice Parfit, Edith Parfit Emily Parfit. Big family!
This website has been written and researched and many images photographed by myself, Stephen Wainwright, the Sutton Beauty & Heritage site owner. Individuals from all over the world have also kindly contributed their own photographs. If you wish to reuse any image, please contact me first as permission may be needed from the copyright owner. High resolution versions of many pictures can also be supplied at no charge. Please also contact me if you can provide any further information or photographs concerning Sutton, St.Helens. You might also consider contributing your recollections of Sutton for the series of Memories pages. Sutton Beauty & Heritage strives for factual accuracy at all times. Do also get in touch if you believe that there are any errors. I respond quickly to emails and if you haven't had a response within twelve hours, check your junk mail folder or resend your message. Thank you! SRW
My Mum married Thomas Murphy, one of the six Murphy brothers of Murphy's garage, which was also in Junction Lane. My dad’s brother, Joseph Murphy, became the mayor of St Helens in 1959 and the photograph above was printed in the local papers (L to R: Bet Murphy, Joe Murphy, and his brothers Tom (my dad), Jim, Edward, Bill and Wilf.)
Our back entry faced the side entrance to the Sutton Bug and as a child I used to sit on our back yard wall and wait for Tom Waring, the cinema doorman (pictured above), to make his appearance. He would often come to the door and beckon me over, give me a jug or a bottle and send me to the Junction Inn (known as "Teddy Mac's" after licensee Edward McDermott) with a shilling for a pint of Greenall's mild. For this service I was allowed into the cinema for free. 
The above photograph taken in front of St Anne's grotto shows the class of 1950 when we were ten years old. Back Row (L to R): Terry Flannigan, ?, Jimmy Kendal, Mike Crampton (me), Ged Doyle, Peter Molyneux and Denis Stanton. Row 3: Tom Gavin, Ian Campbell, Melvin Stachcovic, Tony Cunliffe, James Aldred, Tom O’Keefe, Albert Hadfield, Jimmy Grice, Kevin Jackson and Roland Pennington. Row 2: Les?, Richard Martland, Tony Ward, John Geoghegan, Leo Morley, Bernard Morris, Brian Forber, ?, ? Front Row: John Hoban, ? Tony Brown, Alan Williams, Ken Glover, John Appleton, ? and Basil Stanton. 
I left school in 1955 and started work immediately as an apprentice fitter and turner at Crone and Taylor's engineering (Conveyor Specialists) works in Sutton Road and Lancots Lane. In those days Crone & Taylors had a workforce of around a hundred – a quarter of which were apprentices. The workforce travelled from all over St Helens, many from Haydock.
There wasn’t an awful lot of health and safety in those days, and yet, apart from the odd cuts and bruises, we didn't seem to have too many bad accidents. But during the dinner hour, the factory turned into a motorbike club, with people tuning engines and running their bikes up and down Sutton Road.
Among the many photos left by my late mother Jessie Powell (nee Critchley) when she died in 2016 at the age of 102 were souvenir photos taken of this celebration, which took place in Leach Lane. In the above photograph I am the left hand page boy holding the Queen's' cape, with a sticking plaster over my right eye, after I had fallen off my bike!
In this photograph my brother is at the back on the right, wearing a paper hat and standing next to the gentleman in the dark suit at the end. Sadly, my brother was killed two years later when he was hit by a motor cycle that mounted the pavement as he was walking with a group of friends from the Sutton Youth Fellowship, commonly known as the “8-15 club”.
I’m not sure where this group photograph was taken but the brick building on which the flag is draped looks suspiciously like one of the air raid shelters behind the houses on Leach Lane, between the houses and Mill Brook.
