Liverpool Stories
Echo Beach
For Kay Davies
In those far off days, before there were cheap flights to Shangri-La and beyond, the limits of my horizons were places such as New Brighton, Southport or Moreton.
Moreton was a relatively cheap option as, unlike its near neighbour, New Brighton, it did not possess a huge fairground, myriad cafes or many of the costly diversions that rapidly devoured my mother's slender housekeeping budget.
I remember the massive sea wall that, when the tide was out, overlooked a Sahara like stretch of sand, while the near constant presence of a gale force wind played havoc with tents, marquees and primus stoves.
A trip to Moreton was never accompanied by the thrill of anticipation that the mention of New Brighton sparked. It was a bit like the difference between going to Santa's grotto or a jumble sale. Both contained toys, but only one held magic. That said, I have many happy memories of the place.
I remember on one of the rare occasions that the tide was actually in watching my father serenely floating amid the huge grey swell, created by the Irish sea, on meeting almost as much concrete as Hitler had put into the Atlantic defences in Normandy, coming to a juddering halt.
On some days the grey of the sea and the wall merged with that of the Wermacht sky, becoming uniformly threatening; but I mainly recall the dazzling bleached blue sky that was scoured by cirrus clouds chivvied and harassed by the wind.
My great aunt Alice had a marquee that sheltered us from the gales as we drank tea made with boiling water purchased from an enterprising chap who, from his nearby cottage/shop, sold it by the scalding pot.
My mother's cousins, Tommy, Queenie and Robert always gave me a few pennies to play one of the five slot machines that huddled under a canvas awning in a nearby field.
I would tremblingly tender my first penny and enjoy the sight of a ball bearing drop into position in front of a spring loaded piston; then I would flick the shining comma shaped handle, sending the ball bearing racing around a vertical bagatelle before it plopped, agonisingly slowly, into a metal cup engraved with the size of the prize. I think it was a three-penny limit. Las Vegas sands we had aplenty but none of the odds.
I don't ever remember going back to the marquee anything but empty handed. Oddly enough I've never been much of a gambler since.
When my mother re-married some years later she bought a small caravan in the Horseshoe Pass and so our family visits to our very own wailing wall ceased, but I did make one visit of my own.
It happened when I was at St Bernard's secondary school and had been invited to go camping in Moreton. I had never been camping before and was quite thrilled at the idea of spending my first night away from home under canvas.
The reality was dreadful as we arrived in Moreton at five o'clock and had run out of food by ten! Why on earth did we imagine that a sliced loaf, some Eccles cakes and a tin of beans would last the weekend? I say we, but in fact I was the only one who had brought anything as my mates had planned to live off the land!
Live off the land? We were camped in sand dunes! What were they thinking of eating? Bent grass stew?
After a night of gnawing hunger I fled on the first train of the day.
My most vivid memory of Moreton involved my gran, my 'Nin'. She had volunteered to look after me for the day as my mother was at work and had succumbed to my imploring to go to the seaside.
It was August and the endless sands, (the tide was out again!), stretched out like my school holidays. My Nin wasn't up to frolicking about as she had reared eight children of her own and was frankly exhausted and so I decided to take my towel and go cockle gathering.
As I padded further and further from the land I was unaware that my Nin was starting to panic. The poor woman was probably labouring under the delusion that the sea actually came in to Moreton! Nonetheless she was terrified that I would either drown or be swallowed by quicksand.
The reality was that I was happily engrossed in watching for the miniscule springs of water that signified the presence of cockles and after about thirty minutes worth of scrabbling in the wet sand I had a towel filled with cockles, and sand.
My Nin was so pleased to see me that she cheerfully hefted the bulging towel onto her hip and, arrayed like a Peruvian peasant en route to market, via train and bus, made it back home.
Then came the moment when we, or rather she, had to wash the sand from the cockles. I couldn't believe how tenacious the sand was. It took an age to wash it away until eventually we were able to boil them before shelling them.
The result, after all that effort, was that we had a breakfast cup full of the damn things!
Now that cooled the cockles of my heart!