Crosby, Seaforth and Waterloo : Images of England

The Merseyside communities of Crosby, Waterloo, Blundellsands, Seaforth and Litherland grew up in the shadow of the great maritime city of Liverpool but they retained a distinct identity of their own. A fascinating glimpse of their recent history is provided by this unique collection of old photographs.

The reader is taken on a detailed tour of the streets and thoroughfares of these areas as they looked in the later years of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth. There are scenes from the days when horse-drawn traffic and trams were more common than motor vehicles and when the streets contained more family-run shops than supermarkets. ‘Order boys’ on bicycles delivered groceries to the door and policemen were on point duty even though they spent much of their time waiting for the next vehicle to appear! Schools, shops, factories and barracks all feature in this lively account along with some of the people who populated them.

As well as an excellent sequence of images of the streets and buildings the author has highlighted several items of special interest by devoting individual chapters to them. One of these is on cinemas and another features spectacular disasters that have occurred in the area and been recorded on camera. Among the latter are train crashes, fires and those that resulted from extreme weather conditions.

The author has for many years contributed old photographs to the popular ‘Memories’ page of the Crosby Herald and it is in response to local demand that he now presents this selection of images from his collection of local memorabilia for publication in a book.