大象传媒

I was the eldest son in a family of 13 children who worked very hard to survive the lean times of the war years. We lived in a small house in Index Street, off Goodison Road.

In 1908, my father, ran a small carting business with stables at Lochinvar Street, near Queens Drive, Liverpool. Father drove a team wagon, carting cargoes to merchants and to the dock-yards. "It was all horses and cart work those days" father would say."Everything would have to be cartered to warehouses,railways and to the ships." As a boy I can remember going to Birkenhead with father, as there was no tunnels. "It was all luggage boats and ferries and the life of a carter was hard."

When World War 1 started, father volunteered for the Army, but they would not take him,as he had a business. It was thought his business was important for supporting the war effort. They kept him for carting food to and from the docks.

I can remember when the carter's brought their team wagons and horses back home to the stables after a days work. A government man would be waiting outside in the street. The government man would be there to check to see if the horses looked fit. There was a hill just outside the stables. Father would place a horse in a team wagon and put the brake on the wheel, including a chain clipped onto the spoke of the wheel. The wheels were wooden with steel rims on the outside. If the horse pulled the wagon on its own up the hill, once the brake was taken off, it was passed fit. Stronger horses would be confiscated by the government man and shipped to France to tow gun carriages for the Artillery. It was a sorrowful site to see the horses leaving the stables and also, it could effect the carters liveliehood. At one stage father was down to just two horses. Father loved horses on one occasion we went on the cart as far as Chester.

About the author: Is the son, quoting
from parents letters in family memoirs.

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