Victoria Street by Bill Curtis

After demolishing many of the small old streets the town planners, flushed with success, looked around for something else to demolish and their eyes fell upon Victoria Street.

That, they argued, would have to come down to give access to the car park in Custom House Lane and to enable them to build the new Cherry Tree Row complex.
On the west corner of Victoria Street and North Albert Street was the General Post Office with the sorting office at the back.

The sorting office closed first and then the Post Office, with the counter service, went next to the new modern building at Ash Street on what had once been the football ground.

Fleetwood Post Office have had a nomadic existence, the first one being on Dock Street and the Post Master was, would you believe, Frederick Kemp?

Later the post office was in Lord Street, opposite the Parish Church, next to Manchester House, and in 1902 the new building in North Albert Street opened as the main Post Office, and a fine building it was and, for that matter, still is.

Nowadays sorting offices are so mechanised they can sort 50,000 letters in a minute.

What beats me is why they are then delivered by a man on a bicycle?
On the opposite two corners were the old telephone exchange (then being used by the photographic society as their club-rooms), and on the other corner was the Trustee Savings Bank.

The Trustee Bank became eventually an Indian clothing and dress shop – not, I hasten to add, run by Indian People, but by a local lad who thought Indian dresses and materials were all the fashion, and at that time they might have been, but I don’t think he made a fortune out of that shop.

The two corner shops were demolished, leaving a blank space which is still there waiting to be developed, but so far no one seems to be very interested.

The telephone exchange had not been used as such since the end of the forties but when it was telephone numbers in Fleetwood were only three figure numbers.

The chief operator was a merry chap called Mr. Gilmartin and one of the other operators was Bill Crook, a young man happily married with a little baby of which he was inordinately proud and he was always ready to show his latest collection of pictures of her.

But as the number of subscribers increased and direct dialing was introduced the town progressed to an automatic telephone exchange in Poulton Road and away went our personal operator service.

Not only would the operators get your number, in many cases they offered help and advice and were always willing to listen to your complaints or troubles, and the machines which replaced them were nothing like as user-friendly.

But they say that is the price we pay for progress …

!
The telephone building was certainly in a very bad way and it simply had to be demolished, it would have needed to much money spending on it and had little purpose anyway.

As you know, the new Central Library has replaced it and that is very much an improvement.

I had often wondered what was the purpose of the glass dome on top of the new library building and when I enquired, I was told that originally it was to house a clock, but when the Rowntree clock was erected in Albert Square it became superfluous and nothing else has since been thought of to put in its place … and I offer no guarantees for the accuracy of that explanation.

Hearing one cheeky young lad who was persistently late returner of his books give a mouthful of impertinence and bad language to a young library assistant I was unable to resist telling him that late borrowers were stood in the dome for eight hours, and while he probably didn’t believe me, he certainly looked very subdued for a few minutes!
While the demolition work of the houses in Victoria Street was being carried out it had, of course, to be closed to traffic, and to make sure of this the highway department put across the North Albert Street end every sign they had in stock; no entry, road narrows, diversion, turn right, the lot.

It is a wonder there were no accidents as bewildered motorists tried to read the signs. Their had been a curious assortment of residents in Victoria Street, including some Gypsy palmists and clairvoyants, one of whom once had a notice on her front door.

Closed due to unforeseen circumstances.

And of course, the famous Dome of Discovery was there in which you could buy anything from a nail to a brass bedstead.
One of our customers, a dear old lady who lived in Victoria Street used to come into the shop and I noticed that although she had virtually no money, she always looked as if she had just been to the hairdressers, her hair was crimped and curled as if it was newly coiffured, and each week she had a different style.

Wondering how she could afford such luxuries (a perm had gone up to £1.50p by then, and even a shampoo and set was 25p), but not liking to ask outright.

I admired her hair and asked how she managed to keep it so nice? Pleased at the compliment , she said, “Oh I do it wi’the pocker”!

Completely puzzled I stared speechless at her.

How on earth could you do your hair with a poker? Smiling,she explained, “I put t’poker in’t fire first thing in’t morning, pull it out afore it gets red hot and rubs it on a newspaper till it just stops browning it and then I wraps me hair round it and it curls it just lovely, see? Home made Marcel waving yet! What she does now that fires have gone I don’t know!
So down came one side of Victoria Street and perhaps a little reluctantly, I will admit it now looks a lot tidier even though I do miss the little streets and alleyways.
A friend of mine – shall we call her Gladys? – went recently to the reunion in the Euston of the old Grammer School girls.

She hesitated about going, feeling sure she would not know or recognise anyone, but after some persuasion by her husband she decided she would go.

Anxious to look her best, she went to the hairdressers and had her hair set in a completely different style and feeling very smart and sure no one would know her went off to the reunion She had not been in the room two minutes before someone rushed up to her and said “Hello Gladys, gosh you haven’t changed a bit, even your hair style is the same!”
I don’t know if you went to any of the recent Folk Festival events or not. Everybody I have spoken to shuddered and said, No, they stayed well away.

But why, I cannot understand. I think they must have been thinking it was a Pop festival, but they were wrong, a Folk Festival is a completely different kettle of fish with lots of good clean fun for all ages of people.

In fact, it’s the sort of fun our grandparents used to enjoy and indulge in.

Yes, the pubs are all full and some of the lads drink a lot but I never saw anyone drunk and there were no disorderliness or trouble of any kind.

The music was excellent, and certainly not the sort of modern pop music which the kids which the kids love and hate.

Most of the musicians and singers are really very talented and the ceilidh was no more than the sort of party with dancing and singing that I used to enjoy as a teenager.

There was a carnival atmosphere on the promenade at night, as it was crowded with people of all ages who chattered in a friendly fashion, heading for different venues including church halls to sit and enjoy good music.

The dialect poets were funny, touching and in many cases very clever, and the dancers on the marine gardens were colourful, energetic and very watchable.

The people who avoided it really missed something, honestly, and it does bring business to the town, which is always welcome.

The whole festival is excellently managed by Alan Bell and his team of helpers and a terrific job they do, co-ordinating everything and seeing that things run like clockwork, which they do.

Apart from that Alan Bell is one of our most talented musicians, song writers, and singers, ane I defy anyone not to be emotionally affected by his wonderful song, “The wind in the willows”, now recorded and sung world-wide.
My involvement was with the Onward group who presented in narration, song and slides the history of Fleetwood from the Allens of Rossall to the decline of the fishing industry, albeit with the prediction that the fishing in Fleetwood is not done and to that we all say Amen.

The narration was very well written by David Pearce and the songs which were both poignant and funny were written by our own talented Ronnie Baxter and the excellent singing was accompanied by Ross Campbell’s brilliant music, another very talented lad, believe me.
The performance was given in the Mount Hotel dining room which comfortably seats 80 people, but the trouble was that over 200 people wanted to see the show, and in no time all the seats were taken.

I had a long lens so that I could be at the back of the room and , as I thought out of everyones way.

The projector was raised high to shoot over everyones head and I was seated alongside at a table with my copy of the script which I had to study closely to know when to change the slides, but it meant I had to stand up every now and then to change the magazine.

At my side a photographer with a video camera was recording the whole show with a power drive camera, so both our electric plugs were in adjoining sockets on the wall behind us.

Everything started well but as people kept coming in at the back of the room we were being swamped as they sat on the floor, against the wall, on the window ledges, anywhere they could find a spare inch or so.

The photographer who had been working all day and had not eaten had been to the Mount kitchens and returned with a large plateful of chicken and chips which every now and then he tried to eat when he wasn’t attending to the camera.

As the smell of the meal was all-pervading nearby viewers kept eyeing it with drooling mouths and, as he turned to attend to the camera, they would grab a lump of chicken or a handful of chips turning away hastily as he returned to his meal, frowning a little as he noticed it was diminishing.

The third time he did this the plate was virtually empty and he searched all over for the missing morsels unaware of the blissfully munching audience. I too was suffering at the hands of the audience.

As I stood up to change the magazine I was fortunate enough to glance round before sitting down again and was just in time to see my chair disappearing into the crowd, for a chair was worth its weight in gold at that time, so for the rest of the show I had to stand.

The second time I reached up to change the magazine I looked back at my script and that, too, had disappeared.

I eventually found it in the possession of a couple who, when I grabbed it back, complained they wanted to follow the narration and join in the songs! They were quite annoyed to have it taken from them and when I returned to the projector I found it had stopped, leaving a blank screen.

In panic I wondered what on earth was the trouble? Was it lamp failure, a broken fuse, a power cut? What the hell was it?

While I was looking round wondering what to do, I found the cameraman doing the same thing, in the same panic as me.

We quickly traced the trouble to the fact that a woman sitting on the floor with her back to the wall had not liked the discomfort of the two power plugs in their socket sticking in her back, so she pulled the plugs out for greater comfort!

At the end of the show the audience was applauded most gratifying, having obviously enjoyed it, but the cameraman and I were busy fortifying our shattered nerves with double brandies!

Ah, me, there’s folks and there’s folks, and they get’em all at the folk festival!