Not quite a photo for you today but a scan of a cover of an RNLI Open Day programme from 1982.
Purely by chance I spotted the programme on ebay last week. I won the auction at great expense. That’ll be 99p to you and me plus 80p for postage!
I’ve found the adverts to be of most interest as they give an insight to what was in Hoylake in the early 80s. For instance, located at 46-48 Market Street was The Lemon Tree Coffee Lounge which I suspect later became Cafe Cassidy! I think it’s an estate agents today. And who remembers The Outrigger shop in Banks Road, West Kirby? Back in 1982 Spotty Blue Teapot was actually a second hand car dealers.
‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners was at number 1 that weekend. Although, being a fickle lot, by Christmas we’d ditched our patchy, denim dungarees and were all have a good old singalong in the Stanley Hotel at The Kings Gap to ‘Save Your Love’ by Renee and Renato (here’s the video on youtube in case you’ve forgotten it). And with a pint of bitter costing about 60p (data source) it’d be a cheap night out!
On the day not only did the Red Arrows arrive, but there were also displays from an RAF Wessex helicopter and the RAF Falcons – a free fall parachute team.
Note that the Open Day wasn’t held on the August Bank Holiday – what year did it move to the Bank Hol?
The Mary Gabriel, a 36ft self righting Rother Class, if my memory serves me correctly. Jeff was the mechanic, we heard the whoosh of the flare before the bang and we were on our way down to the beach as the tractor clanked into action. Happy days 🙂
Super find on ebay..even more fascinating for me that is…from 1945 until about 1956 we lived above the premises at 46 Market Street. Then it was a tobaconist’s shop and a cafe called Billies ..my mother used to work in there until she fell ill and susequently died.
I know that it is a Thai Restaurant now and am looking forward to a meal there and a nosy around if I am allowed.
We used to go down to the lifeboat station at the bottom of Alderley Road (I think) and look around when I was little.
The day out described sounds like a fun one at any rate
The Outrigger; bought two Swiss Army knives from there in about ’79, about £3.50 each, months of pocket-money at the time! End of Victoria Rd as I remember?
Cheers, Richard
Probably illegal to carry a pen knife now, I used to have several of them as a kid and loved them. I think everyone did although I never had a Swiss Army one!
1984 was the first year that it was held on the Bank Holiday, that year August 27th.
Just come across this and particularly interested in the adverts. I think the Lemon Tree is now a restaurant (or was when I last looked!). In the late 70s the Spotty Blue Teapot was a branch of the motorcycle dealers Victor Horsman who also had shops in Liverpool and Birkenhead. At the time motorcycles were enjoying a boom and even Cattels bicycle shop sold second hand motorbikes, but the 1980s recession brought an end to it. Most towns on Wirral seemed to have a motorcycle dealer then (Mike Weston in Moreton, Tom Loughridge in Heswall, etc.).