Many thanks to Don Ryan for sending in this evocative photo of two lads down on the jetty off the end of Trinity Road. Don says:
I’m sending you a photo I took in about 1945, when I was about 17. I was bombed out of Liverpool and came to live in Hoylake with my parents. I used to go fishing on the boats from Hoylake. Percy Armitage was my night fishing mate and many hours were spent on the nobby that I think was LL23 Gentle Annie. Another boat was LL74 Pamela. Mick Armitage was also about at that time. I recall his nobby as FD 121?
Can’t our beach look good!
What a lovely photo. The Hoylake jetty was off Trinity Road which was taken down in the late 1950s; to my knowledge there wasn’t a jetty at Sandhey too but someone will correct me if there was one there too.
I recall the jetty starting from behind the toilet block at the bottom of Trinity Road too, Pete. We used to use the jetty, when going for a moonlight swim, so as to avoid the mud. All I remember at Sandhey slip was a row of rocks leading out into deeper water. They may have been to protect a drainage outfall pipe.
In a 1930`s aerial view I have of that part of Meols ( Sandhey Slip) there is no sign of a jetty. As others have said the only jetty I remember is the one that was located at the bottom of Trinity Road,I took a photo of it shortly before it was removed sometime in the early 60`s if my memory serves me correctly.
It was certainly there 1963/1964, i had just moved from Hertfordshire to live in Meols.
When the BIG storms lashed the beach and tore away decades of silt, the old woodwork was revealed, when I was a boy back in the 80’s. Is their not a sunken forest in Meols?
Yes, there is a sunken forest beneath the sand at Meols.
We used to play amongst the tree roots when we were little back in the 50’s
Sorry! Don’t know why I suggested the jetty was off Sandhey! It was of course off the end of Trinity Road. Post amended.
John
I’m proud to say that’s my dad’s photo! (Hello dad!)
He didn’t mention that he lived at 3 Lee Road with his parents Frank and Eveline Ryan, who were there from after the War right up to the mid 1970s. I saw in an earlier thread comments from several people who used to live in Lee Road – anyone still out there who might remember the Ryan family?
percy armitage was my dads uncle,
his daughter dorothy died three years ago,lived 38 trinity rd for as long as i can remember
Are you sure you mean Mike Armitage and not Mike Ackroyd.He owned a fishing boat FD121 it was the only fishing boat at Sandhey that had a wheelhouse.Mike lived next door to the Parade School overlooking the boating lake and water fountain
I actally went fishing with Mick Ackroyd with my uncle Glyn Rowlands,11 lake Rd.My grandad Billy Rowlands of same address used to own the Gentle Annie
Dave, I think Percy Armitage was a brother of my Grandmother, Charlott Stanley. Maybe we are related somewhere down the line.
charlotte stanley 28 alderley rd;
my nan was lillian dobson,2nd marriage,charles cowderoy died ist world war,
percy armitage 38 trinity rd
arthur armitage 15 lee rd
aunt nell lived in ireland
thanks lynn for that happy memories when we lived in manor rd
are you the daughter of reg and win stanley?
Yes Dave, I am Linda Stanley, I remember an Aunt Lill, did she live in Elm Terrace, and was Arthur’s wife Lizzie. I remember Charlotte going to Swords in Dublin when her sister Nell was sick, she got there a few minutes too late. I had already moved to Ireland then.
nan lived at 1 manor rd,then 25 newton rd,with harry dobson,arthurs wife was bessie;
my dad went with his aunt charlotte to see nell,as you say arrived to late;
i used to call in now and again to see dorothy,just to get info on family tree;
she said regs daughter lived in ireland,one in moreton;
Hi Lynn
Hope you had nice Christmas
Just back from hoylake churchyard
To say happy new year to nan.uncle Arthur.uncle Percy.and your grandma aunt Lotte
Saw your uncle Terry’s head stone and your dads.someone puts flowers on Terry’s
I keep the weeds of great uncles graves.
Dave
Here is a transcript from an interseting article that appeared in the Hoylake Advertiser, which confirms that the jetty was at the bottom of Trinity Road.
AUGUST 1915
HOYLAKE FISHERMAN DROWNED
Caught in his own net
The West Cheshire Coroner (Mr J.C. Beta) held an inquest at West Kirby on Monday relative to the death of a well known Hoylake fisherman named Alfred Edward Armitage (40) Grove Place, Hoylake.
From the evidence which was only brief it appeared that at about 10.30 on Friday night the deceased with three other fishermen named Charles Jones, Michael Boland and a brother, went out with the intention of fishing. They were in the act of launching their boat, into which the three who were saved had already sprung when Armitage over balanced and fell into the water. At the same time the boat capsized, and the other occupants were also thrown out. Armitage, who was recognised as one of the strongest swimmers in Hoylake would undoubtedly have swan ashore had not the net which he was just in the act of casting, enveloped him and held him a prisoner. Every effort was made to save him after his companions had succeeded in saving themselves, but without avail. His body was not recovered until the next day.
The deceased who was popularly known as “Buck†Armitage, came of a very well known and highly respected Hoylake fishing stock. Four or five brothers have been prominently associated with the industry for many years, and their father before them. Another brother known as “Brassy†Has had several miraculous escapes from death, both on sea and land, but notwithstanding all this, is still hole and hearty as ever, and at the present time mourning his loss of a good brother to whom the whole family was devotedly attached. Few Deeside families are better known than the Armitages. None of the brothers have ever left the place of their birth and upbringing for many weeks at a stretch.
The deceased had done what he could for King and country. He was a capital seaman, and as such attached himself to the crew of the Franconia soon after the outbreak of the war. His objective in doing this was to release a younger man from the merchant service. He took several trips on the famous Cunarder, but asked off on the last occasion on which she sailed because of trouble at home. He knew that his wife was suffering from a malignant disease, and that in all probability she would fall a victim to it before he returned. In addition to that, it has been stated that being a highly sensitive man, he was sick at heart at the things he saw whilst on the trips.
But whatever may have been Ted Armitages reasons for not joining the boat on her last trip, those who survive him have no doubt that it was not through any personal cowardice, because such a thing is absolutely foreign to a seaman of the Armitage type.
The “hole†(as it is called) in which poor Armitage lost his life, is situated at the bottom of the jetty, opposite Church Road (now Trinity Road). It is about 10 feet deep and about as many feet across. It is a hole with a history. Those who have heard the old Hoylake fishing families tell stories of this hole will recollect the occasion on which a fine salmon was caught in it , and also when upwards of 100lbs. of eel where netted by a fortunate fisherman.
Ted Armitage is the latest Hoylake lad to lose his life whilst pursuing his calling, and let us hope he will be the last. He will be greatly missed from his large circle of friends, all of whom admired his pluck and delighted in his companionship. His death removes one of the best known figures from Hoylake fishing fraternity. He had been attached to the crew of the Hoylake Lifeboat for many years, and as such had performed many gallant deeds. He leaves a widow and family (one of whom is in H.M. Navy) and several brothers to mourn his loss.
In 1941 we had the big week of air raids -May it was. Whatever, during one of these raids a Heinkel 111 was`winged` and took off towards Hilbre. Passing over Hoylake he ruined the old Congregational church and burned it out. He continued to unload his bomb load, dropping hundreds more incendiary bombs, plus a few high explosives. – Now the tide must have been just about covering the surface of the sand, enough to prevent these incendiaries ignighting, resulting in half burned bombs littering the sands – just out from the sailing club. Now, my mate from Newton Road, his name was,I thinlk Mckellan- he had a dog called Jock; together with my springer spaniel called Raq, we took our trolley, a soap box on pram wheels We found a big piece of tail fin, off an exploded H.E. bomb plus four totally brand new incendiaries. Our cart was full and we were both really chuffed! We took our prizes home. Itook my best incendiary on the train, to school. My form master took mine to the staff common room, at the `Institute`’ My bomb, we set it off on Dad` allotment fire down below Manor Road!
My old friend Norman Bentley was a good friend of Mick Ackroyd. Anyway Norman died and I noticed his obituary in the
Don, That’s a lovely photo but what I was really interested to read was that you used to fish on the nobby Gentle Annie. My great great grandfather James Parkinson from Lytham owned a nobby called Gentle Annie – PN77 in the early 1900’s. He died in 1921 and there doesn’t seem to be a record of the boat being handed down to family and I am trying to trace what happened to it. I am wondering if this is the same nobby just sold and re-registered at Liverpool after his death? It would be a lovely co-incidence if it was!