IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (20th - 26th SEPTEMBER 1921)
This week's stories include the open-air meeting of Communists held in Thatto Heath, the boys who placed sentries round St Helens market while stealing from stalls, the unemployed men on the Clock Face work relief scheme go on strike, the St Helens MP takes on Bolshevik critics and comic Tommy Handley performs at the Hippodrome.
We begin with a sad case before the council's Cemetery Committee this week when a war widow was brought before its members for stealing flowers from graves. The unnamed woman cried and explained that she did not know what made her do it – apart from a desire to place flowers on her baby's grave. The Chairman of the committee said that in view of the circumstances no further action would be taken – but in future flower stealing at the cemetery would result in prosecution.
Last week there had been a brutal police assault on a peaceful gathering of unemployed men in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. This week police baton-charged a crowd of 2,000 unemployed demonstrators in Camden Town, as the authorities became increasingly nervous of a Bolshevik-like revolution in England. In the Tuesday edition of the St Helens Reporter on the 20th, the Rev. Harry Bolton wrote an article headlined "Communism On Thatto Heath". The Vicar of St John's at Ravenhead described how during the previous week he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists. Although full of praise for the enthusiasm of the main speaker, Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories and exaggeration did not help the Communists' cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed. I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!” And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Labour MP for St Helens, James Sexton, was used to criticism from those who did not like his moderate stand in most matters. The man of Irish descent was also secretary of the Dockers Union. Last year he had infuriated members of the Irish community in St Helens for refusing to bring dockworkers out on strike in support of Irish prisoners on hunger strike. Then in July of 1921, Sexton was accused of treachery because some felt his support of striking miners had not gone far enough. However, the Communists disliked Sexton the most and would heckle him at Labour party meetings in St Helens. Speaking in the town this week he decided to take the offensive against Bolshevik influences within the labour and unemployed movements, saying:
"Let me ask the extremists if they had to pass over a chasm, and the keystone of the only bridge over it was decayed, would they pull the keystone out and bring the whole thing and themselves down in ruin, or would they put up a scaffold and repair the decayed bridge? I quarrel with the extremist become his policy is wrong; I am not questioning his intentions, but I would like to remind you that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
The Corporation's newly established programme of work relief for the jobless hit a snag on the 21st. One hundred and ten men were employed on an improvement scheme in Clock Face Road at the rate of 1 shilling an hour. It was a small number out of the thousands out of work in St Helens – but it was a start. However, the usual St Helens Corporation labourer rate was 1s 2½d per hour and so some objected to what they saw as cut-price employment.
On the morning of the 21st, the men downed tools and marched from Clock Face into St Helens, with the Reporter writing: "Shortly before twelve noon on Wednesday they moved four abreast in orderly array along Church-street, most of them with their “billie cans” under their arms or slung over their shoulders, attracting a great deal of attention." A meeting was then held on the waste ground in Bridge Street (where the Savoy would be built) and where similar gatherings were regularly held. Other unemployed men joined those assembled and were urged not to "blackleg" those on strike at Clock Face by taking their jobs.
A resolution was passed pledging not to work on the Corporation schemes until the full trade rate was paid – and then the men marched on the Town Hall to see the Mayor and demand increased payments. However, the town council at their last meeting had discussed the rate of pay and decided that the lower rate was appropriate. So the Mayor, Cllr. Richard Ellison, told the delegation that he could not overrule the council's decision. The Reporter wrote how things then got a bit heated:
"The deputation were very obdurate and insistent, and some warm passages occurred. In the end they were induced to leave the Town Hall, and having communicated the somewhat negative result of their visit to the waiting throng of unemployed, the crowd gradually melted away, many going to join the long queue which had been standing all morning in St. Mary-street outside the temporary relief office."
I expect the police were keeping a very close eye on the unemployed men that met in the market place and on the Bridge Street waste ground with officers in plain clothes taking down speeches. In other parts of the country men addressing meetings were being sent to prison for sedition – even if they made it clear they were not advocating violence. However, there was a lighter side to policing market activities – although stallholders would not have agreed.
On the 23rd in St Helens Police Court seven youths were convicted of breaking into a stall in the market and stealing 5 shillings worth of pears. Constable Cust told the Bench they were experiencing a great deal of trouble from boys stealing from stalls. The pack of lads was so numerous that when they decided to rob stalls they planted sentries all round the market. Michael Mulcahey was fined 20 shillings for the theft and the other six boys 10 shillings each. In 1939 Arthur Cust would become Chief Constable of St Helens, succeeding the incumbent Arthur Ellerington after his sudden death. However in 1921, Cust was a lowly constable nicking boys pinching fruit!
Joseph Pinders from Hoghton Road, John Dean from Alice Street and Patrick Fahy were the three unlucky Sutton lads in court charged with gaming with coins. They were unfortunate as the haulage hands were part of a group of two dozen youths playing pitch and toss on waste land off Alice Street. It was the usual practice for the pair of undercover policemen charged with catching Sunday gamblers to observe the group for a while and then charge them.
The lads would rapidly scatter and the bobbies would grab the ones slow to take to their heels. The Reporter wrote that the gamers had "bolted in all directions" once the police raid had begun. However, PC Davies managed to catch Joseph Pinders and the other officer knew Dean and Fahy and in court each were fined 7s 6d.
What were described as two small boys were also in trouble this week for raiding Grange Park Golf Club on two occasions and stealing golf clubs and balls worth £12. Their parents in St Helens Juvenile Court were each ordered to pay £3 compensation. As for the lads they were bound over – although I expect when their fathers got them home they were made to bend over!
Throughout this week at the Theatre Royal in St Helens, what was described as a musical comedy burlesque called 'Heads or Tails' was being performed each evening, which The Stage wrote was "full of go and humour". Another review described it as "bright and smart, contains tuneful melody, and introduces a lot of clever and attractive people."
Meanwhile, at the Hippodrome there was another young performer on the bill who was set for fame and fortune. Last November comic actor Will Hay had appeared at the Corporation Street music hall and this week it was the turn of Tommy Handley (pictured above). The Liverpool comic would become hugely famous in the thirties and forties – mainly through his starring role in 'It's That Man Again' (ITMA). The BBC radio show was widely credited with boosting morale during the war. In fact a member of the Royal Household was once quoted as saying that if the war had ended between 8.30pm and 9pm on a Thursday evening, none of them would have dared inform the King until ITMA had finished!
At the Hippodrome in St Helens, Tommy Handley was appearing in a sketch with Laurence Barclay called 'The Disorderly Room'. One review said "to the accompaniment of hearty laughter", Handley and Barclay performed "merry portrayals of officer and sergeant-major". The other turns included Cruikshank ("The fool of the family with his banjo and 'cello, in song, jest and story – his quips and cranks are smartly submitted"); Osborne and Perryer ("Talented entertainers with comedy sketches from life"); Alf Thomas ("Adept at what may be termed spoof ballads"); Lily Eyton ("In her quaint song studies") and Edith Allen ("A versatlle vocalist").
Discussing the St Helens Referees Society that met at the YMCA every week, the Echo on the 24th wrote: "St. Helens have a real live society secretary." Well, that's a lot better than a dead one, isn't it? Incidentally, a firm called E. J. Riley of Accrington regularly advertised in the Echo, offering in large type "FOOTBALLS, JERSEYS, KNICKERS, etc. etc." I'm not sure when the word "shorts" supplanted "knickers", although I expect many of our words of today will also look amusing to people in 100 years time!
The police campaign against the dangerous driving of motor cars continued on the 26th with an appearance in St Helens Police Court of Charles Simcox. He was a 45-year-old baker living in Harris Street and PC Hunt told the court that the defendant had driven on the wrong side of the road circumventing a broken-down motor car and what was described as a railway lorry. In doing so he ran into Fred Brown – the well-known North Road building contractor – who was riding his motorbike. Mr Simcox insisted he had been travelling at a very slow speed and no one was hurt and added: "You know how Mr. Brown drives, but we managed to pull up safely." He was fined ten shillings.
And, as usual, my final item features the article in the Echo this week that had nothing to do with St Helens but made me smile or shake my head in disbelief the most. This week's piece can be put in the first category – although the smile was more of an ironic one. The article under the headline "No War Of Revenge" was an interview with the German Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff, who didn't think there would be a second world war:
"“A war of revenge on the part of Germany against the Allies, and especially against France, is definitely impossible from the technical as well as from the military point of view. We have lost the possibility of new armaments. A German army could not be trained in secret.” This declaration was made by Field Marshal Ludendorff in an interview with M. Sauerwein, of the Parisian “Matin,” who was asked if he might be considered as the man who was preparing for such a war."
Next week's stories will include the cinema for lunatics, the illegal St Helens Junction market, the stalemate in St Helens Council's programme of work relief for the unemployed and severe child poverty in Liverpool.
We begin with a sad case before the council's Cemetery Committee this week when a war widow was brought before its members for stealing flowers from graves. The unnamed woman cried and explained that she did not know what made her do it – apart from a desire to place flowers on her baby's grave. The Chairman of the committee said that in view of the circumstances no further action would be taken – but in future flower stealing at the cemetery would result in prosecution.
Last week there had been a brutal police assault on a peaceful gathering of unemployed men in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. This week police baton-charged a crowd of 2,000 unemployed demonstrators in Camden Town, as the authorities became increasingly nervous of a Bolshevik-like revolution in England. In the Tuesday edition of the St Helens Reporter on the 20th, the Rev. Harry Bolton wrote an article headlined "Communism On Thatto Heath". The Vicar of St John's at Ravenhead described how during the previous week he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists. Although full of praise for the enthusiasm of the main speaker, Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories and exaggeration did not help the Communists' cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed. I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!” And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Labour MP for St Helens, James Sexton, was used to criticism from those who did not like his moderate stand in most matters. The man of Irish descent was also secretary of the Dockers Union. Last year he had infuriated members of the Irish community in St Helens for refusing to bring dockworkers out on strike in support of Irish prisoners on hunger strike. Then in July of 1921, Sexton was accused of treachery because some felt his support of striking miners had not gone far enough. However, the Communists disliked Sexton the most and would heckle him at Labour party meetings in St Helens. Speaking in the town this week he decided to take the offensive against Bolshevik influences within the labour and unemployed movements, saying:
"Let me ask the extremists if they had to pass over a chasm, and the keystone of the only bridge over it was decayed, would they pull the keystone out and bring the whole thing and themselves down in ruin, or would they put up a scaffold and repair the decayed bridge? I quarrel with the extremist become his policy is wrong; I am not questioning his intentions, but I would like to remind you that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
The Corporation's newly established programme of work relief for the jobless hit a snag on the 21st. One hundred and ten men were employed on an improvement scheme in Clock Face Road at the rate of 1 shilling an hour. It was a small number out of the thousands out of work in St Helens – but it was a start. However, the usual St Helens Corporation labourer rate was 1s 2½d per hour and so some objected to what they saw as cut-price employment.
On the morning of the 21st, the men downed tools and marched from Clock Face into St Helens, with the Reporter writing: "Shortly before twelve noon on Wednesday they moved four abreast in orderly array along Church-street, most of them with their “billie cans” under their arms or slung over their shoulders, attracting a great deal of attention." A meeting was then held on the waste ground in Bridge Street (where the Savoy would be built) and where similar gatherings were regularly held. Other unemployed men joined those assembled and were urged not to "blackleg" those on strike at Clock Face by taking their jobs.
A resolution was passed pledging not to work on the Corporation schemes until the full trade rate was paid – and then the men marched on the Town Hall to see the Mayor and demand increased payments. However, the town council at their last meeting had discussed the rate of pay and decided that the lower rate was appropriate. So the Mayor, Cllr. Richard Ellison, told the delegation that he could not overrule the council's decision. The Reporter wrote how things then got a bit heated:
"The deputation were very obdurate and insistent, and some warm passages occurred. In the end they were induced to leave the Town Hall, and having communicated the somewhat negative result of their visit to the waiting throng of unemployed, the crowd gradually melted away, many going to join the long queue which had been standing all morning in St. Mary-street outside the temporary relief office."
I expect the police were keeping a very close eye on the unemployed men that met in the market place and on the Bridge Street waste ground with officers in plain clothes taking down speeches. In other parts of the country men addressing meetings were being sent to prison for sedition – even if they made it clear they were not advocating violence. However, there was a lighter side to policing market activities – although stallholders would not have agreed.
On the 23rd in St Helens Police Court seven youths were convicted of breaking into a stall in the market and stealing 5 shillings worth of pears. Constable Cust told the Bench they were experiencing a great deal of trouble from boys stealing from stalls. The pack of lads was so numerous that when they decided to rob stalls they planted sentries all round the market. Michael Mulcahey was fined 20 shillings for the theft and the other six boys 10 shillings each. In 1939 Arthur Cust would become Chief Constable of St Helens, succeeding the incumbent Arthur Ellerington after his sudden death. However in 1921, Cust was a lowly constable nicking boys pinching fruit!
Joseph Pinders from Hoghton Road, John Dean from Alice Street and Patrick Fahy were the three unlucky Sutton lads in court charged with gaming with coins. They were unfortunate as the haulage hands were part of a group of two dozen youths playing pitch and toss on waste land off Alice Street. It was the usual practice for the pair of undercover policemen charged with catching Sunday gamblers to observe the group for a while and then charge them.
The lads would rapidly scatter and the bobbies would grab the ones slow to take to their heels. The Reporter wrote that the gamers had "bolted in all directions" once the police raid had begun. However, PC Davies managed to catch Joseph Pinders and the other officer knew Dean and Fahy and in court each were fined 7s 6d.
What were described as two small boys were also in trouble this week for raiding Grange Park Golf Club on two occasions and stealing golf clubs and balls worth £12. Their parents in St Helens Juvenile Court were each ordered to pay £3 compensation. As for the lads they were bound over – although I expect when their fathers got them home they were made to bend over!
Throughout this week at the Theatre Royal in St Helens, what was described as a musical comedy burlesque called 'Heads or Tails' was being performed each evening, which The Stage wrote was "full of go and humour". Another review described it as "bright and smart, contains tuneful melody, and introduces a lot of clever and attractive people."
At the Hippodrome in St Helens, Tommy Handley was appearing in a sketch with Laurence Barclay called 'The Disorderly Room'. One review said "to the accompaniment of hearty laughter", Handley and Barclay performed "merry portrayals of officer and sergeant-major". The other turns included Cruikshank ("The fool of the family with his banjo and 'cello, in song, jest and story – his quips and cranks are smartly submitted"); Osborne and Perryer ("Talented entertainers with comedy sketches from life"); Alf Thomas ("Adept at what may be termed spoof ballads"); Lily Eyton ("In her quaint song studies") and Edith Allen ("A versatlle vocalist").
Discussing the St Helens Referees Society that met at the YMCA every week, the Echo on the 24th wrote: "St. Helens have a real live society secretary." Well, that's a lot better than a dead one, isn't it? Incidentally, a firm called E. J. Riley of Accrington regularly advertised in the Echo, offering in large type "FOOTBALLS, JERSEYS, KNICKERS, etc. etc." I'm not sure when the word "shorts" supplanted "knickers", although I expect many of our words of today will also look amusing to people in 100 years time!
The police campaign against the dangerous driving of motor cars continued on the 26th with an appearance in St Helens Police Court of Charles Simcox. He was a 45-year-old baker living in Harris Street and PC Hunt told the court that the defendant had driven on the wrong side of the road circumventing a broken-down motor car and what was described as a railway lorry. In doing so he ran into Fred Brown – the well-known North Road building contractor – who was riding his motorbike. Mr Simcox insisted he had been travelling at a very slow speed and no one was hurt and added: "You know how Mr. Brown drives, but we managed to pull up safely." He was fined ten shillings.
And, as usual, my final item features the article in the Echo this week that had nothing to do with St Helens but made me smile or shake my head in disbelief the most. This week's piece can be put in the first category – although the smile was more of an ironic one. The article under the headline "No War Of Revenge" was an interview with the German Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff, who didn't think there would be a second world war:
"“A war of revenge on the part of Germany against the Allies, and especially against France, is definitely impossible from the technical as well as from the military point of view. We have lost the possibility of new armaments. A German army could not be trained in secret.” This declaration was made by Field Marshal Ludendorff in an interview with M. Sauerwein, of the Parisian “Matin,” who was asked if he might be considered as the man who was preparing for such a war."
Next week's stories will include the cinema for lunatics, the illegal St Helens Junction market, the stalemate in St Helens Council's programme of work relief for the unemployed and severe child poverty in Liverpool.
This week's stories include the open-air meeting of Communists held in Thatto Heath, the boys who placed sentries round St Helens market while stealing from stalls, the unemployed men on the Clock Face work relief scheme go on strike, the St Helens MP takes on Bolshevik critics and comic Tommy Handley performs at the Hippodrome.
We begin with a sad case before the council's Cemetery Committee this week when a war widow was brought before its members for stealing flowers from graves.
The unnamed woman cried and explained that she did not know what made her do it – apart from a desire to place flowers on her baby's grave.
The Chairman of the committee said that in view of the circumstances no further action would be taken – but in future flower stealing at the cemetery would result in prosecution.
Last week there had been a brutal police assault on a peaceful gathering of unemployed men in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
This week police baton-charged a crowd of 2,000 unemployed demonstrators in Camden Town, as the authorities became increasingly nervous of a Bolshevik-like revolution in England.
In the Tuesday edition of the St Helens Reporter on the 20th, the Rev. Harry Bolton wrote an article headlined "Communism On Thatto Heath".
The Vicar of St John's at Ravenhead described how during the previous week he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists.
Although full of praise for the enthusiasm of the main speaker, Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories and exaggeration did not help the Communists' cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed.
"I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”
"And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Labour MP for St Helens, James Sexton, was used to criticism from those who did not like his moderate stand in most matters.
The man of Irish descent was also secretary of the Dockers Union. Last year he had infuriated members of the Irish community in St Helens for refusing to bring dockworkers out on strike in support of Irish prisoners on hunger strike.
Then in July of 1921, Sexton was accused of treachery because some felt his support of striking miners had not gone far enough.
However, the Communists disliked Sexton the most and would heckle him at Labour party meetings in St Helens.
Speaking in the town this week he decided to take the offensive against Bolshevik influences within the labour and unemployed movements, saying:
"Let me ask the extremists if they had to pass over a chasm, and the keystone of the only bridge over it was decayed, would they pull the keystone out and bring the whole thing and themselves down in ruin, or would they put up a scaffold and repair the decayed bridge?
"I quarrel with the extremist become his policy is wrong; I am not questioning his intentions, but I would like to remind you that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
The Corporation's newly established programme of work relief for the jobless hit a snag on the 21st.
One hundred and ten men were employed on an improvement scheme in Clock Face Road at the rate of 1 shilling an hour.
It was a small number out of the thousands out of work in St Helens – but it was a start.
However, the usual St Helens Corporation labourer rate was 1s 2½d per hour and so some objected to what they saw as cut-price employment.
On the morning of the 21st, the men downed tools and marched from Clock Face into St Helens, with the Reporter writing:
"Shortly before twelve noon on Wednesday they moved four abreast in orderly array along Church-street, most of them with their “billie cans” under their arms or slung over their shoulders, attracting a great deal of attention."
A meeting was then held on the waste ground in Bridge Street (where the Savoy would be built) and where similar gatherings were regularly held.
Other unemployed men joined those assembled and were urged not to "blackleg" those on strike at Clock Face by taking their jobs.
A resolution was passed pledging not to work on the Corporation schemes until the full trade rate was paid – and then the men marched on the Town Hall to see the Mayor and demand increased payments.
However, the town council at their last meeting had discussed the rate of pay and decided that the lower rate was appropriate.
So the Mayor, Cllr. Richard Ellison, told the delegation that he could not overrule the council's decision. The Reporter wrote how things then got a bit heated:
"The deputation were very obdurate and insistent, and some warm passages occurred. In the end they were induced to leave the Town Hall, and having communicated the somewhat negative result of their visit to the waiting throng of unemployed, the crowd gradually melted away, many going to join the long queue which had been standing all morning in St. Mary-street outside the temporary relief office."
I expect the police were keeping a very close eye on the unemployed men that met in the market place and on the Bridge Street waste ground with officers in plain clothes taking down speeches.
In other parts of the country men addressing meetings were being sent to prison for sedition – even if they made it clear they were not advocating violence.
However, there was a lighter side to policing market activities – although stallholders would not have agreed.
On the 23rd in St Helens Police Court seven youths were convicted of breaking into a stall in the market and stealing 5 shillings worth of pears.
Constable Cust told the Bench they were experiencing a great deal of trouble from boys stealing from stalls.
The pack of lads was so numerous that when they decided to rob stalls they planted sentries all round the market.
Michael Mulcahey was fined 20 shillings for the theft and the other six boys 10 shillings each.
In 1939 Arthur Cust would become Chief Constable of St Helens, succeeding the incumbent Arthur Ellerington after his sudden death.
However in 1921, Cust was a lowly constable nicking boys pinching fruit!
Joseph Pinders from Hoghton Road, John Dean from Alice Street and Patrick Fahy were the three unlucky Sutton lads in court charged with gaming with coins.
They were unfortunate as the haulage hands were part of a group of two dozen youths playing pitch and toss on waste land off Alice Street.
It was the usual practice for the pair of undercover policemen charged with catching Sunday gamblers to observe the group for a while and then charge them.
The lads would rapidly scatter and the bobbies would grab the ones slow to take to their heels.
The Reporter wrote that the gamers had "bolted in all directions" once the police raid had begun.
However, PC Davies managed to catch Joseph Pinders and the other officer knew Dean and Fahy and in court each were fined 7s 6d.
What were described as two small boys were also in trouble this week for raiding Grange Park Golf Club on two occasions and stealing golf clubs and balls worth £12.
Their parents in St Helens Juvenile Court were each ordered to pay £3 compensation. As for the lads they were bound over – although I expect when their fathers got them home they were made to bend over!
Throughout this week at the Theatre Royal in St Helens, what was described as a musical comedy burlesque called 'Heads or Tails' was being performed each evening, which The Stage wrote was "full of go and humour".
Another review described it as "bright and smart, contains tuneful melody, and introduces a lot of clever and attractive people."
Meanwhile, at the Hippodrome there was another young performer on the bill who was set for fame and fortune.
Last November comic actor Will Hay had appeared at the Corporation Street music hall and this week it was the turn of Tommy Handley (pictured above).
The Liverpool comic would become hugely famous in the thirties and forties – mainly through his starring role in 'It's That Man Again' (ITMA).
The BBC radio show was widely credited with boosting morale during the war.
In fact a member of the Royal Household was once quoted as saying that if the war had ended between 8.30pm and 9pm on a Thursday evening, none of them would have dared inform the King until ITMA had finished!
At the Hippodrome in St Helens, Tommy Handley was appearing in a sketch with Laurence Barclay called 'The Disorderly Room'.
One review said "to the accompaniment of hearty laughter", Handley and Barclay performed "merry portrayals of officer and sergeant-major".
The other turns included Cruikshank ("The fool of the family with his banjo and 'cello, in song, jest and story – his quips and cranks are smartly submitted"); Osborne and Perryer ("Talented entertainers with comedy sketches from life"); Alf Thomas ("Adept at what may be termed spoof ballads"); Lily Eyton ("In her quaint song studies") and Edith Allen ("A versatlle vocalist").
Discussing the St Helens Referees Society that met at the YMCA every week, the Echo on the 24th wrote:
"St. Helens have a real live society secretary." Well, that's a lot better than a dead one, isn't it?
Incidentally, a firm called E. J. Riley of Accrington regularly advertised in the Echo, offering in large type "FOOTBALLS, JERSEYS, KNICKERS, etc. etc."
I'm not sure when the word "shorts" supplanted "knickers", although I expect many of our words of today will also look amusing to people in 100 years time!
The police campaign against the dangerous driving of motor cars continued on the 26th with an appearance in St Helens Police Court of Charles Simcox.
He was a 45-year-old baker living in Harris Street and PC Hunt told the court that the defendant had driven on the wrong side of the road circumventing a broken-down motor car and what was described as a railway lorry.
In doing so he ran into Fred Brown – the well-known North Road building contractor – who was riding his motorbike.
Mr Simcox insisted he had been travelling at a very slow speed and no one was hurt and added:
"You know how Mr. Brown drives, but we managed to pull up safely." He was fined ten shillings.
And, as usual, my final item features the article in the Echo this week that had nothing to do with St Helens but made me smile or shake my head in disbelief the most.
This week's piece can be put in the first category – although the smile was more of an ironic one.
The article under the headline "No War Of Revenge" was an interview with the German Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff, who didn't think there would be a second world war:
"“A war of revenge on the part of Germany against the Allies, and especially against France, is definitely impossible from the technical as well as from the military point of view.
"“We have lost the possibility of new armaments. A German army could not be trained in secret.”
"This declaration was made by Field Marshal Ludendorff in an interview with M. Sauerwein, of the Parisian “Matin,” who was asked if he might be considered as the man who was preparing for such a war."
Next week's stories will include the cinema for lunatics, the illegal St Helens Junction market, the stalemate in St Helens Council's programme of work relief for the unemployed and severe child poverty in Liverpool.
We begin with a sad case before the council's Cemetery Committee this week when a war widow was brought before its members for stealing flowers from graves.
The unnamed woman cried and explained that she did not know what made her do it – apart from a desire to place flowers on her baby's grave.
The Chairman of the committee said that in view of the circumstances no further action would be taken – but in future flower stealing at the cemetery would result in prosecution.
Last week there had been a brutal police assault on a peaceful gathering of unemployed men in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
This week police baton-charged a crowd of 2,000 unemployed demonstrators in Camden Town, as the authorities became increasingly nervous of a Bolshevik-like revolution in England.
In the Tuesday edition of the St Helens Reporter on the 20th, the Rev. Harry Bolton wrote an article headlined "Communism On Thatto Heath".
The Vicar of St John's at Ravenhead described how during the previous week he had stumbled across an open-air meeting of Communists.
Although full of praise for the enthusiasm of the main speaker, Rev. Bolton felt spreading conspiracy theories and exaggeration did not help the Communists' cause:
"Long before the speaker at the Thatto Heath meeting had finished, my mind wandered away to the unemployed, the poor millions who have today in England no work and no wages, whose outlook just now is very dark indeed.
"I said to myself, “Here is a good man, thoroughly in earnest, who can express himself wonderfully well, telling us how the Capitalists engineered the late war, swung all the members of Parliament into doing their bidding; and how to-day a large tract of land in China is being worked by Capitalists from Japan, America and England, to the detriment of the miners on Thatto Heath!”
"And I felt that even if all he was saying is true, he would be better employed if he would give his mind to a scheme for helping to make employment at once for those without it to-day."
The Labour MP for St Helens, James Sexton, was used to criticism from those who did not like his moderate stand in most matters.
The man of Irish descent was also secretary of the Dockers Union. Last year he had infuriated members of the Irish community in St Helens for refusing to bring dockworkers out on strike in support of Irish prisoners on hunger strike.
Then in July of 1921, Sexton was accused of treachery because some felt his support of striking miners had not gone far enough.
However, the Communists disliked Sexton the most and would heckle him at Labour party meetings in St Helens.
Speaking in the town this week he decided to take the offensive against Bolshevik influences within the labour and unemployed movements, saying:
"Let me ask the extremists if they had to pass over a chasm, and the keystone of the only bridge over it was decayed, would they pull the keystone out and bring the whole thing and themselves down in ruin, or would they put up a scaffold and repair the decayed bridge?
"I quarrel with the extremist become his policy is wrong; I am not questioning his intentions, but I would like to remind you that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
The Corporation's newly established programme of work relief for the jobless hit a snag on the 21st.
One hundred and ten men were employed on an improvement scheme in Clock Face Road at the rate of 1 shilling an hour.
It was a small number out of the thousands out of work in St Helens – but it was a start.
However, the usual St Helens Corporation labourer rate was 1s 2½d per hour and so some objected to what they saw as cut-price employment.
On the morning of the 21st, the men downed tools and marched from Clock Face into St Helens, with the Reporter writing:
"Shortly before twelve noon on Wednesday they moved four abreast in orderly array along Church-street, most of them with their “billie cans” under their arms or slung over their shoulders, attracting a great deal of attention."
A meeting was then held on the waste ground in Bridge Street (where the Savoy would be built) and where similar gatherings were regularly held.
Other unemployed men joined those assembled and were urged not to "blackleg" those on strike at Clock Face by taking their jobs.
A resolution was passed pledging not to work on the Corporation schemes until the full trade rate was paid – and then the men marched on the Town Hall to see the Mayor and demand increased payments.
However, the town council at their last meeting had discussed the rate of pay and decided that the lower rate was appropriate.
So the Mayor, Cllr. Richard Ellison, told the delegation that he could not overrule the council's decision. The Reporter wrote how things then got a bit heated:
"The deputation were very obdurate and insistent, and some warm passages occurred. In the end they were induced to leave the Town Hall, and having communicated the somewhat negative result of their visit to the waiting throng of unemployed, the crowd gradually melted away, many going to join the long queue which had been standing all morning in St. Mary-street outside the temporary relief office."
I expect the police were keeping a very close eye on the unemployed men that met in the market place and on the Bridge Street waste ground with officers in plain clothes taking down speeches.
In other parts of the country men addressing meetings were being sent to prison for sedition – even if they made it clear they were not advocating violence.
However, there was a lighter side to policing market activities – although stallholders would not have agreed.
On the 23rd in St Helens Police Court seven youths were convicted of breaking into a stall in the market and stealing 5 shillings worth of pears.
Constable Cust told the Bench they were experiencing a great deal of trouble from boys stealing from stalls.
The pack of lads was so numerous that when they decided to rob stalls they planted sentries all round the market.
Michael Mulcahey was fined 20 shillings for the theft and the other six boys 10 shillings each.
In 1939 Arthur Cust would become Chief Constable of St Helens, succeeding the incumbent Arthur Ellerington after his sudden death.
However in 1921, Cust was a lowly constable nicking boys pinching fruit!
Joseph Pinders from Hoghton Road, John Dean from Alice Street and Patrick Fahy were the three unlucky Sutton lads in court charged with gaming with coins.
They were unfortunate as the haulage hands were part of a group of two dozen youths playing pitch and toss on waste land off Alice Street.
It was the usual practice for the pair of undercover policemen charged with catching Sunday gamblers to observe the group for a while and then charge them.
The lads would rapidly scatter and the bobbies would grab the ones slow to take to their heels.
The Reporter wrote that the gamers had "bolted in all directions" once the police raid had begun.
However, PC Davies managed to catch Joseph Pinders and the other officer knew Dean and Fahy and in court each were fined 7s 6d.
What were described as two small boys were also in trouble this week for raiding Grange Park Golf Club on two occasions and stealing golf clubs and balls worth £12.
Their parents in St Helens Juvenile Court were each ordered to pay £3 compensation. As for the lads they were bound over – although I expect when their fathers got them home they were made to bend over!
Throughout this week at the Theatre Royal in St Helens, what was described as a musical comedy burlesque called 'Heads or Tails' was being performed each evening, which The Stage wrote was "full of go and humour".
Another review described it as "bright and smart, contains tuneful melody, and introduces a lot of clever and attractive people."
Last November comic actor Will Hay had appeared at the Corporation Street music hall and this week it was the turn of Tommy Handley (pictured above).
The Liverpool comic would become hugely famous in the thirties and forties – mainly through his starring role in 'It's That Man Again' (ITMA).
The BBC radio show was widely credited with boosting morale during the war.
In fact a member of the Royal Household was once quoted as saying that if the war had ended between 8.30pm and 9pm on a Thursday evening, none of them would have dared inform the King until ITMA had finished!
At the Hippodrome in St Helens, Tommy Handley was appearing in a sketch with Laurence Barclay called 'The Disorderly Room'.
One review said "to the accompaniment of hearty laughter", Handley and Barclay performed "merry portrayals of officer and sergeant-major".
The other turns included Cruikshank ("The fool of the family with his banjo and 'cello, in song, jest and story – his quips and cranks are smartly submitted"); Osborne and Perryer ("Talented entertainers with comedy sketches from life"); Alf Thomas ("Adept at what may be termed spoof ballads"); Lily Eyton ("In her quaint song studies") and Edith Allen ("A versatlle vocalist").
Discussing the St Helens Referees Society that met at the YMCA every week, the Echo on the 24th wrote:
"St. Helens have a real live society secretary." Well, that's a lot better than a dead one, isn't it?
Incidentally, a firm called E. J. Riley of Accrington regularly advertised in the Echo, offering in large type "FOOTBALLS, JERSEYS, KNICKERS, etc. etc."
I'm not sure when the word "shorts" supplanted "knickers", although I expect many of our words of today will also look amusing to people in 100 years time!
The police campaign against the dangerous driving of motor cars continued on the 26th with an appearance in St Helens Police Court of Charles Simcox.
He was a 45-year-old baker living in Harris Street and PC Hunt told the court that the defendant had driven on the wrong side of the road circumventing a broken-down motor car and what was described as a railway lorry.
In doing so he ran into Fred Brown – the well-known North Road building contractor – who was riding his motorbike.
Mr Simcox insisted he had been travelling at a very slow speed and no one was hurt and added:
"You know how Mr. Brown drives, but we managed to pull up safely." He was fined ten shillings.
And, as usual, my final item features the article in the Echo this week that had nothing to do with St Helens but made me smile or shake my head in disbelief the most.
This week's piece can be put in the first category – although the smile was more of an ironic one.
The article under the headline "No War Of Revenge" was an interview with the German Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff, who didn't think there would be a second world war:
"“A war of revenge on the part of Germany against the Allies, and especially against France, is definitely impossible from the technical as well as from the military point of view.
"“We have lost the possibility of new armaments. A German army could not be trained in secret.”
"This declaration was made by Field Marshal Ludendorff in an interview with M. Sauerwein, of the Parisian “Matin,” who was asked if he might be considered as the man who was preparing for such a war."
Next week's stories will include the cinema for lunatics, the illegal St Helens Junction market, the stalemate in St Helens Council's programme of work relief for the unemployed and severe child poverty in Liverpool.