LOST TRIBES; The People's Memories.

Byline: Ken Rogers

IRECENTLY found myself driving through Walton, and it's amazing how your memory throws up random thoughts as you see sights that were once so familiar, but have now disappeared or been redeveloped.

I would often walk home to Everton from Evered High School, at the start of the 1960s, starting on Rice Lane. My trek would initially take me past the gates of the Dunlop factory that had manufactured rubber boots and shoes for a century and a half.

Dunlop Walton closed in 2000, but down the years I'm sure many staff availed themselves of refreshments in the adjacent Plough pub, with its distinctive frontage and impressive central clock tower.

This lively 100-yard stretch of road also included the flat iron-shaped Atlas Cinema, opened in 1914 and built by a Walton company, J & G Chappell.

The Atlas could seat 1,000 and, as kids, we clearly believed these local picture palaces must have occupied enormous spaces - although this was clearly not the case.

When we study the sites of demolished Walton and Kirkdale venues like the Princess, in Selwyn Street, and the Astoria, in Walton Road, they were clearly erected on areas the size of postage stamps. The genius of the designers was to make the interiors feel cavernous.

The Atlas reduced its capacity to 800 in 1932 when the auditorium was redecorated in Egyptian style. By the time I was strolling by in 1960, it had been closed for two years, but I recall seeing faded old posters promoting a Frankenstein movie, clearly one of the last films shown, circa 1958. The Atlas lay empty until it was finally demolished in 1981 - so what else has come and gone along my old homewards-bound school walk? The former Walton Hospital site has changed beyond all recognition and the Victorian police station, farther up Rice Lane, long ago put out its familiar blue light.

Does anyone remember the mysterious old Herb Shop that once sold soft drinks like Vimto, sarsparilla and dandelion & burdock from tiny premises on the block before Walton Church? Remarkably, most of County Road remains intact with its Victorian side streets. Part of Walton Road is still reasonably busy, although the Frosts Department Store has become the Thomas Frost Wetherspoon's pub. I must have a drink in there to toast my mum, who once worked in the store's curtain department.

Life moves on, but your memories remain special.

| kenrogersecho @gmail.com