Your Family Stories

Memories from a Home on Dinas Lane, Liverpool

I was born in the front room of my paternal grandparents’ house at 82 Dinas Lane, Huyton. But that isn’t what makes this street so significant in my family history. There were many hellos and goodbyes in this house (yes, I know that I’m sounding like a Beatles song). So many happy times, so many tears.

The main characters in this story of the Lucas family are: my Grandad, Stanley Lucas; my Nana, Frances Lucas, nee Foster; my Dad, Keith Stanley Lucas; and my Uncle, Rodney Lucas.

There’s a Chair in There, and a Bear as Well

Note: This subtitle made me smile, although it will probably only resonate with my Australian readers who, like my children and me, grew up with the ABC’s Playschool theme song. And yes, I did sing it as I typed it.

My Grandad, Stanley Lucas, was a radio officer in the Merchant Navy. His voyages were often six months or more, so Nana was, in effect, a single mother to Dad and his brother Rodney much of the time.  A large comfortable chair in the front room featured in so many family photographs over the years.  And behind that chair was a photo of Grandad in his Merchant Navy uniform, taken somewhere on the open seas.

I love these pictures of my Nana, Dad, and Uncle Rod with his teddy bear. Grandad is looking over their shoulders, and it’s as if he is saying, “I may not be there in person, but I’m still watching you”.

Like me, Uncle Rod was born at 82 Dinas Lane. That was in 1945. Unlike me, he arrived in the front bedroom upstairs.

My dad, born in a small nearby hospital, was brought home by his parents four years earlier, to another house on Dinas Lane. That was number 121. Dad was born on 18^th June 1941.

Why is that date significant?

My Dad and Paul

Because exactly one year later, another baby boy was born in Liverpool. One who would end up spending a lot of time in Dinas Lane. His name is Sir Paul McCartney. Although he never lived on the street, Paul was often at his Aunty Gin’s home, Mrs Jane Virginia Harris (née McCartney). His dad’s sister, Ginny, is often described in media reports as “Paul’s cool aunt”. In 1963, when the Beatles were on the precipice of international stardom, and yet were still four young Liverpool lads, loving the direction their music careers were taking them, Paul celebrated his 21st birthday at Aunty Gin’s house, located at 147 Dinas Lane. Just down the road from Nana and Grandad’s. Aunty Gin was immortalised by Paul when he named her in the lyrics of his 1976 Wings song, “Let ‘em In”.

It’s not Paul’s 21^st, however, that connects our family with the McCartneys. It was another birthday party in Paul’s younger years. My Nana knew Mrs Harris, and the story we’ve always been told revolves around a shared neighbourhood birthday party when Dad and Paul were nine and eight, or maybe ten and nine, circa 1950 anyway.

I can imagine the conversation between my Nana and Ginny Harris, perhaps as they were waiting to be served at the local shop, or maybe they were enjoying a cup of tea and a chat in the front room at number 82:

“It’s our Keith’s birthday next week on the 18^th.

“It’s our Paul’s on the 18^th as well. Maybe we should have a little party for the boys in the afternoon.”

Of course, nobody knew then that this young boy, who visited his aunty and cousins regularly in Dinas Lane, would go on to be one of the most recognisable names in the world. It was long before he was Sir Paul. He was just “our Paul” to Aunty Gin.

There is no evidence of this party. No photographs. Just a family story passed down through the generations. And, we told this story at dad’s funeral nearly 20 years ago.

Grandma and Grandpa Foster

With Grandad being away at sea, Nana relied heavily on her parents for support. She was very close to her parents, Robert and Frances Foster, nee Hornby. And when I say close, I mean physically as well as with their relationship. Robert and Frances lived at 29 Lincombe Road, which was a three-minute walk away from Nana’s house in Dinas Lane.

During World War II, this proximity was a bonus. Grandma and Grandpa Foster had an Anderson air raid shelter in their back garden.  When a raid started, Nana could just nip across to her mum and dad’s house. Of course, even in a shelter, you could still hear the planes overhead and the mobile anti-aircraft (ack ack) guns which were set up in the road, trying to shoot them down. Liverpool was second only to London as the most bombed city in Britain during World War II.

The Church Hall Next Door

Robert Foster was a deeply religious man. Uncle Rod remembers him being of the Baptist persuasion and very much against drinking alcohol. Uncle Rod said, “When we were kids growing up, our grandfather insisted that we go to Sunday School at his Calvary Baptist Church, even though it needed a bus ride, and right next door to our house was St. Andrew’s Church of England church hall. Ultimately, mum persuaded him that going to church next door would serve the same purpose and would be far more convenient”.

Attending the Sunday School next door also enabled Dad to join the Boys Brigade and Uncle Rod to attend the Life Boys (the junior version of Boys Brigade).

The church hall, located on the corner of Dinas Lane and Windsor Road (now Easton Road), was demolished in the mid-1980s to make way for more housing.

My Mum Joins the Family at Number 82

My parents married in 1961, soon after Mum left school, and as a newlywed, she moved into the family home at 82 Dinas Lane. Multigenerational living was quite common back then. Mum got along very well with her in-laws, but she always commented on the smokiness of the front room as Nana and Grandad were both heavy smokers at that time, and I’m sure there was an open fire as well. Mum, being an asthmatic, struggled with this.

When my brother was born, number 82 became his first home, and, like I said, it was where I came into the world with the help of a midwife. Mum can’t remember whether the midwife arrived on a bicycle or in a car, but I have romantic visions of the midwife turning up and taking charge, just as they do in episodes of the “Call the Midwife” television series.

The Last Home Address on Record

Every so often, when researching your family tree, you come across records that make you smile or cry, sometimes both. That’s how I felt when I found the burial record for my 2 x great-grandmother, Ellen Johnston, nee Stanley, and her address was recorded as 82 Dinas Lane. She died in 1954, ten years before I was born, and the address on her death and my birth records are the same.

Ellen was my Grandad’s maternal grandmother and, following the tragic death of Grandad’s 22 year old mother, Mary Lucas, a few weeks after his birth, Ellen was the one who, whilst mourning the loss of her young daughter, stepped in to raise her grandson. I think it is beautiful that the woman who cared for Grandad from a tiny infant was, in turn, cared for by that grandson 40 years later, in her final years.

At some point after her husband Robert died, Frances, Nana’s mother, moved into the house in Dinas Lane as well. I remember being told that Mum and Dad’s decision to emigrate to Australia devastated Grandma Foster, who asked what the point of life was without her great-grandchildren around. She died in July 1966, a few weeks before we left England.

My Dinas Lane Childhood Memories

We left Dinas Lane when I was a baby and went to live in Cheshire for a while, but we moved back into this house prior to us leaving for the other side of the world.

I don’t remember much about the house we left behind. I was just over two years old when we left Liverpool. My brother, who was five, remembers the church hall.

I don’t remember the front room where I was born, the chair that appeared in so many family photographs, or the church hall next door. But I do remember my dad singing this to me often ….

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for the master, and one for the dame,

And one for the little girl who lives on Dinas Lane.

In 1990, my husband and I visited Liverpool as part of a four month UK and Europe travel adventure. I was excited to stand before the house where I was born, looking up and down the street, wondering what my life would have been like had we stayed. It wasn’t my decision, but it was one of life’s sliding door moments.

I knocked on the door, and a lovely lady with a Scouse accent answered it. I told her that I was born in their front room and asked if it was okay for me to take a photo at the front of the house.

“Ey up,” she said to her husband, who was coming to see who the visitor was, “this young lady was born in our front room”.

We had a lovely chat on the doorstep. I didn’t get invited in, but then, if some stranger knocked on my front door, I wouldn’t invite them in either.

Reflections on the House, and More Importantly, the Home

Ellen Johnston was born in 1866. Frances Foster died in 1966. Nana and Grandad left 82 Dinas Lane in 1969 when they farewelled their home of many years to join us in Australia.

The house was in the family for around 30 years, but its story stretches far beyond that. It connected generations of one family, from Ellen Johnston’s era through to my own.

Long after the chair has gone and the family has scattered across the world, the photographs, the stories and the memories remain. Long live Dinas Lane!

Sources:

Family photographs, letters, emails and oral history

Paul McCartney’s 21^st Birthday in Dinas Lane: https://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/06/18/paul-mccartneys-21st-birthday-party/

Anderson Shelters: https://andersonshelters.org.uk/

Dinas Lane History: Knowsley Archives Service, Knowsley Council