ALAN Tucker is seeking photographs of St Helens scenes and I would also appreciate the same for use in future columns.

Alan is keen to find images of the following:

  • a crater at the junction of Rivington Avenue and Gamble Avenue and related bombing damage around the borough,
  • the searchlight and anti-aircraft batteries at the top of Crank Hill and the same near Crank Caverns,
  • Penlake Lane British Rail Sports Club,
  • the wagon sheet works and the allotments there,
  • Ruskin Drive sports ground and allotments,
  • St Thomas of Canterbury Church,
  • St Andrew’s Mission, Ruskin Hall,
  • St Helens Parish Church,
  • Boundary Road baths,
  • the Leg o’ Mutton Dam by Taylor Park,
  • the Open Air School on Rainford Road,
  • MP Leslie Spriggs,
  • the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team at Knowsley Rd around 1959,
  • Pilkington Theatre off Carriage Drive,
  • Knowsley Road School,
  • Rivington Road Primary School,
  • Air raid shelters in Lingholme Road,
  • general views of Queens Rec Park,
  • Bishop Road playing fields and Harris Street.

Alan recalled: “My grandad told the story that trainees or conscripts for one of the South African wars were billeted at the old Wheatsheaf in Lionel Street.

"They used a wooden balcony, that I can vaguely remember being quite high up on the pub’s gable-end, from which to shoot at targets at the front of the old Battery Cob.

" Grandad had been a head master at Sutton National School so I imagine his recollections were not too fanciful.”