In this suburban little village on the Irish sea, my Dad was born almost 80 years ago. He left after the second World War to emigrate to the Netherlands where he started a family of his own. This page is a tribute to the seaside resort were we spent our summer holidays almost every year. I have very fond memories of the sunny days we spent on the beach with all my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Here you can easily dream away about the past, as many things have been unchanged for years and years. Of course, there´s the traffic, and people nowadays look different from past times, but everything else, the street lanterns, the retired peoples´mansions, the red brick walls, they have all been there for a long time.

The pictures below are just a few snaps taken from the old box at my parents´house.

Southport in the fifties

View on Pleasureland

Victoria Park, Birkdale

With the car to the Beach

Enjoying a cuppa on the beach

A spooky place?
Coming back from the beach in the summer of 1969 we drove past a very large building, standing on desolate grounds. We'd seen it from the beach and were curious what it had been, as obviously it was being demolished. A big pear-shaped piece of concrete on a chain was slowly knocking it down. My uncle who lived in Birkdale told us kids that it was an empty hotel; nobody would go there due to ghosts living in it, so it had to be demolished. It was a sad view, as it must have been a really lovely place when it was first built. So what was the real story about the Palace? Find out more about it on the website of Southport On Line.
	Birkdale Beach, with the Palace, half demolished, seen in the distance.
	A closer look

On April 2nd 1977 Birkdale, Southport was on every news program in the world. It was the day of the Grand National in Liverpool, and the local racehorse Red Rum, who had already won this race in 1973 and 1974, being the runner-up in 1975 and 1976, did something nobody could imagine. He was the first horse in the history of the Grand National to win it for the third time. No wonder Southport had been turned into a Red Rum town, with a Red Rum souvenir shop on Aughton Road, and a  Red Rum hotel with a Rummie´s Bar. Two years later, on August 1st, 1979 a real bronze sculpture of the horse was unveiled in the Wayfarer´s Arcade in Southport.
After his retirement in 1978 people could see the racehorse still go out on his everyday ride at McCain´s, but nowadays only the statue reminds us of this wonderful animal.
Red Rum died October 18th, 1995. He was thirty years old.

By clicking the next button, you are invited to leave a message at my forum about Birkdale, how it was, and what is is like to live there nowadays.

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