WHALLEY'S WORLD

THERE was once a thriving 'cafe society' in the St Helens of immediate post-war times.

Snack bars and pop-in cafes abounded and were so well patronised that some of these haunts of teenage courting couples, gossiping housewives and local time-killers were able to put on day trips for their toast-nibbling, tea-sipping clientele.

One such was Brown's Cafe in Liverpool Road (featured right) shown setting off for an outing to Blackpool in the late 1940s.

In the immediate background is another memory-jerker from that era - the Star Inn pub, well known for its collection of colourful characters. Next door, Norbury's well-known fruit shop of that period.

The trip organisers and cafe proprietors, Emily Brown and her hubby, are shown standing at the front of the coach door.

This pictorial blast from the past is courtesy of Dennis ('Zip') Gilgannon, who was on the trip as a 12-year-old schoolboy but was too camera shy to join the group posing at the cobbled junction. On the picture original he can be seen peeping through the second window down from the coach door.

Zip recalls that almost every pocket of the town had a snack-bar haunt, some of them boasting the novelty of a jukebox, the new craze from America.

"The youth of St Helens used to have plenty of places of that sort to gather in for some harmless fun," says Zip, "but now there's no half-way house between school and the pub.

"It's a pity that the snack bars can't make a comeback to allow the new generation to experience the sort of simple pleasures we enjoyed as teenagers."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.