An article by Richard Birtles, April 2010I was born in 1949 in Seaforth, a dockside borough of Liverpool. I, along with my Mum and Dad, Brother and two Sisters, lived in a three storey house on Seaforth Road, the main road which ran from Seaforth Docks to Litherland, Haydock and, finally, the East Lancashire road, the main route to the North and Scotland before the Motorways were built.
This was an extremely busy road and was used by all the lorries going to and from the docks; there were no containers in those days, just big, heavily laden lorries.
I used to love hanging out of the attic window after school watching all the different lorries speed along as they carried their loads to the docks which are now known as the Royal Seaforth container base.
One firm in particular sticks in my mind and this was “Robsons of Carlilse” . Their wagons were all Fodens with the bulbous fibreglass cabs. that Fodens had in the 1960’s and 70’s. They were cream and maroon in colour, a lovely scheme, and each one had it’s own romantic name painted on it’s side, all with “Border” as a prefix.
There was “Border Warrior”,”Border Duchess”, “Border Lady”, “Border Prince” and many more, but my real favourite was “Border Dandy” and I always used to look out for him. I say “him” because, as a little boy, I was sure he was a “Man” lorry!
Anyway, Seaforth Road runs directly from North to South and my bedroom was at the back of the house, extending to the West and my window looked North. My bed was up against the West wall also North to South and my head was against the South wall. So, when I lay in bed at night, I looked up, out of the window to the Northern sky.
All the houses were terraced and, because they all had westward extending bedrooms at the back, I looked out of the window and through a rectangle of sky formed by mine and the adjacent house’s bedrooms.
As I lay in bed each night, at the top right hand corner of my window,in the little patch of sky formed by my window frame top and the roof edge at right angles to it, there was always a star up in the sky, always.
This star was always there, it never seemed to move and yes, the sky was always clear as it always was when we were children.
I can only ever remember it being hot and sunny or torrential rain when I was little, never cloudy; does anyone else remember it like that ?
Because I never really used to look at the night sky I don’t really remember it being cloudy at night; how perceptions have changed !
Anyway, I never used to think anything about the fact that this star never seemed to move, for all I knew, none of the stars moved, but I always lay in bed looking at and wondering about the star there as I dropped off to sleep.
Well, when I was about twelve or thirteen, I acquired a 15 x 70, ex – army 45 degree angled gun sight.
I say “acquired” because I can’t remember if I swopped for it, bought it or swiped it, I just can’t. Shortly after I got it though I do remember taking it up to the attic one cold November night and pointing it out of the window, across Seaforth Road, at a really brilliant star which I had noticed low down in the Eastern sky.
The gun sight was made of brass and very heavy so I balanced it carefully on the ledge. This was the first time I had ever even looked through any optical instrument and what I did see amazed me. This “Star” had four other tiny Stars all around it and, in the 20/20 vision of a thirteen year old boy Jupiter and it’s moons were truly spectacular; never mind the excitement of seeing the Planet, I felt as if I had actually discovered it !! I think I ran downstairs and told my Mum and Dad what I’d seen, I was so excited even though I hadn’t yet realised what I had seen .
That was the first object I ever saw through a telescope and I was hooked. I started looking at Jupiter every night and kept a small notebook where I drew the planet and it’s moons as they changed.
I began taking my “telescope” out into our back yard each night and looking up at the stars. Although we were in the suburbs of Liverpool the sky was really dark and I quickly learnt the Constellations and would take my Mum and Dad out to show them Cepheus and Cassiopea high overhead; my Dad was very impressed and that made me proud that I had taken the trouble to learn about something “different”. I experimented with Meccano extensions attached to the focuser and with an old eve piece on a cardboard tube to give more power when looking at the moon.
I got some really high powered views even though the, by now, two foot long 45 degree meccano and cardboard contraption without a mount was a nightmare to use, it didn’t matter, I loved it and I made drawings of the craters I saw in my notebook alongside Jupiter.
Well, I could go on for ever but I think I have said enough for now.
Our lives are all changed by chance occurrences and happenings; if I hadn’t lived on a busy main road in Liverpool, if I hadn’t been interested in looking out at the world from a small attic window at brightly painted lorries and things in the sky, if I hadn’t “acquired” an old gun sight and if I hadn’t had the North Star for my companion each night as I grew up then I may never have become a part of this wonderful hobby of ours; lucky, aren’t I?
Jules
