Stocky Wood

Stockton Wood Infants School,

All Saints Road

Speke,

Liverpool

L24 3TF

Stockton Wood School in the late 1980s (source: Facebook)

In the 1930s, Liverpool Council had little choice but to start building large housing estates on the outskirts of the city. By 1939, three sites had been bought, but the outbreak of the Second World War brought most new building work to a halt as labour and materials were redirected to the war effort.

One of those sites was Speke, in the southeast of Liverpool. Work had actually begun there in 1936, and after the war construction gathered pace. By the time the estate was more or less complete in 1957, more than 6,000 homes had been built.

Western Avenue (LRO)

Paul McCartney had just turned five when his family moved to Speke in August 1947. It was the furthest south the family had ever lived. His mother, Mary, had taken a job as a Liverpool Corporation municipal midwife on the new estate, and the job came with a house at 72 Western Avenue. The road was so new that it was still being built when they arrived. Young saplings had been planted along the middle, but the grass had yet to take hold.

The move from Sir Thomas White Gardens in Everton also coincided with Jim McCartney returning to work in his beloved cotton industry, something he had been unable to do during the war, and with the start of Paul's schooling.

Although both boys had been baptised Catholics, Jim decided not to send them to a Catholic school. He felt that too much emphasis was placed on religion and not enough on education. Instead, Paul was enrolled at Stockton Wood Road Infants, a new Church of England school just behind their home.

The school had been built to accommodate more than a thousand children, but the post-war baby boom, combined with the steady arrival of new families on the estate, soon pushed numbers even higher. 

Many of these new families had come from some of Liverpool's poorest and most overcrowded areas, where unemployment was only one of a long list of hardships.

It was a tough environment, and many - but not all - of the children reflected that. Paul and Mike soon discovered that, at least in the playground, being able to look after yourself was important. Fighting was part of school life.

Paul remembers, “I started school in a really rough part of Liverpool. I had as many fights as anyone else. I remember once grabbing a lad and hitting him with a big bar – I was only about five.” For this, he was scolded by the headteacher in front of the whole school and faced an even bigger telling-off when he got home.

Mike McCartney gives a similarly lively account in "Thank U Very Much", remembering how often his big brother came to his rescue in the school yard. Mike eventually had a little gang of his own and, on one occasion, took matters into his own hands when an older boy had been picking on younger girls. Charging across the yard in full war cry, his solution was rather extreme: he dropped a house brick on the bully's head. As Mike put it, “after that bloody, awful incident, he didn’t bully little girls, or anyone else again.”

It was also at “Stocky Wood”, as the boys knew it, that Paul and Mike saw their first film. Dick Barton: Special Agent, starring Don Stannard in the title role. It was released in May 1948, the first of three Barton films made by Hammer Film Productions based on a BBC radio series which was a great favourite of the young McCartneys.

Paul, however, wasn't exactly impressed.

Sitting on wooden benches in the darkened school hall, he was apparently scared out of his wits. He became so desperate to get out that he scrambled over his classmates in his hurry to escape, much to the amusement of his younger brother.

School attendance wasn't always a priority either. Paul was bright and more than capable of doing well in class, but he could easily be distracted — usually with Mike in tow.

Mike remembered the summer of 1951 in particular, when the two boys would “sag off” and spend their days exploring instead of going to school. They would pass the rubber factories, many of which were still disguised with wartime camouflage, wander through the grounds of Speke Hall and eventually make their way down to the River Mersey. At the time, the river was still clean enough for the boys to go skinny dipping.

That particular freedom came to an abrupt end in September 1951. As the post-war baby boom in Speke reached its peak, with around 1,500 children of school age, Stockton Wood was struggling to cope**. Paul and Mike were moved to Joseph Williams Primary School in Belle Vale (Gateacre), which, , as luck would have it, was short of older pupils. It's not entirely clear whether Mike moved at the same time as Paul and the fifty or so other children, or whether he followed a year or so later with his own age group.

Apparently Mike McCartney has made it known over the years that one of his most sought after items is a Stocky Wood badge - "black and yellow, with a picture of a Spitfire flying over the River Mersey" - if you have one I'm sure he'd like to hear from you.

Maybe Paul might give him his! (YouTube)

This was one of the first "Beatle locations" I went to photograph, long before I learnt that it was always an idea to check if the building I wanted to photograph was still there before setting off.

Unfortunately I was too late. A new purpose built school stands on the site and nothing remains of the original buildings. The new school operates a house system named after the four Beatles, a nice acknowledgement of the link to one of their most famous former pupils.

Stockton Wood Primary School today

This photograph shows the teachers at Stockton Wood circa 1950-51, towards the end of the McCartney's time at the school. The photograph below shows Mr. Kellet and his pupils in one of the school's classrooms in 1952.

Notes:

* Opened June 1940.

** Reportedly making Stockton Wood the biggest Primary School in the UK

Source:

Thank U Very Much - Mike McCartney's Family Album" (Mike McCartney)

http://www.liverpool-schools.co.uk/html/stocktonwood.html

Crossing Western Avenue to "Stocky Wood" (LRO)

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Published 26 September 2012.