Pam Hilton

Pam remembers her special childhood growing up at Underlea Open Air School Aigburth, where her father was the school caretaker.

"It's strange to think that part of my childhood home in Liverpool has gone to Japan, but it's true. The house where I played as a child has been bought by a Japanese millionaire and shipped to Japan where it will form part of a large leisure complex in the city of Sapporo."

Underlea Open Air School

Underlea, originally built as a grand merchant's house was completed in 1859. It was the family home of Hamilton Gilmour and his family until 1919 when the house was given to Liverpool Education Authority and it became Underlea Open Air School, one of the first open air schools in the North of England.

Open Air Schools were set up to restore children's health and strength through fresh air, rest, exercise, and nourishing food. They were intended to provide a healthier environment for children, to help prevent the spread of tuberculosis and aid children's physical as well as intellectual development.

The school log book records that the school opened on 5 March 1930, with 40 boys and 41 girls. The last entry takes place on 20 December 1977 when the pupils moved to the Springfield Building in Thingwall Lane, Knotty Ash.

The children who attended Underlea usually started at age five and stayed until fifteen or sixteen. If their health improved they would return to mainstream schooling.

After the closure of the school, the building was left to decay, until it was eventually bought with the idea of shipping it to America, but for many years the 350 tonnes of stone reclaimed from the school lay in a field in Cheshire, until in 1996 it was bought by Isao Ishimiz, a Japanese chocolate millionaire.

These are some of Pam's memories of her life at Underlea. Some of her photos of the house are in the image gallery.

Moving to Underlea

"My first view of Underlea was from the cross bar of my father's bike. I can't remember the journey from our old home in Briardale Road but I can remember thinking it was most unfair that I couldn't go with my mother in the furniture removals van. We were moving there because my father Alan Sharp had just been appointed caretaker of the school.

He had in fact worked at Underlea before World War Two. In those days he had been an under gardener, one of six I believe. We moved into our new home Underlea Lodge, which stood at the entrance to the grounds on North Sudley Road sometime in 1947. Originally the Steward's house, the Lodge was built of the same yellow brick as the school. At the other entrance further along North Sudley Rd stood the coachman's house, the stable block, the coach house, and the laundry all built of red brick."

Life at Underlea

"The school with its six acre grounds and its various out buildings provided the most wonderful play area. It might have been a school but at weekends and evenings I had the house and grounds entirely to myself, give or take the gardeners and the cleaners.

I was three when we first moved and apparently I used to sit outside the infant classroom until the infant teacher took pity on me and invited me in. I spent many happy hours in her classroom and still have a photo of me and my class mates taken on the lawn outside of the infant room.

My mother worked in the mornings so I often went to work with my father. Early in the morning he would stoke the cokefired boiler in the cellar of the school. My favourite place to watch him was from the top of the coke pile that filled half the room. I also had great fun sliding down the coke. I dread to think what state I was in by the time my mother returned from work!

Another job of my father's was to hose down the outside toilets. They weren't really outside as such but they were part of the rest shed complex. Because the children attending Underlea in the 30s, 40s and 50s were 'delicate' they had to have a rest after lunch. This was taken in the rest shed, a large building originally completely open down one side apart form canvas blinds that pulled down to keep out the worst of the weather. According to the school log book in March 1930 the temperature in the rest sheds was 38 degrees Fahrenheit! There is also a record in the log book from around the same time of the ink in the inkwells freezing in the chalet classrooms.

The children had wooden framed folding canvas camp beds, a very hairy, itchy dark grey army blanket and a small pillow. They rested in all weathers as the fresh air was considered good for them. Dad used to put out the beds in rows and if I was around I helped. I much preferred however to put my wellies on and help him hose down the toilet block. In the winter we would spray one of the sloping paths to the courtyard with water, which would freeze and make a wonderful slide.

There were plenty of other places to play in the school's six acre grounds. The school children grew their own vegetables in the kitchen garden. Rhubarb makes a very good hiding place for a small child, as did the spinneys, the underneath of the chalet classrooms, the stable block, and the branches of trees. Over the years my friends and I made dens in the most unlikely places, not always to the delight of the gardeners and the school staff.

Thinking back to some of the things we used to get up to it is a wonder some of my friends and I survived childhood. We slid down banisters. We slid down steps on tin trays, ran along and jumped off high walls, climbed trees, shinned up drainpipes and cooked up various potions on fires lit between two bricks without sustaining serious injury. The scariest thing we did was to climb out of a skylight in the roof of the school and sit astride the ridge. The view of the Mersey and the Welsh hills was breathtaking, but so was the three storey drop to the grounds below. This was not a one off event. When I was eight or nine we did it fairly regularly.

The entrance to the school was imposing. There were large flag stone steps leading to a green front door only part of which opened Once inside the school there was a glass door dividing the entrance hall into two parts.

At Christmas I ran back and forward handing up Christmas streamers to whoever was up the ladder. The nativity scene was always set up on the mantle piece in the entrance hall, and there was always a large Christmas tree which I usually helped my father to decorate. I still have a few of the glass balls, and although they have long lost their original sparkle I don't like to throw them out.

On Christmas Day when I was small we always had a party in the school hall. We put up blackout curtains so the lights from the dining room did not shine towards Aigburth road. We used the school kitchen to prepare the food and the Head's room as a bar. The local policemen always called in for a drink as they cycled past on their beat which took them through the school grounds. One year was particularly memorable because it snowed. The grounds looked really magical.

My father was involved in Scouting for many years and the school and the grounds often doubled as a scout training ground in the evenings and at weekends.

When I was about eight the Lord Mayor of Liverpool attended a church service at St Anne's Church, Aigburth Road. While he was at church the Lord Mayor's carriage and horses came to the stable yard at Underlea, which, in those days, was still cobbled. I can't remember having the photo taken but I can remember being bitten by one of the police horses!"

Monkeys visit the school

"As I was growing up my father often told me stories of the history of the area. I believe in the thirties there was a private zoo where Rosemont Road is now. When I was a child there were only houses on the lower part of Rosemont Road, where it meets North Sudley Road. Between the top of Rosemont Road and Mossley Hill was known as the Zoo Field. We used to play in what remained of the cages. Apparently, it was not unusual for some of the animals to escape.

The monkeys on one occasion came into Underlea grounds and got into the toilets by the rest shed. According to my father they swung on the chains of the toilets and of course as they climbed back down the chain the toilet flushed, the noise frightened them so they climbed back up again. They were still doing this when the keeper came to rescue them. The elephant keeper also used to bring one of the elephants down the drive to the front door of the school and the children used to feed it buns. In fact it refused to walk past the gate once it got used to the bun supply. I can remember, years ago, seeing a photograph of the children feeding the elephant, and I was delighted to find a mention of it in the school log book."