Readers' letters: Traditions of our city – old and new

Here is my list from an older perspective:

Met friends at the tobacco kiosk in the Miller Arcade;

Danced to Joe Loss/ Ted Heath in the Queen’s Hall (also known as Saul Street baths);

Attended Liverpool Philharmonic concerts in the Public Hall;

Spent the entire Saturday morning drinking Russian Tea in the K.D. (Kardomah cafe);

Gone dancing to Worsleys on Friday night;

Gone to the Hippodrome to see the Salberg Players Rep. Company;

Played tennis on Moor Park;

Danced on the Flag Market on New Year’s Eve;

Listened to the latest 78 rpm pop record, which you could not afford to buy, in the booth at Murdocks in Fishergate;

Queued in the cavernous foyer of the New Vic Cinema, under the control of a commissionaire dressed like a Russian General, waiting to see the latest Hollywood offering, preceded by the Wurlitzer organ rising from the depths;

Gazed longingly at the goods in the windows of Nottingham House, Sharps, Leaders and Vernon Humpage.

It is sad to realise that not one of these can be done today.

Valerie Andrews

St Annes on Sea

Congratulations to Iain Lynn on his fascinating selection of pictures for City Traditions (LP, January 10). He must have really enjoyed himself doing it. I am sure it will set off so many more of us now, making our own personal choices.

I was particularly interested in his selection of the Miley Tunnel on the long-closed railway line from Preston to Longridge.

I don’t recall it ever being open to walk through, unless it was an Evening Post photographer, or schoolboys doing a teenage ‘dare’. Unless somebody knows differently!

And I never actually “fell down the steps” on Manxman when it was a nightclub on Preston Dock, but I was a carnival passenger when it made its last official voyage round the coast from Liverpool to Preston one Sunday morning before that. Now, I would like to offer Iain a brand-new ‘tradition’, rapidly gaining ground, to start his next selection – “Having your photo taken sitting next to Wallace and Gromit on Preston Market Place”.

Peter Dugdale

via email