Brenda Allen discusses how Edge Hill has changed since she was a child

Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 12th September 2011 by Liam Physick

Brenda Allen tells of how she now lives in Whiston, next to the station there. She laments the demolition of the railway cottages and, more recently, the privatisation trend. She is surprised to hear from Margi that Edge Hill station now has a cinema, thanks to Metal

Interviewee: Brenda Allen

Interviewee Gender: Female

Interview Transcript

Margi: Whereabouts do you live now?

Brenda: I live up in Whiston now, and it’s right by the railway station.

Margi: Is it? (laughs)

Brenda: We were talking about the sound before, when the, people come to the house, cos me garden, the railway station’s at the bottom of me garden, when a train goes through, they go, “What’s that?”, and I go, “What?”, cos you . . .

Margi: You . . .

Brenda: . . . it just blends in . . .

Margi: Yeah . . .

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . you don’t even hear it any more, yeah.

Brenda: And it’s another comforting sound, by the railway . . .

Margi: So what . . . ?

Brenda: . . . but it’s not the same with all the tooting and all the clanging, is it?

Margi: Yeah, that’s, but, I suppose you’re right, aren’t you? What do, what do you think about it round here, now, like, when, you come back to visit? What do you think about the area now?

Brenda: Oh, with the cottages, cos, I mean, a lot of the places have been demolished, and, when we left in 1968, we got told, everywhere was gonna get rebuilt, and we could all move back, and it was really sad, leaving, but, it, it, I think, the magic’s gone now cos we, we came down a few months ago – me brother – but everything seems so tiny, you know the railway gates we used to go round with the big boulders, I can remember trying to climb up them, now you can step on them, but . . . I don’t, it would be nice if we built the community up again, but . . .

Margi: Yeah.

Brenda: . . . it’s all going to the privatisers, there’s still a lot of wasteland, but . . . it, it . . . well, I don’t suppose you can go back cos it had those magical memories from childhood, didn’t it?

Margi: That’s it, isn’t it . . . ?

Brenda: Yeah

Margi: . . . you know, sometimes it’s like that, isn’t it . . . ?

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . it’s . . . I suppose it’s best kept like that . . .

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . because it . . .

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . you know, like, everywhere changes and it’s got to with the future and . . .

Brenda: Yeah . . .

Margi: . . . stuff like that.

Brenda: . . . true, yes but it’s nice this station stayed cos I get the train from Whiston into Liverpool, it’s only 20 minutes, and I’ll just look along the, you know (indecipherable) there’s the church I was christened, I used to live over there, we used to come the station here, so, it’s, it’s still alive, sort of thing.

Margi: So, since you left in 68, is this the first time that you’ve actually been inside Edge Hill station, in, into this bit. Into the Future Stations . . .

Brenda: Into this for the first time every, yeah, yeah, cos I didn’t know this existed up there. It’s lovely, cos we, just all the big buildings down there.

Margi: That’s right, yeah . . .

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . it’s got a cinema, and it’s . . .

Brenda: Has it?

Margi: . . . a screen . . .

Brenda: Yeah.

Margi: . . . on the other side, yeah. So we’ll have to . . .

Brenda: Oh, it would be nice to go round it, wouldn’t . . . ?

Margie: Yeah, we’ll have to ask Ian if we can take you round.

Brenda: Right, that’d be lovely.

Tagged under: edge hill station, metal, demolition, regeneration plans, railway cottages, cinema, privatisation, whiston, whiston station

Categorised under: The Station & Railway Pioneers