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stories

In April 2012 we ran two ‘Memory Days’ to collect stories about local food in Liverpool. Below are selections from our archive of interviews. If you are a local history organisation and would like a copy of the full interviews for your library please contact us.

Everything was there…

Alice Kelly and Anthony Eagan talk with Christine Gibbons about their memories of local food in the Picton Road area in Wavertree and in the City Centre.

Concrete Jungle

Adam Byrne talks to Niamh Moore about the changes in Everton over the last few decades, talking first about the concrete jungle and then about a new allotment project that’s underway there.

Goats!

Vicky McIntyre talks to one of our interviewees about her memories of local food in the City Centre.

Blackberries and Cabbages

Along with growing veg and keeping animals we were also interested in whether collecting wild food was a big part of people’s lives. Listen to Kathleen Jeffrey talk to Kirsty Montgomery about blackberry picking, rescuing cabbages and other local food stories from around Garston in the 1940s.

Farmers in the City

There are currently lots of calls for more famers in the city (e.g. this post from Transition Liverpool). In this selection, Brian Hogg talks about how his family answered the call for urban farmers in the 1870s…

What got me into growing

Supporting more local food also means supporting more people getting back into growing and farming. In this selection Sam Perry talks to Michelle Bastian about how he got into growing after a childhood in Everton never seeing much growing at all…

Something to look forward to

Ray Freeman was a market gardener in Wallasey for over 40 years. Here he talks about what he enjoyed so much about growing.

A Family Business

Brian Hogg talks to Kirsty Montgomery about the dairy he and his family ran on Little Parkfield Road off Lark Lane.

Going back to the allotment

In another excerpt focused on the question of why people get back into growing, Jill Joynson talks with her uncle Ray Freeman about what motivated her to start up again.

Convent Gardens

In this selection Anna Ryan from the Granby area talks with Vicky MacIntyre about her time working in the kitchens at a convent on Mount Pleasant in the 1960s. The convent buildings are now part of Liverpool John Moores University.