THE LIFE OF RILEY

BOOK ONE

SPIKE   ISLAND

Introduction

This narrative, which began as a humble letter, but quickly took on an existence of its own, is an attempt to describe the muddled life I’ve led. I make no claim to be accurate, especially since the first part dates back almost to prehistoric times; it is merely my impressions of events which I stumbled into along the way.

The name Spike Island in some ways is a misnomer, and perhaps a trifle ambitious. It is a six-mile long rasher of land sliced on one side by the canal – or cut, as it is locally known – and washed on the other by the river Mersey. The point where the river and the canal meet is marked by two locks which once did grand service to the barge trade as they plied up and down the two waterways carrying their loads of precious cargo. They would pass through the giant gates from the river and be raised to the level of the canal, then chug away inland to their destinations. And when they had disgorged their cargoes, and perhaps taken on others, they would return to await the tide until they could sail down-river again.

Slightly further away from the locks there was a dry-dock – at least it appeared to be one, but no boat in my memory ever used it as such. Beside the locks stood two cottages joined as Siamese twins, bonded together for a life of servitude. Directly in front of the houses, about ten yards away, was a small storage-shed, and behind that an office building, long since abandoned and in an advanced state of disrepair. Further to the left, across the railway lines, the pump-house stood, lounging for the most part in idleness.

Behind the cottages, and as far as the eye could see, were the bombed ruins of buildings flattened during the recent spat with the chap with the funny moustache and half a fringe (I later learned that the ruins were just that – ruins, and the island wasn’t bombed at all). To the right of the ruins a web of railway lines spread out in to the distance, and further to the right were the marshlands on which, from time to time, cattle or horses roamed.

It was on this historic island on the 28th May in the year of Our Lord 1946 that I came into the world kicking and screaming; no doubt protesting the fact that the war had ended before I could march to patriotic glory.