'Formby Past' with Joan and Dougie

To The Brook

Straight down Bull Cop and out over the field,

Hop over the style, our happiness sealed,

With jam jars and fishing nets and old tin cans

Clutched tightly for what we could catch with our hands.

Our fishing nets made with a nail and a cane,

Old stockings the net as we ran down the lane

To the ditch by the brook where the tiddlers and frogs

And jack sharps swam round in the reeds and the logs.

All day we would play catching all that we could,

Fill the jam jars with tiddlers and handfuls of mud,

Then back home we went past the barn and Lowe’s farm,

Scruffy children wet through but free from all harm.

What a great way of life with no worries or cares,

A tin bath in the living room, then up the stairs

To our dreams of tomorrow when we’d all start again

With our jam jars and fishing nets off down the lane.

By Joan Rimmer

The area is now the extension of Bull Cop to the By-Pass and the Gardner Road estate.

Alongside was Council Avenue, more recently re-named Burlington Avenue.