Belle Vale Prefab Project

I met with some of you in St George’s Hall recently and chatted about the child who died in the sand in Belle Vale in the 1950s. You asked me to send you the photograph I spoke of and tell you what I knew about the tragedy. I don’t know the little boy’s name but when you suggested David it sounded familiar and I have a vague memory that his brother was named John but I might have dreamt that .

This is the story of the tragedy that happened to the little boy as my Dad, brother and sister describe it and as I was told by my late Mum.

My maternal aunt was Ruth Wade. In the post-war years she lived with her husband Harold and daughter Patricia (Pat) in a Belle Vale prefab (or a ‘freefab’ as we children called them – still call them). I don’t have their address but I could get it if it’s important as my sister Susan, was born there in 1952 so it will be on her birth certificate. My brother Rob remembers their home backed onto an area ringed with a chain link fence which Uncle Harold utilised as a massive aerial for his short-wave radio. Rob wonders if perhaps it was the golf course. I have some very clear memories of visiting Belle Vale as a small child. I recall going to a self-service shop for the very first time and spending an afternoon picking wild flowers in a field with my cousin. Coming from the narrow, terraced streets of Anfield, I also vividly remember Belle Vale’s wide, clean roads and an incredible sense of light and open space which has stayed with me when I remember that time. Auntie Ruth was rehoused in one of the new Belle Vale properties and stayed there until about 1963 but her friend lived there longer and I recall visiting her home in the late 60s and recollect that her son, who was younger than me, had the most wonderful toys.

Auntie Ruth’s friend had once had another son. I believe that he is the boy in the smart coat on the attached photograph which was taken in Belle Vale on 2 June 1953, the day of the Queen’s Coronation. I think he looks about five or six years old so would guess he was born circa 1947. Standing on his right is my cousin Pat who was almost ten. I don’t know anything about the five little girls. The story goes that the boy and two brothers were playing on a construction site in Belle Vale. Both Rob and Sue remember it as being the shopping centre. The three boys dug a tunnel deep into a massive heap of builders’ sand and two of them crawled in. The boy went first followed by one of the brothers but the weight of the sand collapsed the tunnel on top of them trapping the two boys. The other brother ran screaming for help and workmen from the site came very quickly. They dug frantically until they found the brother and by grabbing him by his feet managed to pull him out alive but the sand collapsed still further and by the time they reached the boy he had suffocated. But for the quick actions of these workmen, this innocent boys’ game could so easily have cost not one, but two children their lives and if the sand had held up just a bit longer before collapsing, all three might have died that day. I don’t know when this was for sure but Dad reckons the boy was only about ten years old so circa 1957 which is supported by the other photograph I’ve attached. Taken in 1957, it shows Rob and Sue playing on a tricycle and pedal car that had belonged to the boy which were given to them after his death. I’m the cute baby in the pram.

The boy’s mother was distraught and totally inconsolable. I remember Mum telling me that such was her grief that her husband feared that she would never recover and sought medical advice. The doctor told him that the only way to save his wife’s sanity was to have another child so that’s what they did and she gave birth to the boy that I remember, the one with the wonderful toys.

I grew up with warnings from my parents not to dig in sand, warnings illustrated by the dreadful tragedy that befell a little boy smiling shyly on a photograph, but there’s no-one left in my family who remembers the exact details and you know what it’s like, memories play tricks and stories get changed over the years. I would just love to know this little lost boy’s name and there has to be someone out there who can tell me. I guess that the two brothers are probably in their late 60s now while the boy’s brother must be in his early fifties. Obviously they would know the dead boy’s name and when he died and could almost certainly tell me how much of the story I’ve got right.

The third attached photograph I was delighted to find on (and pilfer from) your website. On the far left of the photo is my cousin Pat with my Auntie Ruth standing behind her with her arms folded. Do you think the little boy on the front row in the same boy from my photograph? Could be, so perhaps his mother is also in this picture.

I will look forward to hearing from you plus anyone else who wishes to correspond.