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Love Lane Lives - the boys & girls from the whitestuff

Love Lane Lives

The history of sugar in Liverpool and the effects of the closure of the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery, Love Lane

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Barny Murray and friends in the New Holt pub just before Christmas 2011

Written by Ron Noon at 16:10 on Saturday, January 07th 2012

These latest bereavements made me think back to the big re-union party we had back in April 2006. We had to “fight” to get Tate & Lyle to back it but we “won” and what a night and what great publicity for the boys and girls from the whitesfuff?

In Paddy Shennan’s April 2006 feature article on “the party being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the closure of Liverpool’s much-missed Tate & Lyle factory”, there were some wonderful cameo comments from our now absent friends, Paddy Brannigan and Tommy Owens. The 90 day Redundancy Party letter that I had sent to Sugar Quay in the January “had the desired effect” and Rowan D J Adams, Tate’s director of corporate communications and deputy company secretary, appraised me that “after considering your proposal, I am delighted to inform you that we are prepared to make a significant contribution” towards the cost of the re-union.

“I hope you have a very enjoyable reunion and party’ and unquestionably on that lovely sunny April Friday evening the payback from that Love Lane camaraderie was enormous. The Eldonian Village Hall resonated and rocked to the sugar beat and Paddy and Tommy, part of my expensively arranged security/bouncer team, did a great job keeping out would be gate crashers! (The clamour for tickets from the old boys and girls from the whitestuff was incredible and we could only allocate 200!). Paddy Shennan from the Liverpool Echo is not only a great Evertonian but a very talented journalist and his vivid feature highlighted much that was special regarding the former Love Lane refinery workers.


Paddy, Tommy and the Fly House


‘It means a lot to us’ says Tommy Owens, 78 who worked as a machine operator for the company for 25 years. Paddy Branigan, 70 from Fazakerley, one of Tommy’s friends and former colleagues, who also worked at Tate’s for 25 years as a sugar processor adds: “Fourteen of us, together with Ron and Jimmy McGovern’s brother, Joey, still get together in a pub in Liverpool every few weeks and I think other ex-workers meet up in other areas. But it will be great to get so many of us in one place for this party”.’

Writing now on January 7th 2012 in a shed at the end of my Sunderland mother in law’s shed (the only means other than the public library in Kayall Road I have of getting onto the internet), I am distressed by the number of lovely Love Lane lives that have ended since 2006. There are so many more absent friends and the latest bereavements are those of Bobby Austin who will be buried next Wednesday and Barny Murray who will be buried the following day. I was with Barny, Joey Mc, Mike Boyle, Big “Tone” and the inimitable Albert E Sloane just a little over a fortnight ago and I took some smashing photographs of that night. Barny will be a big miss.


Barny, Joey, Boyley and Big Ton


Barney making a point


Bobby unfortunately never made it down to the Punch and Judy because although the spirit was willing it was too much of a treck in from Skelmersdale. This is a man who literally and metaphorically had sugar in his blood and was arguably the greatest sugar striker of them all.

Check out the Video interview with Bobby on our site at the bottom of the page entitled WHAT IS SUGAR?

My efforts to place photographs on this blog have failed because the connection is very poor.

BACK TO THE PAST! I’m back home in Liverpool on Monday 9th Jan 012 and have now been able to add the photographs onto the website. My study is not only warmer but the technology is way beyond the garden shed!

P.S. I must be a very “unbiased sucrose historian” because as an Everton season ticket holder I’ve gone for a drink in an LFC “tabernacle” called THE NEW HOLT. The reason for this is that it is Albert’s nearest pub and he’s not been too mobile recently and a trip into town to the Punch and Judy was ruled out. Albert is a blue, so too is Joey McGovern but Big Tone and Mike Boyle and Barny are all reds. (Have a look at the 90 DAYS OF SWEET FA pdf file below)

90_days_of_Sweet_FA.pdf