She loved to sing herself, as she tended the poor. Now a tune has been dedicated to Liverpool’s Saint of the Slums. David Charters reports
FOR him, one name towers above them all. And the man has known some grand people in his time. He smiles, cool as you like behind the shades, talking fast.
The names skip by – so much talent in one city, the city he loves with a passion bigger than any cathedral. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and everyone at The Cavern, all still young, slip into view, before he turns to the footballers.
Ah yes, there have always been footballers and musicians in his life, as well as comedians and writers – those stars, who shone so bright, and the ones still glowing in the memory.
Some strode the great stages, others stayed on their streets, all leg-ends in their own lifetimes, to resurrect a pickled Liverpool joke.
But “you can’t measure her worth” because she was “an angel on Earth”. We are talking here about Kitty Wilkinson, whose introduc- tion of public wash-houses to Liverpool prevented countless thousands dying from cholera and other diseases. Hers is the towering name. Hers is the spirit of old Liverpool.
And the high sentiments about her are expressed in the song, Angel on Earth, which is included on an album by Cavern old boys, to be released next Saturday.
It was written by Frankie Connor, pictured, formerly of the Hideaways and now a Radio Merseyside presenter, with Billy Kinsley, formerly of the Merseybeats and Liverpool Express, and Alan Crowley, of the Tuxedos, the group headed by Billy Butler, of Radio Merseyside.
In this European Capital of Culture year, they thought it appropriate to write an anthem to the woman who won such epithets as “Saint of the Slums” and “Hound of Heaven” because of her tenacious dedication to good works.
It is sung with rare verve by Billy.
There are 11 other tracks on the record, Back to the Present, performed by such artists as Chris (Elvis) Clayton; Joan O’Neill, mother of Mel C of the Spice Girls; Earl Preston (Joey Spruce); Kenny Parry; Beryl Marsden; Faron of Faron’s Flamingos; Mike Byrne, of the Juke Box Eddies; the Fourmost, Albie Wycherley (brother of the late Billy Fury); and Cavern Beat, a Beatles’ tribute band from America. Together they are called the Class of ’64, the year when many of them met and Merseybeat was riding high.
It is a year well remembered by Frankie O’Connor (he dropped the “O” for his stage name), who played 400 times at The Cavern with The Hideaways. He was the second of six children born to Nellie and Fred O’Connor in Hopwood Street, off Scotland Road.
Fred, a docks timekeeper, moved the family to a bigger house in Blessington Road, Anfield, though, as Frankie is keen to emphasise, it was pointing towards Goodison Park. He attended Our Lady Immaculate School, on Everton Heights, playing left-half for the school team and winning a trial for Liverpool Boys.
But the lure of guitar music was even stronger.
Now Frankie, 60, lives with his wife, Jenny Lowe, a former Miss UK and Miss England, in Cheshire, where they have five Persian cats. Jenny is now a clerk in barristers’ chambers in Liverpool.
“Kitty Wilkinson was extraordinary,” says Frankie. “We can’t even imagine the conditions she was working in – the poverty, the filth and the grime. She had no self-regard. She just wanted to help the people where she could.
“She was such an important person to this city and yet, when I was at school, I knew who Guy Fawkes was, Oliver Cromwell, Julius Caesar, but I didn’t know who this lady was.
“Bob Wooler (the Cavern DJ) mentioned her and then I read a book about her life by Michael Kelly, who became a good friend. The result was the song, which I hope will raise awareness about her.”
Well, what should we know about Kitty? Here is a potted biography.
Catherine (Kitty) Seaward was born in Londonderry in 1786, coming to Liverpool with her family three years later.
As a teenager, she worked in a Lancashire cotton mill, before returning to Liverpool. In 1812, she married a French seaman, Emanuel Demontee, and was expecting their second child when he drowned at sea.
Soon after that, she married Tom Wilkinson, a sweetheart from their days in the mill at Caton.
The couple rose to prominence during the 10 cholera epidemics which swept through the port between 1832 and 1840.
Making the crucial link between poor sanitation and the spread of disease, Kitty and Tom had a boiler fitted in the scullery of their home in Denison Street.
By then, Kitty was visiting the homes of the poor, winning admiration for her kindness and concern.
A lady of means bequeathed her a mangle. Soon, mothers from the neighbourhood were visiting to wash their clothes and linen.
To accommodate more people, Kitty turned the cellar into a wash-house. And then, in 1842, with public support, Kitty opened Britain’s first official public wash-house, in Upper Frederick Street.
She died in 1860, aged 73. Rich and poor attended her burial at St James Cemetery, Liverpool.
A stained-glass image of her can be seen at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. Last year, a small statue of Kitty was commissioned by the Vauxhall Neighbourhood Council and sculpted by Terry McGunigle, the Liverpool artist.
One verse from the new song goes, “She had little time for self-regard, she’d wash the sick and lame – in conditions we could not believe, when disease would kill and maim; sacrifice was all she knew, she became the widow’s friend and won the love of orphaned kids, was fearless to the end.”
BACK to the Present, by the Class of ’64, released on Holly Records, is available from the BBC Shop by the Radio Merseyside studios, on Hanover Street. All fans and friends are welcome at the launch party/ concert, which starts at 12.30pm next Saturday in Radio Merseyside’s audience space. The Life and Times of Kitty Wilkinson, written by Michael Kelly and published by Countywise, is still in the shops.
davidcharters
