The Taskersons’ House, "Clevelands", Meols Drive, West Kirby, Wirral

The Taskerson's house was one of the subjects of a chapter I wrote for the book Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World in 2009.

Back in 2008 while I was researching the Taskerson's house, I met the current occupant who told me about the above postcard. Last Saturday, I managed to find a facsimile of the card at a local history fair. The Taskerson house is the one on the left of the postcard with the red topped gate posts.

This find coincided with my latest research into the topography of Under The Volcano which will be the subject of the post following this one.

The text below is an adaption of what I wrote back in 2009:

"The Taskerson family are characters in Lowry’s Under the Volcano. They ‘adopt’ Geoffrey Firmin, the novel’s hero, as a boy; it is while on holiday in France with the Taskersons that Geoffrey meets Jacques Laruelle, whose reminiscences of his friend a year after his death open the novel. After the holiday meeting, Laruelle is invited to visit the Taskersons’ home in Leasowe, England.

According to Russell Lowry, his brother based the Taskersons on a local Wirral family, the Furnisses. In his preface to Ann Smith’s book The Art of Malcolm Lowry Russell points out the attraction the family had for Malcolm:

A big quiet room at the top of the house [Inglewood] was furnished as a study for him. No good. No booze. No amusing company. He seems to have found both among the Furness [Russell’s spelling] brothers – later sublimated into the Taskersons. Malcolm had known them at his first school, years earlier. I never met them. With the Furness brothers Malcolm did his marathon beerwalks and of course found Inglewood even more boring when he got back.

With the aid of Russell’s memoir, Gordon Bowker established that the Furniss family had lived at "Clevelands", Meols Drive, West Kirby during the time that Lowry knew them. Lowry had originally met James Furniss at "Braeside" (Lowry's childhood school in West Kirby), where James rescued him from being bullied. Lowry gives us the following description of the Taskersons’ home in the first chapter of Under the Volcano:

The Taskersons lived in a comfortable house whose back garden abutted on a beautiful, undulating golf course abounded on the far side by the sea. It looked like the sea; actually it was the estuary, seven miles wide, of a river: white horses westward marked where the real sea began. The Welsh mountains gaunt and black and cloudy, with occasionally a snow peak to remind Geoff of India, lay across the river. During the week, when they were allowed to play, the course was deserted: yellow ragged sea poppies fluttered in the spiny sea grass. On the shore were the remains of an antediluvian forest with ugly black stumps showing, and farther up an old stubby deserted lighthouse. There was an island in the estuary, with a windmill on it like a curious black flower, which you could ride out to at low tide on a donkey. The smoke of freighters outward bound from Liverpool hung low on the horizon. There was a feeling of space and emptiness. Only at week-ends did a certain disadvantage appear in their site: although the season was drawing to a close and the grey hydropathic hotels on the promenades were emptying, the golf course was packed all day with Liverpool brokers playing foursomes. "



"Clevelands" is now split into three flats. I spoke to one of the residents who told me that the house had always been called "Clevelands". A check of the 1911 Census showed that at that time John and Mary Furniss and their family lived at 2 Grosvenor Road in West Kirby. However, the 1920 Electoral Register confirmed that the family lived at 103 Meols Drive.

"Clevelands" is located opposite the Royal Liverpool Golf Course which is the course referred to in the above extract from Under The Volcano. Lowry played golf on the course with his friends including the Furniss brothers. The house fits into the topography of the descriptions given in Under The Volcano for the fictional "Leasowe" which Lowry depicts in his novel.

Since writing about the "Clevelands" for the 2009 book, I have been re-thinking the topography of the Lowry's "Leasowe" especially how one view of the Wirral landscape could bring all the elements of his "Leasowe" together.

I recently walked from "Clevelands" to Caldy via a footpath to Grange Hill, Column Road and Caldy Hill. This is possibly a route Malc would have made taken many times as a youth on walks between his home and his friend's house. The next post will be about the views on this walk and their relevance to the topography of Under The Volcano.

A walk around Caldy Hill

Caldy may have changed considerably since Malc lived there back in the 1920's but it is still a beautiful landscape..

I recently came across some wonderful photos taken around Caldy which you can view on That's How The Light Gets In blog

Thanks Gerry for the mention!

Malc Beats The Dog On Caldy Hill

In a letter to Carol Brown in 1926, Lowry tells her about a dream he has had:

I would meet you on the moor, and you would be looking sweeter than ever: you would rate me sardonically-playfully for ill treating the dog, and the dog would look at me so adoringly that you couldn't help but believe that here was the true master. Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry Volume 1

Lowry's description of the moor which becomes the setting for "a pretty little romance" corresponds with Caldy Hill which was only a few hundred yards from both Carol's house Hilthorpe and Lowry's Inglewood home. You can see the topography of the tale on the map below. (Click on the image to enlarge)



It must be noted that the map is from 1936 and already shows signs of the vast changes taking place in the landscape of Caldy. The area around Hilthorpe and Inglewood would have been more open in the 1920's as can be seen from the photograph below which is circa 1914.



The above photograph gives some indication of the moor-like quality of the area which was dominated by sandstone outcrops, heather and gorse.



Today, Caldy is very different in appearance to the 1920's. However, you can take a walk onto Caldy Hill which is now protected by the National Trust and capture some of the "ripping scenery" that Lowry refers to discovering those "secluded spots" where the young Lowry wooed Carol Brown in his dreams.



The stunning views from the hill towards the Dee Estaury and further on to Wales and the mountains of Snowdonia certainly provide the backdrop for the "ethereal upper circle" from which to watch Lowry's "pretty little romance". The romance created by Lowry takes on undertones of Cathy and Heathcliff on the moor in Bronte's Wuthering Heights and surely this was in Lowry's mind alongside his references to Shakespeare and Chaucer who themselves were proponents of using English scenery to dramatic effect.

Later on in the dream, Lowry tells Carol that he goes for a walk to the nearby village of Greasby, singing all the way, singing when he returns for lunch, singing on his way to Hilthorpe to play tennis, and continues singing while trying to play the piano.

I couldn't help think of what songs he might have sang and ones featuring dogs kept coming to my mind from that period. Lowry might have sang Ma Rainey's "Those Dogs Of Mine" (Famous Cornfield Blues)from 1923 or Bessie Smith's Yellow Dog Blues 1925

Though later on in Cambridge University, Lowry may have been reminded of his dream of being cruel to the dog when his listening to his hero Joe Venuti who the cut track "Beating The Dog" in 1927.

Malc Could Have Been A Bartender in Belize

I have been re-reading Malc's letters to Carol Brown over the weekend. The letters are amongst the earliest writing we have from Lowry alongside his writings for his school magazine Fortnightly at the Leys in Cambridge.

Malc's letters to Carol are full of juvenile love talk. I had to smile when he threatened the following:

I'll chuck up all my material ambition, such as it is, run away from home, school, toil, kindred (see hymn?), and become an assistant bar tender in Honduras or somewhere without a half sou if necessary. Letter to Carol Brown April 1926 in Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry

In reality, Malc in a kind of way did eventually do what he outlined in the letter. He escaped from his home in Caldy and his "kindred" on his sea voyage to the Far East in 1927. Later in the 1930's, he spent time in Mexico across the border from Belize. Eventually he did "chuck up" his material ambition escaping to his "Eden" or Eridanus" in Dollarton, Canada.

The Honduras that Malc refers to is probably the then(1920s)British colony of Belize which was called British Honduras.

If Malc had gone there, he would have been exposed to the Garifuna culture.

Below is a video about the music on a CD of the Umalali project, which was released on the Cumbancha record label . It focuses on the amazing music of the women of the Garifuna community of Central America.

Belle Baker "Hard Hearted Hannah" 1924

If ever you're going to get a new record there, get "Oh Miss Hannah!" great fun, believe me. And think that it has a better moral than H.H.H. Letter to Carol Brown May 1926 in Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry.

I have already posted a feature on "Oh Miss Hannah!" by the Revelers. Sherrill E. Grace, the editor of Lowry's Collected Letters has suggested that the song Malc refers to as H.H.H. is possibly "Hard Hearted Hannah". More than likely, the version Malc would be familiar with would have been Belle Baker's song from 1924.



Belle Baker (25 December 1893, New York City, New York - 29 April 1957, Los Angeles, California) was an American singer and actress.

Born Bella Becker, she rose to fame as a vaudeville vocalist, appearing on Broadway and in nightclubs, films, radio and television.

In the early 1920s, when she was well known as The Ragtime Singer, Baker took part in a Baltimore song competition with Catherine Calvert, the Hamilton Sisters (Pearl and Violet) and Jessie Fordyce. She was the first artist to record "All of Me," one of the most recorded songs of its era, and she was also the first person in the United States to do a radio broadcast from a moving train.

In 1926, Baker had the title role in Broadway's Betsy. She introduced Irving Berlin's "Blues Skies" in the Florenz Ziegfeld production, which ran for 39 performances from December 28, 1926 to January 29, 1927. With music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, the musical comedy had a book by Irving Caesar and David Freedman. Victor Baravelle was the musical director.

On radio, she was a guest performer on The Eveready Hour, broadcasting's first major variety show, which featured Broadway's top headliners. After roles in the films Song of Love (1929) and Charing Cross Road (1935), she appeared as herself in Atlantic City (1944).

She was married to the composer Maurice Abrahams (1883-1931), who wrote the songs "I'm Walking with the Moonbeams (Talking to the Stars)" and "Take Everything But You" for Song of Love. The couple had one child, Herbert Baker. On September 21, 1937, she married Elias E. Sugarman, editor of the theatrical trade magazine, Billboard.
She died of a heart attack in 1957 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles. Wikipedia

It is also possible that Malc was referring to the very popular Savoy Orpheans who had a regular radio show where Malc may have heard the song?


Hard Hearted Hannah Fox Trot (Yellen, Bigelow & Bates) Savoy Orpheans at the Savoy Hotel, London HMV B1955/Bb5643-3 Hayes, Middlesex 21.1.1925.

Here's a great version of the song by Ella Fitzgerald from 1955:

Fascinating Rhythm 1924

The above song certainly had some emotional significance for the young Malc as he wrote to his teenage love Carol Brown:

Every time I hear "Fascinating Rhythm" it reminds me of that evening by the gate. Letter to Carol Brown May 1926, Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry

Below is a photograph taken at the spot outside Hilthorpe where Carol and Malc spent sometime together in 1925 or 26 which prompted Malc's reminisce in the extract from the letter above. You can read more details of their friendship in Gordon Bowker's biography of Lowry. We can only speculate the significance of the moment.



The song is from the musical Lady, Be Good written by Guy Bolton, Fred Thompson, featured music by George and Ira Gershwin. It debuted at the Liberty Theatre on December 1, 1924.

It is a musical comedy about a brother and his sister who are out of money and each eager to sacrifice him- or herself to help the other. It originally starred brother and sister performers Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire. It ran for 330 performances in the original Broadway run.



What is difficult to gauge is how Lowry would have been aware of the song? Perhaps, he picked up the song via his elder brothers Stuart and Russell or did he hear it on a visit to Carol Brown's house Hilthorpe in Caldy or could he conceivably seen the musical at the Empire in London? The last premise is unlikely as he was writing to Carol in May 1926 and the musical only opened Prince of Wales Theatre, London on 14 April, 1926.

The version below was performed by the Savoy Orpheans, the resident orchestra at the Savoy Hotel, London during the 20s and 30s. They were also on BBC radio.



The Savoy Orpheans were formed in early 1923. The main attraction at London's famed Savoy Hotel had been Bert Ralton's Savoy Havana Band, and when Ralton left in late 1922 for an Australian tour, the band's violinist, Reginald Batten, became the leader. (Rudy Vallee was playing the Sax and Billy Mayerl was on the Piano). In 1923, due to the great popularity of the NY Havana Band, the Savoy decided to hire still another band - called The Savoy Orpheans - with Debroy Sommers as Leader. (Vallee was still on Sax but Billy Thorburn was on the piano. Carroll Gibbons was also in the new band). Now, both the New York Havana Band and The Savoy Orpheans bands were feature attractions at the Hotel.



Lowry was actually aware of the The Savoy Orpheans and mentions the band in a later letter to Carol in June 1926.

Great Homer Street v Sea Road

Lowry's book Ultramarine opens with a scene where Dana Hilliot the main character signs onto Oedipus Tyrannus the ship which takes him on a voyage to the Far East. The story is based on Lowry's own similar voyage which he made as a mess boy on the Blue Funnel ship Pyrrhus.

This opening scene immediately sets the tension between Dana (Lowry) and his other shipmates. Though Dana, Andersen the cook and Norman the galley boy all have Norwegian roots, they are set apart by their home addresses. Andersen and Norman live in Great Homer Street in Everton which was a poor working class area of Liverpool in the 1920's.

In contrast, Dana lives on the Wirral and for some reason Lowry doesn't place his character in Caldy where Lowry lived at the time of his sea voyage in 1927. However, Lowry's choice of Sea Road Port Sunlight is significant. There is no such road in Port Sunlight but Lowry places Dana in a road named after the sea which was so important to Lowry. Port Sunlight was a model village for workers built by Lord Leverhulme ,which can bear comparison to the upper class idyllic community created in the village of Caldy built by David Benno Rappart, in that both were visions of alternatives to the slums and deprivation of Liverpool.

The tension Lowry creates in that scene is that Dana is different from the rest of the crew. The Wirral is seen as an alternative to Liverpool which is a theme Lowry continued to develop in other works.The Wirral was Lowry's first Eridanus, the name he gave to his later Dollarton home, and Liverpool which Lowry called "that terrible city whose main street is the ocean".

The photograph above shows the Everton/Kirkdale areas of Liverpool, with Great Homer Street running through the middle of the photograph from left to right, and New Brighton Lowry's birthplace can be seen in the background across the River Mersey. This photographs contrasts with the highly stylised postcards of Port Sunlight below which demonstrate the "paradise" for workers created by Lord Leverhulme.