THE fight to keep the Freshfield Post Office in Old Town Lane open has brought back memories of its predecessor, Wainwright’s shop in Gores Lane.
Formby resident Ellis Dean remembers the shop in the 1920s and 1930s and sent us this account of it.
“I was surprised to see in the old photograph of the Freshfield Post Office, submitted by Mrs Muriel Clulee, that it was located in what is now the Pharmacy in Old Town Lane because, when I was growing up during the 1930s in that part of Formby, the Post Office formed part of the ‘Sweet Shop and Tobacconists’ run by Mr and Mrs Woolwright on Gores Lane. These premises were later occupied by Johnny McCartney and his DIY Store.
“Mr and Mrs Woolwright were quite an elderly couple, clearly devoted to each other, calling themselves ‘Duckie Dear’ and ‘Percy Darling’ in front of their customers. That is how we as children always spoke of them.
“They, themselves, were childless but kept four Yorkshire terriers, and it was ‘Percy Dear’s’ duty, every evening, to exercise the dogs. He would emerge from the front door with each dog on its own lead, and their eager yapping as they anticipated their walk alerted any other dogs in the neighbourhood.
“They would congregate on the pavement outside the garden gate. So, ahead of ‘Percy’ down the path walked ‘Duckie Dear,’ armed with a broom to drive these other dogs away.
“It was in the early war years that the Post Office returned to its original location in Old Town Lane. The proprietor of the Pharmacy at that time was a Mr Hulme but the Woolwrights used to run their sweets and tobacco shop. This cannot have been very profitable, with sweets and chocolate strictly rationed and cigarettes in short supply. But somehow they managed to keep going throughout the war years.
“One person, unaware that the Post Office had moved to its new location, was a friend of mine, Harry Pickstone, who in 1941, while on an RAF Fighter Sweep over Holland, had been shot down in his Spitfire and taken prisoner.
“In May 1945, home on Repatriation Leave, he entered what he thought was still the Post Office and asked for some stamps. ‘Percy Dear,’ by then rather hard of hearing, was serving in the shop. He looked at Harry for a few seconds, bobbed down under the counter, and presented him with a packet of 10 Woodbines.
“’No, No,’ said Harry. ‘I asked for stamps.’
“’Sorry,’ replied ‘Percy Dear,’ and disappeared under the counter once again, and this time produced 10 Players.
“Harry, now thoroughly bemused by all this, and although a non-smoker, paid for the cigarettes and left the shop.”

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