John Pride and Fred Bower

Fred Bower and John Pride -
Stonemason Poet and Poet Sketcher of Heswall

John Pride
John Pride was born in Edge Hill in Liverpool in 1877. Throughout his life he preferred the open countryside of Wirral to the built up areas of Liverpool. He made his first visit to Wirral in 1884 when his family stayed at the Watch house in Parkgate. John was unconventional in many ways but throughout his life showed his feelings and his appreciation of the beautiful Wirral countryside in his art and poems. In the 1901 census he is listed as a metal engraver living with his wife and daughter in Wavertree.

He suffered from tuberculosis for much of his life but this did not prevent him from enjoying every minute . In 1937 he was taken ill again and had to spend over a year in hospital . Despite being told that he did not have long to live, he did not lose his zest for life.

Rather than become despondent he decided to leave the city and live in the open spaces of Wirral which he so loved. His old friend Fred Bower another colourful character wrote to him and said “Don't die in hospital come to Heswall and die among the flowers.” So he came and lived with Fred who was now living at 5 Banks Road. For the next few years, before he died in 1941, he was often seen sketching local scenes on the banks of the Dee. It is said that Fred and he regaled the children of the area with stories of their wide and varied life. Many of his sketches were made into cards and sold locally. He not only wrote the poems and drew the sketches but also etched the printing plates and ran off his own copies .The following verse from “The Old Haven” by John Pride could refer to many of the aspects of Wirral that he loved.

This is Old Haven and the place I love
I love the sea-wall that its tides have broke
The sandy shallows and the gulls above
The houses, boats and nets and fisher folk.

Fred Bower

Frederick John Bower was born in 1872. He was a British subject although he was born in the United States of America when his father was a stonemason over there. His parents who were both from Dorset soon returned to England and as Fred quotes in his book “Rolling Stonemason” he was born Boston - reared Liverpool. On leaving school in Liverpool he worked as an errand boy and then returned to his parents' native Dorset where he worked as a stonemason . In 1895 he swapped a pound for a ticket to America and after travelling around, doing a variety of jobs, returned to Britain via Glasgow. He later assisted in the building of the metropolitan cathedral in London. During his lifetime he went to Canada, Australia, Africa and Russia as well as doing mason work in England.

When later in his life his book was published, he disclosed that as a mason working on Liverpool Cathedral .many years before, he had buried in the foundations a sealed box containing copies of the socialist paper The Clarion and The Labour Leader. This caused an uproar but nothing could be done about it.

In his latter years he ended up living in Heswall, first in a converted Black Maria but when that was condemned by the local authorities, he returned to live with relatives in Liverpool. When back in Heswall, after living in lodgings, he rented a cottage in Banks Road, the home to which he later invited John Pride to share. Throughout this time he wrote many poems. Several months after John arrived in Heswall, Fred discovered he had silicosis, the dreaded stone workers disease, but this did not stop him enjoying life.

Christmas Greetings from Heswall

Ring out old bells of Heswall Church

Ring out o'er Sands of Dee;

Bid every sad or lonely soul

Rouse at your melody.

Let jaded city workers feel

That this day they are free;

Let toilers of the mart and field

Share Yule -Tid's ecstasy;

Vowing that not alone this day ,

But all three -sixty-five ,

Within the gardens of their hearts

Good -fellowship shall thrive.

Fred Bower

The two men spent much time recounting their lives in the Black Horse where Fred would sell some of his stone ornaments to the locals.

John died in 1941 and Fred in 1942 and with their passing Heswall lost two flamboyant characters, who together created poems and sketches that are still recognised nearly seventy years on.

(Heswall Library has a copy of Fred Bower's book ‘Rolling Stonemason’ available for loan)

Jenny McRonald Jan. 2008

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