Katie,
I have followed the thread on the Bootle Times site with a mixture hope and sadness. Hope that the plaque is returned to the community it came from and cherished by them and sadness that the odds are against this happening.
Having worked with two amazing gentlemen (Major David Evans - sadly no longer with us - and George Donnison) who over 20 years or so documented and photographed over 700 Merseyside war memorials, I have a soft spot for seeing that no more of these Merseyside historic features are lost for ever. Believe me a significant number of memorials documented by George and David have already 'disappeared'. I typed out almost 45,000 names from the memorials and passed the list to the Merseyside Roll of Honour site.
In 2006 I successfully bid for three war memorials that were for sale on Ebay - there was stiff bidding (some from the US) but I managed to secure them for my hometown community - the memorials were not cheap! So with high hopes I set about returning them (gratis) to the communities from which they came. I had recently been involved with the move of the Christ Church Kensington war memorial to Kensington Library so I thought it would be a doddle to rehouse the ones I had bought - how wrong I was!
The memorials I purchased from Ebay were from Kirkdale, Wavertree and Runcorn (part). I set about writing to everyone I could think of including Liverpool Corporation (who appeared more concerned about where the memorials came from, after all I am a scouser!) - all to no avail. I posted an appeal on the Scottie Press site
http://www.scottiepress.org/projects/remember.htm which received no response. I was also contacted by a number of individuals who offered to take the memorials 'of my hands' and of course I politely refused - these memorials now lie in my brother's garage in Merseyside. In my mind they still belong to the community and not to me and hope that one day to the community they will be returned.
I was also involved with the rescue and donation of the war memorial to those who fell who had attended Penrhyn St School in Scotland Rd. This was my first school and I can remember standing to attention, aged 5, in front of the memorial presumably on Remembrance Day. I was instrumental, with others, in donating this memorial (which had been rescued by Major Evans from a Liverpool auction house), to be placed in the League of Welldoers in Limekiln Lane not far from the memorial's original site. Many years went by and it still had not been erected - I would be interested to know whether it now adorns the walls or it too has been lost.
I will be pledging a donation to rescue the Stanley abbatoir memorial but would caution that if no one wants to site it who owns it, who will store it, what will be done with it? The momentum generated by interest in the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war will no doubt help to obtain a site but after that interest in the war memorial will wane.
So ending on a positive note I am off to register on the Bootle site and help them in any way I can - all power to them!
Joe