THERE is a sturgeon in Warrington Museum, long since dead and stuffed.

The label says it was shot in the Mersey at Warrington. I have an affinity with this sturgeon since, as a child, my father took me to the museum and pointed out to me the fish that my great grandfather had killed.

Many years later I visited the museum. The fish was still on display. Looking at it also was an elderly lady with, presumably, her grand daughter. She was telling the little girl that long ago her great grandfather had shot the fish that was now on display in the museum.

Coincidence or folk memory? I wondered how many other Warrington families claimed a connection with the sturgeon, remarkable for being shot and more remarkable for having been alive at all in the polluted steam that the Mersey had become.

The river touched many Warrington families, more so years ago than now.

Today from Quay Fold there is still a footpath leading along the river bank towards the transporter bridge. For much of its length it is fenced in by high iron stakes. Seventy years ago it was better. The factories that lined the river were less security conscious and it was possible to sneak a look at what processes were happening within.

By the 1950s boat traffic along the river was declining, killed first by the railways and later by road traffic. Even so there were frequently four or five barges tied up at Crosfields or Fairclough’s flour mill. At that time there were houses in Quay Fold a short distance back from the level crossing. Coal trains passed just a few yards away and the smell from the factories made the houses very unhealthy. They were demolished in the early 1950s

Since the building of the Ship Canal commercial boat traffic had long since stopped using the river downstream and the barges just used the river from the lock at Walton to Bank Quay.

The river was dredged along that stretch.

My uncle worked on the dredgers here. and from the path on the way to Walton we were able to wave to him at work.

The bucket dredger, as I remember, was a filthy, mud spattered vessel squeaking and clanging as the endless chain of buckets brought up the mud and deposited it into a hopper from which it was pumped onto adjacent fields.

Wire ropes allowed the dredger to move back and forth across the stream keeping a wide enough channel for steam barges to navigate, I guess, at most states of the tide.

The high fields beyond the path were the result of years of river mud being deposited there.

The transporter bridge was used to take tanker lorries across to Crosfields on the other bank, there was no other crossing for vehicles before Chester Road, a mile up stream.

At Quay Fold the company had a little steam ferry to take foot passengers to the works on the other side.

It was common to see workers, engineers, inspectors and even secretaries waiting at the Quay Fold landing stage to be ferried across.

One day the ferry wasn’t there to be replaced by a foot bridge.