Captain Bates is pictured seated on the front row, centre.
“Captain Frederick Bates was Captain of a Cunard Liner in Liverpool, doing trips to Constantinople, taking teachers to see the pyramids, and he used to bring animals back to zoos.
When he was a cabin boy on a sailing ship going to Buenos Aires in Argentina, he witnessed a murder. In those days there was a special court in England for anyone at sea, and he was sent back to England with this person to be a witness. The ship he was on, went out and was never heard of again, so the only two people living were these two. Whether they hung the other one I don’t know.
When he was in the 1914 war, he was doing a lot of Mediterranean trips, and while he was there, a French vessel was sunk by a submarine, and he stopped his ship and he took all the 700 crew on board. He was given a gold medal by the President of France for saving the 700 lives, and he got an award from Liverpool too, all fancy. He lived on Prescot Road near Beecham’s, and he’s buried at St Thomas’s. He was also torpedoed later on, and he and another captain were taken prisoner on a German submarine, and they were questioned but released.
His son married Annie Bates who lived in Millbrook Cottages.” Norman.
