00:00It's not unusual to see your smiling faces aboard the Mersey Ferry, but the archive behind a new exhibition paints an especially joyful scene.
00:10Ernest Bailey, who was a philanthropist, and every Christmas during the 70s and 80s, he'd host these Christmas outings for disadvantaged kids from all the group homes and invite them onto the ferry to have a Christmas party.
00:23Letters written by children more than 40 years ago describe meeting Father Christmas on board, unwrapping presents, eating party food and listening to festive tunes whilst cruising along the river.
00:34They are simple memories, but they show how much that experience meant to those who took part.
00:40And we've got a student to work with those letters and those photographs, and they've put together a digital exhibition, and it's a wonderful run-through of the Scouse tradition of philanthropy.
00:50I remember our living room being absolutely full of toys, and I had loads and loads of them, and me and my brother David, and that we used to sort of help sort them all out, and wrap them up.
01:02My dad used to get us involved if he never seen me in that way, so we'd do all that, and obviously we used to go on to the Royal Irish when the parties were on, and out with all the kids, and see them getting their presents, and just join in.
01:16He was a senior manager at Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, now known as Mersey Travel.
01:24Every year throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, he used his business connections to organise a Christmas outing for children across Liverpool, including many who were in care.
01:35Before the Christmas outings, they'd have the kids draw on this A3 cutout of Santa Claus, without telling them anything, just telling them it was for fun.
01:44You'd have them write their names, their age, the houses, the homes they were grouped in, and they'd ask them, what gift did you most want this year?
01:52One of those little push-along trucks where you have the blocks in, and you couldn't get one at the time, a little wooden one.
02:00So someone on the buses, there was a carpenter, made them. Someone who painted the buses, painted them, and a lot of things were also made if they couldn't buy them.
02:10So the kids got exactly what they wanted.
02:12The photographs and letters that formed the archive were discovered fairly recently by Simon Payne, while organising the possessions of his late stepfather.
02:21They were donated to Liverpool Hope University's Professor of Modern World History, Bryce Evans.
02:27History is the fabric of life, and that's why we're here, because this man, in a very quiet way, influenced this for a lot of people.
02:35He made Christmas specials for a lot of these kids, and that's a slice of history, and he left an archive.
02:39Because Ernest Bailey lost his father at a very young age, I believe that he just felt connected to disadvantaged kids, especially those who didn't grow up with a father figure.
02:49The digital exhibition, Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time, is being held at Liverpool Hope University Hope Park, and is available for private viewings.
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