Fullerton Road & Area 1956 65

A Memory of Addiscombe.

I lived at 2 Fullerton Road from 1956-1965, it was a cul-de-sac in those days. It was lined with Plain Trees with sticky leaves. There were a couple of factories at the end on the left hand side, the names fail me now. Garages were at the bottom of the road that backed onto gardens of big houses. Roy Turner, son of Mr & Mrs Turner, No. 15, always organised a sports day every year with fancy dress for young & old, we all looked forward to that, have photos somewhere. Roy sadly died of cancer. My mum & dad worked & Mrs Turner used to look after me in the school summer holidays.
An off licence was on the corner, it also had a small bar. I used to buy a penny biscuit, quite large, dry and hard, but loved them. There were a row of shops in Dartnell Road opposite Fullerton, a fruit & veg shop where items were weighed and put straight into your shopping bag, you could only get fruit & veg that was in season. Woods, the paper/tobacconist & sweet shop where I used to spend some of my weekly pocket money of 4 shillings. I also got a job doing a paper-round at Woods before school, and Brooks the general store. I remember biscuits sold loose in front of the counter in tin boxes and ham and spam was cut on the slicer. Everything was asked for over the counter and sat in little compartments behind. Tea & sugar was weighed up and put in blue paper bags for you. A chair was provided for the customer while Mr Brookes, in his white apron, got the groceries. Borit's the Bakers was on the corner of Kemerton/Dartnell Roads; I can still remember the smell of fresh bread baking; my mum worked there for a while. On the corner of Dartnell & Morland road there was a cafe. My brother and I had some lunches there when mum was working during school holiday times, and beside it a shoe repair shop. Dartnell Road had a big allotments with bindweed growing in the wooden fences. Another shop was also called Brooks, which sold paraffin for 2 shillings a gal. Further up there was a butchers and a couple other shops and then the laundry where steam use to raise from the drains in the road. Dartnell ran into Brampton Road and Davidson Road, where I went to school; it was an infants and senior school. I went to Woodside Junior school up along Morland Road which also had an R Whites factory. Dalmally Passage where I went to Brownies in the little scout hut. At the beginning of our road, on the right hand side was a workshop, just can`t remember the man's name. Bath Cottage was the first house, behind large wooden gates, then terraced houses from no. 1-32. A French lady called Nina lived at 14, her granddaughter came for a holiday, we all played with her. I remember playing with friends on my roller skates, taking our dolls in prams for a walk, I also took my budgie in the pram, he couldn`t fly! Ball games on the walls, bead swopping in our doorways, and games like bank, river, pond, what's the time Mr Wolf and letters in your name. Not forgetting Tin Can alley; a can was filled with some stones and closed, one used to throw it as far as possible and while a chosen person ran for it, the others used to run and hide. The person that got the can used to leave it in the middle of the road and try to find the others. If they spotted one, they would run back to the can and say,"I spy `name` behind the hedge 123", tapping the can as they said it.
The rag & bone man used to come round on his horse & cart, so did the coalman and Boxalls fruit & veg man, he used to have the arches at Windmill Bridge. If the horses left dung, Mr Beadle at No.29 use to collect it in a bucket and used it for fertilizer on his roses in the front garden. An icecream man used to come round on his 3 wheeled bike with an ice compartment on a Sunday afternoon, he sold Walls Ice cream that had pieces of ice in it and individual packs of ice cream to put between 2 wafers. We climbed the lamp-post outside no.5 and Mrs Witchlow used to tell us off, don`t know why!
You use to know everyone that lived there, the road was like one big family. Lets see if I remember them all; No1 lived the Morgans, I lived at 2, 3 Trinder, 4 Wanless, 5 Morgan after Mrs Witchlow, 6, 7, 8 Eglins, 9 Sam ? the cripple, 10 Davis, 11, 12, 13 Mrs Magill, 13a Pike family, 14 Nina, 15 Turner, 16, Huggett & Skinner families, 17, 18 Fillery, (Arthur Cheesecake) 19 Cox/Card, 20 Howe, 21 Cole, 22, 23 Card, 24, Amblin? 25, 26, 27 Indian family, 28, Pullen, 29 Bridge & Beadle, 30, Drewitt, 31 2 spinsters, 32 Comber. I may be wrong on some of the numbers, well it is a long time ago!! Mr Gant use to live in Bath Cottage then Mr & Mrs Batchelor.
School holidays used to seem so long, summers were hot and Christmas was just magic. On 5th November we used to have bonfires and fireworks in our own back gardens. When it snowed, I made an igloo at the side of the road, not many cars about. My dad had a motorbike & sidecar, then an Austin 10, I can still smell the leather in that car! And to top it all off, people use to leave their doors unlocked!! Lots of lovely memories while I was growing up.


Added 05 September 2012

#237974

Comments & Feedback

Add your comment

You must be signed-in to your Frith account to post a comment.

Sign-in or Register to post a Comment.

Sparked a Memory for you?

If this has sparked a memory, why not share it here?