Balderton, Nottinghamshire

Childhood

By this point I was ten years old. I rememder going fishing with a net on a pole for sticklebacks just round the back of my house which was in Coging Close, there was a huge area of fields with a stream running by it. I also remember that just round the corner from us was an old run-down farm but it still worked, you could go and buy milk for 5 pence and eggs, and it had a huge apple tree in a field at the side of it that the old woman wuold let you help yourselves to.

Pastures Avenue, Nottingham

I remember Clifton in a different light. We lived at 17 Pastures Avenue during 1966/7, my brother or one of them, he's the youngest, was born there. I met my half sisters and brothers there. I have always liked animals and started to collect farm animals. When I met one of my half sisters, she was also into farm animals. We started to collect them in the hundreds. Our father, good with his hands, built us a farmyard out of wood, it had a pretend duck pond, painted blue, and he made some stables for us. Sadly they are all gone now. I would play in the front garden and use the grass as fields. There was a bush under the window that had bright pink and purple flowers, years later I found out it was a Fuschia. My school was Pastures Avenue I think, right at the bottom. Across Farnborough Road, there are a couple rows of houses with just a pathway and grass, my cousins lived there.
I can also remember one night we all went to the chippy at the top of Farnborough Road and on the way back some boy threw builders' lime or sand, which got into my left eye. So I ended at the hospital (maybe eye clinic), where it was washed out.
I also remember the family break up. We went to live with my mum's sister and dad's brother on Whitegate. My youngest sister and brother and mum, with me.
I went to Whitegate primary for a short while, I still have the old photo, my hair cut very short.
I moved there for a few years, just before my son was born, 37 Kiisby Road, a flat with a tree outside the bedroom window and the park next door. My son took his first steps there and when he could walk reasonably well, we would walk to the park. Sometimes I had to carry him and his wooden brick trolley back again.
The shops were few and far between then and when I moved there in the late 1980s and up till we left there was still few shops.
I do remember going through the village and down to the Trent. Yhe large hill was tiring coming back up, but it was close to the countryside.
I think the worst part of Clifton is the main road. It has always been a traffic problem, with miles of cars queuing to get in or out of Nottingham. When they do build the new road. it will be fifty years too late.
Another memory I have of Clifton was the winter of 1990 or 1991, when it snowed so bad that it took down power lines and phone lines. Because we had an electric cooker then, we couldn't cook, so we travelled into town, had a lovely meal at a pub, down the side of the council house. Because I was concerned for my mum at Snapewood, I had to find a working phone. Victoria Centre had one and when talking to mum, she asked us how we was going to get home. I replied bus, then she hit me with a bombahell - the buses had stopped running while we had been in the pub.
We ended up walking home, through the Meadows, across the bridge and up to our flat. I was frozen by then, it's a wonder I never got ill.
The electric came on a couple days later and I will never forget it.

Great grandad's shop,

Ernest C Rick was my Great Grandmother's first husband. He owned this Gents Outfitters shop in Stodman Street, now it is Bakers Oven. I don't really have any information about him, only that he married Florence and had 2 sons. If anyone knows any more, please feel free to leave comments.

Newark market

I lived at the RAF camp at Coddington during my teens. I went to Sconce Hills school & later worked at Alec W. Adams in Lombard Street. In those days, as office workers we were required to work on Saturday mornings and afterwards, my friend & I would invariably walk round the marketplace before catching the bus home. If we missed the bus, they were few & far between in those days & many is the times we had to walk up Beacon Hill in all weathers! One of my brothers was born in Coddington & indeed, I was Christened at Coddington Church! (better late than never!) I love Newark still & although I don't get the chance to go back for a visit very often now, I often think of the lovely times & good friends I made there.