My Childhood Bramley West Yorkshire Leeds England

A Memory of Bramley.

I must have around 7 years old when my mother used to take me along Bramley Town Street, where in those times it was back to back houses and shops. I was taken regularly to the barbers at the top of Town Street, next to the barbers was a police station. In the barbers I was sat onto a small plank across the arms to raise me up. Many kids in those days had a basin cut where the barber put a basin over your head and cut round the basin. I never understood why the barber when cutting my hair would go and serve men at the window, they came to buy a packet of Durex.
On Town St. was the cinema called the Lido "flee pit", Sat. afternoons were good. At the end of Town St. was the terminus, bus num. 77 turned round. Here was another cinema, the posh one, the Clifton.
Bramley had its own rugby league club which played at the Barley Mow, back of the Barley Mow pub, as kids we used to sneak through a hole in the fence and go and watch the game.
I remember being taken to the Bramley band social club over the st. from the Barley Mow. Around there was back to back houses.
In Bramley there was Yates cotton mill, you always knew who worked at the mill because they used to shout when they talked to you.
We used to catch the num. 77 bus from the Broadleas up to Bramley Town St & get off at the top of Waterloo Lane.
One of our favourite pastimes in school hols. was waiting for the thrift grocers van which you entered at the back & was open, we used to wait for it & get a ride up Waterloo Lane. The thrift HQ was at Kirkstall, it's now a BHS store, opposite Archie Gordon sports field.
We spent many happy hours in Bramley Fall Park at the side of Leeds & Bradford Rd. We would spend all day down there in the summer hols. At the bottom was the Leeds & Liverpool canal where we would play on Newley Locks, Kirkstall Locks, get rides on barges, play hide & seek, climb trees, make dens, go swimming in the canal with an old inner tube found somewhere or make a raft which just about stayed afloat.
There used to be a gala in Bramley Fall Park in the summer which was very exciting for us kids.
I remember in November approaching bonfire night we used to go chumping (collecting firewood) in Bramley Fall Wood & cut down silver birch, small trees, & carry them back home over our shoulders over the main Leeds & Bradford Rd.
Where I lived in Bramley - the Sanford estate - looking back all the neighbours knew each other & all their kids.
Broadlea Gardens was where I was brought up at the top of the hill, on this hill was a big tree with a fence round it. If you climbed the tree you would be shouted down. We used to play cricket in the street, three bricks as wickets & 3 gardens & you were out. At the base of the big tree we used to play marbles every summer's night, depending on the season it would be whipping tops or hop scotch. We would go hedge hopping through gardens or play kick out can in the street.
A big favourite for kids was to make a bogie, a good set of pram wheels & some wood and away you went.
When bonfire night came round we used to go raiding at night and pinch other people's logs. Very often you would hear screams of raiders which happened, if you were seen you ran like hell or you would get thumped.
We lived in a 4 bed council house with a massive garden, 4 tall big trees, with just a cast iron fire range for heatng and cooking. We used to take the steel oven plates to bed in winter to warm the bed up, they were wrapped up in a blanket.
Around the streets were gas lamps. There used to be a man with a long stick come round very early on a morning & knock people up by tapping on windows.
At the bottom of Broadlea Gardens were the shops, there was a baker who made his own bread, butcher, fish & chip shop, off licence where you could buy beer if you took your own jug, & various other  shops. There was a public telephone box where you put in I think 4d old money & "a" & "b" buttons. If you ever saw a policeman you ran like hell, depending who he was & what mood he was in he would give you a clout round your ears. At the bottom of Broadlea Hill was Leeds & Bradford Rd, at the side of the road were rhubarb fields or "tuskey", we used to go & nick the rhubarb when in season, all the mothers made rhubarb pie or eat it out of newspaper with sugar. I think these fields were owned by a farmer called Briggs & he used to chase us if we walked through his fields to the canal, but not in winter where he had one field with a big hill where we went sledging. In those days we always had big snow falls, if we weren't sledging we would be making slides down the middle of the roads, there weren't many cars about in those days. It normally took days for the council to come out & spread sand by shovel, or people put ashes down from their coal fires.
Oh the memories.