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Dodleston memories

Here are memories of Dodleston and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Dodleston or a Dodleston photo.

The Best Years

We moved to Dodleston in 1975 and left sadly in 1998. They were the happiest years. My children went to the villiage school and there were just 12 children then. The community feeling was great and the Whelmar estate hadn't been built. The community used to go to the field at the back of St. Mary's Road and we used to play cricket. In the winter my husband and Ken Davey (who were cowmen and worked for John Lloyd at Moat Farm) used to organise a disco in the old village hall and we used to bake scones and make baked potatoes to take down. Sometimes they used to organise a Junior Disco which all the village children thought was great. My husband also used to take the boys for football on a Wednesday afternoon with the Headmistress's permission, Mrs. Robinson. The community spirit was very strong and supportive. They were the best days and I really miss the village although things have... Read more

Memories of Cheshire

Living in The Village

My family have lived in Eccleston for 45 years plus. My sister was born in the Manor House in the village itself some 39 years ago, she will kill me for that, at this point it was always said that her and Mr Wood were the only 2 living people to be born in the village and to this day she still holds on to this. The village was a fantastic place to grown up, we knew everyone and everyone knew us as kids. In the days without telephones, my mum would lean out of the window (once we had moved to the top of the village) and shout us in for tea, if we hadn't heard her we would find out as someone would let us know. We spent years walking down by the river, climbing the hollow oak tree down there, but I don't think once any of us went in to the river knowing the undercurrent and what had floated pasted in the years gone by. I... Read more

REV. KENNETH V. (Kenny) POVEY  C of E

I am trying to find Kenny Povey, his mother lived in Little Sutton, Kenny was in Neston area, then I was told he was in Blacon area and then moved down south, would anyone have any idea of where he would be?
Many thanks,
Valerie Waring

English at Heart

St Mary-Without-The-Walls 1906
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I am an American who went to school in Chester in 1966/67. Rather, should I say, I was registered for school at Chester College. However, I can't say I was actually in the building very often. There just always seemed to be somewhere else to go, and something more interesting to see instead.

I arrived in Chester just as the hippies were raising their flowered heads back here in the beach areas of southern California where I came from, which had interested my new friends in Chester. I remember my new English friend Tristin wearing very, very long hair (for 1966) a burlap caftan and sandles, riding a donkey from the college across the Dee bridge to the Cathedral, while the rest of us followed chanting and waving branches that were supposed to resemble palm fronds of some sort. As I recall, we were the first hippies in Chester, but then I also seem to recall that the very next day we went right back to being Mods.... Read more

Chester in The 1960s And 1970s

St Mary-Without-The-Walls 1906
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Chester for me, in the 1960s, was, first, the Museum.  It was a full day out.  The C4 or C3 bus from Overpool or the C6 from Rivacre, small pack of sandwiches and some orange squash in my school haversack and I could spend the day with the Roman Army. Having a very eidetic imagination (I think in pictures) it was easy for me to see those Roman Soldiers marching along.
Later it was rowing with E Port Grammar School where I was a pupil and then the 70s arrived and we had left school and the ports of call then were The Kings Head in Lower Bridge Street, The Boathouse and Quaintways. I became an apprentice watchmaker with W Hyde and Co in Ellesmere Port and often had to go to Chester to collect and deliver engraving to Mr Shoebruck and jewellery repairs to Irwins.
In 1983 I set up a watch and clock repairs workshop above Irwin's Jewellers at the top of Northgate Street and stayed until 1984... Read more

Salmon Fishing And Greenaway Street, Handbridge

St Mary-Without-The-Walls 1906
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I remember my Grandma telling me that our ancestors used to make garments for the salmon fishers of the Dee. My Grandfather was born at no 11 Handbridge in 187? and he and his sons and grandsons were and are Freemen of the City of Chester and belong to the Merchant Taylors' Guild. I believe that it is now possible for female children to become Freewomen

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