Grangefield Industrial Estate, West Yorkshire

Mrs Porrit's

Mrs Porrit's dance hall!  That's a name to stir memories.  Saturday nights at Mrs Porrit's, strict tempo dancing with just a spot of rock and roll, no drinking in the coverted chapel and an old black and white telly in a back room where the lads disappeared to watch wrestling.
What happened to the IN-CROWD who quickstepped, foxtrotted and waltzed until... [more]

Pattern weaving at Reuben Gaunts mill

My dad got me a job as a trainee pattern weaver at Gaunts mill in the main street of Farsley. I was 16/17 at the time. I learned a lot in that 18 months or so and I also met a beautiful girl called Doreen Pankhurst, pity is I let her go... The smell of the mouse urine in the shed... [more]

Bramley Memories and Me

I lived next door to Mr Dales newsagents on Highfield Road in Bramley. Opposite were rows of terraces in those days with a shop on the end of each terrace. A chip shop on the end of the first row and a newsagents and general store on the end of another - Bowers? I seem to remember. The Barley Mow pub... [more]

My childhood - Bramley/West Yorkshire/Leeds/England.

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... [more]

Anticipating a Memory of Kirkstall Abbey

In among my family genealogical records is a note that an ancestor of mine named Richard de Berecrofte gave lands to Kirkstall Abbey in the 12th century.  I am SO looking forward to visiting the Abbey next year and taking my own pictures of it!
It is my understanding that my ancestors left the Cliviger area about 1650 for Boston, MA.... [more]

Catching the train to Leeds

I was born in 1960 within a short walk of this photo. The scene is still clearly recognisable, although the wooden station building spanning the bridge and the steps leading down to the station were demolished and replaced (sometime in the early 1970s?)

Mum would walk to the station with my little sister in a big pushchair, my brother and... [more]

In 1973 to 1977

I was 7yrs old when I visited this place with my mum and sister which was (1973) and I was told this was going to be my home for a while because mum was too ill to look after me...it was called Springfield boarding school and although I hated it at first because I got homesick I settled in and... [more]

4 Gallaway Road, Greengates

I remember buying fish and chips in Gallaway Road, Greengates 1955+. Unknown to me at that time this fish shop used to a greengrocer's shop owned by my grandfather Lister Carter around 1935/40. My father was born at number 4 Gallaway Road in 1910, 10 yards from the fish shop (now a private home). No 4 is now a beautifully renovated... [more]