A Wonderful Time In Copper Street

A Memory of Collyhurst.

My name is Carole McCarthy (nee MALONE) I was born in December 1951 in a maternity unit on Rochdale Road near to the Embassy Club. I lived in Copper Street in Collyhurst which had Barney's at the bottom of the street and the Osbourne House at the top of the street on the other side of Rochdale Road. There was a herbalist on my side of the road and I thought I was very grown up when my friends and I went in and had hot vimto and sat on the wooden benches. Further along the road was a toffee shop, I think it was called Stovers, it had big metal boxes into which all the little bits of left over sweets were put and we used to go in and ask for twopenny worth of waste. It was great cause you never knew what sweet you would get to taste. I went to St Patrick's School until the age of 11 when along with most of the area, we had to move due to the 'slum clearance'. I take great offence to this phrase, I have nothing but wonderful childhood memories of Collyhurst. I remember some of the kids in my street, Sandra Early, Maria Stewart, David Armstrong, Bily & David Winters and another family who lived next door to the Winters who had sons called Barry and Roley (not sure of the spelling). On Friday nights I can remember the girls coming from the factory with their hair in rollers ready for the night out and they would be singing the pop song of the day cause in them days the radio was played in the factories.
My grandad was well known, he was called Jimmy Harrison. He was a fighter (boxer) and he also was a bookie, which I think was illegal at the time, I think he used to give the local bobby a back hander to look the other way.
Does anyone remember Canon Early. I used to hate going to confession, he used to lift the curtain to see who was speaking and I think I used to make up things I had done so that I had something to confess.
At Christmas time my grandmother took me and my cousin into town to see the christmas lights and Lewis's always had a fantastic Christmas scene in the window, and we'd buy hot chestnuts.