Working In Evesham Street

A Memory of Redditch.

I remember Evesham Street in Redditch in the early sixties very well. I was 15, had just left school, and was working at Liptons the grocers which was about half way up on the left just past the department store. There was a small chapel just opposite and also other grocery stores: Farrands, George Masons, the Home & Colonial stores. The Kingfisher coffee bar was on the corner, half way down, and the Co-op stores were further up. There was a wonderful greasy spoon cafe at the top end on the right, Smokey Joes.
I remember carnival days in September each year and the talent competitions held down by the old library ~ my sister Mary invariably won the singing contest! I never knew a town change quite so quickly or as dramatically as Redditch did back in the early 70's. I suppose that's progress but I do remember with fondness the town before the building of all the new estates: it was a nice town, a good town to grow up in. People knew each other and there seemed to be more of a community spirit. Now it seems a little souless.