Retford, Nottinghamshire

my days at Sir Frederick Milner 1942 -45

The teachers were `Zorra` Hardy,`Percy` Noble, `Gunner` Meadows, `Musha`Pitt and Harry Firth. The Headmaster was Mr Hewitt. Ken Barkworth used to come home on leave from the army and take us for PT in the hall and I used to box him.
My class mates were Donald Backhouse, Donald Levick ,Frank Taylor, Gordon Blake, Bert Mellors and Frank Wilson. I... [more]

WW11 Leeds evacuees.

I was one of so many 10 year olds that arrived in East Retford Sept 1939. I was so lucky to have been cared for by caring loving families in Retford for five years. The most happiest childhood memories of my life. I have cherished  those memories for the the last 69 years. God Bless East Retford.

Remembrance Day

It was in the mid 50s that I went with my Grandmother to the Remembrance Day services held at the War Memorial.  There were a group of WW1 veterans in a line and as a young child it was a surprise to me that they were crying.  When I grew up and learnt what had been the horror of that war... [more]

Remembrance Day

It was in the mid 50s that I went with my Grandmother to the Remembrance Day services held at the War Memorial.  There were a group of WW1 veterans in a line and as a young child it was a surprise to me that they were crying.  When I grew up and learnt what had been the horror of that war... [more]

Nottinghamshire Living Memories

A little further along Hospital Road the Chesterfield Canal passes under the road; the bridge was rebuilt some thirty years ago. This view looks towards the bridge from below West Retford Lock, and beyond is Bettison Wharf, the pantile-roofed late 18th-century canal warehouse. This has now gone, to be replaced by the caretaker's house for the Elizabethan High School, whose grounds are behind the fence on the left.

Nottinghamshire Living Memories

The Sir Frederick Milner School was built as a secondary modern school in the south- east of the town, amid a maze of narrow streets. In 1977, when the schools of Retford became comprehensive, it was renamed King Edward VI School, merging with the original grammar school which had been founded in the 1550s in Edward VI's reign. Rebuilt on London Road in the 1850s, the old grammar school buildings survive as the other campus of... [more]

Nottinghamshire Living Memories

The village of West Retford, with its own medieval parish church, St Michael's, lies on the west bank of the River Idle, and has long been absorbed into the town. Holy Trinity Hospital stands opposite the mainly 1669 West Retford Hall. Almshouses rather than a hospital in the modern sense, it was founded in 1671 and rebuilt in the 1820s with a central chapel of 1872. Until the 1970s, the elderly residents or 'brethren' wore cloaks when out and about in the town.