Stretford, Barkway Road.

Upper Chorlton Road c1955
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I loved living in Stretfrod, although I lived at the other end of Stretford, on the Urmston boundary. I can remember those days very well. My mum had an account at Cromptons grocery shop, where she would get most of her shopping and pay at the end of the week. I would pop into the shop now and again and buy something like a bag of broken biscuits, then say, put it on the book please, my mum would go mad when she found out.
We used to play most of the time in the meadows at the back of Urmston Lane, I knew every path and every tree like the back of my hand. We would go to see the horses at Hilliam farm, and Cherry tree farm on Stretford road Urmston, or just wander around the meadows having one adventure after another.
Barkway road was the one of the safest and friendliest places you could live in those days. Although some of the people on Urmston lane were a bit snobby in the posh houses. I was playing with a friend one day in her wendy house, when her mother came out and said to my friend, "Jane, how many times have I got to tell you not to associate yourself with the people from the council estate", needless to say I didn't go round again. But most people were really nice and caring.
Moss park school was great, we used to have a teacher called Miss Fenilong, from New Zealand. She used to show us film shows of where she came from, and take us around Moss Park and teach us all about the different trees in the park, but eventually she went back to New Zealand. I loved it at that school.
The difference between those days (fifties and sixties) and now, are worlds apart.