Brings Back Memories Of My Childhool.

I remember the post office and blurton club across the road, also the coop which was up past the railway bridge on the left, opposite was a lane that lead the the junior scool.

I remember this shop in Blurton. In about 1956/7 when it closed I was asked to visit all their newspaper customers in Blurton Road and the local housing estate to invite them to have their newspapers from Lowells in Bluron Road, Holly Bush. I finished Lowells when I left school in 1958 and when I went to work at Hem Heath colliery

My mother was one of the three Critchlow sisters. The two unmarried sisters lived at home ,worked in the shop and house. There were several Critchlow brothers who lived at home but went out to work. My grandfather lived in to his late 90s and worked on his garden until the end. The bus stop was named Critchlow's corner after my grandmother, who opened, and ran the shop until she was older. The paper routes finished many years before the shop and post office closed. I had been away from Stoke for many years but visited in 1970 to see my aunts, the shop was open then. I was back in the area a couple of years ago and cried to see everything gone.
I had so many memories of playing in the garden with my Grand father and Aunt Dorothy. The trains would slow down over the bridge , I would wave to the driver ,he would always wave back.
I was christened in the local church with Crithchlows as my god parents.

The photo of Church Road showing the Vauxhall car in the foreground is in front of No. 95. The car behind it is my Father’s Vanguard parked outside No. 89, the house I grew up in (born in Feb 1960) and am currently living in now.