Manchester Road

A Memory of Bradford.

Born in Ryan Street. I remember walking all the way down Manchester Road to St Joseph's Infant School, which at that time was on Grafton Street and part of the Girls School, it seemed to take ages, we walked past all the pubs and shops a real hive of activity. There were 40 pubs on Manchester Road and a brewery!
I then moved to St Joseph's on Clayton Lane and the church on Pakington Street. The new infant huts there and the Boys' School at the side with the playground on the roof! They knocked the Girls' School down and we all had to mix!
I can remember the great windy night in the late 1950s when the roof of the factory on the corner of Manchester Road and Stirton Street blew off, we had to walk past it to school, Dad had to walk us to school that day because of the winds.
I remember the Towers Picture House, Ryan Street Swimming Baths, and Carlton Picture House where we used to go on a Saturday morning to watch the Saturday Matinee. I remember we used to go pinching apples from a garden on Donisthope Street before we went in!
I also remember playing whipping tops and colouring in the tops with chalk, and playing Hop Scotch and marking the street with numbers. I remember my dad making me and my brother our first stilts to walk over the cobbles and falling off them.
I remember walking all the way to my Nan's and Grand Nana's houses over Listerhills, down the back of Longside Lane and all the back to backs and mills. And the big compulsory purchase of all the house by the council for new housing down Manchester Road and West Bowling and Listerhills.
I can remember a lovely fish & chips shop by the side of the Old Odeon Cinema at the bottom of Manchester Road, and the smell of them when we stood in the trolley bus queue for a trolley back up Manchester Road. I also remember Pie Herberts on our way over to Manningham Park. Oh I could go on and on.