Before The Motorway

A Memory of Branton.

We lived in Branton upto 1978 for 15yrs in St Vincent's Ave. As children we played in the Windmill at the top of the road, there was a staircase that ran to the top floor and then you went through a hatch onto this top level. The house in front of it was a working farm and was then demolished, a builder called Jack Moss built the present one.

The road to Doncaster out of this side of the village was a little winding one with a ditch on the left side and the school was just to the right of the present roundabout going into Old Cantley. One winter mum took us to school in dad's new car, a Triumph Vitesse, and we ended upside down in the ditch because of the ice, dad was not happy when mum told him about the accident.

We played on the new motorway when it was being made, the best time was when the workers finished for the day and we could play on the giant tipper lorries and earth scrapers, keeping an eye out for the security guard who struck fear into small boys, and I was caught by him once, we were super vigilant after that. The sand and dirt off the motorway, when it was being levelled, used to get into our house and mum kept all the windows and doors closed, it got very, very hot inside that summer.

Before the moterway we walked to Old Cantley down Mill Lane to the shop/post office opposite the end of Mill Lane which was in one of the little row of terraced houses.

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