Favourite Memories
Reconnecting with our shared local history.
For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.
Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.
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Search for your favourite UK places and read memories of the local area in days gone by.
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Tips & Ideas
Not sure what to write? It's easy - just think of a place that brings back a memory for you and write about:
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How the location features in your personal history?
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The memories this place inspires for you?
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Stories about the community, its history and people?
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People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
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Has it changed over the years?
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How does it feel, seeing these places again, as they used to look?
This week's Places
Here are some of the places people are talking about in our Share Your Memories community this week:
...and hundreds more!
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Displaying Memories 801 - 850 of 2029 in total
I started work on the coal motor when I was 15 yrs old. The wagon had 4 compartments and so carried 4 loads of coal. When the driver raised the back of the wagon I ran back with my hammer and knocked out the pin holding the back shut, and out poured the coal. The driver's name was Frank Heppel who during WWII had served on HMS Ajax or Achilies. The boss at the depot was a man with a bad leg called ...see more
Before becoming the home of George Harrison of the Beatles, Friar Park was run as a school by sisters of the St. John Bosco order. This was my first school and I remember having to walk all the way to the main door along the winding drive each morning, passing by the huge rhododendron bushes which lined each side. As I approached the large arched entrance door, shown in the photograph above, I could see the ...see more
Many holidays were spent by me and my brother in Grainthorpe during the 50's and 60's with my grandparents. They lived in Buttgate, Ben and Bertha Barfield and my auntie, Winnie Barfield. Many happy memories, walking to Soubys for a bottle of dandelion and burdock, there was a little fish shop next to my grandparents house, right on the roadside. An outside toilet and the well in the garden, the well ran ...see more
My memories are of the hairdressing salon in Clare Road. It had only been open for a short while. All the shops were new. I went to work there as a hairdresser's apprentice in April 1959. My first job after leaving school. The salon was called Joan Basten. Joan Basten was the owner and she and her husband, Dennis, had a lovely flat upstairs, really 1950s modern. I worked at the salon till 1962. It was very busy; we had ...see more
That plane was bright blue! As far as I can remember, the pilot was Polish - left over from the war. He used to keep the plane at the airport, and give stunning free acrobatic displays on bright sunny days. For special events, like the village fete, he would give short flights. My mum paid for me and my brother to have one once - first time I'd ever flown. When we first moved to Lympne (very near the ...see more
I lived at Cotton Valley Farm from 1955 until 1959 with my parents, Reg and Jenny Foster, and my five brothers, before we then moved to a small village called Hardmead end of February 1959; my mother is still living there. I was then aged four years and would really like to hear from anyone who has any information or photos of Cotton Valley Farm around that time, I can remember my parents pushing us in prams ...see more
I was also a pupil at Friar Park from 1955 to 1962. I have nothing but wonderful memories of this amazing school. As a little girl the endless drive with rhododendron bushes eventually opening into this huge circle where an Edwardian Gothic mansion stood, will always be etched in my memory. The incredible sweep of the lawns on the West Terrace leading down to carefully contrived pools and bridges which ...see more
I have no photo unfortunately, just memories. I attended the primary school in Jordans from 1947 to 1951, I then progressed to the RGS in Wycombe. The headmistress was Mrs Morley, the other teacher was Miss Shepherd (there were only two!) We had a tiny kitchen in the middle of the building for mid-day meals and the older children had to help wash up afterwards. We had lessons in gardening until someone threw a fork into ...see more
My memories of bath times goes back to when Mum would once a week fill the copper again, in the corner of the scullery. The copper was built of bricks if I remember, with a tin liner, below was an opening, where you would light a fire which would heat the water, the copper would also be used for mum's washing, which there was a lot of, having seven boys and four girls.
Mum would start to bath us all one at a time, ...see more
This photo appears at the back of Essex Living Memories (pages 112 - 113) and in "I Remember When ... Memories of Britain (page 134)". The two ladies in the foreground with the prams appear familiar - The lady on the left may be Mrs Peagram with her son Colin in the pram, the lady on the right could be Mrs Hockley with her son, Kenneth. The couple with the child in the pushchair outside the butchers looks ...see more
As a schoolboy aged 11 of Kings School, Macclesfield I acquired a summer holiday job at Old Hall Farm, run at the time by farmer Robert Young and his wife Madge. As a consequence I spent weekends and holidays there for the next 2 or 3 years. I learned to drive the tractor of which he was very proud, a David Brown 990 Cropmaster Diesel, usually driven by Patrick Joseph O´Donoghue or Tresler Sandbach who lived ...see more
Have to say reading the entries of everyone’s memories is simply wonderful. Both my parents grew up in Mitcham, my father John Stockley who was Mitcham born and bred, married my mother Jean Nightingale in the church in Church Road back in 1962 (I think). My grandmother owned a café on the corner of Barron’s Grove and opposite Barron’s Court where she and my grandfather lived. I think it’s now a car showroom, or was in ...see more
I believe the white building to the centre left in picture is the Thompson & Taylor garage. I worked there briefly (about 1 year), the manager then was a Huw Edwards? I think, but the name of T & T was very well known in motor racing circles & particularly with the nearby Brooklands motor racing circuit. There was a huge old car Napier Railton I think, memory going, which was kept in the showroom & with ...see more
I have a copy of the Meeting Street photo as the girl standing in the road (with the black sleeve) is my Grandmother SARAH POWE (nee Lesley). The family house was at 29 Meeting Street just out of view. Grandmother also ran the BELL INN in Appledore for a number of years and on retirement moved back into Number 29. Sarah and grandad BILL POWE had 2 daughters, Louise, my mother, and Ruby. Sadly Sarah passed away in ...see more
There was no running hot water, no gas, no bathroom and no flushing toilets. Electricity was used for lighting and if you were lucky, a wireless set. Most sets were run from accumulators, a sort of battery, which you had to take to the shop and pay to be recharged.
Bath time was when the tin bath hanging up outside was brought in, placed in front of the fire and filled with water heated from the range. Two or three ...see more
Hello. I was born at Crumpsall Hospital 1945 and lived at 59 Dalton St, for seven years. Mother is named Eileen and dad was Fred. I had an older sister Barbara. My Aunty Peggy and Uncle John lived a few doors down - they had three sons, Bob, Malcom and Ian. My dad worked on the docks and I remember well, I think it was the lamp lighter coming to wake him up in the early hours of the morning by tapping on ...see more
What memories this building holds. It gave the opportunity for a lot of teenagers to have their first Saturday night outs. It usually cost 1s 6d entrance fee unless there was a fairly well known group appearing that night then it was 2s 6d. I attended Redhill Tech (my surname then was Watts) and worked on a Saturday in Woolies on the sweet counter and most of the day was spent chatting to various friends who used ...see more
I was brought up at Palace How and the gentleman with the moustache is my late father, Leslie Leo Cunningham. We had the village Post Office and my late mother, Mary Anne Cunningham, was the Postmistress - I have a show display with three of the photos on, which we used to have hanging in the Post Office for customers to see. Also in the photo is the Huntsman, (?) Hardisty (for the minute his first name has ...see more
I can remember living at Black Park in a time when, although not so long ago, we didnt have any electric or running hot water. I lived with mum and dad in a row of cottages. My dad worked down the nearby pit and every day came home black, due to no showers there. My mum had to fill pans with water and put them on the fire to fill a tin bath which my dad sat in, in front of the fire to get washed. There was ...see more
It's funny how we forget. I had forgotten all about this pool until I saw this picture. I shouldn't have though I still have the scares to prove I was there. If I remember correctly there was a waterfall in the shallow pool that was covered with some type of sharp pea shingle. I was climbing on the side of it, just as my mum called to me to get down I fell and slid down the side cutt my left knee ...see more
My father was a Aircraft Engineer for K.L.M. He started as an apprentice at Croydon Airport in 1934. After the second world war, Croydon was getting too small for the larger aircraft coming along, so K.L.M. moved to the then new London Airport and we moved with them. In 1948 we moved into 31 Byron Avenue, my step mother and my half sister, my half brother Neil was born there in 1950. I went ...see more
Delighted to find photographs of the Rivacre Lido. I moved to Canada in 1966 after being born and raised in Liverpool. Most Sundays in summer my late parents and their friends' took us kids to a variety of outdoor lidos/swimming pools in and around Merseyside. Rivacre Valley stands out from the rest as being the most relaxing lido for the adults in our group, and for vivid memories of the brickwork, plants and flowers surrounding the pool.
When I was 8 and my brother 10, we went to live in Bawdrip for a short while with my dad who was working there at the time. He took us to stay with an elderly couple, Mr and Milliner, where he was lodging and they looked after us while my dad was at work. (This would not have been easy as we argued most of the time!) Their house was called Bitham Bungalow and they had a golden labrador called Sandy. My brother drew ...see more
We moved to Ponteland in 1940 from North Shields in a bid to 'escape' the ever increasing air raids on Tyneside. We first lived on the North Road and I attended Coates Endowed School (headmaster, Mr Parker) and later the 'top' school (headmaster, Mr Stokoe), as it was known then before moving on to College. I used to help out at the local Post Office at the weekends assisting the postmaster, ...see more
Wow - what a shock! I don't know how that message came to be in this site. The only thing I can think of is that I wrote a note on the `Cefn Mawr` site and it said it was full up....shame! I saw the name Keith Butt and couldn't believe what I was reading...but how wonderful to know that you remember me. I was a big fan of your Dad, such a fantastic character and good fun too. I worked in the Bookies next ...see more
I attended Scotland Hill School from 1940 to 1946, after which I moved to Crowthorne C of E School. I have many memories of Scotland Hill School, Mr Shanks the Headmaster did not take any fooling around, his cane often warmed our hands for what seemed to us minor problems, but he was a fair person really. The school dinners were interesting; they used to be delivered in metal containers in a van to the ...see more
I attended St John's from 1952 to 1959. This was an all girl's church school with about 60 children in three classrooms, with a hall where we had dinner and danced to the BBC's "Music and Movement". We used another hall across the road for our PE lessons. To start with I was in the infant's classroom at the front of the school where we used to have a nap in the afternoon after listening to ...see more
I love this place and have been lucky enough to visit Inch Kenneth and the chapel a number of times over the past few years. I'm not a religous person but just being around the chapel and burial ground is special to me. I dont know why this is, but this place is very calming for me and I could sit for hours on my own and just imagine what things were like in the distant past. I could go on and on but it is ...see more
I was born in Calverley in 1948. I lived with my mother, father and brother (Ernest). I attended Calverley Church School. I played down in the woods most of the time, with my brother and our friends. My brother was a bully with everyone that he came across, especially me. He used to tell me to climb down the Quarry to help him collect birds eggs, I was only 5 or 6 at the time. I have lovely memories of playing ...see more
Maggie Cook had a sweet shop at the bottom of Milton Road. She would have done well today with the Garnock Academy business but she served us well and we all have our favourite moments. Maggie was small and petite and in order to access the top shelf she used a ladder. Six of us went in one day and the first asked for four ounces of anniseed balls. Maggie replaced the sweets on the top shelf and asked the next ...see more
My memory of Budleigh Salterton is spending a couple of months or so at a childrens convalescent home in the spring/early summer of 1955. I revisited the town a few years back to find that the old childrens home building is now a hotel and named Tidwell Manor. I was 6 years old, recovering from meningitis and to find myself in such a wonderous and tranquil part of the world was quite truly ...see more
Good times. No electric, log fires, paraffin lamps, everything cooked on the old faithful black lead grate which I had to clean every week.
No running water - my job every night when I got home from school was to get the yoke off the wall and fetch two buckets of drinking water from a communial pump at the end of the lane. The water got to the pump from a fresh water spring a mile away, this was pumped up ...see more
Hi my name is Robert Elliott, shortly after marrying Sheila (nee Bissell) in 1963 we moved onto the new housing estate on Cedar Drive. I had lived in a council house in Brook Street, Erith. Not only did we live in a brand new house, we just loved the surrounding countryside. I commuted into Victoria Station and we started our family along with many other newly weds. It became known as Nappie Valley- a great ...see more
My memory of Syderstone is in October of 1951. I left my home in Leicester as the bride of a young man who was in the USAF. He had been my High School pen-friend and was stationed at RAF Sculthorpe. I left my home for Norfolk one week after my wedding but unfortunately my husband had been unable to find us a house to rent. In desperation we rented a room at the local pub in Syderstone. I can't recall the name of the ...see more
I used to go every summer school holiday to my great aunt & uncle's cottage [ Elm Tree Cottage]. I visited last month and it is still there in excellent condition.
I remember harvest time, shire horses, haystacks, threshers and combine harvesters, cold tea in the hedge in a quart beer bottle for a refreshing drink.
Chopping sticks for kindling in the shed. The milkman coming round with a small churn ...see more
Yay! I've found my brother (Mike Targett) here! Yep, I'm Mike's brother and one of the Shorwell's Vicars' sons 1972-1980. Growing up in Shorwell was certainly idillic, carefree, and we were very spoilt in our surroundings. The locals were extremely supportive of us and gave my brother and I tremendous memories of which we will never forget. Local characters have been cemented into our minds ...see more
On Sunday evenings my friend Duncan and I had to go from Crook to Fir Tree to 'blow the organ' in the little chapel. Our station for this was a tiny room over the chapel and the process was to pump a handle up and down to provide air for the organ. Sometimes we might be a bit remiss and the music would start to die away and we would pump frantically to restore pressure - and endure the black looks after ...see more
Joyce and I were devoted to each other, trouble was her mother and father had taken a dislike to me feeling I was beneath their status and made it clear that I wasn't wanted. We were both 19 and in no financial condition to elope though we did intend to marry sometime - we were unofficially engaged. Her parents took her away for a fortnight's holiday to Niton and we arranged that I would come over on the ferry with ...see more
I too, remember this bridge well and with affection from my early childhood. We lived in Brokengate Lane up near Tatling End, but cousins lived actually in the village. During the war, my mother and I used to walk down to here carrying a battery/accumulator for our radio - we used to have to have it charged up, and this was done at a little car work-shop situated just this side of the photo on the left. ...see more
I was born in London in 1938. When war broke out the following year my father sent my mother and myself down to Devon but soon after that he, and many of his regimental colleagues in the Army, rented a large country house in Horney Common and put the mothers and children there for the duration of the war. It was pure bliss as a child - there was the company and fun of other children in the house and ...see more
Ty Mawr Farm is situated on the breast of the Betws Mountain overlooking the village of Gwaun Cae Gurwen. The well known Welsh actress Sian Phillips was born there in 1933. In the 1950s and 60s it was occupied by the Campbell Family who were related to me on my father's side. When I was in my early teens I stayed there for part of the summer holidays. The walk from the bus stop to the farm, although tiring ...see more
My brother and I were evacuated to Wiltshire during the middle of WW2 - he staying with two very dear old ladies, and me with my aunt and her two children whilst her husband was away in the Air Force. They were from Harrow and we were from Wembley. The house was about half way between Pewsey and Oare, on the main road. The Convoys of troops passed by the house, and my aunt and the neighbours used to take tea and ...see more
In the late thirties, my mother worked as a dispatcher in Stuarts Bakery in Church Street just down from the junction with Randolph Street. This building has been closed down now for many years.
In the fifties, I would travel with my parents from London to Buckhaven every year. This originally was by SMT coach, once by train and by 1952 by car. My father kept his car in a garage ...see more
I used to visit Bedfield every summer, and stayed at Joan and Jack Fairweather's house with my mum and brother, Jeremy. The house was one of the council houses just up the road from The Dog pub. We used to go and get a jug of beer for the men; we used to knock on the side window and take the rather heavy jug. The butcher from Fram came twice a week, the baker and he used to have sweets; we happily looked forward to ...see more
I lived in Sandy between about 1963 and 1979 and have seen changes even in that short time. It was a fairly quiet village when we first came in spite of the adjacent A1. I went to St Swithuns school in St Neots Road, then Sandy County Primary School and Sandye Place (Sec Mod) school. There wasn't an awful lot to do in those days, only the rec' or the Sandhills to go and play. The old corn mill was still standing, but ...see more
I grew up in Hewson street, my parents were Peggy and Ernie Gills and we lived in our grandparents house (Meggie and Bill (Scotty) Jackson). I loved a Sunday when all the family would call to see us - the tiny flat would burst at the seams. We were sent to the shop on the corner of the street called Robbies, for broken bicuits and loose butter. We would play in the lane for hours, or go to the park,and then home ...see more
I was born in Walker 1946 to be accurate. They were slums even though the women did their best to keep them clean and rodent free. I remember my mum doing the washing in the wash-house in the back yard, she had to start a fire under this concrete bowl thing and fill it with water from the tap in the back yard. There were 4 families to a yard; if you lived in an upstairs flat you had an inside tap but the ...see more
Kennoway is the place that I have fond memories off and l value, guard and defend our secret village. Memories of the primary school, playing football in the playground, going to the school via the dump and coming home via the dump with my friend Alfi. I have to say, I was a happy wee boy building boogies and bikes from what we found along with our weekly outing to the local dump at Cotlands Park with the Kelly’s and Jimmy ...see more
I remember growing up on Milton Road. Most of the families moved in at the same time, we were mostly from Scotland, our dads came to Doncaster to work in the coal mines. All our neighbours were friends, all the kids played together regardless of thier age; rounders, running round the block, kirby, hide n seek. We were out from morning to night, only going home for food. I have great memories of growing up ...see more
We used to have lovely picnics, mum took sandwiches and some pop in a bottle, a towel and a flannel to wipe dirty hands and faces. We spend all day paddling and catching minnows with our net. My brother Tom always used to send a model boat out and they usually got stuck or sunk by a wave !
