My Salford Days From 1953

A Memory of Salford.

I have very fond memories of Salford. I first lived in Franklin St, Ordsall, until I was about 4 or 5 years old. I recall the pub on the corner and the church at the other end. I lived on the landings facing the resevoirs. I recall going to see the famiy doctor Yonace. who was a lovely man.
From there we moved to Vere St, one house up from the dock gates. My dad was a docker. The CWS was also just off our street. I think it was a box factory.
I recall playing out for hours and hours exploring Mode wheel and Weaste cemetary where we had a tyre swing near the canal. I recall our treat was to get the number 15 bus from Eccles New road and go to Worsley Woods for the day. It was another world from where we lived. Also, later on, we used to get the number 10 bus to the new swimming pool at Irlam. Other than that we used to go to the Seedley baths. We used to go to the Ambasador pictures and the one on Langworthy road near Chimney Pop park for the Saturday matinee.
My fondest memory is on New years Eve when all the ships that were on the canal would blow their horns and all the street wuold be out singing and dancing and sharing tatta ash.
We never had anything in them days but never really knew how poor we were, everyone was in the same situation. Everyone helped everyone, even if it was just a bucket of coal.
Whit week is when we got new clothes and went visiting all the family and got a shilling I think for showing off. Then it was the whit walks in town, we used to watch them from outside a pub where most of the older family members would be drinking.
I went to St Ambrose's School on Liverpool St where a Miss Etchells was the Headmistress in the lower classes and Mr Roberts in the higher classes. We used to get milk at play time and in the winter it used to be frozen solid. I used to have a Mrs Foster as a teacher in the first or second class and she used to give me sixpence for taking her high stilletto shoes to the coblers on the way home from school.
I went to Clarendon Girls and remember watching them knock down Hanky Park houses and building the concrete jungle. I used to have a Saturday job and after school on Cross Lane Market with a man that sold shirts (his name escapes me). He was there for years. I also remember having to get my dad's suit out of the pawn shop on a Friday before he noticed it had gone. I used to be so embarrased.
I loved going shopping on Regent Road or Tatton St and sometimes we even went to Broad St.
Stowells Church was where all the family members got married. I was a bridesmaid 4 times at that church and attended funerals as well but have no memory of what it was like inside.
My grandad had a newsagent in Salford but for the life of me cannot remember the street; It could of been on the corner of Lord Byrom St and a long st that went through all the streets. Would it be called South Street? Anyway their name was Naylor and when gran and grandad retired to Blackpool, my uncle Walter and his wife took it over. I used to think they were rich people on that side of the family.
Another Saturday job I got was at Hy Hazel hairdressers which used to be facing the flats on Eccles New Road near to Butterworths. I loved that job. I went on to do my apprentice with Anne Taylors in Bexley Square (near the court house). From there I went to work with Pat Evans who had a hairdressers shop in the back streets of Regent Road. I loved it there also.
In my teenage years i recall drinking at all the pubs in the new Hanky Park area and then later on to the Cattle Market Club - it was upstairs from the pub. Before that it used to be the Cadd and a place on Regent Road above Burtons, cannot recall the name.
I live in Australia now and love it. I have been back on a few occasions and its not the same as it was and I believe it has a bad name.
The people from Salford are the salt of the earth.