Early Days In Filton

A Memory of Filton.

Although originally from Manchester my parents were living in Filton when I was born in Cheltenham in December 1941. My father, like the majority of men in that area worked at what was then the BAC. He worked at the Rodney Works as a sheet-metal worker and fitter. We lived in Mackie Road and I attended Shields Road School betwen 1946 and 1953 when I went on to Thornbury Grammar School before going to Teacher Training College in 1960.

I vaguely remember the last months of the war but have very clear memories of the parties held on both VE and VJ Day. The first was held at the top of our road in nearby Shellard Road, which at that time was adjacent fields and farm land whilst the latter was held in Station Road which is now a busy dual carriage way. Most of the children at the VJ party were in fancy dress with myself dressed as a gypsy. My skirt was made out of an old 'black-out' curtain trimmed with different coloured bias binding and I had a necklace made from rose-hips.

Like one of your previous commentators I too remember going over to nearby Snuff-Mills and having Sunday afternoon tea at a little cafe near the river where I went 'fishing' for tiddlers and frog-spawn. My mother was always cautioning me to be careful but I thought it hilarious when she was the one who slipped on the muddy bank and ended up to her knees in the water.

As a little girl I used to wait by St Peter's Church on a Friday night to meet my father - the men ended work a litle earlier on Fridays - and about once a fortnight I would wait with him whilst he had his hair cut at the local barbers - short back and sides being very much the order of the day. On Saturday morning I would go with Shirley and Michael Pederick, who lived next door, to the ABC Minors at the Cabot Cinema where, on one occasion there was a surprise guest appearance of the Good Quads. In the days before IVF treatment multiple births were a rarity.

I attended St Theresa's RC Church and have many happy memories of our fetes and jumble sales, the smell of incense, sung latin masses and Canon Dennis Lucy who later officiated at my 1966 marriage. After church in the evening I would join a few friends and meet some of the lads who were in the local Boy's Brigade at the Methodist Church. One of these, Alan Knight, who was blond, good looking and played the bugle was a great favourite with the girls.

As a young teenager the chippy near Filton Station became a regular meeting place and on Thursdays a group of us from school regularly attended the Bristol North swimming baths on Gloucester Road. We used to recite our French verbs and vocabulary whilst swimming along our designated lanes and how we enjoyed our mugs of 'Oxo' afterwards. Fridays tended to be a visit to the old Cabot Cinema in Northville and on Saturday we would go on a threepenny busride to Pigsty Hill where we went to a dance in what I think was St Michael's church hall.  This was great fun with there being so many old-time dances followed by some modern and then, much to our delight, the latest rock and roll numbers. We were out by ten thirty sharp so there was just time for a bag of chips before catching the bus in order to be home by eleven.

We all were turned out in our best clothes boys looking very smart in their drain-pipe trousers and fluorescent socks and we girls in pretty full skirted dresses made even fuller with our bouffant petticoats dipped in sugar water to stiffen them. Later these underskirts had bone or plastic hoops threaded through the bottom but if you weren't careful as you sat down the front of your dress would lift up - causing amusement and/or embarrassment all round.

Whit Monday usually meant taking the train to Weston, going on the pier, walking along the sand, paddling if the tide was in and then eating fish and chips out of paper before catching the train back home - no Mods and Rockers at this time to spoil things.

In my late teens and before I went to college, Sunday evenings were spent at the Beeches Club in Filton (just off the top of Filton Hill and near to the graveyard) here we would have a shandy or, if feeling a little more daring a 'Babycham' or 'Pony' and listen or dance to a local skiffle group.

I feel that I was lucky to have have been a teenager during these years as we weren't forced to grow up too quickly. One could just be friends with someone of the oppposite sex without things getting too heavy and no-one, at least no-one that I knew felt the need to get drunk every night, get involved in mindless violence or go out to vandalise property. Obviously these things did happen in some parts of the city but for most of us, if we kept away from the more 'notorious' areas, we could go out, enjoy ourselves and come home, even a young girl on her own, in relative safety. For all the money they may now have and the opportunities open to youngsters nowadays I would not have swapped my childhood and youth with any of them.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of Linda Barrows, Jackie Tedder, Ann Clements or Shirley Pederick now all married andl aged between 68-70  I would be delighted to have news of them.         
Frieda Curnow (Mott)