Allens Temperance Bar

Hi Mary, My name is Nancy. In my early years I was brought up in that little terraced house by my Dad and Grandparents. They were Mary and Newbury Carlton. My grandma had remarried and as I recall Newbury was called 'New' by everyone. He would go most days to his job and come back looking like one of the black and white minstrels; he was a chimney sweep and all you could see was the pink of his lips and the whites of his eyes when he came home. Grandma would be the one tending to the shop. The counter had two large barrels, one at each end, filled with sarsaparilla. I seem to remember green tins lining the shelves at the back of the counter, filled with all manner of herbal remedies. On Saturdays the shop would be filled with the local football team when they would come in for a well earned refresher after a match. There was one room that we lived in at the back of the shop. It was very cramped and grandma would stand me on a chair and scrub me down; the only person to use a bath was graddad; which was not plumbed in. His chimney brushes sat in a cart in the yard right next to the outside loo. Thankfully we didn't all have to sleep in the same room, there was one for me and dad, and one for my grandparents. I would play along the cobbled back alley and the open field aside the mill. My dad and I would take one of those wind up aeroplanes and he would let it go, needless to say I was the one to retrieve the plane when it crash landed. Years later I was so upset that riots took place outside my grandma's shop; I'm glad she wasn't here to see it for surely it would have distressed her to the core.I am in the process of trying to obtain a picture so I will post as soon as I get one. Sorry I don't have many memories but it's lovely to find someone that remembers the temperance bar. It has long disappeared and been taken over by a fabric shop i believe.