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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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:
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Displaying Memories 1301 - 1350 of 2029 in total
I was stationed at Bordon Fire Station and was a Corporal in the army. I have many photos taken at the station, I was in charge of the cook-house and was in charge of the bar on the station. I attended many fires - the biggest was the Honky Tonk - its army name. It burnt to the ground. We were given its wrong name, the night was very foggy, the address we were given was The Bagshot and Bordon Soiders Home. ...see more
St Peter's Hospital was one of Bristol's finest and most historic buildings, which had been home to pirates and an alchemist as well as a mint and a workhouse among many other uses. It was destroyed in the blitz 1941.
This photograph shows St Peter's Hospital in Peter Street, where the Register Office occupied part of the ground floor. The building on the left is St Peter's Church (c1930). This ...see more
This (downstream) side of the mill was a popular site for the Canadian Army stationed at Bordon Camp during the war. Almost every day they would be there with their lorries, tanks and motorbikes, ostensibly to wash the vehicles but generally to play! With a ford on this side the game would be to drive at speed into the 9 to 12 inch deep water producing an impressive plume of spray. On one occasion a tank drove close to the mill ...see more
With Denmark Hill and about level with the Old Henly's garage behind you was a house within the ruins with a metal sign. It stated that during his stay here, Mendleson wrote his 'Spring Song' here. Camberwell was in the suburbs and fields were around the area filled with bird song. During my grandfather's time there were still cows in the area. Ruskin Park was one of the nicest parks ...see more
I remember as a little kid in the 50's going through Borsdane Wood with my mam n' Aunty Liza - we'd take egg n' tomato butties with us and always head for the Flag Bottom. This was our cheap holiday / Wigan week, I think it was June, I have forgoten a lot of dates as I emigrated to Australia in 68. We had 5 kids and Aunty Liza had 4.
In those days, the brook had a great little water fall and most of the ...see more
In relation to Reform Street and the city square on Friday/Saturday nights. We boys and our latest girlfriends (only if you had a car) used to meet and have a drag race either up Reform Street and back or a race from city square out under the rail bridge and back - obviously when the local bobbies were absent of course! I remember a Ford Anglia with a Lotus engine dropped in it being the main car to beat - easy for a bike, but not on the riverside run - four wheels were better....great
fun!
My mother, Lily Mathtews and I, were both born in the same miner's cottage at 109 Station Rd, just cross from the Welcome Church. She was born in 1903 and I in 1932. My granny, Ada, was an artist and moved to 8 Sunnyside, and during the war my brother and I used to visit all summer long, from our home in Scotland. The cottages are long gone and there's a lovely park there now. My grandfather's allotment was across ...see more
Born Cecil Nixon @ 131 Morrison St.Gatesgead County Durham. Went to Rose St school,Prest St. Victoria Road, Marske by the Sea and Reeth schools. Kicked out of school before war began by the
Black Watch & Tyne-side Scottish Regiments, evacuated the day before war began to
Marske By the Sea. Several months then back to Rose Street School for a short time.
Rose St. school taken over by soldiers ...see more
My mother lived in Dunmow from 1932 until 1946 when she left to live in Edinburgh. My mother's name was Rosalind Frecknall and she and her family lived at The Close initially, then The Downs.
Her father, Claud Frecknall, taught woodwork at the local school and was an air raid warden during the war. My mother remembers being in the cinema and when she came out she heard the planes overhead; often they were on their ...see more
bill.haylor@btinternet.com Resident in and around Smallfield for 81 yrs A large number of our toys were made from wood, dependant on what tools were available in fathers shed, if it was unlocked! The only tools needed were a saw, a hammer and some nails. There were two basic things a home made wooden toy was required to do: (1) Be able to be pulled along by a string, provided it had ...see more
My grandfather was a dentist in Stourbridge from before WW1 until 1961. He had his surgery and dental workshop in a large house in Worcester Street. In fact the house had two addresses: 64 Worcester Street and 1 Pargeter Street. My father and his three brothers and three sisters all grew up here and with breaks for war service, they mostly spent their lives in this area. The boys all went to King Edward VI ...see more
Little did I know that when I used to walk around Heaton Park in the school holidays with a group of mates in the early 60's, that back in 1909 my great grandad gave gramophone recycles there. I've found out quite a lot of information about William Grimshaw who was born in 1860 and died in 1940. He seemed to do so much in his life; married a woman called Ellen, they had 8 children, 2 died young, if not at ...see more
From John Moloney; john@moloney.com
I was moved to Oldham as an evacuee from Stretford in 1941 to live at 395 Featherstall Road North. The house was occupied by my great-great aunt, Ellen Farrow, and her son Fred and his wife Maggie. When I arrived I was full of impetigo (at least that's what I was told). I was literally scrubbed from head to toe, then bandaged, over an ointment on the sores. ...see more
The Seagoing Years.
I must have left the Army sometime in August or September of 1949, and went back to C.J.King & son, tug owners, to carry on with my job as deck boy. This was not to my liking, as I was now twenty, and scrubbing floors for 3 quid a week all hours of the day and night was beneath my dignity, even though I was only getting 26 Shillings in the Army, but that was ...see more
My mother brought me aged four and my brother aged one to a farm on the outskirts of Gellilydan in 1940 to escape the bombing in Coventry. I can remember my mother taking me to the village school to see if they would let me attend lessons. I was allowed to go even though I was only four years old. I did not speak any Welsh and the children there all spoke Welsh (and as far as I ...see more
I lived in Westgate Crescent from 1936 to 1946. I suffered a severe head injury when hit by a speeding car on the Bath Road just past Eddy's cafe a few days before Christmas in 1940. I was 5 years old. We had heard that a shop in the parade was selling chocolate without a ration book and my friend and I were rushing to buy some. We never made it and as a very poorly child I shared a ward in the Slough ...see more
I lived in Mirador, the road where this pub, the Shaggy Calf, stood. It was a lovely building, it should never have been pulled down. The landlord then, was a tall well built man with a tash (very smart), his wife wore glasses and she often had a pinkish rinse on her hair and wore pearl earrings. I never saw her in the bar, I think she drove a sports car, while Morris (her husband), had a big car. I remember ...see more
Another Pentraeth Memory. by Ross Davies Just about 38 years ago, I was approached by some of my former pupils, who were now mostly married and with children of their own, with the idea of forming a Pentraeth based entertainment group. The village had always had an excellent reputation for choral singing and they wanted to revive the tradition, but on much more modern lines. Such an enterprise would give them ...see more
So! Back to 11 Woburn Place, back to school on Hope Chapel Hill back to Hotwells golden mile with its 15 pubs.
The War was still going on but there was only limited bombing and some daylight raids, the city was in a dreadful state of ruined factories and bomb damaged houses and dockyards. While we had been away, our older brother John had joined the 92nd Sea Scout Troop, so I went along with him and joined up as ...see more
I was at the old Salfords school from 1951 to 1957 just before it moved to the new site in Copsleigh Avenue. We started in Miss License's class where I remember playing in sand trays and writing on slates. She was a very kind teacher. The playground was small but we used to play all sorts of games there; conkers, marbles, making house layouts from leaves and racing cars. I remember one very icy day we ...see more
I went to this school in 1966 when I was 7 years old. I lived just across the road in Milford Lodge, were my mum and dad still live. I remember Mr Pontin being the Headmaster. My mum used to be the cleaner and my dad used to light the boiler for the heating at the school. The school was knocked down and old people's flats were built on the site. The church is still there and still very active - not much has ...see more
My then husband Derek Schwier and I bought Laurel Farm in 1963 from Jo Watts - a wonderful jolly character in her dung-coloured dungerees and mucky boots! All her cows were lovingly tended, and her retirement was a sad loss to the farm.
But it was our gain and for personal reasons we re-named it "Pilgrims". Our children had great fun playing in the orchard - now built on - and having their first ponies. But ...see more
I remember the Village Hall "Olde Tyme" dances held once a month on a Saturday night.
At seventeen you might think these would be too sedate for a teenager, but with my
Dad's old suit borrowed on the way out, and lively group of friends, dances like "The Lancers" or a "Quadrille" could be anything but sedate. Although frowned on by our elders, eight youngsters going round in a tight circle with ...see more
My family used to go every Whit week to a guest house run by a Mrs Bradshaw at this end of the promenade, late 1950s - early 1960s. It was very special. Driving towards the seafront the road went steeply upwards until at last - a view of the sea, and that beautiful smell of seaweed, which takes me back to Pwllheli when I smell it now. We arrived in our Morris Minor with a trunk on the roof ...see more
I saw the first wooden pile hammered into the river bed, and watched it day by day until it was completed. Steel piles was driven into the river bed for the concrete structures, when they got well below the river bed it was that hard they had to use pneumatic drills. At high tide water used to seep in places through the piling, to bung the leaks, sawdust was put into the close to the piling, the water pressed the ...see more
In the late 1960's I was a schoolgirl at the Derby School. When I began to be independent and join a tribe I chose the Northern Soul gang and sometimes I used to go to All Nighters, with my boyfriend and friends at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. We took the last train from Bury to Victoria Station and walked up to Piccadilly Station where the gang met. My Mum made some really cool dresses ...see more
I grew up in Dundee Street in Darlington. I remember the shops on each end of Dundee Street and Montrose Street, and the alleys between, the alleys were made of blue tiles that always sparkled in rain and frost. I remember the rag and bone man on his cart pulled by a horse, calling "Rag and bone, rag and bone" as he trundled down the back alleys. We had a coal shute in our back yard that had an opening in the alley that the ...see more
I was born at 19 Church St, St Peters, where my grandfather owned the butchers shop. My first memory is of playing on the lino floor just inside the front door. My father, who served in the RAF during the war; worked as a carpenter in the area building many of the house that are around the Westover Road area. In 1950 we moved to Westover Gardens where my parents still live to this day. From ...see more
I recently went for a walk with my mum Enid, to the bluebell wood. This wood has many names, Kings Wood, Long Thwaite Wood, to mention a couple. It evoked memories of my childhood. Days when I would walk with my brother and sister. Georgina marching off in front trying not to be associated with her younger siblings or get tempted to regress to those imaginary games of Robin Hood or the land of Narnia she had ...see more
In our school holidays, I and one or two more used to go with cattle drovers, there were often a thousand Irish cattle arriving at the cattle dock on some Saturdays. The front of the herd would be at the Town Bridge as other cattle were still leaving the cattle dock. We would guard all the sidestreets and passageways. Cattle would be sold at the market, then were taken to various fields outside of town. One drover, ...see more
At the age of 11 nothing was more valuable than a set of old pram wheels.
Using a 4-foot plank (this is old money) for the base. To sit on, we fastened a short piece to the back with an axle and 2 wheels, the same at the front but fastened with a bolt so you could steer it. Fix a seat and you were away.
Pull it to the top of the hill and race down. There where only about 3 or 4 cars in Dinnington at that time so ...see more
When I lived in Purley, there weren't many stores. I can remember when Sainsbury's opened across from Purley Fountain. There was a toy shop in the High Street called Morgan's. I stole a whistle from there when I was not very old. I can remember it to this day. It was yellow plastic with one of those pea things in that made the whistling noice. I must have taken it home but I was soon on my way back to ...see more
Boston was a war garrison in the war, It was an exciting time for teenagers growing up, Different Regiments was billeted all round the town, we collected army badges from the men; I had a tin full. The airforce used to drill in a morning in Liquorpond Street. War games were played in the streets, the make believe wounded had notes pinned to them to say what injuries they had.
The airborne used to practice in a ...see more
I lived near the top of Downscourt Rd, my back garden exiting in St James Rd. Every day I would walk up and down that hill to Roke Primary and later around the local area delivering newspapers for 'Scobles' the newsagent on Godstone Rd. I was a choirister at St.James Church and Mr Warner the choirmaster had a rolled up newspaper called the 'Bonker' which he would tap us with if we misbehaved (not ...see more
I left school at 16 and went to work for Sir Freddie Laker of Laker Airways fame. I was a stud hand at his stud farm in Woodcote - The Woodcote Stud. He provided a bedsit just outside Epsom opposite a pub (can't remember the name). I used to get paid £9.50 a week and used to go straight down to the local snooker hall on the High Street and play all the jockeys. I learnt to play snooker very well very ...see more
I used to work in the shop in the photo at about the time the photo was taken. That company also had a depot in Junction road next to the pub and the railway crossing, and I also worked in that depot. I have very happy memories of those times; we (my wife Doris & I) bought our first house there in Slimbridge Road .
I was brought up in the 70's living in the gorgeous local village pub. I have fond memories playing on my bike in the car park, riding a pony to the village school and running around the grounds of the Saxon church. Not to mention my sleep walking around the village! My mom and dad, Margaret and Tony, loved it there as I did. Great people great times. Maypole dancing and being made to sing in the ...see more
My great grandmother, Cecelia Mary Gore, b. 1887 - the grand daughter of an earl, eloped with a gardener, Albert Reynolds, in the early 1910s. They married, had four children. Win, my grandmother was one of them, Albert a son and then two little ones one of whom was called Rhoda. They lived in the church house overlooking the cemetary at St Mary's Church. Albert continued working as a gardener. My grandmother ...see more
I was born in 1934 in Burns Avenue Southall, and I remember Snells Farm at the bottom of Burns Ave, before it became a prefab estate. Left Dormers Wells at 14 in 1948. I worked at Wolf Rubber in 1949 and my job was cleaning metal shafts that where put into washing machine rubber rollers. Most of the machines were run from an overhead drive shaft and connected to the machines via a large belt. There where many foreign ...see more
I am 70 now and since 1950 have visited Teignmouth regularly, what lovely memories this place has for me. My childhood visits with Sunday school coach outings from Norton Fitzwarren in Somerset, I am sure many others reflect on those simpler times when we were happy with little. Many other visits with mum and dad in our 1936 Wolseley, each trip almost an adventure. Then my youth in the 60's camping at Smugglers ...see more
When I was a child, I lived at Axminster. My favourite seaside resort was Lyme Regis, about 6 miles away from home.
Even though I was told, on countless occasions, that Lyme lay in Dorset, I would not accept that fact and insisted it was a Devonshire resort. It was MY seaside town, and I lived in Devon - therefore Lyme Regis was in Devon - that's infant child logic for you.
Before I could ...see more
Another thing that I remember was bath night. Notice I said night and not nights!!
We had a tin bath which had to be filled up by boiling kettles and saucepans. My young brother would go in first, then me, after me was mummy, and last was daddy!! What ever would health and safety have to say about that today!! We were, however, one of the first houses in our street to have an inside toilet and ...see more
My grandparents Annie Holland and Alfred John Heeks became engaged to be married at this spot. Both from Cheltenham, they were soon after married and emmigrated to Canada and settled in Manitoba, then finally in Alberta. My grandmother had so many wonderful stories about growing up there.
I was born in that White Cottage that once stood at the top of Moreton Road and have many happy memories of it and old Upton Village. In the days before the Catholic Church was built, Gemmels Wood used to stretch from Moreton Road to the start of Miss Gemmels Garden and her house which fronted Church Road. The laneway at the back of the Stonehouse Cafe was called Quinesway and they operated a hardware shop which you ...see more
I can't be 100% sure but this is a great likeness of myself and my brother Rob... I have fished this swim for large roach since the early 1990s and we still fish the weirpool to the present day. I have had many happy memories here and have some nice photos of truly outstanding catches. I have also met some lovely old boys there and have enjoyed hearing their tales of whoppers caught in the days of way back when the river here used to be tidal. They even used to have flatfish competitions!!
I lived at 27 Victoria Rd, Knaphill and went to the school at Star Hill then the school down the lane at St Johns, past the barracks and cookhouse. When the soldiers were demobbed we used to be given sweets, chocolate and fags which we took them home. I must have been about 8 or 9. I can remember when going home after school, passing the cookhouse where they used to leave cakes out to cool and we used to nick some. One ...see more
In the 1950's I lived in Dawpool Cottages, was in the choir at St Bartholomew's and went to Dawpool C of E primary and then Caldy Grammar. Life was long summers of the beach or the common and playing out till dark. The church lych gates were the wickets for cricket before and after choir practice. The quarterly fee and extra money for singing at weddings were one of the few incomes I remember. My ...see more
I remember travelling many times on this train; the two engines were called Golspie and Dunrobin - areas in Sutherland. I believe their ancestral Home was Dunrobin Castle at Golspie, hence the names for these engines. I remember at the far end of the lake having to get off and reverse the seats for the return journey, while the engine changed ends. I often wonder what happened to the two engines when ...see more
I went to Marianne Thornton school from the day it was built until I left in 1961. I used to be at Elmfield School in Balham but they had this new school built on the West Side of Clapham Common. I moved from Elmfield towards the end of my 3rd school year to the new school and it was really something compared to our very old school, it had so many new and modern features, I can remember it all so ...see more
I remember the Plough ... it was where my dad, Chas Ross, and a group of other artists held their meetings; they called themselves the Battersea Art Society, this was during the 1960's. My dad, who painted every spare minute of the day, painted a picture of Ron Moody as the famous Charles Dickens figure Fagin. The proprietor of the Plough (can't remember his name), hung it in the entrance to the pub. ...see more
