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 1451 - 1500 of 2029 in total
My family moved to Handley in 1947 and I spent the rest of my childhood there. Our family name is Harris and my parents were Drs Paul and Zoe , they had five children. We lived off the road to Deanland. I never could work out all the Day family, there were an awful lot of them! A Mr
Violet Day and a Mrs Elsie Churchill, helped Mum. I agree all the Frith photos shown seem some what earlier than the ...see more
I can remember Coronation Day in Shillingstone, the weather was not settled and there were showers, I can remember watching the crowning of the Queen on a TV which was in Mrs Fudge's house at the lower end of the village. In the afternoon we had a parade of fancy dress and walked to the recreation field where a fete was held, with skittles and side shows. During the evening ...see more
I was at Mount Pleasant School as a boarder for 6 years from 1946 to 1952. The school was in Dalmeny Road but apparently was taken down in 1965. I have been trying to find anyone who attended this school. Before going to school there I lived in Southern Road during the last 3 years of the war and remember all the American vehicles parked down our road probably preparing for D-day. I have been back many times ...see more
I believe the girl walking on the left is my mother Joan Outhwaite (nee Urwin). We have a similar photo of Mum in Redcar.
I spent my early years playing and later working in the fields in the valley between Hambledon and Shillingstone hills.
At one time I worked for Mr Harry Watts and later his daughter Jo. I can remember once Harry Watts and Mr Reg Tucker were building a hay rick when the local vicar and doctor walked by, they called up to the men on the rick "could you do with a hand up there", they replied "Yes we could, but ...see more
I spent several holidays in a chalet with long verandah which was one of the first on the right just after a burnt out house and just before the caravans started in Mill Lane during the late 1940s and early 1950s. I remember getting off the bus from Chichester with all our luggage and there were an assortment of men with bicycles with various trailers attached and for a small fee cases and bags were loaded on and all the ...see more
By kind permission of the Lord Ashcombe, the Holy Trinity Junior Boys Club, Wimbledon, camped for four weeks every year on Ranmore Common. Most of us were choirboys, so we augmented St Barnabas's choir for their services twice each Sunday. Lord Ashcombe read the lessons. At that time there was a dairy next to his house, Denbies, and he gave us our milk. (The estate has since been turned over to a vineyard.) The two ...see more
The smell of coffee probably wafted out from the shop at No.10 Duke Street. Basil Harrison was the town centre's grocer for many years who specialised in coffee. His coffee grinding machine stood just behind the shop window from where he could watch the passers-by and the town's changing life. He left diaries of all the observations he had made over the decades. Many of his earliest memories were put ...see more
This photo was probably taken soon after the newly built Civic Suite was officially opened for use as public offices. The town's population was expanding rapidly as the local big industries attracted more and more workers from far and wide. Chelmsford Borough Council was incorporated in 1888 and in its early years the small number of employees worked in rented rooms or buildings. In the late 1920's the building to ...see more
In reply to Keith Hawkins' appeal to anyone that knew of F.W. Hawkins shop on Hosier Street, Reading, I used this shop during the 1950s as a small boy while spending the weekends with my Nan & Grandad who lived at 61 Hosier Street.
My Mum & Nan referred to Miss Hamkins as Fanny, I have no idea if this was her real name. The shop was very dark inside with gas light brackets on the walls. On entering ...see more
My dad, Eric Berry, used to clip this hedge - BY HAND!
When we're little, things always seem bigger than they really are, but my recollections of watching my Dad clip this hedge on the days he did the gardening at St Anne's church, were pretty accurate. It really is as big as I remember!
I also recall going to St Anne's Hall ( a bit further back down the hill?) with my Mum, to collect our ration ...see more
I was the Head Teacher of the Cranborne First School from 1974-1978. The school was situated just off the square. It was a delightful little school and I have happy memories of my time there with my two teachers: Mrs Barbara Bayes and Mrs Gawman (who succeeded me as Head). Lord Salisbury was the Chairman of our Governors and occasionally I had to go to the Manor to discuss business with him. It was quite an ...see more
My father, who worked for Philips Electrical (Mullard Amplifier Division) was the Sound Engineer at both the Wembley Stadium and Pool during the entire Olympic Games of 1948. He had to work very long hours not only during the events but also during the daily rehearsals of ceremonies. I went to one of the last events, with my grandparents, which was equestrian. After the Games finished, my father continued as the ...see more
Lovely memories of the High Street, mum pushed us in the big old coach built double ended pram; me and my brother Mike. In them days you stayed in prams way into toddler years, mum's didn't make you grow up too fast! As we got a little older there was the shoe shop at the end of shops (I think its the bank now,) Kim my sister, Mike and myself used to do the Harry Worth star shape in the shop window as it was mirrored, ...see more
My great-grandfather, Thomas Newton Croft, a member of the family that founded the Fleetwood to Knott End ferry, managed it for the local council from c.1896 to his death in 1915. I am told that my grandmother, Alice, used to do cartwheels to entertain the passengers waiting for the boat to come in. The service was re-privatised a few years ago. Being involved in marine business myself I like to refer to it as "the family shipping line"!
I went to NGS in 1939. It was a great school. Those school dinners cooked on site by Annie the cook and the smell coming up the corridor about 11o'clock. I remember when they started building the air raid shelters at the top of the playing fields. Headmaster Harrison, for Latin. No messing about at that school, or Saturday detention! Still have the stamp album I bought on the market after school. Was sweet ...see more
I was an office boy at Franklin Barns. One of my jobs on a Wednesday was to go the cattle market and collect messages that where left in desks of the back room of The Market Tavern.It was a wonderful place; farmers, drovers, sheep dogs all doing business (not the dogs!) I can remember taking Cyril Franklis tea every morning at 10.30 in his office where he had a model of the new Franklin Barns building to ...see more
I spent my first five years 1924-1929 in Blindley Heath, possibly the nicest years of my life. I may have gone to the school there. I clearly remember Gibb's store when I spent six glorious weeks in B.H. in 1934,: a very modern shop with lime (?) trees and a chain fence surrounding the periphery. It had a modern overhanging spring-loaded carrier system, whereby payments could ...see more
At the house where we lived from 1928 until 1935, (No 24 Barracks Road, Burnley, now called Cavalry Way), it was called a 'back to back' row cottage. It comprised of two bedrooms upstairs, one just about able to fit a double bed, and one very small room for two single beds. This is where my sister and I slept until seven years later when we moved house, after my brother was born (we were all born in Burnley ...see more
Living on the island was like living in paradise - it seemed like a constant holiday! I remember walking from 'Danehurst' along Pitts Lane across Binstead Road and up Cemetary Road to school every day. I loved walking to the beach through the woods near Quarr Abbey and through to Fishbourne. I loved going to Sunday School at the Church of the Holy Cross and being in the choir when Mr Wrigley was Rector. My ...see more
Perhaps someone will correct me on the year. It was the year when Billy Graham was doing the crusade within the Ipswich football stadium. Many times I'd pass my time away at the docks. I would fish for eels or any fish that would take a bite. One day, a man with his two sons and one daughter came to do some fishing - although they had fishing gear they had no idea on how to tackle up. I was to help them ...see more
My grandad, Joseph Woodgate, was the builder that built a lot of early Wannock Avenue's houses and bungalows. He built Wee Cott - one the first houses to be built which had a very large monkey puzzle tree in the garden, until the hurricane of 1986 and my dad was born there. I have pictures of Hazel Grove under construction and my dad, Ernest Hazel, was named after it. I also have pictures of semi detached houses in ...see more
I had a wonderful childhood in Lower Willingdon - we lived, my brother and I, in a bungalow in St Annes Road and went to the village school in Upper Willingdon where Mr Morrell was the headmaster. I remember in the playground was a stone shelter left over from the war where we used to play sometimes. I remember one of the previous contributors, Peter Miller, was the first boy I kissed, in the said shelter. ...see more
It is quite possible that the the little boy to the right in this picture is me at age six. My family used to stay at a friend's caravan in the park above the cliffs. During the summers of 1954 through 1958 we stayed there most weekends in the summer and even a few in the spring and autumn. St. Mary's Well Bay was not a good beach, a lot of rock and bladderwrack seaweed, which does give a satisfying ...see more
I remember the large ham and bacon slicer at the back of Newbury's and always worried that someone was going to slice their finger off when I was watching. When I was about 3 my mum was doing her shopping in Newbury's, with me in my pushchair with a cover over it. When we got outside she was mortified and had to go back into the shop and apoligise because apparently I had been doing some shopping of my own and helping myself to things and hiding them under the pushchair cover.
Allendale - 'Happy Memories and Great Days'
In about 1973 an 'interdenominational' group of dedicated visionary young people, many from Tyneside Youth for Christ (Elim Church), based in Newcastle upon Tyne rented the disused and empty fairly large 'lower floor-part' of Sinderhope Chapel, Sinderhope, Allendale for a peppercorn rent of £1O per year, from the Allendale ...see more
I went to Kirdford school for about two or three years in the 1960's until 1968, when I went to Horsham High School for Girls. The higher roofed part of the school was Miss Dadswell's class and the lower roofed part was two classes partitioned; these areas were Miss Dodsworth and Miss Hever's classrooms. Each was heated by a coke burning stove. There was a tiny room off Miss Dodsworth's class for her to use, as head ...see more
I used to have holidays in Graffham with my Great-Aunt, Lottie Bridger. We loved climbing the hill; collecting eggs from the chickens and even the adventure of visiting the outside toilet. My family lived in Graffham, going right back to the 1500s, and I still have a wonderful feeling when I visit the village. My aunt had no running water, except in the wash house outside, where the ...see more
My family and I lived in the post office and stores when this picture was taken. I am Christine Sheldon, one of the twins of the Sheldon family. We loved living there, my dad was the baker and the shop sold everything - and even had a tea room. My twin and I lit a fire in the attic once with straw and set fire to the roof. Coolham is a wonderful place and we were very sad to see that the shop had been ...see more
My house backed onto Wyndham Hill and I spent my childhood playing over there. My cousin and I loved to watch the steam trains passing by and sometimes (if our parents weren't nearby) would run onto the bridge at Pen Mill station and hang over to get lost in the smoke - the things kids do! There was also another smaller field beside Wyndham which had three horses; Penny (a chestnut), Dusty (a dark grey) and ...see more
On this picture you can see the steps used by the ferry man from the 1920s to the 1940s. He used a pole to steer the punt from the Bury bank to the Amberley bank. The punt was attached to a chain which stretched across the river lying on the bottom. The fare in the late 1940s was a theepenny piece. The ferry man was my 'Uncle' Bob Dudden, who took up the duties of ferryman when he left the Navy after the ...see more
My grandfather used to go fishing at Bury, and introduced this lovely spot to my father. He would cycle down to bury from London as a young man, pre WW2. In the 1950's we would drive down and picnic by the river. Dad knew Bob Dudden. As a boy, I would swim in the river and we would always chat to Bob with his broad sussex dialect. My friend Richard and I rode down from Upper Norwood in 1959 and ...see more
My grand-parents, Ernie and Winnie Hewby, lived in a big old house towards the end of Castle Hills across the lane from a small farm/small holding. I believe the house was called Standard Lodge and that during the war they ran a small café there and kept some pigs. My siblings and I used to love visiting, my grandfather won a competition for his gardens (he loved gardening) and I've inherited his ...see more
This memory goes from 1953 up to the 1960s because our holidays in them days were always at Rossington, staying with Nanna. Me my older brother Alex and my twin brother John loved it. Nanna and Grandad were Jack and Burtha Bird who lived at 57 Haig Crescent. Grandad was a miner like a lot of people in Rossington. One of my memories was watching for Grandad coming home after night shift. My twin brother and I ...see more
I was born in the Shrubbery Nursing home in 1956. I grew up in Lane End, about 5 miles away. I have photos of me looking awful in baggy knickers on the Rye (the park in Wycombe town) as a toddler. There was a play area on the Rye that is still there, but in my day there was a little waterway for kids to play in, long since closed as deemed dangerous by present standards. My mother always used to enter the ...see more
I was born in Ivy House - first on the right in Talbot Terrace. My sister Sally now lives in the same street. I don't remember much before four and half years of age. I lived in that house with my grandfather, Demetrie Cambettie the 'hire and fire man' for all the mines in the Llynfi valley, my grandmother, Blodwen. My auntie Eurex and her five kids, Mair, Elfed, Gareth, Beti and Huw, my father Hector, mother ...see more
I was born in Sunderland in 1948 and Christened in Holy Trinity Church, Church Walk, where all of my mother's side of the family had been hatched, matched, and dispatched.
I was raised in Wear Garth till the age of twelve years old when my parents left Sunderland for work in the midlands. Although times were hard in Sunderland at the time for many, we as a family of eleven didn't have much. I have some fond memories of my ...see more
I used to see some poor wretched people tramping the roads when I was a kid. I remember one particular man, news went quickly round that a tramp was on his way up Skirbeck Quarter. As kids we would stand at the top of Pulvertoft Lane to gaze at them as they walked by. This man was wearing two shoe boxes tied with string, he was shuffeling along making a scraping noise with each step; his clothes looked as ...see more
I lived in Lemington untill 1954 approx and we lived in the front row of the Pit Row houses. We could stand outside and watch the trains going past full of coal and wave to the drivers, playing on the pit heaps, wouldn't like the washing now.
There was a few rows of these houses. All lived in one room, kitchen sink in a small space off the back door and cooking at the bottom of the stairs. The street was called Loyyd ...see more
While in pursuit of wildfowl on Frampton Marsh In the winter of 1954-1955, a friend and I were out in a terrible snow storm, and it came real dark all at once, in fact it was jet black, just like in a dark cupboard. This was on the edge of the River Welland. Then all at once a ghostly figure stood by me, my friend was glowing like a luminous watch, and so was I. We stood laughing at each other, touching each other's ...see more
From 1954-1959 I lived at Flat 4 Tooting Police Stn. With my friend Richard King we spent many happy hours up on the roof throwing mud and moss down on the unsuspecting passers by below. Another trick was to throw stones down the chimney pots. My mistake was to pick the pot of my own flat which resulted in a load of soot spewing out into my parents bedroom. My Dad who was an Inspector at the Station ...see more
John Allen Venner was a Hurst Green Veterinary Surgeon and his wife Emily Baxter raised 10 children at Jacobs Well Farm. The children were John, Emily, George, Jane, Annie, Maud, May, Grace, Harry and Elsie all born between 1890 and 1904. George was my husband's grandfather who later moved to Canada and then Portland, Oregon, USA where he spent his life as a baker, an occupation he ...see more
I was born in 1935 at 25, Pickford Street and lived at that address until I was married. I have so many memories of those years. My first is about New Street Primary School. I lived 100 yards from the school and before I was old enough to go to school I used to go to the school gates and watch the children line up; girls in one half and boys in the other, divided by iron railings, which were later taken ...see more
I am now an 82 years old great grandmother and I have lived in Australia for many years. My family lived in Coventry, and when I was 12 my sister and brother and I were evacuated to Polesworth. At first the billeting officer, a Mrs Straughan who was running the local Womens Volunteer service, couldn't find anyone who could take all 3 of us, so she took us to her lovely home Pooley Hall. We had maids ...see more
I was a pre nursing student in1962 at the South London Hospital for Women. As part of our course I was sent to work at Woodhurst for 6 months, prior to beginning my S.R.N training.
Woodhurst was the convalescent home linked to the Sooth london hosp. Ladies were sent there for a couple of weeks to recover from surgery. They had excellent care from the nursing staff & the local GP called regularly to ...see more
I remember my childhood days living on the mountain like they were yesterday, such happy days, playing for hours on the Second Moors and walking to Burks Wood and Fall Tops. Playing on the old station train lines and getting in the signal box to change the points, pretending there really was trains coming, when in fact the station had been closed for some years, daring each other to walk in the old tunnel and ...see more
In 1958 when I was 3 year old, we moved from a small flat on the London Road, near the bank where my father was branch manager (TSB), to Belton Road off Church Hill. I watched our new house being built on a sloping plot of land. My parents lived in that same house until their recent peaceful deaths. The roads around Church Hill became my childhood play places, especially on long summer days - often in large plots of ...see more
Does anyone remember the old swimming baths at Redhill? I started swimming there in the 1970s when it was still a Victorian building. The steps in the pool were of stone and the changing rooms were around the poolsides with wooden doors. You could pay to have a slipper bath! There was a young lady who gave you a box to put your clothes in and you had to remember the number on it to get it back after ...see more
Stafford W Brown was a boarder at Beccles College during WW1. The last three Sundays of every term each had a special feature.
First came One Button Sunday, when every boy undid the top button of his jacket for the day.
The second was Pinch Pudding Sunday. At lunch, after the main course, jam tart was served, and the custom was for boys to steal each others portion by stabbing with their ...see more
I was going from Slough to our favorite pub (The Victoria Arms) on the bus in the 60's not knowing it was Ladies Day at Ascot. The bus ground to a halt at the bottom of Castle Hill, the clippie (young people will have to Google that!) yelled "It's Lizzie!" and everybody jumped off to watch the Queen, Queen's mum, Margaret and Snowden go into the Theatre Royal.
Pity there is no pics of the 73(?) pubs in Boro of ...see more
