Irthlingborough, The Cross 1969

Photo ref: I33023

I was born and raised in Irthlingborough. I was born in 1948 above the shop to the left of The Bull, opposite the old bakery. Back then Finedon Road was quite narrow at that point. My grandmother owned the shop at the time. It was later owned by the Maddock family, I believe, and was a grocery shop. The old bakery and other buildings were all pulled down to make the open space it is ...see more

This scene in 2008 looks almost exactly the same as it did in 1969. Further down (out of sight of this picture) many changes have taken place. George Burton's papershop is now a pizza parlour (didn't even know what a pizza was in the early 60s!). Duncan's Chemist shop (famously made of wood) has been demolished, oh how as a youngster I drooled as I looked in his shop window at those wonderful blue and white striped ...see more

The parade of shops situated on the right was once the site of a large house called The Rookery, we lived at the Rookery from 1956 -1962. This adjoined the old Procea Products factory where my father worked for many years as a lorry driver/mechanic. Procea was famous for making slimming bread. The Rookery was owned by Procea and split into 3 houses, (we lived in the centre house), Jack Thomsons (manager at Procea) ...see more