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 1351 - 1400 of 2029 in total
This picture is of Queenie Shuttler's cottage. She used to keep a cow and made the most delicious cream. Her brother, Les Shuttler, drove me to and from the bus stop, about 4 miles away at the White Hart, Poulner, to go to school at Brockenhurst (1968 - 1971). My father arranged this with the local Council, so that I could continue in Grammar School education, despite living in an isolated location. The Post Office ...see more
When we first moved to "the estate" in the early fifties I would have to catch the bus into Reigate as I went to school in Holmesdale Road. The school I have forgotten about but what is memorable was the smell of the fresh baked bread coming from the bakery across the road from the bus stop. As kids we would go in and the lady (cannot remember her name) would give us nubbins of left-over dough that had ...see more
I arrived in 1955, I was there for three years. I was not happy there, it was like a jail to me. I do recall the names of Clive Wood and Peter Adams - I do not recall any of the others. There was a girl with a birthmark on her face, her first name was Rita, I think. Do you remember a girl called Diana? she had Tourette's Syndrome.
Remember the cellar? We would all congregate ...see more
I moved to Mitcham in 1941 as a 3 year old having been "bombed out" elsewhere. Many of the memories in these pages are similar to mine. But perhaps not this. As a ten year old my mate Tony Burls and I lived near the Swan Inn. We went for a swim in the Seven Islands one fine day. We hid our clothes and towels in some bushes and had our swim, more of a paddle really. Unfortunately someone stole our clothes and ...see more
I am Pewsey born and bred and what a joy it is to discover a site where memories of our country's unique village life can be shared and stored for the future.
So much to share about Pewsey life... I remember playing with all the children of many ages in Swan Meadow in the 80's. Looking for 'treasure' to sell in the stream at Kings Corner and charging passers-by 2p for a broken piece of china! Making rose 'perfume' and ...see more
Having been evacuated in 1942 to High Easter from the war torn East London, staying with my Aunty Hilda was a dream that I never wanted to end. Our local school was a delight, even Sunday School at St Marys was enjoyable, and play time in the local fields on all the farm equipment was an adventure beyond belief.
Highlight of the week was a trip to Chelmsford in a Joe Lodge coach driven by Sid Perry, a family I ...see more
As a child I remember being dragged around Fine Fair once a week, being sent for a box to the front of the store to put shopping in and being given the job of licking the greenshield stamps and putting them in the book!
St Patricks Open Air School Hayling Island. I went there to get strong enough to have an op' to remove my lung. Didn't like it at all ! The girls were great and had good friends, but it was quite harsh and I found it very strict, almost to the point of unbearable, but it certainly toughened me up ! I can remember Sisters, Bertha, Dorethy, Raymond, John Joseph, & Paul, not forgetting ...see more
Great Aunty Liza lived in an area called Buckland Wharf in a long, low, white bungalow where time stood still except the Grandfather Clock ticked in her "parlour" to tell us otherwise. The room was very dark because the blinds were drawn "to keep out the sun". There was a heavily framed picture of her husband on the wall- a severe looking man with a handlebar moustache - very much the ...see more
My Dad was a sergeant in the RAF; along with Mum (Jean), brother Robert, and sister Carol we lived in married quarters in Medmenham. I remember Roddy Banks and Chris Waillin and the big snowball fight between the North Close and the South Close - we lost. I remember walking for days in the top woods (Hog Wood) and sledging down a big hill there. Also remember the tunnel ...see more
I was born in Chelmsford in 1937 and can remember going to the market every week and seeing all the farm animals such as cows, bulls, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits, etc. all there for sale. My favourite part, though, was where they sold dogs and puppies and my parents always said no to my plea to buy one every week. About 20 years later in the early 1960's I had two sons of my own and history repeated itself as ...see more
I had recently passed my driving test and drove a Morris Minor Saloon, to practice my parallel parking I used to drive down South Street after work or on a Sunday and park outside of Woolworths or Marks and Spencers and try various manoeuvres with the aid of the reflection of the car in the plate glass windows.
When I was born in 1939 we lived at 97 Shelvers Way, but my very first memory happened in 1944. It was a lovely sunny day and my mother, Doris Parker, was going to feed the chickens at the bottom of the garden. I was playing outside when mother called out to tell me to go inside and into the shelter as there was a "funny" thing in the sky. I never did get to the shelter, only the dining-room and the next thing I ...see more
My earliest memories are of the married quarters, well into the interior of the barracks of the Dorset Regiment. My father had escaped the poverty of the East End of London in 1923. By 1937 he was a very formidable sergeant of the Second Battalion of the Dorsets.
I used to run through the archway of the keep every morning to the Grove School and I was all of about six years old. ...see more
I used to love The Puddle, I used to go there every weekend during term time from when it opened at Easter every year, until in closed in October. I would try to go every day during the summer holidays, but I didn't always have the money to get in, I would plead with my mum to give me the money to go, I used to do odd jobs to earn some money to go. I remember one day I went and it was throwing it down with ...see more
I was at this school all through the 50s and celebrated the Queens Coronation at the school. All the girls wore a little paper crown on the group photograph that was taken. I had happy memories of my time there and keep in touch with one of the girls I went to school with and now we are in our 60s. I have vivid memories of two old gentlemen coming to the school and they must be long dead now but it seems ...see more
Oh yes, I remember the cafe well. Used to come down the brow from St. Marks at lunchtime to get sherbert dips etc. The counter was high and I could only just see over the top. Also, sometimes after Sunday School at the local Methodist Church would walk home via the cafe - get an ice cream and then walk through Worsley Woods or up the main Walkden Road to home. Fond memories.
My nose would have just about been level with the stalls given my age at this time! What one didn't grow in the garden,one could purchase on the stalls (not that it emulated Covent Garden). I haven't lived in the area for 45 years but I do believe it was a centre for a good old gossip!
One of Bradford’s famous literary sons was the author and playwright J B Priestley, who was born in Mannheim Road, Bradford, on 13 September 1894. J B Priestley provided Britain with a rather strange morale-boosting symbol during the Second World War – a meat and potato pie. The pie which inspired Priestley had been a feature in the window of Arthur Roberts’s food shop in Godwin Street ...see more
Croxley Green station is now - in the 21st century - merely a shadow of its former busy life. My Auntie Dorrie (Doris Lacey) worked at this station throughout the Second World War and beyond and told me many stories of working life on the Watford to Rickmansworth line. Auntie recalls being at home in Hatch End in 1940 – she would clean the house on Thursdays. One ...see more
To anyone local to Dorchester this was a familiar scene day in and day out for almost 50 years. My grandfather Ben Courtney started selling 'fruit and veg' in 1947 from hand-carts on the roadside. His son Doug started in 1950 and various members of the family helped out through the week. This picture shows my Aunt Isabel serving a regular customer with his two sons. Her father Ben is behind in his hat, serving, ...see more
My hubby and I remember the shop that was on the corner near the old pond where you could get 1 penny packets of broken crisps and weren't they delicious? They used to sell out very quickly.
Sometimes, when I was off school poorly and if my sister was feeling generous, she would get me a packet on the way home from the Grammar school. And of course I remember the cinema (flea pit) and the woman who used to play the organ before a film to try and keep us kids quiet.
The water meadows have many happy memories. We bought the wired stopper Corona Lemonade in the village shop run at that time by Mrs Hunt. This was carefully carried to the stream and placed in it where the little 'island' is on the left of the picture. It was always crowded on the bank with people having picnics, children paddling in the very clear waters. On the other side of the bridge you could get ...see more
This cottage is in Bedford Lane. I lived in the house called Connemara which is still in Bedford Lane. My father Samuel Frederick Richardson and his brother George were both bricklayers. Both were demolishing the cottage and they were burning the thatch. My brother John was playing dare. He walked through the outer edge of the white ash and dared me to walk through the middle. Unfortunately I did ...see more
As a teenager living in the Old Kent Road back in the early 1960s, Windsor was surprisingly accessible to me. I spent most summer Saturdays fishing the lock cut at Romney Island. A number 53 bus would take me to Lower Marsh, which was the rear entrance to Waterloo Station. A short walk up the slope past Dewar's bottling plant and I was on the station concourse. It was about forty minutes by ...see more
My father (who lived 98 years) was an amazing character. Back in the 1950's when we lived in Jesmond Road, Croydon he built this strange 'shed' in the back garden. It was thoroughly air conditioned by the fact that it had only three sides and was made up of bits of old wood, beams, brick and the corrugated iron remains of an old Anderson shelter. His economically driven D.I.Y was totally individual and ...see more
I was born in Knutsford in 1947 at 114 King Street (the Tatton cottages), and moved to Manor Park in 1951. I started at Egerton School (the old one on Silkmill Street) and then moved to Crosstown. I have so many memories of my wonderful home town that 1000 words wouldn't begin to tell my story. The Maydays, (I was a bridesmaid in the village wedding, a dutch girl and several other ...see more
I was born at number 15 Swan Street before my parents moved next door, No.14. My family had people living all around the area, maternal in Swan Street/ Hargreave and paternal, from Model Place. We had a shop on virtually every corner and of every type within a couple minutes walk. Billy Ramsdales was next to us, a pleasant version of Arkwrights store; opposite was the Chippy and in the 10 ...see more
This is a photo of Henry Kitchen, my mother's grandfather, who was also one of Stanhope Forbes' favourite models. He was painted sitting in the rowing boat in Forbes' painting 'The Lighthouse', which now hangs in Manchester Art Gallery, and I have also read an account of a diary which he kept, when taken to London to be presented to Queen Victoria, on designing a new type of trammell net. According to my mother ...see more
I lived in Woodland Close throughout my childhood and started at Kingsbury Green Primary School in 1959. The classrooms were brightly painted, and the smells of plasticine, paints, crayons, pink (carbolic) soap and school dinners pervaded everything. The pathways via Old Kenton lane and Slough Lane seemed endless, and I used to pick up acorn cups on my way into the classroom. Mrs. Wren was the Head Teacher at ...see more
We moved to Fawley in 1954 and I spent my last 2 years of Secondary School at Hardley. My brothers John and Trev also went there. I have vivid memories of lying in bed on a clear frosty night and seeing the reflection of the flare bouncing off next door's wall and of the constant roar of the refinery. Visitors complained they couldn't sleep for the flickering light and /or the noise - I couldn't sleep without ...see more
RE: Growing up in Fawley
Memories of my misspent youth growing up in Fawley were brought to the fore last Marc;, as my dear mum passed away, myself, husband and youngest son spent 5 lovely days in a rented house in Hythe as we attended mum's funeral. We visited the Nelson pub whilst there, reminiscing with my husband I confessed to being barred from there for, of all things, under age drinking (good job my son ...see more
I returned from 2 years in Malta where I had been a Nanny to 3 little girls who were all about to go to boarding school. I needed a job quickly so applied for and got the job as an usherette in the Embassy Cinema. At the time my future husband was a second projectionist there. I only worked there for few months until I found another Nanny's situation. My abiding memory is of the film that was playing at the time I ...see more
The Rose and Crown at Thorney was managed, I believe from the early 1930s by my Great-Aunt Ellen and her husband Joe.
My mother, Daisy Steele (nee Camp), and other members of her family spent pre-Second World War summer holidays there, and during the war, presumably during the heavy bombing of London and the later V1 and V2 rocket attacks, my mother and I, along with other members of the family spent ...see more
I think it was July 1967. We arrived at Leverington hitch-hiking from the Continent. We were nineteen years old, and we had so little money that we had decided never to pay for accommodation until we got to Leverington. I remember we slept in a lean-to shed at the back of a pub. The pub owner had served us a few pints and listened to our little story. She offered this solution. Another night, we slept in a kind of blockhouse ...see more
I remember as a small kid growing up in England I couldn't wait for the summer holidays to arrive. As the days drew closer I could hardly sleep at night knowing that any day now we would be packing our suitcases and heading to the caravan site for the whole summer, 6 weeks without any school, life was just great. When the big day arrived we headed out of our house to the bus stop to catch ...see more
Well . . . not all of it!
My dad was enlisted USAF stationed at Alconbury 1959-1960 and he found us a place on High Street that we shared with a number of other people. I believe it was one of the first three buildings backed up to the river, right downtown. I do know it was across the street and only three or four buildings down from the grocery store. Dad was out as usual and pregnant Mom was home ...see more
My parent's (and myself) first home - above Strattons shop - mother's maiden name as my mother's father & brothers were joint owners of the business. Head branch was in Beacon Hill where my mother was born. I myself was born not far away in St George's Wood Nursing Home, Grayswood (1959). Moved in 1966 and have been in Frensham ever since. The photo itself may prove interesting as it may prove that one of the two people in ...see more
I think that the photograph was taken in 1965 as the photo shows me and my brother David Jones fishing from the bottom of the garden of 4 Nursery Lane. I was born in 1955 in Tamworth and we moved to Hopwas in April of 1961 when I was just 8 years old and my brother 5 years old. I think that I look about 12 in the photo? The bungalow was built in part of the house next door's garden which was owned by Len Harper. ...see more
I know you. You are the little boy who came skipping out of your house to tell us all that 'We had won the War'. I was born at No. 8 - all the children played together in that cul-de -sac. John Heard's sister was my best friend. My sister, brother and I went to Canada Road school. Mr Morris had to do all the admin as well as his role of Headmaster so the first period after prayers, we were left unsupervised to ...see more
In 1941 when I was 10 years old we lost our home in the Plymouth blitz. Having been to Crackington before the war on holiday and staying at Baypark Farm (Mr and Mrs Coombs) we arranged to go there again. Living as holiday guests for any length of time was unsustainable so we very very fortunate to be able to share a bungalow with a wonderful couple (Mr and Mrs Henry Knight). Mr Knight was the local ...see more
I was raised in Broadway from a baby until I married in 1970. My parents, Gordon and Joan Harrison owned and ran the Broadway Coaches Ltd at Yew Tree House, just above this photo. Behind the house we kept many coaches which took the local children to schools in the area and many day trips. My grandfather had a garage on the village green selling petrol and local taxis. we were always busy. The car in the picture ...see more
Some years ago I gave my mother a book of Old Weybridge photos for Mothering Sunday as this is where she was brought up.
Imagine her surprise, on seeing this picture of Queens Road in Weybridge, to realise that the two people on the far right were her mother and younger sister, Edith & Lesley Johnson. She recognised her mother instantly from the distinctive hat, which she is also wearing in my mother's wedding photos!
I was born in 1975 and spent nearly every birthday until I was 16 years old at Thame Cottage, Portmellon with my Mum, Dad, younger Brother, Uncle, Auntie and 3 cousins. One day, when I have my own children, I hope to take them there so that they too can have the special memories that I hold so dear.
Memories of Thame Cottage; The electric meter running out, the cold shower room beyond the kitchen with the ...see more
The late 40's through the mid 50's. Some 50 plus years have now passed, since I was a " kid " on the streets of Burnt Oak. How life has changed. I now sit at my computer ( here in Tennessee, USA ), and have instant access to Burnt Oak and Edgware online, a place where I spent my younger years. Having read the first three accounts of life in Burnt Oak in the 40's and 50's, many memories came to my ...see more
Since my birth coincided exactly with the outbreak of World War II in the September of 1939, my mum must have felt that childbirth was synonymous with calamity; I was Mum's 'war effort'. Home was a semi-detached two-storey house in Melrose Gardens, a cul-de-sac of thirty-two identical semis in Edgware, Middlesex. Dad was a printer by trade, and during the war years Mum worked at de Havilland's aircraft ...see more
I think this is a photo of me (note groovy sunglasses) walking my dog Zoe. I used to walk her along by the sea from Folkestone through Sandgate to Seabrook (in high heels!). I think it was about 1962-64 and I remember the coat, which was Kingfisher Blue.
I watched so many cup finals on black and white television when I was a boy never dreaming of the day that I might actually be there. But it happened in 1973! Would you believe my neighbour was a long retired football referee and received two tickets for every cup final! I don't think he had refereed since the 1940's and yet he continued to get his tickets - small wonder that real football fans ...see more
I was born at Corner House, at the bottom of Aerodrome Rd, Hawkinge on 31st August 1936. My parents were the local newsagents in Canterbury Rd, backing onto the famous airfield. I have vivid childhood memories of the war years and especially the Battle of Britain, the year I was 4. The photographs and nostalgic comments from your contributors 'ring bells' for me; as a teenager I often travelled by cycle ...see more
My mother, Vera Brown, was born in Wooburn Green and lived at 135 Boundary Road until she came to America to marry my father after WWII. (My father was based in High Wycombe during the war.) As my gran and aunts never left the Wooburn area, my sisters and I spent many wonderful summers there. In 1965 (age eight) I remember passing every glorious daylight hour on The Golf with the wonderful ...see more