My Childhood Revisited

A Memory of Urmston.

I was born in 1951 in Urmston Cottage Hospital . The house I grew up in is visible on the photo. It's the third house along in the farthest bock on the left. It was part of the council offices as my father was caretaker there for many years and I enjoyed a really good childhood there. Everything happened on Crofts Bank Rd and we had the best possible view of Whit Sunday walks and brass band processions from our front room window.
Burgon's used to sell sugar, loose and wrapped in dark blue sugar paper and butter patted and shaped and wrapped in greaseproof paper. I remember Cuthbert's own pork sausages with fondness. I've never tasted better. There was also a sweet shop, two ladies' clothes shops and a hardware shop on that side of the road, with Silcock's green grocer's on the corner. On the other side, going down from the bank, there was a tobacconist and a fish and chip shop and a newsagent's, which became a toy shop on the corner. There will have been others I missed too. My home and the rest of the old council offices were pulled down in order to build the new council offices and library. It was never the same after that, as Urmston changed for ever.. We lived in a flat on the top of the new council offices until Dad retired a few years later and we moved away.