Beanz Dreamz...

A Memory of Abbey Hulton.

Our family moved to Friars Road in the summer of 66, from a damp house in Boothen Green, which looked over toward the Michelin Factory. I was 5 years old. My father Graham was a former art student at Burslem College of Art under the painter, poet and playwrite Arthur Berry, and by the 70’s became a tv engineer. Mother Kathleen was a Nurse. I remember the World Cup was on at the time of the move.

Our back garden backed onto the ‘woods’ where no tree was in sight! Initially the ‘woods’ was just an open area of rough, gently undulating fields. The brook fed a large pond at the southern end near to the senior school, under which it passed on its way to join the River Trent, the other side of Leek Road. Me and my friends, Mark Barrow and Martin Smith would fish for bull noggers, red penks and stickle backs, catch frogs spawn, and invariably end up messing about until we were all soaked.

By the late 60’s, The Pylons had arrived, straddling and following the brook as it flowed down toward the school at the far end of the fields. To my young mind, they were like something out of a science fiction movie. I recall their aluminium girders always seemed ice cold, even in the summer.

By the mid 70’s the fields were flattened and the giant pond was gone! Along with frogs, the beautifully sculpted bull rushes, and the fireflies that would hover around the bathroom window on bath nights.

Gone too were the hummocks which we three imaginary boys would use to play king of the castle. Just in time, though, for our transition into more grown up games like ‘nogger’ (football!) and cricket. That area of flat field just across the brook from our back yard became our territory. When I returned from Uni occasionally in the early 80’s those two bald patches in the grass, where our wickets would be, were still there!

Just a few blocks up from the estate were farmlands. We 'three imaginary boys’ might access the top fields via two concrete tunnels which channeled the brook down from the farmlands under Abbots Road and the garages at the head of the 'woods’. Otherwise we’d just walk up Abbots Road, and cut through past the British Legion to the left and that curious giant flat topped hill on the right, which over looked the estate.

As we followed the brook upland, it cut deeper into the clay often creating minor cliffs, one side from which we’d do ‘duffers’ or dares. I recall one jump was way too high for my young body and on landing the other side I received shooting pains right up my backside which lasted for months afterwards!

Passing the Allotments to the left of us, we might turn sharp left to get to the football fields, or carry on straight ahead toward the farms, the ‘Roman Wall’ and bluebell wood. I can still recall the heady spring scent of balsam from the carpet of bluebells, which gathered under the canopy of trees. Another site of abiding memories, in the vicinity of bluebell wood, was the 'Roman Wall’ aka the Rifle Butts. You can take your pick as to which that curious stone wall in the middle of a field actually was.

The football pitches were used by lads and dads on a Sunday, and by the local school, Carmountside Middle & Infants, during term times. Oh dear, sports days at that school, the scene from Kes featuring Brian Glover I’m sure resonates for so many working class kids. Until I came good in my last year at junior school, I was definitely a Billy Casper, hovering on the touch line, the hail, snow or wind biting my legs during the winter seasons. I recall our sports teacher Mr Valentine shouting 'Thorley, yer fairy, get stuck in!’ Haha!

From my arrival there in '66, the teachers names for each year were.. mmm.. infants years I can’t recall so much. Mrs Bibby? But from the first year junior school on: Mrs Clowes, (Clewes?) first class room at the far end from the dining hall, whose daughter briefly attended her class I recall. Then Mrs Rimmer. Then Mrs Clare (?) next to the dining hall, right at the other end. Then back with Mrs Rimmer. Then a year with Mr Valentine, under whom I really started to emerge from my shell, aged eleven.

Then we had some kind of an extended junior year in a modern extension to the old school building, the New Unit, under Mr Turner and Mrs Halfpenny. I think that year the eleven plus had been phased out, and I’m sure I recall my parents being assured the tests at the end of the year were not being used to stream the kids into the senior school, but they weren’t convinced.

Ok, class of '72: ‘King Kevin’ Booth, Mark Williams, Paul Guy, Peter Lanaghan, Paul Corden, Mark Howe, Mark Adlington, Robert Harp, Denver Whalley, Wayne Wooldridge, Alan Millward, Geoffrey Davies, Derek Hulme, Tony Isaacs, Alan Cotten, John Adams, Paul Chadwick, Stephen Hill, Steven Buffey, Steven Humphries, and late arrivals Nicholas Platt and David Chapman. Of the girls: Leslie Jones, Angela Jones, Tina Cliff, Diane Plant, Julie Nixon, Julie Wobey, Karen Parks, Karen Boden, Pat Nixon (?) Carol Wallace, Julie Adlington, Jennifer Dobson, Late arrival (from Clapham, or Clacton?) Julie Boone and breifly, for about one year only, Faye Mitchel.

Spookily, I was looking at the front cover of my local Leicester Mercury, in the early 90’s I think, and saw a picture of someone whom I thought, mmm.. that looks like Faye, and checking the caption below, it read ‘model, Faye Mitchel...’

Carmountside Senior High School from about 1973.. For the son of a photographer, sadly I took only one grey cast photo of the boys school yard. It was taken looking toward the washrooms that extended high above the yard, from which we exited down a long, sloping concrete walkway, bound by a wall, adorned by some graffiti, 'Colditz’ I think, and 'The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’ Haha, that said everything about the 70’s school experience! There was a tradition of dropping first years off that balcony wall, a right of passage I thankfully dodged!

The teachers: English: Mrs Chapman, Mr Hanforth (or was he History, with Mrs Plimmer?) History for sure was with Mr FL Williams, Geography with JJ Williams, Art with Mr Bloor, French: Mr Spencer, Physics Mr Webb, Chemistry Mr Harrison, Maths with Stoke fan Mr Wilson. Woodwork with Mr.. ooh, it’s gone for the moment.. Johnson? Mrs Bailey was music teacher. How could I forget drama with Mrs Henderson?

I kept a stupid 'mess about book’ in which myself and others did cartoons, dirty limericks and caricatures of some of the staff, I still have it. One image was a composite 'bionic man’ taking features from each of us.. to save others any anatomical embarrassment I’ll only mention I contributed my 'bionic’ hairstyle! Another was a caricature of ‘Piggy’ Proctor, holding his cane, captioned ‘I’ll ‘av the last one!’ I still have that book, I wish I could include images here!

Year of 76, from classes 'S’ and 'G’ included: Jonathan Clay, Alan Peacock, Gary Smith, Brian Harrison, David Harper, Tim Cawley, Robert Challinor, Kevin Booth, Mark Williams, Alan Millward, Alan Wilkes, Milco (?) Chris Bloor, John Hall, Stephen Hill, Dougie Tweedy.. Stephanie Sherratt, Melvina Garner and Deborah Wakelin, Tina Cliff, Jooolie Brown, twins Ann and Sandra Johnson, Julie Adlington, Angela Jones, Leslie Jones, Heather.. (my apologies, I forget your surname, Heather... you had the polka dot dress, I recall?) Aah, Heather Glover! Thank AP! Denise Brannigan, Dorreeeen... Hogan (was it??) and last and most loverly.. sweet Rosemary Walklate!

We all remember our youth with bias, hopefully as the best of times, but I’m sure that tv program about households going back in time, didn’t the participants vote the 70’s the most enjoyable time?

That Worst of the Decades tv series can make any era, like the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or 80’s seem appalling, with the causal chauvinism and the less savoury aspects of sexism and racism, the poverty, the inequalities of the class divide.

History edits and compresses the past and any era can appear awful retrospectively, but in the spaces between major events or situations that might seem daunting to have lived through, we managed to find great joy and fulfilment amidst the hardships. The 60’s and 70’s Abbey Hulton would have reflected some of that, naturally, but I remember a great deal of warmth, humour, innocence and neighbourliness too.

What’s left of my potteries accent is often mistaken for Scouse, it’s not an accent that is familiar enough for outsiders to get a fix on, but whenever I go back to Stoke it’s the first thing that hits me. The dialect has a warmth to it. You know how you can hear a person breaking out into an unseeable smile on the other end of the phone, it’s like that for me, just hearing it.

My experience of Abbey, well, every other house was either a retired couple, with a nice rose garden out the front, or a young family with kids like ours, 'kickin a bow agen a woe...’ There were occasional tensions, but back doors were usually left open and we really did nip next door for a cup of sugar, well it seemed that way.

The estate was named after Hulton Abbey, the foundations of which were still visible on the grounds of the Senior School. I joined the Archaeological Society as a teenager and took part in excavations there on Sundays in the late 70’s. The society held meetings every Friday night in Hanley, in several creaky rooms above a cafe, until they moved just around the corner, into a side wing of the newly rebuilt Hanley Museum.

I left to go and study Archaeology at Leicester in 1979, to embrace another life, but I missed the Abbey and have many fond (and naturally, some not so pleasant) memories of the people of the Abbey.

Next door at number 60, 'owd' Sammy Gregory, leaning on his gate smokin' his woodbines. 'Ahl bost that bow if thee kick it in ar yard!’ Well, we did and he kept his promise!

At number 62, Granny Barrow was a bundle of energy, like a home help to others of her age, elderly folk who might be widowed and in need of home help.

Mrs Nixon at number 68, I think, always greeting me should I pass her coming home during the half terms, with a warm smile at her gate, as proud as if I was one of her own.

At the top of the road, Mr and Mrs Bould, who had four beautiful daughters, the twins Madeleine and Maureen, Carol, and Christine who moved into number 61, (I think, counting the house numbers from mine) after she married and became Mrs Hooley? Apologies for any misspellings.

Other neighbours: Mr and Mrs Martin next door at 56, whose children Mick and Susan were a couple of years older than me and my sister Deb. They were fun loving older teens, loved their music and were still listening to Motown and 60’s stuff when our younger generation were into Slade, Bolan and Bowie, and the Glitter scene. They would knock around with Philip Bromley at 52 Friars Rd, and Peter Cartwright at number 48.

Philip Bromley was amazing with wood, he could build little boats, with all the rigging and stuff, which he’d take down to sail on Cauldon Canal just across Leek Road from the estate. Peter, in passing, would often shout ‘Eh up Mahhc, ast bint’ pahhk?’ His dad worked for Tizer and they’d have plenty of surplus wooden crates to build thee most giant of bonfires, it seemed at my young age, out the back ‘woods’

Mario, the Ice Cream Man, who would park right outside our house at least once a week, always greeting me with the same salutation, ‘Hellooo, Marco!’

Does anyone remember how mad bonfire nights were in 60’s and 70’s Abbey Hulton? People dragging whole trees down from the farmlands, those wooden slats from garden fronts went missing, fires built anywhere and everywhere, it seemed! Before health n safety went mad, we could enjoy some dangerously good times! Before the back fields were levelled, the grass around the big pond would grow tall, white and dry as tinder in the summer, perfect for fires, which would spread across the whole fields! I’d get back home, Have you been lighting fires, Marc? No, mum, I says, smelling of burnt kippers!

The local shops? If you didn’t cut across the backs, the circuit around Abbots Road would pass the Co-Op. Licking sheets of Green Shield stamps! Doing errands for neighbours!

The main run of shops further along, I’m sure I once remembered them all, and their owners names. Heading towards the shops past the community hall, first shop was the Offie. Next, the chippie, I think. Or was there a butchers next? I briefly knew the pretty Barbara - Fenton? Shenton? whose parents ran one of those shops, the butchers maybe. She’d have been a year older than me. She followed me home across the fields once, and I let her into my tent and offered her malteesers floating in a biscuit tin of Coca Cola! Well, that’s how Aquarians are, having a crush!

Next shop on.. no, I can’t recall. Then Mrs Mycock’s and her daughter, who ran a small little sweet shop, crammed with sugary delights! Yes, Michelle, I remember how small it was, a glass cage of sweeties galore! Mmm.. now I’ve forgotten that shop about half way down, it was long and deep and sold lots of toys, plastic swords, water pistols and bows and arrows. Yes, he did have a long white coat, like a doctor!

Now I’m lost, so I’ll go to the far end next to the jitty that led to the bottom end of the fields. It was a little corner shop just selling sweets I think, and it seemed to be run by a girl from school and her friends?? I don’t recall any adults there. Next up, the newsagents or post office where I’d get my copy of Shoot or the Gerry Anderson mag Century 21, was it? I’m sure I could summon up a few more shops if I thought about it, but at 60, maybe I’ve reached my limit of recall for now..

The reason for the title of this piece, I was known as Beanz. That was all I could cook myself for dinner, after I’d had food poisoning at school, and decided it was safer to run the two blocks home, rush some beans on toast and still get back for half an hour of footie in the schoolyard.

Each time I returned, less often over the years, well, I noticed a change, into the mid late 80’s, but then it was the Thatcher era, which took its toll on society and communities across the UK. Many of the familiar faces on Friars Road either passed away, or moved on. It was bound to feel less like the place I once knew. I’m sure for the new families that moved in back then it was a place where their fond memories and experiences first began to take shape, and the children of those generations have their own nostalgias, now. I had this notion of returning like some latter day Johnboy Walton, I’m not sure what I was thinking I would do, or why I’m writing this, even. Maybe those now grown children of succeeding generations might now be feeling feel the same bittersweet nostalgia?

I think of the idea of history as written by the people that lived it, not just remote historians. The way that seventies series The World at War was shaped primarily by the testimony of the ordinary soldiers, not the Generals or the Academic Historians. Well, they both have their value.

That there can be a continuum of shared experience from generation to generation, which accumulates a collective sense of meaning, purpose and identity, which might connect those generations, however far they wander over time and distance.

I looked long and hard at those wonderful images of the streets, houses, schools and school rooms of Abbey Hulton, in search of what? Just as those pictures summon up old ghosts, maybe the words we leave behind help those images, and the ghosts of our former selves and those communities come alive once more.
Marc