Happy Days

A Memory of Bradford.

We came to live in East Bowling in 1948 (Caryl Road, just a stone's throw from the former Bolling Girls' Grammar School). Trams (soon to be replaced by trolley buses) were still running up and down Wakefield Road. I went to Lorne Street Primary School (now sadly demolished) before going on to Grange Boys' Grammar School. I remember learning to swim in Bowling Baths a couple of hundred yards down the road next to St, John's Church where my sister was married. There was also a small library whose books I would devour at the rate of two or three per week. Saturday afternoon was special as there was a children's matinée at the Coventry cinema (nicknamed 'the fleapit') opposite the church. Laurel and Hardy, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy and Flash Gordon were my favourites. I also had a morning paper round (employed by West's newsagents opposite the Hepworth and Grandage Works). Wages were £1 per week plus tips at Christmas!

My childhood playgrounds were the Bolling School's hockey fields (when the caretaker didn't spot us) as well as Bowling Park and the grounds of Bolling Hall. At the time there was also a lot of surrounding waste land with two or three slag tips. Apparently the area was the scene of coal and iron ore mining in the 19th century. It's now a housing estate. I remember a shop (in fact it was just a wooden hut) at the bottom of Flockton Road where we used to buy our gobstoppers. We would play out (and often get into mischief) on dark winter evenings without there being the slightest danger. And the week before Christmas we would go carol singing, part of the proceeds of which were, I'm rather ashamed to admit, spent on a packet of Woodbines. I visited East Bowling two or three years ago after a long absence. Everything has changed so much (including myself) that the boy and youth I then was is now a complete stranger. The memories that remain are still, however, fond.

Barry A. Whittingham