Great Bridge 50’s And 60’s

A Memory of Great Bridge.

I was born in Great Bridge in the 1950’s in Slater Street, I went to Fisher Street School until I was eleven. I remember Irene Edwards sweet shop and Teddy Grays on the the canal bridge just before the market. I loved Teddy Grays herbal tablets..My mom used to be the ice cream lady at the Palace cinema its nickname was ‘the Bug and Scratch’ I’ll leave it to your imagination why.From when I was five sitting in the cinema watching the films. Then waiting for my mom to come down with the tray of ice creams, I always got one! My mom was working the night that the cinema was struck by lightening she had just left when it caught fire and burnt down. At Fisher Street there was a terrible smell in the playground as it backed onto George Hipkins slaughterhouse when they were killing the pigs and the squealing was awful. The other thing I remember was the pubs in a very small area there was a lot! Starting at the market there was the ‘Leopard, then by the entrance to the canal was the ‘Stork’ then the ‘Wagon and Horses’. Then in Sheepwash Lane there was the Crown and a little further on there was one that was knocked down.Then just over the bridge was the ‘Severn Stars ‘.There’s probably a lot more that I don’t remember. We had a zinc bath on the wall outside the back door which was filled with hot water on a Saturday night, I had two brothers and we all had to use the same water just topped up. I had long hair and couldn’t go out when it had been washed and combed with the obligatory Zulio lotion. So I used to stay out as long as I could on Saturdays to be late getting in the bath. It was years before I realised that I got the dirty water.I did better than Malcolm Randall over the road he came home on a Monday night and got i the boiler in the hot water after his mom had done the washing. I remember a lot of my school fiends, Pauline Silwood,Gillian Waters,Carol Klee, Diane Homer and neighbour Christine Adams. I spent many happy hour in Friar Park on the witches hat playing blind mans bluff we used the patent no for the count . Situated on the bar in the middle iits Pat no. 228840-24,what a memory,