Share Your 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.

A couple at a laptop

Add a Memory!

It's easy to add your own memories and reconnect with your shared local history. Search for your favourite places and look for the 'Add Your Memory' buttons to begin

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:

  • How the location features in your personal history?
  • The memories this place inspires for you?
  • Stories about the community, its history and people?
  • People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
  • Has it changed over the years?
  • 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!

Enjoy browsing more recent contributions now.

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Visitors to this website have so far contributed 86,686 memories inspired by the Frith photographs. Join in, and take a moment to remember the places that have been important in your life. Where your family comes from, where you were born, went to school and got married; the towns and villages where you've lived and worked since. Recapture and rekindle those precious memories with this special part of our website.

Displaying all 8 Memories

The Army My call up papers came with a railway warrant for Gloucester, where I and another group of lucky lads, were picked up by army lorry and taken to the barracks of the Gloucester Regiment for our six weeks basic training. Unloaded at the barrack square, we were marched (shambled) to our huts, then to the QM stores for uniform and kit. The Army does not give you your kit, it is yours “for the use of” during your ...see more
Each year, the excitement mounted as summer drew near. Dad would drag out the large wicker hamper and Mum would start to fill it with clothes, wellies and tins of food from Galbraiths or the Co-op. By school's end, the carriers would have come to cart the hamper down the tenement stairs and on to its journey. We'd be dressed in our best for travelling and then off to Central Station to catch the steam ...see more
As a child and adult, I remember the bridge and how long it was closed for boats coming up to the BOCM and Ranks flour mill. It had to opened in sync with the railway bridge and the trains. I remember the barges with big red sails towing more barges, and the year of a severe freeze when the river froze solid and looked like the Baltic with huge ice floes; people thought it might destroy the bridge ...see more
My grandfather, A J Hurd, was, for a time, Rudyard Kipling's head gardener at Batemans. He, my grandmother and my mother (now Joyce Richardson) and her sister (now Barbara Wainwright) lived in one of the cottages (which still exists) near the mill adjacent to Batemans. In addition to his responsibilities in the gardens, Grandpa also worked with the private hydro-electric turbine generator (which also still ...see more
I was born in Battersea in 1938. We lived at 28 Forthbridge Rd near Clapham Common. With my mum and sister, I went to the Granada cinema loads of times on a Saturday night. Often you had to line up to get in and they had these men dressed up in uniforms, even with 3 stripes or 2 on their arms, who used to bawl at you as if you were on a parade ground. We could only afford the 1/6 pence seats but kids ...see more
Your Mam Margaret has been trying to find you for years and years and never has and never will stop thinking about and loving you. It was not your Mams wishes for you to be adopted you were taken away solely because she was unmarried. If any of the above information connects to you PLEASE contact me through here and I will pass on your details to Margaret as she would dearly love to hear from you.
It was 1958 and I had just left school at Walbottle Secondary. Me and my best pal Wes Coulthard (who I'm sad to say has since passed away) went on our first holiday together before starting down the Pit. We went with his parents Jimmy and Polly to Middleton Towers in Morecambe, it was just like a Butlins camp and bye, did we have some fun. Then, that over with, it was the pit. We started doing training at Wheatslade ...see more
My memories of Cefn Fforest were of Whitson marches in your new clothes and having sore feet where your new sandles rubbed your feet raw. Along with 'Thomas The Milk' was Pughs Farm who had a horse and cart delivering the milk - my parents would send me out to collect the milk in a jug - this was before the milk bottles came into being. Also the police station where Sgt Church and 'Brace the Bobby' put the ...see more