Favourite 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.
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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:
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How the location features in your personal history?
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The memories this place inspires for you?
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Stories about the community, its history and people?
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People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
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Has it changed over the years?
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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!
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Displaying Memories 1801 - 1850 of 2029 in total
Most of the names state the obvious. This is an important crossroad. Turn right to go to Mill Green along Mill Lane. Turn left to go to Vye's Stores (pre-1960) and then to the Church in Church Lane or down Brook Lane, where we assume the Brook never ran dry. We also assume that Eastry was much closer to the sea 1500 years ago. There is a view from the church of a vast flat area which we imagine has seen the sea recede. ...see more
My gran used to be the nurse at the first aid post at Peter pans pool, next to the first aid post was a hut that stored surplus and waiting to be fixed rides ie, hobby horse, rocket or a car or life size figures of Cinderella and I remember a cowboy and an Indian, my imagination went wild in there. I used to dress up as a nurse and pretend to be a nurse like my gran. Lost children found their way to ...see more
I was born in Arnold Avenue, just five minutes walk from the George pub, which was handy later on in my life. Also the post office opposite the pub, which was owned by Mr & Mrs Fit-Simons, who used to have rows of clear lidded biscuit tins, with sweets in such as; black jacks, halfpenny chews, fruit salad and flying saucers etc. I would often pop there for mum's 1/2 oz of Golden Virginia and pack of ...see more
My grandfather was a dentist in Stourbridge from before WW1 until 1961. He had his surgery and dental workshop in a large house in Worcester Street. In fact the house had two addresses: 64 Worcester Street and 1 Pargeter Street. My father and his three brothers and three sisters all grew up here and with breaks for war service, they mostly spent their lives in this area. The boys all went to King Edward VI ...see more
As a young boy from 1943 to 1960, I lived in Heath Lane, Stourbridge and I think I spent almost all my free time playing in Mary Stevens Park. The area where the playground still stands would be where all the children would meet up, then decide what the game for that particular day would be. Quite often it would involve a ball. Coats or jumpers would be thrown down for goal posts if we played ...see more
Known as Stocks Hill, on the left of the photo is the Coop Drapery Shop. At the side of the shop was an alley and the Coop Bakery was there. The house facing in the picture was Ted Witneys car repair yard, along High Street was Keffords shop, Mrs Briton's drapery shop,The White Lion Pub, Mrs Thompson's shop, she used to open Sunday afternoons for us children when we came out of Sunday School. We would go to the shop ...see more
The school was converted for use as the campus for The United States International University in Europe. I was fortunate to be working as a Careers Advisor in nearby Watford whilst it was operating as a university and so I had wonderful opportunities to go inside. I can recall the Dean showing me around and encouraging me to play the organ in the chapel! The old school housed a university library and student ...see more
Does anyone remember the Gayways club in Northampton, High Street? I used to go there to see pop bands like Dave Dee, the Hollies and numerous other rock and pop groups! It had nothing to do with actually being Gay, it was just the name of the venue...oh times have changed. I think it was run by a man called Stan and his wife, the building was very dark and full of hidden rooms, to hide ...see more
My brother and I were evacuated from London to Northampton for about ten months during WW2. We lived in Alma Street, me at No:21 with an elderly aunt and uncle, my brother at No: 40. I remember the meadows at the bottom end of Alma Street, the park with a stream running into a river, a cinema on the corner by the railway, I think it was called the Roxy? Opposite the top end of Alma Street was a church ...see more
I remember this area before it became a park (for the blind?). If I was feeling adventurous I would cross the little stream that ran at the bottom where the gardens are now, sometimes there was a makeshift bridge across it. I used to run all the way down from the top of the hill and leap over it! Then carry on home up Forest Gate Road.
My wife and I spent one year ( circa 1953 ) living in an apartment at Park House Farm where Tony Warner raised sugar beets and pigs. The Manor House was built on a Roman foundation which then formed the basement of the building. I was stationed at Sculthorpe AFB in Fakenham. I joined the local rifle team in Snettisham sponsored by the Queen's husband, Prince Philip. Their residence, Sandringham, was within ...see more
I remember the boating lake with very fond memories. We used to holiday with my great aunt and uncle who lived in Reydon every year. My parents, with my brother and I would arrive in late July and they would return home a fortnight later. I would remain for a further 4 weeks and my aunt would then take me home.This was the pattern for a number of years. My uncle (Frederick Valentine Ladd) was a former Lowestoft ...see more
I can't pinpoint the year exactly, but it was definitely a year or two before 1953 which was the year I left the UK. I and three friends, student nurses at a hospital in Essex, decided on a holiday in Scotland. We chose Dollarbeg as our base hotel and toured round the whole area, walking in the surrounding countryside and taking bus tours from Stirling - the Dukes Pass tour perhaps being the most memorable, the ...see more
My father came up from Wales to work at Blenheim as a youngster.He was born in 1922 and he started work as a teenager, I think. His first name was Edward, but as there was another already in post, so they called him by another name. Apparently the staff were responsible for taking him for his first pint! I do not know how long he was there, but he had tales of swimming in the lake, of the family going to Scotland leaving a skeleton staff with a deliciously full pantry. I wish I knew more!
Pop was at it again with his mates. To the front of this picure the Tudor faced building...THE BEEHIVE PUB, there was a fella called Stumpy (well known older gentleman). He was a gentleman with one leg, who propped himself up against the downpipe of the pub, and who would challenge anyone to put the money down on the path and try and kick his remaining leg from beneath him to win the pot. As he then would ...see more
On the left of this photograph is The Hoy & Helmet pub at South Benfleet, which was originally built in the 15th century, with later extensions. The ‘hoy’ of the pub’s intriguing name was a broad, flat-bottomed sailing boat that was used to transport both cargo like farming produce and passengers along the coast and on the Thames; from this came the nautical cry of ‘Ahoy’, used to ...see more
Situated at the top of our road, as young children Hilly Fields was something quite magical. During winter time we would trek our home made sledges over to toboggan hill and hurtle down to the brook at the bottom of the hill at breakneck speeds. Summer time, climbing trees, fishing for stickle backs in the brook. The game known to us as "jumping dags" which entailed jumping over the brook without getting your feet ...see more
Henry Waits the butchers, small shops that sold sweets from a jar and fireworks. Penny for the guy, small children waiting at bus stops with the 128, 231 and 144B to try and pry a penny towards fireworks. Girlfriend (Rose Gritty) down Drake Street. Rag and Bone merchant towards 'The Hop Poles' pub. Doing the weekly shopping on my bicycle and taking everything home in a couple of shopping bags hanging on the ...see more
The black and white half-timbered building in the photograph was The Gable House, owned by my late grandmother, Nancy Hawkes and her sister, Hilda Cook. The house was run as a short-term residential home for patients staying in Droitwich for treatment at the brine baths. The gardens extended to about 3/4 of an acre and along the rear boundary was a timber built bungalow, where I lived with my parents and ...see more
In this photo, you can see two machines for chopping ice cream into blocks. Some blocks were small for choc ices and wafer ices. Some were larger for making 'bricks'. In the background, on the left, is my father's (Dick Sinfield) office. On the right, the large door behind the two machines is the door to the large freezer, the 'locker', where the ice creams and lollies would be ...see more
This photo shows the back of the York Jones Ice Creamery. The factory was originally used by John Corbett, who built the Chateau Impney, to mine and package salt. The salt was pumped up from the well, just to the bottom left of the photo. This photo shows one of the York-Jones delivery vans which would supply ice cream to all the shops around the Midlands, but mostly ...see more
York Jones is the correct spelling i.e. no 'e' on York! In 1955, I was ten years old and would work here during school holidays. My Great Uncle (my Grandmother's brother), was Frank York-Jones, the Managing Director. His son, Alan York-Jones, ran the factory with my father, Dick Sinfield, who was the Finance Director. In this picture, you can see the two brine tanks against the back wall in ...see more
Here we have two holding tanks where the liquid ice cream would be pumped after being cooked in the vats down below. This is an area in the roof space where the liquid would be pumped over the hot sterilising pipes, seen here in the middle of the picture, hanging down from the roof.
In 1973 having just left school that summer, I started my State Registered Nurse training with tutor Miss Wilmot at this Southernhay Hospital. Being a 'young lady' from Bristol my new colleagues and I were expected to live in the Nurses Home with a larger than life home matron Miss Hermitage. The Nurses Home was behind the hospital between Wynards Lane and Southernhay Gardens where there was an ...see more
When I was 18 in 1955 my Mum booked us a Chalet at Winkups Camp, Towyn. There was Mum, stepfather, myself and 3 sisters aged 5yrs, 3yrs and3 months. Off we went from Huddersfield in Yorkshire in our little Austin 7 (I think), I can remember the excitement now. I think my Mum paid £5 for the week, anyway on arrival we all piled out of the car and Mum went to register in, the lady came and looked at us in dismay and ...see more
The boats in the photo belonged to my great aunt. As a young boy my job (unpaid) was to ferry the boats across the river and pick up any stray boats. I was very small, aged probably 6, could not swim, but there was no health and safety then!! My great-aunt was a very strict Victorian lady. Her motto was "Work comes first". Happy days?
During the Second World War I was sometimes taken by my mother to stay with her grandmother, Mrs Bevis, at the house called Rivermead, about 100 yards downhill from the church, by a sharp bend to the left. Mrs Bevis must have rented it early in the war, having left her home in Jersey before the occupation of the island. I was about 4, when the Germans were still in the ascendent, and we were enjoying tea out in ...see more
I was born in Mitcham in 1929 and lived as a baby in Queens Road aka "rocky" or "Rocks Terrace" my Grandfather was called Truelove and had a shop in Queens Road. Hard to belive now but a horse and cart owner would stop outside his tiny terraced house, unhitch the horse, and walk it through the house out into the back garden.
Later I lived with my Grandparents at 20 Mount Road. She taught piano and I think ...see more
I always remember the Cricket Green as the lazy hazy days of summer. My father played cricket here, I don't remember the name of his team, but we had to sit and watch him. I liked it when the crocuses poked their heads out of the ground at the beginning of the season. They would appear in glorious colour in all the corners of the green, with the cricket pitch in the middle. We were never ...see more
As a small child I remember going to Wilkies fish shop in Western Road and from the counter you could see into their living room at the back. They had a huge fish tank filled with bright coloured fish and I felt very priviledged when Mr & Mrs Wilkie let me go into their living room to see the tank. I can also recall a shop called (I think) Maidments? Again in Western Road, the owner used to make fruit ...see more
I am looking for the living descendants of the little known Victorian print-seller and art dealer George Love (1804-1883) of 81 Bunhill Row in Finsbury, London.
His son William Francis Love (d.1912) married Alice Buttery from Finsbury in 1883.
William Francis Love moved to Surrey with his wife and had 3 children:
1) Cecil Francis Trevelyan (b. ...see more
I was just boy at the age of 6 when I was admitted to Tilbury Seaman's Hospital to have my tonsils taken out. I can remember seeing the big funnels of the ships through my ward window at the end.
The wards were long, big and white with high ceilings, I remember being very sad when my mum and dad had to leave me, until the next day. I also can remember the ship's bell and pictures of many ships around the place. ...see more
Between the tree and the cinema you can see the roof and top floor of one of the blocks of flats in Armfield Crescent so we did not live far from the cinema. When we were small we were given a shilling to go to the Saturday morning pictures - The ABC Minors we were called. We even had a song we sang before the films began. Sixpence was used to get into the cinema and we had sixpence to spend on lollies or ...see more
I used to live up at Luccombe as a child during the begining of the war. We lived at Corydon and I have many happy memories of our time spent there. There were a lot of soldiers billeted at Luccombe. They used to park up their lorries outside my bedroom window and I can hear them now, singing, whistleing and shouting to one another. Some of them used to take time to play with my ...see more
I remember Mr Cherrington, the local bobby, riding his bike through the village and smiling benignly at us kids. I believe his son was in my class at school. I can remember one evening in the summer time having been just put to bed when an official police vehicle arrived at the front door - very much to my mum's consternation. It transpired that Mr Cherrington, along with a police official of some kind, ...see more
I don't know why we called it Three King's Piece but in the mid 50's to the early 60's when I was growing up, that was what we called it. I lived in the flats in Armfield Crescent and when we went to Three Kings Piece we went the back way. Down St Marks Road to Baker Lane, on the corner was St Marks Chuch, to Hilary Avenue. At the end of the avenue was an alley-way. It had a high wall on one side with broken ...see more
Throughout the first half of the 1950's I would spend every school holiday at Linton, with my maternal grandparents. Initially my mum would accompany me from our home in Trumpington to Drummer Street bus station, where she would place me in the care of the nan would meet me as I got off the bus at The Swan; but I was soon doing the whole journey, including the change of buses, totally unaccompanied. ...see more
I was born in London, but my Mother came from the Mumbles, so several times a year we took the train from Paddington on our journey to Swansea. With a large family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, the sea, the beaches and the freedom, I thought I was in heaven! This photo of the Mumbles in 1954 was just as I recall it. You can see Fortes ice cream parlour in the centre, now ...see more
On one day of the year, through the forties and probably the fifties, my grandmother Ethel Glazier, would pick all the lily of the valley she had, in a square bed about three foot square, in her back garden in Rowledge. She would bind them into small bunches, with leaves around, and tie them carefully with thread.
They would sit in a bowl of water on the flagged floor of her larder overnight. She would be ...see more
My gran bought 3 caravans in 1957 which were on the caravan site at Lower Largo. My parents, brother, me, my aunt, my uncle and their 2 children all spent all our holidays there - summer, easter, bank hols, etc. Us children practically spent our whole summer there. When I started work in 1960, my mum and brother still stayed at Largo during the 5/6 weeks of the summer hols, and the working adults (me, dad, ...see more
Born in 1938 in Modbury, I can remember the latter years of World War II. I remember vividly the nights during the months of the heavy blitz on Plymouth, with the beams from searchlights that were based just outside the town criss-crossing the sky as German bomber formations droned overhead. The American forces had an army camp in a field across from Modbury School and as a youngster I used to wander through the camp ...see more
I was born in Station Road, just round the corner from Cawdor St so I was familier with the shops. Kenyon's I knew quite well as I was at school with their son Roy. I was familiar with all the shops in the street especially Bob Horton, as I was sent there by my mother because he was fairly cheap. One day I went there while I had a cold. Not being able to wipe my nose I started to sniff. Twice he told me to stop ...see more
This is about Christmas Day 57 years ago, and how things have changed. Even though we had nowt it was still a very exciting time, as it is now, but money was tight and we could only have the presents that each family could afford. What I mean by this is, there wasn't such a thing as credit like today when you, 'buy now, pay later'. We always had our stockings on the end of the bed, filled with nowt fancy, just a handful ...see more
This was 1958 the time when I seriously got into drainpipes, drapes and rock 'n roll music. I was at Walbottle Secondary Modern School. I used to take in the leg width of my jeans by hand using a needle and thread to make them as tight as I could get them, and I went to school with these drainpipes on and a Donegal jacket, along with black crepe shoes with white bars of music on the front, along with ...see more
This memory of 1961, and me and me pal Wes Coulthard started work at the Delta Rolling Mills (this was over Scotswood Bridge towards Blaydon, left along the river by the Skiff Inn). It was hard work but the dosh was better than other places. We started on the East Mill which rolled flat bars maybe up to 60 feet long when finished through the process of the rolling. I remember Phil and Lennie Scott who were brothers, ...see more
It was about 1956. John Sample had started to change with the times and bought himself a pick up truck, him, 'Auld Jimmy' and me went to the horse sales at Gateshead just over the bridge, and I cannot for the life of me remember if it was the High Level or the Redheugh. They went to buy a horse, which they did, and it was my job to bring him home, they bought this poor sad horse showing its bones and saddle sores, it ...see more
This was around 1968 and I lived in 21 Millfield Lane. I got auld Mrs Bradney's downstairs flat and me Nanna lived in No. 25, so nice and handy to pop in for a cuppa and a chat as me Ma 'n Da 'n two sisters had moved to Pegswood, Morpeth, through me Da being transferred from Loughbride drift in Callerton to a mine in Ashington.
There was a lucrative company in Millfield/Newburn, the Neolith factory. It had a top factory ...see more
1965. Wes and me got back from the Smoke wi nought and needed a job, he got started at the leather works on Scotchy Road and I got started at the Lead Works which is now the site of the Arena. There were two sides to this place, the lead smelting side and the aluminium smelting side, I got into the aluminium side which pleased me as the lead side was a bit naughty with all the fumes and protective clothing including ...see more
1965. During my time working here I carried out a number of different jobs, one was to make Zinc ingots, my shift would start with my furnace fired up and there next to it would be my "charge" this would be a pile of old Zinc ornaments the sort you will see on antiques road show now, there was every size of every subject, some damaged some not, we were allowed to buy stuff that came in at scrap value but ...see more
This was about 1954. The Salvation Army was a large hut on Millfield bank, they did lovely pie and pea suppers now and again for about threepence. Every Sunday evening from six till about seven the Salvation Army band would play on the corner next to Lloyd's Bank. I was enthralled with the musical instruments and decided I wanted to learn how to play one of these, so I joined the band. I went along to band practice and ...see more