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Reconnecting with our shared local history.
Enjoy these selected memories that have amused or fascinated our team - we think you will enjoy them!
My twin sister and I were recalling the day of the Coronation all those years ago. Jane and I were 8 years old. That morning we walked to Diggle's gargage next to the Co-operative on Hough Lane.
We were' allowed' to watch the Coronation through a big window at the front of the house/building. It was raining all the time while we watched. We have often wondered why we weren't allowed ...see more
Summer time, I had gone fishing on Royston Canal. The local fishing club had replenished the canal with fresh water trout for the anglers. These fish were so tame that all you need do was to hold out your hand with a few maggots and they'd come and feed from you; they were farmed trout. They knew nothing of predators and would calmly swim alongside Pike. Pike were soon to get so fat from feeding off the ...see more
It was about 1953 when we discovered pluffers and ca caws. The pluffer was a device we used for a pea-shooter. This was a straight stem from a weed and it was about an inch or so in diameter, hollow through the centre and collected from Millfield tip where they grew in abundance. We would cut a length measuring about a foot and load our mouths up with the ammo, i.e. the ca caws. These were the berries from ...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
The building in this view with the clock was, in the 1960's, a bank, I don't recall which one but maybe Barclays. I do recall on entering it, the main service counter ran parallel to the High Street and behind it under the windows facing the Whitgift alms houses on the opposite corner was another counter about 20ft [6m] long and 2ft 6" [0,75m] wide completely covered in bundles of notes. 5 Pound, 1 Pound and 10/- notes. ...see more
I remember Mr. Beecham, a lovely teacher who took us for science - but look out if you misbehaved. I would watch fearfully as he dished out punishment. He would take you into a little side room he called his 'cupboard' and tan your behind with a big white plimsole. One day I was caught messing around and it was my turn for the big white plimsole, I was mortified. I was marched into the cupboard with the sound of the ...see more
Born on the 4th January 1939 in 14 Council Cottages, son of Jack and Francis Cole and cared for by my Gran and Granddad who lived opposite, I had super baby years, although Dad was away fighting. I can vaguely remember sleeping in the Anderson shelter in a house in Bough Beech where Mum used to work.
Better are my memories of the school in Four Elms, where we were all in the same class room, ...see more
I lived in Medway Road from 1934-1956. I also remember the doodle bugs (as did Gordon Savage, I remember him), the dockyard heavy guns, and school. I was due to start school on the day war started and finally went to Richmond Road Infants two years later. All the teachers were evacuated with the local area evacuees so there was no one to teach us. I went for 1 hour, then 2 hours, an afternoon, and ...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
I played in the standing corn stooks behind our house, had my first pony/horse ride at Dixon's farm where my horse went berserk in a potato field, so I was put onto and stayed on a horse lead. I flew my kites on Penn Common, I skated on frozen ponds (No skates - I couldn't afford them) in the distant fields, built snowmen on the green spaces on our estate, fished for minnows in West ...see more
This once sleepy hamlet was first home to me,
a better place for childhood there could not be.
Little Drayton church and it`s `olde` Sunday school.
fishing excursions with Uncle to Buntingsdale pool,
Dalelands West; lucky dipbags, Reardon`s supplies,
Monday morning washdays, roller skates, blue skies.
With my `Dan Dare interplanetary telecommunications set,
boyhood dreams of space missions ...see more
In 1961, I became an apprentice furrier to Brainin Bothers of New Bond Street. Brainin's owned a large store (I was told it was as big as Harrods) in Russia.They escaped the Communists and moved to Vienna, only to escape Hitler in 1938. Max and Leo were the brothers and Nat Saunders was the Master Furrier. Every monday we would fill a taxi with Squirrel, Ermine and Mink coats and stoles, and deliver them to Harrods ...see more
I Join the Railway
In the summer of 1953, my Aunt and Uncle were staying with us for their holiday. It must have been my Uncle who first spotted the advertisement in the Dartmouth Chronicle for a Junior Booking Clerk at Kingswear Station.
Everyone knew I was not fond of school, so it seemed natural that I should apply for the job. With some help from my Uncle, I sent ...see more
We were raised in a pit house on Springfield (sometimes 'Avenue') near the far end of Ings Lane, in the fifties. It was a small street, only 6 houses. 2 or 3 keys would open both front and back doors (and the coal-house) of the whole street; but you hardly ever locked the door anyway. Often our small 'gang' walked over the lane towards Broomhill where there was a small wood. We would pinch ...see more
Light-years before the introduction of the mobile phone, Welling in the 1950's had mobile networks of its own. These were weekly delivery services to households in and around local streets. As a young child I was always excited by the Saturday arrival of the R. White soft drinks lorry and our usual order of lemonade, cream soda and Tizer. I remember well the familiar clinking of glass bottles in wooden ...see more
I was raised in Mountsorrel in the Soar valley near Leicester. It was a Norman village that lay alongside the river Soar under Castle Hill. The hill got its name from the mote and bailey type 12c castle built by the Beaumonts – Earls of Leicester who were given land by William the Conqueror. It is first mentioned in 1150 when its strategic position for a castle was first noticed. Some say the name of the ...see more
I was born in 1938 and my maternal grandparents lived in a tiny shop on Havant Road, Cosham. I remember I used to write to them occasionally which is how I remember the address. I can't ,though, recall the number. Their name was Owen. I know that when my mother and I travelled on the No. 31 bus from Fishbourne to visit them my mother always gave the destination as "The Red Lion" and I do recall that the ...see more
I think it must have been 1952 or 3 when I went to live on Kingwood Common with my parents in the old nissen huts left by the German POWs, and afterwards by Polish refugees. We knew the place as Kingdom Camp, or just 'The Camp'. There were a good few families living there that I remember and they formed a friendly community of people that were waiting for council houses in some of the nearby villages. ...see more
We moved in to our new house in Rosemary Avenue in 1938. We had a Triumph car and my father built a garage of timber and asbestos sheets and laid concrete runways for it (they're still there). I started school in 1939 at the infant school in Down Street. One of our neighbours had a daughter Shirley, the same age as me and we went to school together. When the Blitz first started in 1940 we couldn't ...see more
When I was around 11 years old in the early '60s we used to go to Chapel every year and stayed in Standish Bungalow. It was owned by my mother's employer who allowed us to go there as a reward for her devoted service. Lovely bungalow and so full of character and very secluded. I recall one year my father found a large box kite in the bungalow and suggested that we fly it on the beach, ...see more
The Transport Department at Southmead Hospital when I joined them consisted of an officer, foreman, and four porter drivers, with two buses, three vans, and two cars. We were responsible for supplying the group hospitals with staff, goods, and laundry. The group was comprised of nine hospitals, Southmead itself, Almondsbury, Thornbury, Berkeley, Ham Green, Clevedon, and the Clifton ...see more
'Cash on the Nail' the man said. . . and a century or so ago in Bristol he really meant it. For the deal would have been clinched on one of Bristol's four famous nails standing outside the Corn Exchange on Corn Street or, from the late 1550s to 1771, under a covered walk outside All Saints Church before they were moved to today's well-known site.
The brass nails with their flat tops and raised edges to prevent ...see more
When I lived in Wokingham in the 1950s, I remember a double fronted cycle shop on Denmark Street (next door to the entrance to some sort of meeting hall?) - you can just see part of the hanging sign for the shop in picture number W123016. To me then the shop seemed quite large and was certainly stuffed full of bikes and accessories that I coveted. I can still remember the wood flooring and smell of ...see more
I was five years old in 1953 and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was the first vivid memory I have of my childhood.
We lived at Midway, Cold Ash Hill, the major road through the village. Dressed as a pirate with silver buckles on my shoes, an eye patch and a wooden cutlass painted silver, with my childhood friend, Keith Stroud, we joined the throng of people making their way up the hill to the recreation ...see more
As you look at this picture, the hedgerow and trees on the right hid an old spring water bottling plant. It was all very basic. We discovered it one day on a trip to One Tree Hill. As a 'gang' of boys from Goldsmiths Avenue, we used to wander all over the place exploring and tree climbing. We had a tree along the Corringham Road, before The Manorway was built, that had the top cut off leaving a large flat area ...see more
I moved from Blyth to Seaton Sluice into a newly built house in Cresswell Avenue in 1957. Life as a child in the village was exciting; most days we would either play on the beach and harbour or the new building development behind Parkfield in Easedale. We made camps in the former garden of the demolished Jacobean house at Seaton Lodge and used Starlight Castle in the dene as our ...see more
My parents often told me this story.
My Great Grandfather was John Roberts. His son, my father, Thomas Glyndwr Roberts and my mother Myra Roberts (Evans) as young children were playing on the swings in Blaen Park.
My father was pushing Myra on the swings and she asked him to stop as he was pushing her too high. He said I'll only stop if you say you'll marry me.
She finally agreed ...see more
I was fascinated when I saw the new development of Garndiffaith photo. This photo is of Lasgarn View, Varteg, which is just above the Garn.
I was born in Primrose Cottage in 1951 with my brother as we were twins. My name was Marilyn Jenkins, my twin was Mervyn.
We had so much fun in those days, when we moved to Lasgarn View. Wow, the back of the house lead onto Lasgarn Wood an imaginary world of climbing trees, ...see more
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 ...see more
I was 17 years old and lived at no 7 Tivoli Road, and when Father Christmas arrived at the front door with 4 cwt of coal my mum put newspaper down the hall and throughout the house so that the coal man could dump the coal in the shed. So Christmas Day we all sat around the fire to keep warm - and cold at our backs. We cooked chestnuts on a shovel and played cards, and my dad played the piano and we all sang carols. ...see more
I remember when The Beatles came to The Wood in 1963 to record the Morecambe & Wise show at the ATV Studios off Eldon Avenue. Me & a couple of mates from school (Holmshill) played truant to wait at the back of Studio Gates off Shenley Road to try and catch a glimpse. After waiting a few hours it got to lunch time so we wandered up to Shenley Road for a bite, and there was John & Paul just walking along ...see more
I lived as a child at number 110 henwood lane Catherine de barnes or better known as catney.The house we lived in was the lodge to the hospital. I lived with mother and father,4 sisters and 3 brothers. We spent 3 years there from 1962 untill1965.in 1962 I remember my dad and I going into the woods and looking for some where to dig an hole I was only 5 at the time and did not understand what was going on, ...see more
Memories are funny, they come and go and during this time of lockdown I've thought quite a lot about my childhood. We lived in Amberley Road, very close to the Raglan School entrance in Raglan Road. The school gates were never locked and the girls' toilets were at the end of the corridor and led outside, which meant that any member of the public could access them! I remember one of ...see more
The Seagoing Years.
I must have left the Army sometime in August or September of 1949, and went back to C.J.King & son, tug owners, to carry on with my job as deck boy. This was not to my liking, as I was now twenty, and scrubbing floors for 3 quid a week all hours of the day and night was beneath my dignity, even though I was only getting 26 Shillings in the Army, but that ...see more
A large wooden hall was built on land behind Mr and Mrs Chrime's house in Milton Road and we had a street party for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I remember seeing bits of the ceremony on someone's TV (we didn't own one) and it being very grainy, and all the 'old' women (probably in their 20s!) ooing and ahing! I would have been 10 years old and I got 2nd prize in the fancy ...see more
I have the fondest memories of Caister on Sea. We used to have a week there every year and my sister and I were the only kids in our street that had a holiday every year. Like most people in the East End of London, we had very little money, but my dad worked on the railway and got travel concessions as part of his employment package. This enabled us to travel by train to Yarmouth Vauxhall and ...see more
I am Jeannette McNicol (nee Elliott). My brother John and I moved there with my parents ,when I was 13 years old and he was 12. I had found the house when we were having a picnic by the Webbern with friends. I had gone skipping off down the lane, and seen the house around the corner, and run back to my parents saying "Mum! Dad ! There's a fairy house around the ...see more
The Broadway Wimbledon was brought to a near halt in December 1952 for four days. The Gaumont cinema in the back of this photo had to close on the third day because of the smog in the auditorium. I lived in Craven Gardens and the smog was down to less of a metre in front of your face and you could not see your feet.
I grew up in Southall in the 1940s and 50s. We lived in Gordon Road in a terraced house that backed onto The Tube. We had an outside toilet, no bathroom and, until I was about 6, no electricity. At the age of 5 I could change a gas mantle. My mother continued to live there until she passed on in 1989.
Two doors away was Mrs Ridgewell's grocery shop and on the corner there was a greengrocer's. I recall ...see more
We moved from New Cross, Deptford just before the war to The Heights Northolt. As a child then, memories are now somewhat fragmented but that reflects the conditions that parents faced. As a child there seemed much freedom, school was intermittent, lots of time, putting pennies onto the rails of the trains (I still go over those rails on way to Bucks), building a camp near the arch way into the ...see more
I lived at 14 The Homing, Meadowlands, Cambridge which was close to the airport. I was 8 years old in 1955. Often on sunny weekends, my Mum would takes us on a walk over to the airport. It was a quiet relaxed place in those days. There was no kind of airport security, and you could stroll through the gate and sit down on benches to watch the odd Tiger Moth taxi over to the runway and take off. The pilots ...see more
I first lived in a little cottage in Jolly Sailors Yard, around 1944. When I was about 3 years old my parents, Fred and Connie Smith, my brother Derek and me, Norman (Bim) Smith moved to Standard House. We had a great lIfe living there when we were older, just walking round the corner and diving off the quay wall when the tide was up. My grandfather Frank (Tender) Smith was Harbour Master and ...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 Moorland Crescent in the 1950’s. This council housing estate was built a few decades earlier and has a variety of different style good quality houses. Most people had nice gardens with flowers etc and we had vegetables and fruit bushes in the back garden.
On summer nights it was not uncommon for the streets to be full of kids playing as most people had big families. Also there was ...see more
This goes back a long way, I think around 1950. I was a pupil at King's School in Rochester and used to live just off Brompton Farm Road. My parents used to allow me to sleep in the garden (an adventure ?), I digress, I used to go around on my bike, and one day cycling down Crutches Lane, I noticed some tents being erected in the fields of Gads Hill School. They were all girls trying to put the ...see more
No stranger to Friday bath night (did we really only bathe once a week?), where the tin bath was hauled into the kitchen in summer & in front of the fire in winter & filled by kettle. As I got older my dad would take me down to the public wash baths where I could luxuriate in a 'real bath' in a real bathroom. My dad actually knew the man that ran the baths for the council & instead of the fixed amount of ...see more
My father believes the man in the carpenter's apron in photographs 60995 and 60995x may be Francis New. The carpentry business he is standing in front of was eventually taken over my grandfather, John Bray, and his brother William. In the directories they were listed as wheelwrights but they undertook a much larger range of buiding work some of which is still on view today, e.g. the ...see more
I loved to play on the swings, roundabouts and giant slide at Eastleigh recreation ground.
The long polished brass slide was fun to try to walk up, slide down roll things down or pee down.
I overheard a friend of mums who was expecting a baby – she said
“It is wonderful now they can tell if you are pregnant by just peeing on a slide”.
This amazed me that our humble recreation ground had such a magical slide! (This is a true tale!)
Rod Swift remarked (in a previous memory) about falling in the pond - well I was one of these. Rod must be my cousin's son, as my aunt and uncle lived in the house referred to. Around 1953 on an icy cold day in winter, a crowd of us were going home after school. On passing the pond we knew there was thick ice so decided to skate on the ice. We did not take into account that it was beginning to thaw and ...see more
We moved from Chelmsford to Radcliffe in 1968 - I was 2 years old. I went to Lorne Grove Nursery and my memory of that was the Rocking Horse Toy. I hated sharing it!! I was about 3 or 4 and I remember being so upset at being taken off it I was given a dilute orange and a rich tea biscuit - not a good exchange in my book!!
We lived on Clumber Road backing onto Betts Farm - which I adored - Prince the Lion Woke ...see more
