A 'RANDOM DISTILLATION
OF OUR COMBINED MEMORIES
OF THE WORLD WE GREW UP IN
OF OUR COMBINED MEMORIES
OF THE WORLD WE GREW UP IN
Memories
Mrs Flo Woods
Old Colloquialisms
Sunday School
The Seasons
The Old Tin Hut Hungerhill Rd
ONE OF MANY WELCOMING COMMENTS BY THE FOUNDER OF THIS SITE
Tony Ann Miller: A very warm welcome to our site ------I am sure that you will enjoy the memories of St. Ann's Well Rd prior to it's demolition in circa. 1970. I to lived on Edwin St I was born there (well City Hospital) in 1941 at number 47 facing the Board school wall. Our neighbours were the Goughs (Maggie Gough & Johnnie) and the Vincent family on the other side. We later moved to 284 St .Ann's Well Rd facing the Board school my Dad had the Sewing Machine Shop. I also went to the St. Ann's Infant's & Junior School and later to Morley and left school at the age of 15. So good to hear you speaking so fondly of Nellie Hayes the headmistress for so many years.... 101 years of age.. amazing.... If you check out our site files & photographs, you will see that she is recognised as one of our site's "Unsung Heroes" originally nominated by our Gina, who like your good self and no doubt hundreds of other St. Ann's children, held in such high esteem.....she was indeed a marvellous lady. I feel very strongly and one of the main reasons that I started the site a couple of years ago, is that these St. Ann's folk should be recognised, and never to be forgotten.... for the tremendous hard & good work that they did for us all, and the personnel sacrifices they must have endured for our generation. Enjoy the memories ....
Best Wishes
Tony
April 28 2014
Tony Ann Miller: A very warm welcome to our site ------I am sure that you will enjoy the memories of St. Ann's Well Rd prior to it's demolition in circa. 1970. I to lived on Edwin St I was born there (well City Hospital) in 1941 at number 47 facing the Board school wall. Our neighbours were the Goughs (Maggie Gough & Johnnie) and the Vincent family on the other side. We later moved to 284 St .Ann's Well Rd facing the Board school my Dad had the Sewing Machine Shop. I also went to the St. Ann's Infant's & Junior School and later to Morley and left school at the age of 15. So good to hear you speaking so fondly of Nellie Hayes the headmistress for so many years.... 101 years of age.. amazing.... If you check out our site files & photographs, you will see that she is recognised as one of our site's "Unsung Heroes" originally nominated by our Gina, who like your good self and no doubt hundreds of other St. Ann's children, held in such high esteem.....she was indeed a marvellous lady. I feel very strongly and one of the main reasons that I started the site a couple of years ago, is that these St. Ann's folk should be recognised, and never to be forgotten.... for the tremendous hard & good work that they did for us all, and the personnel sacrifices they must have endured for our generation. Enjoy the memories ....
Best Wishes
Tony
April 28 2014
Sunday Schools
"In the 50s going to Sunday school was common place, and I for one enjoyed it. Most of my Sunday school years were spent with the Salvation Army. We lived on Notintone Place, Sneinton Road, the birthplace of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. So we often saw visitors from foreign lands checking out his birthplace. Every Sunday morning as I remember, ( certainly in the summer months ) the army band sung outside that house, and the sound woke us from our sleep.
We hurried to get dressed, to follow the band down to the Hall at the bottom of Huntingdon street where it still is today. Our Sunday school was a little nearer than Kingdom Hall (if I have the name right.) It was where the Sneinton Road maisonettes stand today. I loved my royal blue book, which was stamped on the inside covers - every attendance. It had prayers and Sunday school songs.
I was eventually in the "timbrells" where we shook our ribboned tambourines to familiar songs and hymns. We eventually moved Sunday school to a big house at the top of a street on Carlton Road (the name escapes me.) I particularly remember one Christmas party, what seemed to be the biggest and best Christmas tree in the world surrounded by presents.
A huge table ran the length of the room set ready for party food and a roaring fire to keep out the winter chill. We walked home with our presents.. Mine was a bird cage with an animated tweeting bird. It was magical. The Sally Ann really treated us well.
Willoughby on the Wolds was our venue for camp. I was sick from eating elderberries. But happy times."
We hurried to get dressed, to follow the band down to the Hall at the bottom of Huntingdon street where it still is today. Our Sunday school was a little nearer than Kingdom Hall (if I have the name right.) It was where the Sneinton Road maisonettes stand today. I loved my royal blue book, which was stamped on the inside covers - every attendance. It had prayers and Sunday school songs.
I was eventually in the "timbrells" where we shook our ribboned tambourines to familiar songs and hymns. We eventually moved Sunday school to a big house at the top of a street on Carlton Road (the name escapes me.) I particularly remember one Christmas party, what seemed to be the biggest and best Christmas tree in the world surrounded by presents.
A huge table ran the length of the room set ready for party food and a roaring fire to keep out the winter chill. We walked home with our presents.. Mine was a bird cage with an animated tweeting bird. It was magical. The Sally Ann really treated us well.
Willoughby on the Wolds was our venue for camp. I was sick from eating elderberries. But happy times."
"I can remember the Sally Bash musicians playing on street corners, Sunday mornings around St Anns. My sister and I went to Sunday School at the Emanuel Church on Woodborough Rd, we lived behind it and the rear access was in Courtney Terrace, easier than walking all the way round. I went because all the other kids went, mum gave us a penny for the collection plate."
"My brother and I was sent to Sunday school every Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed it. It was the church at the top of Gordon Road. We would get stamps each week so we couldn't get out of it, Can anyone remember being a Queen for a day and having bridesmaids and taking a bag of money to the Lord Mayer at the Allbert Hall? I think this happened yearly ."
"My brother and I was sent to Sunday school every Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed it. It was the church at the top of Gordon Road. We would get stamps each week so we couldn't get out of it, Can anyone remember being a Queen for a day and having bridesmaids and taking a bag of money to the Lord Mayer at the Allbert Hall? I think this happened yearly ."
The Old Tin Hut on Hungerhill Road
We all must have a story or a personal memory to tell about the "Tin Hut" ...Guides, Brownies etc. etc, it was such an important temporary building that seemed to have lasted throughout our childhood..
"All the kids on Cromer Rd would go sit in and listen to the singing from the church, at the back of the church. Even when all the houses started to be pulled down they still came back to sing in that hut.
Those memories have lasted my whole life. I travel and live all over the world and I can still see that picture in my mind and hear them all sing."
"The old tin church I have visions of it red, I joined a Cub Scout pack in this 40 something 5 or 9 two years before life boys at 9 years of age. I recall going through the allotments on a Tracking expedition, unfortunately not passing the badge tests, apparently lions, tigers and bears did not roam in the allotments,( would the cinder be allowed today?) It most probably originated from coal gas manufacture.
"In close proximity was the Valley dairy and the police houses, when officers lived in the community."
"Further up the road between Cromer Road and the other entrance to the allotments was/is a long(ish) concrete reinforced banking, to the young climber they were our Matterhorn, over the years delivering newspapers in this area I could swear they shrank."
"All the kids on Cromer Rd would go sit in and listen to the singing from the church, at the back of the church. Even when all the houses started to be pulled down they still came back to sing in that hut.
Those memories have lasted my whole life. I travel and live all over the world and I can still see that picture in my mind and hear them all sing."
"The old tin church I have visions of it red, I joined a Cub Scout pack in this 40 something 5 or 9 two years before life boys at 9 years of age. I recall going through the allotments on a Tracking expedition, unfortunately not passing the badge tests, apparently lions, tigers and bears did not roam in the allotments,( would the cinder be allowed today?) It most probably originated from coal gas manufacture.
"In close proximity was the Valley dairy and the police houses, when officers lived in the community."
"Further up the road between Cromer Road and the other entrance to the allotments was/is a long(ish) concrete reinforced banking, to the young climber they were our Matterhorn, over the years delivering newspapers in this area I could swear they shrank."
Old Colloquialisms
"I often wonder how local are some of the old colloquialisms. Just today I was talking to fellow group member Mo ., she said that she was on the bus the other day and heard a lady say to a child 'Bob baa' (don't touch). I hadn't heard that saying for many years and it took me straight back. Another word Mo reminded me of was gawping .....this turns out to be a proper word.
gerund or present participle: gawping
stare openly in a stupid or rude manner.
"what are you gawping at ?"
We don't use it much these days.............perhaps we don't stare in a rude or stupid manner, not openly anyway.
I wonder if there is anything local to St.Ann's?
"I often wonder how local are some of the old colloquialisms. Just today I was talking to fellow group member Mo ., she said that she was on the bus the other day and heard a lady say to a child 'Bob baa' (don't touch). I hadn't heard that saying for many years and it took me straight back. Another word Mo reminded me of was gawping .....this turns out to be a proper word.
gerund or present participle: gawping
stare openly in a stupid or rude manner.
"what are you gawping at ?"
We don't use it much these days.............perhaps we don't stare in a rude or stupid manner, not openly anyway.
I wonder if there is anything local to St.Ann's?
MEMORIES
Strange thing our memories to mind came the large yard between the back of the shops on St Anns Well Road and the house on Westminster Terrace of the bookies run I believe by Reuben Sharp the butcher from the bottom of Jackson Street copies of newspapers and plain paper slips and nom de plumes used by punters, picking up 19s 6d from a tanner bet 19/6 from a horse I believe called Kilmore chosen because it sounded like Kildare. Harry and Jack Henson and the pile of coal for bagging, the sale of toffee apples a little further up Westminster Street displayed in the house window - such entrepreneurs.
Strange thing our memories to mind came the large yard between the back of the shops on St Anns Well Road and the house on Westminster Terrace of the bookies run I believe by Reuben Sharp the butcher from the bottom of Jackson Street copies of newspapers and plain paper slips and nom de plumes used by punters, picking up 19s 6d from a tanner bet 19/6 from a horse I believe called Kilmore chosen because it sounded like Kildare. Harry and Jack Henson and the pile of coal for bagging, the sale of toffee apples a little further up Westminster Street displayed in the house window - such entrepreneurs.
- Houses unfit for human habitation so the council said. What about the people?
- St Ann's was a community like no other - you could always rely on your neighbours, if your mum went out to work (most did) a neighbour would always keep an eye on you till mum came home from work.
- If someone gave birth everyone would help. The women would help the midwife and the men would be at the pub wetting the baby's head.
- Each Saturday morning you could watch the women sweeping the front of their houses and washing the windows and steps. Around the back scrubbing the outside loo. In winter we had a candle lit all the time to stop the out side loo freezing believe it or not, it worked.
- When someone passed away there was always some person doing a collection for flowers to be sent from the street.
- When you misbehaved the local bobby would give you a clip around your ear, if this did not work there was always Mr Salt (headmaster of the Board School on St Anns Well Road) to give you the strap.
- Each week shopping was done at the CO-OP and delivered to your door; also milk and bread were delivered each day. If you wanted meat there were plenty of butchers on St Ann's Well Rd.
- Kids could play out till 9-30 10-00 in summer and feel safe. There were two parks that we could go to: Coppice and Scyamore.
- If you wanted to learn to dance then the Robin Hood Club bottom of Hungerhills was the place to go 10-00 12-00 Saturday mornings cost 6d
- Two picture houses and two dance halls, which most of us spent our young to teens at. Two markets where most of our things came from.
- Buses every 3/4 min into the City centre of Nottingham then down to the bridges on to Fairam brook.
- Nothing was too far away.
- Saturday night most parents went out for a drink, older neighbours would baby sit.
- The Queen's coronation 1953: not many of us had TV but neighbours who had invited you to watch it on their TV. We went round to Mrs Guest who lived a few doors away; there were 25 people in her front room.
- "5 A day" is not something new as most of our dads had an allotment and every thing known to man was grown on the allotment. If there were lots of veg over it was given away to people who had not got an allotment.
- In Autumn the Harvest Festival at school and St Ann's church was held any veg left over went to them.
IN RESPONSE TO ANOTHER MEMBER'S QUESTION REGARDING WELLS RD (Continuing on from St Anns Well Rd)
Susan Dawn: The 47 bus turned around at Coppice Rd/Ransom Rd which was on the left, then straight up was the Wells Rd then to your right was Donkey Hill. The 40 bus went up Wells Rd to the railway bridge, following the 40 bus the house's on the left all had bay windows and were all semis over the road from them was Colborn St at the top of this street was a large dispatch centre with large lorries something like BRS (British Rail Service). Going back to Wells Rd next was Hendon Rise with Hendon Rise Club on every one who lived up St Ann's seemed to be a member. Then I think a lot of council houses (Warren Ave) one of my friends lived there what was amazing they had a real bathroom and an inside loo, any way next was Morley School just before the railway bridge (trains went to Vic station) then the Gardeners pub was built across the road were allotments which you could walk though up to the Punch Bowl on Porchester Rd carrying on up Wells Rd council bungalow went nearly to the top. At the top was Walter Hall School and I think facing this was Mapperley Hospital..........
March 2 2014
MEMORY LANE
Alan Mills: Memory Lane, do you remember at the bottom of Wells Rd before Shepherds race was built there used to be another garage there, it was owned by two brothers who live at the top of Hendon Rise, I remember one was called Jim, as well as selling petrol they also sold timber, ironmongery and sand & cement. Next to the Garage was a Cobbler called Wagstaffs,
Susan Dawn: The 47 bus turned around at Coppice Rd/Ransom Rd which was on the left, then straight up was the Wells Rd then to your right was Donkey Hill. The 40 bus went up Wells Rd to the railway bridge, following the 40 bus the house's on the left all had bay windows and were all semis over the road from them was Colborn St at the top of this street was a large dispatch centre with large lorries something like BRS (British Rail Service). Going back to Wells Rd next was Hendon Rise with Hendon Rise Club on every one who lived up St Ann's seemed to be a member. Then I think a lot of council houses (Warren Ave) one of my friends lived there what was amazing they had a real bathroom and an inside loo, any way next was Morley School just before the railway bridge (trains went to Vic station) then the Gardeners pub was built across the road were allotments which you could walk though up to the Punch Bowl on Porchester Rd carrying on up Wells Rd council bungalow went nearly to the top. At the top was Walter Hall School and I think facing this was Mapperley Hospital..........
March 2 2014
MEMORY LANE
Alan Mills: Memory Lane, do you remember at the bottom of Wells Rd before Shepherds race was built there used to be another garage there, it was owned by two brothers who live at the top of Hendon Rise, I remember one was called Jim, as well as selling petrol they also sold timber, ironmongery and sand & cement. Next to the Garage was a Cobbler called Wagstaffs,
THE SEASONS
Winter
Our house's had two main rooms and a scullery two bedrooms and an attic. When you had a bath in winter (tin bath in scullery) it was freezing and mum used to put on the gas oven with the door open; still it was freezing. We had an electric water tank where there used to be a copper. In the middle room mum and dad invested in an all night coal burner, each night blue sugar bags were filled with slack - in the morning the fire was still in. Next door still had a black iron fireplace with an oven at the side and a latch that they used to hang the kettle on.
When you went to bed you always took a hot water bottle, you had about 5/6 blankets with an eiderdown on top. When you lay there you were unable to move with all the weight. When you got out of bed you had to make sure that your feet hit the mat and not the lino as it was like stepping in to a freezing lake. My mum did her best to warm the house; on the landing we used to have a paraffin heater but it used to smell and it seemed to cause damp air. If you were ill and the doctor came out to see you mum used to make up a coal fire in your bedroom but as soon as the doctor had gone it was left to go out. In winter there was a jerry under the bed as it was too cold to go to the outside loo in the night; it was emptied each morning but often it was frozen, also the inside of the windows used to freeze and if you breathed out you could see your breath. The gutters were of cast iron and if it snowed, then melted, long icicles used to hang down - the longest I saw was about 18" long.
Easter
We all seemed to welcome Easter by having new clothes brought from C/A kids used to go to Sunday school which was St Ann's church and you were given 2/3 Daffodils to take home to your mum. The Tin Hut on Hungerhill Road was at the top of our road. Brownies, Girl Guides, Cubs, and Scout's filled it each night.
Monday was always wash day - my mum used a dolly tub and punch till dad brought her a washer, it was a Parnell with an electric wringer. If you did not have either of these there was always the wash house which was near Victoria swimming baths.
These are just a few of my memories of when I lived up St Ann's what did the council know? We were one large family.
Our house's had two main rooms and a scullery two bedrooms and an attic. When you had a bath in winter (tin bath in scullery) it was freezing and mum used to put on the gas oven with the door open; still it was freezing. We had an electric water tank where there used to be a copper. In the middle room mum and dad invested in an all night coal burner, each night blue sugar bags were filled with slack - in the morning the fire was still in. Next door still had a black iron fireplace with an oven at the side and a latch that they used to hang the kettle on.
When you went to bed you always took a hot water bottle, you had about 5/6 blankets with an eiderdown on top. When you lay there you were unable to move with all the weight. When you got out of bed you had to make sure that your feet hit the mat and not the lino as it was like stepping in to a freezing lake. My mum did her best to warm the house; on the landing we used to have a paraffin heater but it used to smell and it seemed to cause damp air. If you were ill and the doctor came out to see you mum used to make up a coal fire in your bedroom but as soon as the doctor had gone it was left to go out. In winter there was a jerry under the bed as it was too cold to go to the outside loo in the night; it was emptied each morning but often it was frozen, also the inside of the windows used to freeze and if you breathed out you could see your breath. The gutters were of cast iron and if it snowed, then melted, long icicles used to hang down - the longest I saw was about 18" long.
Easter
We all seemed to welcome Easter by having new clothes brought from C/A kids used to go to Sunday school which was St Ann's church and you were given 2/3 Daffodils to take home to your mum. The Tin Hut on Hungerhill Road was at the top of our road. Brownies, Girl Guides, Cubs, and Scout's filled it each night.
Monday was always wash day - my mum used a dolly tub and punch till dad brought her a washer, it was a Parnell with an electric wringer. If you did not have either of these there was always the wash house which was near Victoria swimming baths.
These are just a few of my memories of when I lived up St Ann's what did the council know? We were one large family.
Tony Miller: --How would you describe Flo Wood...a meeting place, a safe haven, always somebody there to talk to, open 9 am till 9pm (I think or was it 10pm) message centre, like an internet cafe without a computer... in reality it was a very small sweet shop/tobacconist where we all sat down on empty bottle crates to meet sit and have a chat as teenagers, have a drink...hot orange, ginger wine, blackcurrant, she sold cigarettes loose so if you did smoke, and sadly most of us did, you could buy a 2p fag...yes life on the edge... she was an amazing old women, a bit like Mrs. Overall off "Acorn Antiques"...to look and listen to, but she had a heart of gold, and lots of patience considering she had to deal with our crowd most nights of the week. We used to park our motorbikes outside her shop. Now here is the sad part....If my memory serves me right... she was sadly killed by a hit and run motorist on Wells Rd shortly after she locked up her shop one night...Sad story eh.... but still lots of happy memories of dear old Mrs. Wood, as we used to call her.
March 2012
March 2012
Hi. Folk’s, Bruce has just opened his “Biscuit Tin” with some more B&W Gem’s from the past...they are superb... here’s a starter, out side Flo Wood’s (bottom of Wells Rd.) left to right, Graham Boot (RIP), Kenny Newman, Fred Handley, Philip Stennett, & Graham Mee. Marvellous..Thank’s Bruce....Tony.
......... a little sweet shop called Flo's, Flo Wood used to live at the top of Donkey Hill and come rain or shine she was always there (God she looked about 100 in those days ) I remember sitting in her little shop on upturned pop bottle crates drinking a hot glass of Blackcurrant, 3d in proper money, she would also sell you one Parkdrive and two Matches in a little pointy bag for 2d,,,,Oh happy days.
November 14, 2013
November 14, 2013
Kay Burford: "Tony l would love to see on one of your St. names, the name of a dear little lady named Miss Wibberly, she had a tiny little sweet shop on Huntingdon St. very near to Reg Kings, and Mrs. Redmans shop who used to be a dress maker l remember because she made my sister and l our coronation dresses. Thanks Tony, I'd appreciate it...x"
- Annie Redman's shop was on Peas Hill Road, near Edgar Rise. Her son, Charlie, was also a tailor, who made my husbands, my brothers and many of our pals wedding suits! Her other son, I believe is also a tailor and still has a tailor shop on Woodborough Road. Mrs Redman was a lovely little giggly lady, her husband old Charlie liked his pop, used to drink in the King Edgar with my Grandma, who could certainly hold her own! Mrs Redman's shop displays left something to the imagination, but like her son, she knew her onions and turned out some lovely dresses. Tony, did you know Charlie Redman through the trade, he was quite a character, ran off with a Russian princess, I do believe !!!!!!
- My Mum was a home help back in the 70's and one of her ladies was a Miss Wibberly (who was a good age??) who resided on Brook St just off Huntingdon St, she was a lovely Lady wonder whether the same Lady ?
- Eileen, Yes it was the same lady, When she moved she invited my mum and l to her place on Brook St... After she retired from the sweet shop... At the time of moving she was very upset, in case she couldn't settle in her new place, things went well for her though.. She sure was a lovely little lady. I'm glad someone else knows of her. l do remember when she had a burglar at the shop in the early hours of the morning, and she chased him blowing her whistle all the way down Union Rd. She was very brave to have done that, bless her...
- name Mrs Sudworths rings a bell. Did she have a shop not far from Bramleys the pork butchers...just by the last bus stop on St Anns Well Road?
- Glennis Smith: I do she was round the corner from lotus street sold corsets stockings socks and yes stock in the shop was piled high i was lucky mum made all my clothes but her shop sold everything xx
- Glennis Smith: there was a sweet shop a couple of doors up lovely old couple ran it they did a penny tray tuppeny tray threepenny tray and if you were luck you got to look in the sixpenny tray full of sweets they sold tobacco and pipes loved the smell of the shop made the loveliest round ice lollies as well for tuppence we called him bacca man
- Glennis Smith Harry Bramley was in the same row just a bit further up from Sudworths and bacca mans the aromas that came from Bramleys was beautiful xxx
- Kate Beilby: Mrs Sudworths was near Harry Bramleys. There was also a shoe shop on the other side of the road where you could get the stilettos hoes it was run buy a lady ,can anyone remember this shop or the ladies name ?.
"Born in St Ann's could bring both Happiness and Strife
Hard people hard times all part of our Senty life
The wages were Poor most housing were Damp
Most Houses Heated By Coalfire or Paraffin Lamp
Mothers with Kids were indeed a Regular Sight
Dads working By Day in the Pubs at night
Scratting and Scraping seemed a Mothers Chore
But relief came sometimes with a knock on the Door
The Gasman or Electric man visited how we couldn't wait
For him to count the Shillings wishing for a little Rebate,
To the shops we would then Go to get a few Bits and Bobs
a sixpenny pkt of tea, a bottle of milk, a loaf of Bread And maybe some cobs
2ounce of cheese, 2ounce of spam,and of course a pkt of Lard.
best years of my life although they were Hard..
S Wheeldon posted 2013
Hard people hard times all part of our Senty life
The wages were Poor most housing were Damp
Most Houses Heated By Coalfire or Paraffin Lamp
Mothers with Kids were indeed a Regular Sight
Dads working By Day in the Pubs at night
Scratting and Scraping seemed a Mothers Chore
But relief came sometimes with a knock on the Door
The Gasman or Electric man visited how we couldn't wait
For him to count the Shillings wishing for a little Rebate,
To the shops we would then Go to get a few Bits and Bobs
a sixpenny pkt of tea, a bottle of milk, a loaf of Bread And maybe some cobs
2ounce of cheese, 2ounce of spam,and of course a pkt of Lard.
best years of my life although they were Hard..
S Wheeldon posted 2013
Mornin' inmates. "If I'd have known then what I know now!" Blimey, how many times have I said that over the last 60-odd years. All I needed to do was to get my old box camera out and take a few snapshots to record what was going to be the end of an era, but at the time it didn't seem important. Well it didn't did it! And now I see photos of St Anns taken by people who had the common sense to recall our beloved streets for posterity and marvel at their foresight. The only thing I've got now is memories, so here we go.
So Easter's upon us already and I'm feeling that little bit older. I can't remember what it was like not to have a bus pass. Gone are the days when I used to jump on a trolley bus at the bottom of Robin Hood Chase and go all the way to Wilford toll bridge for tuppence. I find that the things I used to find so romantic in my youth just give me arthritis now. The good news is that I'm now down to three pills a day: one to wake me up in the morning, one to keep me going throughout the day and one to send me to sleep at bedtime. Found my old tennis racket while rummaging through the loft the other day. It was in a terrible state, all bent and gutless and so withered it couldn't stand up on its own (sounds familiar.) Even found an old Frido orange plastic football that we used to kick around as kids. We used to play football and cricket at the top of Edgar Rise until it got dark, girls and boys all playing together, no animosity towards anyone, no "them and us," no segregation for us lot. I never had a set lifestyle in St Anns, it just seemed to be a series of brilliant incidents. I was surrounded by the best people you could ever wish to meet, in fact I was dogged by good luck all the time I lived there. Those were the days when health and safety meant putting Dettol on your cut finger. I'll never forget those neighbourhood kids I grew up with and the great times we all had. Even now I can remember the names of all the mates I had in the 50s/60s and, by the way, our Co-op dividend number which was 102504, but I can't remember what I had for my dinner last Wednesday! When I finally went home I sometimes escorted my gran home up Robin Hood Chase to her house on Abbotsford Terrace. Dear old gran, bless her, refused to use a bank, she kept her money under the bed. I later found out that she had the world's most valuable Oxo tin! As she grew older gran was advised by her doctor to keep herself fit by walking a couple of miles each day. That was in 1962, God knows where she is now!! My grandad once asked me how to use the printer on his new computer. I said go to your keyboard and "Control P." He said "Stroll on lad, I haven't been able to do that for years!!" Some nights the neighbours could hear me merrily blaspheming away in our back yard while trying to mend by bike. It was third-hand when I acquired it and the only thing that worked was the bell. I once took it to Clarkes cycle shop on Alfred Street for repair but when the bloke had stopped laughing he said he couldn't do anything with it and advised me to part exchange it for an egg whisk.
In all the time we lived in Peas Hill Rise we never had our house burgled. Sadly for me we packed our belongings into a furniture lorry and moved to a so-called posh part of the city in 1967. When we moved into our new house the neighbours couldn't do enough for us, so they didn't bother! We weren't twinned with anyone but we did have a suicide pact with Strelley! Not long after we moved in we were robbed. The only thing they took was the TV remote control. The swine used to cycle past our window at night changing channels!!
Wi-fi was never heard of in our young days, DAB was something you did if you spilt your drink on the floor to mop it up. I used to lie in bed late at night listening to Radio Luxembourg on my very tiny transistor radio. The reception wasn't all that great and you had to keep gently easing the radio around until you got the station, and then you had to lie dead still in case you lost the signal. I once wrote to the disc jockey at the time Chris Denning asking for a request and to my amazement he played it, and sent me a photo of himself. It was only years later that I learned he was serving a long prison sentence for being a sex offender. Trust me to pick him to write to! The frightening thing is that I've still got his letter and a signed photograph somewhere.
The only thing we had in the way of musical entertainment in our house in the late 50s was a wind-up gramophone in a polished wooden cabinet with a hinged lid that also served as a classy piece of furniture. This was the forerunner to the radiogram. We also had a small collection of 78rpm records which were made of a brittle material called shellac. If you dropped them it was usually terminal and when you finally got sick and tired of listening to them you dipped them in hot water and they finished up as plantpots. We used to buy a tin of needles from Jordans on St Anns Well Road which lasted for a few months and if we wanted to increase the volume you slid open the door that was on the front of the cabinet. Our library consisted of, among others, songs by Gracie Fields, piano sing-alongs by Winifred Atwell and a pianist by the name of Semprini whose catchphrase was "Old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones" (sounds like my old girlfriends) but my favourite was Charles Penrose singing "The Laughing Policeman."
Because we were on the DC current in our street and everything electrical was on the AC current I couldn't buy anything such as a record player so I had to settle for a battery operated tape recorder. I went to Pearsons and acquired a Grundig reel to reel portable machine on hire purchase and paid something like 2s 6d a week for what felt like 100 years!! It only had enough room for 15 minutes on one side of the reel and then you had to turn it over for another 15 minutes so I had to be very selective when recording Top of the Pops on a Sunday night because that went on for an hour. I'd rest the tiny microphone in front of the radio and sit dead still in case I made a noise, but always being aware that my mam or dad could come in the room at any time shouting the odds. It was the stuff of nightmares when in the middle of John Leyton singing "Johnny Remember Me" my dad would burst into the room asking "Have you seen my boots Dennis?" By the way, whenever I hear that song even today I think back to when us youngsters used to listen to it playing at full volume while sitting on the steps of the Waltzer at Goose Fair. Can't do that now (health and safety and all that.) I actually bought LPs and singles long before we were converted to the new AC current but because I had nothing to play them on I borrowed my mate Alan Joyce's portable record player. Alan's dad used to drive us to our football matches on Coppice Road park on a Saturday morning in his battered old Ford Anglia. You could see how fast you were going by looking through the hole in the sunshine floor! He had his own shop on Derby Road and was a well to do businessman. Apparently he was something big in jewellery, a bit like her behind the bar at the Chase Tavern. He always looked a bit shifty to me and I was proved right when Alan presented his fiance with an engagement ring from his dad's shop, but she was told she could only wear it in the house with the curtains drawn! I liked Alan's girlfriend, she was a sensible young lady. She always seemed to light up a room. A bit different to the one he had before — when she walked into a room the only thing she lit up was a fag! She also liked to wear mini skirts to show off her legs. To be honest we had better legs on our kitchen table, and they were chipped! As my mam used to say: "Nothing ever comes of wearing skirts up to your expectations. She's no better than she should be!"
Some years later his dad got me a part-time job as a doorman at "Aunty Molly's House of Disrepute" at the top of Bath Street for three quid a week, not a lot of money I know, but it was all I could afford! His mam was as tight as a submarine's port hole. Her main claim to fame was that she once went seven days with the same tea bag. Alan once told me that his mother's heroine was Emily Pankhurst, and quite rightly so. Ms Pankhurst, as we all know, organised the vote for women and also founded the sufferin-gets (or something like that) movement.
Alan resisted every impulse to be fashionable but I was a fine one to talk. I once went on a "Once in a Lifetime" holiday, but when I got back home I thought Never Again! Tried my hand at doing a crossword puzzle one day when it was raining. Couldn't finish it though. One clue was "Flightless bird found in Iceland (6-7)" I had no idea. The answer was "Frozen Chicken."
Alan used to like his music, mainly Reggae, Rhythm and Soul. For a short time he hired a room in a pub on St Anns Well Road where you could hear this kind of music. He had his own posters printed but because the words "Reggae, Rhythm and Soul" were too big for the advert he shortened the headline to "R-Soul. Free entry round the back" Not quite the thing when you read it out loud.
All this talk in this day and age about drug taking is nothing new to us older folk of St Anns. Some of the so-called children's books our parents used read to us were filled with all sorts of drug related passages that went way over our heads back then. For instance in Alice in Wonderland she drinks potions and eats mushrooms to change her physical state, and the caterpillar smokes an elaborate water pipe, a reference to a khushi pipe. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy and her friends go down the Yellow Brick Road filled with opium poppies and the Good Witch wakes Dorothy up by sprinkling her with "snow," a slang term for cocaine. And as for Peter Pan if he sprinkled white dust on himself he could suddenly fly. I was offered a mild form of drug in the form of a "funny fag" when I was about 16 but all it did was make me feel tired and as sick as a dog so I stuck to my Gold Leaf ciggies, and they were cheaper!
Sometimes it was a tough life in St Anns, continually living with the threat of violence, verbal abuse, attempted stabbings and potential poisonings — still it was my own fault for marrying her! My wife was someone who could spot a blonde hair on the lapel of my jacket at 4 o'clock in the morning from across a dark bedroom, even though she was half asleep, but couldn't miss the garage doors in the car with the headlights full on! She was a big woman was my wife, whichever room in the house you were in she was always next to you. In the end I decided it was not worth the agony of re-marrying, just find someone I didn't like and buy them a house.
In the mid-fifties my dad had an allotment just up from Ransom Road. On Sunday afternoons I sometimes accompanied him as he pushed his home-made barrow up there to bring back his produce, which mostly consisted of Chrysanthemums, potatoes and tomatoes. There seemed to be hundreds of these gardens, it was like a maze trying to get to where your allotment was. I wasn't really into gardening in the late 50s, football took priority back then, but I do remember at school our teacher showed us how to grow peas by putting blotting paper in a jam jar and sliding the seed between the paper and the inside of the jar and then gently spraying water on it. The idea was for us kids to watch as the pea gradually took root in full view. Fascinating stuff, but not for me at the time! Anyway I used to sit on an upturned bucket watching dad digging up the spuds thinking that this gardening lark looks too much like hard work to me. Not that I was frightened of hard work, I loved it, I could watch it all day! We had flowers in every room of the house in the summer and even today when I smell the aroma of chrysants it always reminds me of living in St Anns back in the day. We had that many toms and flowers that my mam gave some of them away to various neighbours with no thought of asking for money for them, we didn't do that in the 60s. My dad's mate had the plot adjacent to his. His surname was Stanley and he worked at the abattoir on Meadow Lane. I think his daughter's name was Yvonne and we were in the same class at Board School. Because there was a lot of pilfering going on Stanley had this alsatian that he kept in his allotment in the summer time. It was well looked after and had a big kennel. Because he worked at the abattoir he used to feed this dog on raw meat and I always had the feeling that one day when I went up there with my dad we would find a skeleton of some poor soul who didn't quite make it out of there!
In 1963 the bloke who lived at the bottom of our street won two thousand pounds on the pools. The local paper asked him what he was going to do with it. He said "I'll probably put three quid towards it and pay the rent!"
Right, it's time I was off to my new part-time job. I help the hospitals now . . . I make people sick!
Happy Easter gang.
Dennis Statham (died 2023)
So Easter's upon us already and I'm feeling that little bit older. I can't remember what it was like not to have a bus pass. Gone are the days when I used to jump on a trolley bus at the bottom of Robin Hood Chase and go all the way to Wilford toll bridge for tuppence. I find that the things I used to find so romantic in my youth just give me arthritis now. The good news is that I'm now down to three pills a day: one to wake me up in the morning, one to keep me going throughout the day and one to send me to sleep at bedtime. Found my old tennis racket while rummaging through the loft the other day. It was in a terrible state, all bent and gutless and so withered it couldn't stand up on its own (sounds familiar.) Even found an old Frido orange plastic football that we used to kick around as kids. We used to play football and cricket at the top of Edgar Rise until it got dark, girls and boys all playing together, no animosity towards anyone, no "them and us," no segregation for us lot. I never had a set lifestyle in St Anns, it just seemed to be a series of brilliant incidents. I was surrounded by the best people you could ever wish to meet, in fact I was dogged by good luck all the time I lived there. Those were the days when health and safety meant putting Dettol on your cut finger. I'll never forget those neighbourhood kids I grew up with and the great times we all had. Even now I can remember the names of all the mates I had in the 50s/60s and, by the way, our Co-op dividend number which was 102504, but I can't remember what I had for my dinner last Wednesday! When I finally went home I sometimes escorted my gran home up Robin Hood Chase to her house on Abbotsford Terrace. Dear old gran, bless her, refused to use a bank, she kept her money under the bed. I later found out that she had the world's most valuable Oxo tin! As she grew older gran was advised by her doctor to keep herself fit by walking a couple of miles each day. That was in 1962, God knows where she is now!! My grandad once asked me how to use the printer on his new computer. I said go to your keyboard and "Control P." He said "Stroll on lad, I haven't been able to do that for years!!" Some nights the neighbours could hear me merrily blaspheming away in our back yard while trying to mend by bike. It was third-hand when I acquired it and the only thing that worked was the bell. I once took it to Clarkes cycle shop on Alfred Street for repair but when the bloke had stopped laughing he said he couldn't do anything with it and advised me to part exchange it for an egg whisk.
In all the time we lived in Peas Hill Rise we never had our house burgled. Sadly for me we packed our belongings into a furniture lorry and moved to a so-called posh part of the city in 1967. When we moved into our new house the neighbours couldn't do enough for us, so they didn't bother! We weren't twinned with anyone but we did have a suicide pact with Strelley! Not long after we moved in we were robbed. The only thing they took was the TV remote control. The swine used to cycle past our window at night changing channels!!
Wi-fi was never heard of in our young days, DAB was something you did if you spilt your drink on the floor to mop it up. I used to lie in bed late at night listening to Radio Luxembourg on my very tiny transistor radio. The reception wasn't all that great and you had to keep gently easing the radio around until you got the station, and then you had to lie dead still in case you lost the signal. I once wrote to the disc jockey at the time Chris Denning asking for a request and to my amazement he played it, and sent me a photo of himself. It was only years later that I learned he was serving a long prison sentence for being a sex offender. Trust me to pick him to write to! The frightening thing is that I've still got his letter and a signed photograph somewhere.
The only thing we had in the way of musical entertainment in our house in the late 50s was a wind-up gramophone in a polished wooden cabinet with a hinged lid that also served as a classy piece of furniture. This was the forerunner to the radiogram. We also had a small collection of 78rpm records which were made of a brittle material called shellac. If you dropped them it was usually terminal and when you finally got sick and tired of listening to them you dipped them in hot water and they finished up as plantpots. We used to buy a tin of needles from Jordans on St Anns Well Road which lasted for a few months and if we wanted to increase the volume you slid open the door that was on the front of the cabinet. Our library consisted of, among others, songs by Gracie Fields, piano sing-alongs by Winifred Atwell and a pianist by the name of Semprini whose catchphrase was "Old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones" (sounds like my old girlfriends) but my favourite was Charles Penrose singing "The Laughing Policeman."
Because we were on the DC current in our street and everything electrical was on the AC current I couldn't buy anything such as a record player so I had to settle for a battery operated tape recorder. I went to Pearsons and acquired a Grundig reel to reel portable machine on hire purchase and paid something like 2s 6d a week for what felt like 100 years!! It only had enough room for 15 minutes on one side of the reel and then you had to turn it over for another 15 minutes so I had to be very selective when recording Top of the Pops on a Sunday night because that went on for an hour. I'd rest the tiny microphone in front of the radio and sit dead still in case I made a noise, but always being aware that my mam or dad could come in the room at any time shouting the odds. It was the stuff of nightmares when in the middle of John Leyton singing "Johnny Remember Me" my dad would burst into the room asking "Have you seen my boots Dennis?" By the way, whenever I hear that song even today I think back to when us youngsters used to listen to it playing at full volume while sitting on the steps of the Waltzer at Goose Fair. Can't do that now (health and safety and all that.) I actually bought LPs and singles long before we were converted to the new AC current but because I had nothing to play them on I borrowed my mate Alan Joyce's portable record player. Alan's dad used to drive us to our football matches on Coppice Road park on a Saturday morning in his battered old Ford Anglia. You could see how fast you were going by looking through the hole in the sunshine floor! He had his own shop on Derby Road and was a well to do businessman. Apparently he was something big in jewellery, a bit like her behind the bar at the Chase Tavern. He always looked a bit shifty to me and I was proved right when Alan presented his fiance with an engagement ring from his dad's shop, but she was told she could only wear it in the house with the curtains drawn! I liked Alan's girlfriend, she was a sensible young lady. She always seemed to light up a room. A bit different to the one he had before — when she walked into a room the only thing she lit up was a fag! She also liked to wear mini skirts to show off her legs. To be honest we had better legs on our kitchen table, and they were chipped! As my mam used to say: "Nothing ever comes of wearing skirts up to your expectations. She's no better than she should be!"
Some years later his dad got me a part-time job as a doorman at "Aunty Molly's House of Disrepute" at the top of Bath Street for three quid a week, not a lot of money I know, but it was all I could afford! His mam was as tight as a submarine's port hole. Her main claim to fame was that she once went seven days with the same tea bag. Alan once told me that his mother's heroine was Emily Pankhurst, and quite rightly so. Ms Pankhurst, as we all know, organised the vote for women and also founded the sufferin-gets (or something like that) movement.
Alan resisted every impulse to be fashionable but I was a fine one to talk. I once went on a "Once in a Lifetime" holiday, but when I got back home I thought Never Again! Tried my hand at doing a crossword puzzle one day when it was raining. Couldn't finish it though. One clue was "Flightless bird found in Iceland (6-7)" I had no idea. The answer was "Frozen Chicken."
Alan used to like his music, mainly Reggae, Rhythm and Soul. For a short time he hired a room in a pub on St Anns Well Road where you could hear this kind of music. He had his own posters printed but because the words "Reggae, Rhythm and Soul" were too big for the advert he shortened the headline to "R-Soul. Free entry round the back" Not quite the thing when you read it out loud.
All this talk in this day and age about drug taking is nothing new to us older folk of St Anns. Some of the so-called children's books our parents used read to us were filled with all sorts of drug related passages that went way over our heads back then. For instance in Alice in Wonderland she drinks potions and eats mushrooms to change her physical state, and the caterpillar smokes an elaborate water pipe, a reference to a khushi pipe. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy and her friends go down the Yellow Brick Road filled with opium poppies and the Good Witch wakes Dorothy up by sprinkling her with "snow," a slang term for cocaine. And as for Peter Pan if he sprinkled white dust on himself he could suddenly fly. I was offered a mild form of drug in the form of a "funny fag" when I was about 16 but all it did was make me feel tired and as sick as a dog so I stuck to my Gold Leaf ciggies, and they were cheaper!
Sometimes it was a tough life in St Anns, continually living with the threat of violence, verbal abuse, attempted stabbings and potential poisonings — still it was my own fault for marrying her! My wife was someone who could spot a blonde hair on the lapel of my jacket at 4 o'clock in the morning from across a dark bedroom, even though she was half asleep, but couldn't miss the garage doors in the car with the headlights full on! She was a big woman was my wife, whichever room in the house you were in she was always next to you. In the end I decided it was not worth the agony of re-marrying, just find someone I didn't like and buy them a house.
In the mid-fifties my dad had an allotment just up from Ransom Road. On Sunday afternoons I sometimes accompanied him as he pushed his home-made barrow up there to bring back his produce, which mostly consisted of Chrysanthemums, potatoes and tomatoes. There seemed to be hundreds of these gardens, it was like a maze trying to get to where your allotment was. I wasn't really into gardening in the late 50s, football took priority back then, but I do remember at school our teacher showed us how to grow peas by putting blotting paper in a jam jar and sliding the seed between the paper and the inside of the jar and then gently spraying water on it. The idea was for us kids to watch as the pea gradually took root in full view. Fascinating stuff, but not for me at the time! Anyway I used to sit on an upturned bucket watching dad digging up the spuds thinking that this gardening lark looks too much like hard work to me. Not that I was frightened of hard work, I loved it, I could watch it all day! We had flowers in every room of the house in the summer and even today when I smell the aroma of chrysants it always reminds me of living in St Anns back in the day. We had that many toms and flowers that my mam gave some of them away to various neighbours with no thought of asking for money for them, we didn't do that in the 60s. My dad's mate had the plot adjacent to his. His surname was Stanley and he worked at the abattoir on Meadow Lane. I think his daughter's name was Yvonne and we were in the same class at Board School. Because there was a lot of pilfering going on Stanley had this alsatian that he kept in his allotment in the summer time. It was well looked after and had a big kennel. Because he worked at the abattoir he used to feed this dog on raw meat and I always had the feeling that one day when I went up there with my dad we would find a skeleton of some poor soul who didn't quite make it out of there!
In 1963 the bloke who lived at the bottom of our street won two thousand pounds on the pools. The local paper asked him what he was going to do with it. He said "I'll probably put three quid towards it and pay the rent!"
Right, it's time I was off to my new part-time job. I help the hospitals now . . . I make people sick!
Happy Easter gang.
Dennis Statham (died 2023)