Angela Miles (nee Cundy)
Jill West (nee Pettit)
Thank you to Trent & Peak Archaeology Dept
for allowing us to use the contents of their
St. Ann's Research Document 080/2014.
Jill West (nee Pettit)
Thank you to Trent & Peak Archaeology Dept
for allowing us to use the contents of their
St. Ann's Research Document 080/2014.
St. Anns Research Project - Interview Transcription
Interviewee Details
Name: Angela Miles, Jill West ID Number: SA_l4_miles and west
Place of Birth: St Anns, Nottingham Year I Date of Birth: 27/07/1945, 20/09/1944
Interview Details
Interviewer: Jack Boaden Date / Time: 09/03/14 13:00
Place: Stonebridge City Farm, St Ann's
Transcript:
Jack: What’s your name please?
Angie: That's a point do you want my maiden name or shall we go for... er, my names Angie Miles but I was actually born Angie Cundy, Miles is my married name
Jack: And what’s your date of birth please? Angie: 27th July 1945, excuse the croaky voice Jack: and whereabouts in St Anns did you live?
Angie : I lived on Brighton Street which was off Peas Hill road, which was like the middle part of St Anns
Jack: And what is your earliest memory of the area?
Angie: the area, the earliest memory of the area was walking to school, Sycamore, Sycamore Infants school which was quite a long way really for a little 5 year old, taken by a 7 year old so, erm, so different to how it is now of course
Jack: Erm what’s your name please?
Jill: Hello it's Jill West nee Pettit, my maiden name
Jack: What’s your date of birth?
Jill: It's the 20/09/44
Jack: Whereabouts did you live in St Anns?
Jill: I lived in Beverley Street
Jack: And what’s your earliest memory?
Jill: My earliest memory I think is going to the nursery, Sycamore nursery at the age of 3 and my eldest sister was taking us because I'm a twin, so she had to because we both went to nursery,
Jack: Erm, can you describe St Anns as a whole, what was the area like?
Angie: Erm, in a word, happiness, happiness, nobody was aware of the fact that we were in a very poor area, it never meant anything to us it really didn't, what you see on the television and the old black and white films and photographs isn't the image that I've got of St Anns at all, the people were happy, kind, worked, helped people incredibly, old people were always looked after, lots of local shops, you think you never moved out St Anns, you did everything in St Anns, you made your friends at school, and really it wasn't until senior school, when you drifted further afield, you never ever had the need to go anywhere than well, where you lived
Jack: erm can you both describe your childhood please?
Jill: Well my childhood, was a lovely childhood, we had a big family there was 6 of us and we all looked after one another and played in the street, played out all day, we went to school and came home and never worried about doing work at school, what we did and came home, we never, it was just another day of going to school and having a lovely time, you knew everyone, and if your parent wasn't in somebody else’s parent would look after you just automatically, so that was a nice memory really, knowing everybody's parents as well as your own parents, so it was like really in a way it was a bit like a kindergarten the fact because everybody looked after everybody else's children, without asking, if the parents weren't there, they looked after you you know, if you wanted to, if you needed to. But played out all the time, had scraps with my twin brother, it didn't matter if you had scraps or not it didn't make any difference, it was just a fun time
Angie: is this early childhood that we're talking about at the moment? Well I was totally different to Jill because I was one of 2,my brother was 12 years older than I was, so by the time I was, what would I be, 6, Derek went off to the RAF for four years, erm, so I was literally the only one, I wasn't spoilt, I had a lovely home a lovely mum and dad, but like everything else it didn't come easy for them, they both worked, me mum worked in the lace industry and my dad was a GPO engineer, so unlike Jill, mine was different, Jill used to come and stay with me at the weekends, just have me and her in the bed rather than share hers
Jill: 6 in a bed
Angie: because you were very very cramped weren't you Jill. But erm yeah, being just brought up as an only one I think, but not a lonely only one, certainly not because like I say everybody lived so close so there was always someone knocking on the door to play with, you know from school, and I think the main thing I think about your childhood, especially now I've had children and grandchildren or two, everything was safe, everything was safe and when you live in a safe environment, it’s so different to how things are er these days,
Jack: So what was school like?
Jill: Well we all went to the local St Anns Well school, everybody went to St Anns Well Road School, and as I say I had a twin brother and erm, the only bad point about going to school with your twin brother, was that they insisted on you sat together, you had to be dancing partners together, he hated it, I hated it, he used to trip me up near the piano so that I'd go into the piano because he didn't want to dance with me, and that was the worse part about going to school, had to sit next to me twin brother who used to pinch me and do Chinese burns on me arm and things like that, but apart from that school was a delight, St Anns well road was just a delight and then I went to Pierrepont, the girls school, and me brother went to the Morley school me mother decided to separate us because we didn't really want to be an item, we wanted to be individuals, so then we sort of went our separate ways within the school so yeah it was great, I honestly can't remember any stress over work or had to do this or had to do that, just went to school came home and had fun, whereas now I think it’s awful the pressures that is put onto kids far more than we ever did when we was at school, can't remember ever doing homework at the junior school can you?
Angie: No
Jill: I can't ever remember, no you just had a lovely time
Angie: Erm I started off at Sycamore school, Infants school which was a nice rosy sunny little place what I could remember, but then when I was 8, my mum thought I was going to the new Elms school and we went out and bought the uniform, all posh and everything and then we realised that we lived on the wrong side of the road for the catchment area, and I got the dreadful news that I'd got to go to the Board school on St Anns Well road, well my mum had got the image of the Board school totally totally wrong, bearing in mind you used to live amongst quite a lot of poor children, I don’t know, but she definitely got the wrong impression so I was doomed to go to St Augustines which was run erm, well it was a convent school run by nuns, put the fear of God into me, I didn't want to go at all and I must've kicked up quite a bit so me mum very reluctantly took me at the age of 8 to have a word with Mr Salt who was the headmaster at the time at Board school and we liked what we saw and me mum backed down so off I went to the Board school in me posh Elms school uniform [laughs] and it was a pure delight the school was magnificent, the teachers were lovely, Mr Calloway, Mr Brown, Mr Teasdale, was it Jill? Mr Teasdale? And of course Mr Salt the headmaster, very strict man but a lovely lovely man, the old whip used to come out and you know they used to get the strap and lord knows what the naughty kids did, but there was never any, like Jill said you just got on with your school work, you were never any problems to the teachers and then I passed my 11plus and I went to erm, the Manning school, so that's when I started to drift away from the girls because they all went to Pierrepoint, a lot of the girls went to Pierrepont or Sycamore, but Pierrepont, Jill went to Sycamore, got to say at this point that I came out with the brains cause I went to Manning and all the girls that went to Pierrepont could swim, that's all I'm going to say [Laughs]
Jill: Say no more [Laughs]
Jack: erm so what did you do for entertainment? In the area where you were both growing up?
Jill: Well when we became teenagers it was the youth clubs, we'd have a picture night at the Kings Hall church, at the bottom, on St Anns and on a Friday, the best ever, we had the mixed club at the boy brigade and that's where we met so many people, we used to take our own, well Angie's record player and all our records and we really had a fantastic time and life used to revolve around going to the club on a Friday night and going to the chip shop on the way home, because we liked the lad who served in the chip shop, never mind what it was we had to go the chip shop and see Tommy Steel because he looked like Tommy Steel [laughs] and also, we played games you know, street games, and at home I can remember on a Saturday night we'd all have the Monopoly out and bought us sweets between the lot of us, us so we'd all have smalls sweets like midget gems or dolly mixtures [laughs] and we'd play games within our own home as well as outside, so that was our main erm, in fact I don't think I ever went until after I left school I didn't go anywhere other than the youth clubs and pictures at Kings Hall Church, so that was our entertainment
Angie: I can remember as a young girl games were very seasonal, I don’t know, I don’t know what erm, what’s the word I can't think of the word, I don't know what season was what but all of a sudden somebody would get a whip and top out and everybody would go bonkers buying new whips and tops and crayoning the tops to make them look, you know the colours when they make them spin and skipping, everybody skipped, have ropes right across the street erm, what the boys used to do, cigarette card, flick cards, oh all sorts of, ox cards, you wrote and draw on it oh and marbles was of course, cause of course the cobbled streets, fabulous choc holes I mean we're all champion marble players from St Anns and that was when I was a younger girl as Jill's said when we were about 13 we discovered the youth club at the Boys Brigade which was great, Friday night was the highlight of the week definitely and also we took
our Duke of Edinburgh's awards there so there was a most serious side to it but it was lovely and the people that we met at youth club, we're still friends now, you know we never lost our friendships at all, erm Jill and I in particular, we see each other on a regular basis, I did fancy Jill's twin brother that was why I got hooked onto Jill as an excuse for making Jill Pettit me best friend, I didn't get him but I got the best friend in the world [laughs]
Jack: Did you work in St Anns
Jill: Yes I worked at the local hairdressers, apprentice to Lila Wakelin and everybody on St Anns went to Lila Wakelins so I sort of knew every shop keeper on St Anns Well road, because you knew one another you know, so yes I worked there for, about 8 years, 8 or 9 years you know, I was married and had a family so, yeah I did work in St Anns, so my husband, his parent had a shop on St Anns Well Road as well, so everything would revolve around St Anns Well road yeah, I knew everybody because they all visited the shop
Jack: and er what did your parents do?
Jill: My mother was a nurse so er that was the reason why we went to the nursery because during the war and after the war, with her being a nurse she had to be on standby whenever she was called so we got a free place in the nursery so that she could do nursing. My dad he was a spinner, at Sennaveves that was a silk industry out in Derby and he worked there right until he retired because it was the thing where you went into one and you were there until you retired, you know it wasn't the ages where you went further out then what you did so I err, my mum she was obviously a local nurse because they used to fetch her, if the midwife couldn't come they used to send for my mum to go and deliver babies and if she delivered before the doctor came or the nurse, she got half a crown so she was quite pleased about that in those days so yeah.
Angie: My mother in the lace industry there was a special name for it but I can't remember what it was, it was like a tac, tack, tacograph or something but they copied the patterns like a stencil thing onto the lace to make, you know, to set the machines to make the lace, she did that in a little place just of North Sherwood Street, it was pretty close to St Anns, my grandmother was also a lace worker and my gran used to be a mender and she used to open the kitchen table wide and have huge veils of lace on it and I, I don't know how they did it in the light that we had in the little houses but she used to pick out the faults that the machine had made and pull them up, knot them and send them back to the factory where me mum worked to be repaired, I don't think it was terribly well paid the work, a lot of the ladies worked in the lace in the houses, drawing and pulling them, you used to see them carting the stuff to the collection point, yes, on the doorsteps pulling the lace, but my dad was a GPO engineer, he had got a good job we even had a little green GPO van parked outside which was unusual at that time cause there weren't a lot of cars around, I can't remember a lot of cars around, can you Jill?
Jill: the people that had cars were business people, the doctor the milkman the midwife
Angie: That's right yes
Jill: The midwife had got a motorbike hadn't she
Angie: Yeah, yeah, so that was the working
Jill: In fact your great granddad was one of the first ones to have a car, Toby's dad, he had a car, it was so surprising, everyone went to see it
Angie: Yeah, yeah [Laughs]
Jack: Do you have any other memories you'd like to tell us about? Any highlights of St Anns?
Angie: Oh that's a wide one
Jill: Sorry?
Jack: Any highlights of St Anns? Or memorable experiences?
Jill: My fondest memory was er, we didn't actually go on holiday because there wasn't the money to go on holiday but we had an allotment and on bank holidays, we all went up there to the garden for the day in dads barrow and we used to stop off at the local dairy that was near the gardens and buy Colwick cheese, cream, and a bottle of orange and we used to have a picnic in the garden. Unbeknown to us on the way up my dad would put a shilling on one of the poles, on top of the tree poles, cut down, Garden avenue and he used to tell us this story, if you always worked hard in your garden the fairies always left a shilling, on the way home we used to feel on the top until we found the shilling and then me dad would buy a block, a full block of ice cream it was just the best you know
Angie: luxury wasn't it?
Jill: and I can remember that every time, I could do it now, see it, that was one of my fondest memories
Angie: yeah, the flower shows, the pubs used to have the flower shows I can remember that very clearly and I can remember the smell of the chrysanthemums all the way along the road, remember when the men used to bring them down from the gardens, I can remember that, my mum and dad liked a drink on a Saturday and I used to love going with them sitting in the pub yard, with the portello and a packet of crisps which was lovely, everything was just lovely, I can't remember, like a massive event just these lovely flash memories that come back to you all the time really .
Jill: There was never a negative toward there, never ever a negative, you know, erm, In fact I never knew what depression was until way after I'd got, never heard of it, never ever heard of depression, erm, so really erm, it was all, although it wasn't plain sailing everyday, it was never negative, it was always a game
Angie: and you know they worked, they did work and it’s not this image of people out of work, scavenging around, that sort of thing image that you get off people we were hard working people definitely and people just got on with their lives, we didn't have a lot, you never, we didn't, today everything’s so plentiful and everybody wants everything yesterday, but you take that out of the equation and you're much happier, well its gone you see, it’s all gone Jack, such as shame, such as shame
Jack: well although there was lots to do in St Ann's, did you go into Nottingham much?
Jill: No not till later
Angie: well we just, when we were like 15 ish, we used to go into town one day a week, go in one evening and we used to go just round the shops and then we used to go for a frothy coffee
Jill: Oh yes at the Dog one and the 49 club
Angie: yes the 49 club, the coffee bars had all just started opening, we didn't drink did we, we never really bothered with the pubs, when I met my husband that was the first time I went into the Scot's Grey's, after the youth club on a Friday night, I was only 15 and I was frightened to death that the police would find me [Laughs] but no we used to go to pictures and, we used to go to Wollaton park on the 39 bus
Jill: It’s funny because we were talking recently, only last Tuesday, Arnold is not very far away from St Anns, but I never went to Arnold till after I was married, never heard of Arnold, because you lived in your community of St Anns was virtually like a village, you never moved out of it and I didn't know anyone who didn't live in it and I was married and probably got both the kids and Sainsburys opened in Arnold and I said 'where’s Arnold?' I'd never heard of Arnold
Angie: crazy isn't it
Jill: and that was you know, although you lived in St Anns, it was like living in a village because you never sort of..
Angie: and we were so close to the town of course, you could've walked into town, just walk into town, walk back from town, on a Saturday you'd walk to the central market, pick your mums bits and bobs up of shopping it was erm, a very closed community really, but you wouldn't want it any other way. Oh then we did go to the Locarno that was another thing we did.
Jill: Yes, yes
Angie: Yeah when we started dancing, used to go the Locarno
Jill: I can remember going once when it had first opened, at lunchtime, two lunchtimes a week, and all of us from school went and we were all in trouble when we got back to school because we were late getting back to school, that was banned then, you couldn't go, that was it you never questioned why you couldn't go or anything like that, you really did obey the rules and never went again.
Angie: I can remember when I was 16 and I'd just about finished, no, I'd finished school and I was working at erm, tell you in a second, the tax office on erm Friar Lane, we used to run across the square catch the 40 trolley bus get down to the Locarno pay your shilling, have two or three bops, get back on the bus and run back to work all in an hour and a quarter and with a bit of luck somebody would've made you a sandwich or give you a bowl of soup or something and that was all in the hour and a quarter. I remember once doing the same thing. I was desperate to get there because it was my 16th birthday and when I got there Keith Peck had arranged for the record happy birthday sweet 16 to be played when I got there that was quite memorable, can' think who sung it, Neil Sedaka perhaps, can't remember. I'm not going to sing it I promise
Jack: I think that's about it
Angie: Well it's been lovely, we could go on and on
Interviewee Details
Name: Angela Miles, Jill West ID Number: SA_l4_miles and west
Place of Birth: St Anns, Nottingham Year I Date of Birth: 27/07/1945, 20/09/1944
Interview Details
Interviewer: Jack Boaden Date / Time: 09/03/14 13:00
Place: Stonebridge City Farm, St Ann's
Transcript:
Jack: What’s your name please?
Angie: That's a point do you want my maiden name or shall we go for... er, my names Angie Miles but I was actually born Angie Cundy, Miles is my married name
Jack: And what’s your date of birth please? Angie: 27th July 1945, excuse the croaky voice Jack: and whereabouts in St Anns did you live?
Angie : I lived on Brighton Street which was off Peas Hill road, which was like the middle part of St Anns
Jack: And what is your earliest memory of the area?
Angie: the area, the earliest memory of the area was walking to school, Sycamore, Sycamore Infants school which was quite a long way really for a little 5 year old, taken by a 7 year old so, erm, so different to how it is now of course
Jack: Erm what’s your name please?
Jill: Hello it's Jill West nee Pettit, my maiden name
Jack: What’s your date of birth?
Jill: It's the 20/09/44
Jack: Whereabouts did you live in St Anns?
Jill: I lived in Beverley Street
Jack: And what’s your earliest memory?
Jill: My earliest memory I think is going to the nursery, Sycamore nursery at the age of 3 and my eldest sister was taking us because I'm a twin, so she had to because we both went to nursery,
Jack: Erm, can you describe St Anns as a whole, what was the area like?
Angie: Erm, in a word, happiness, happiness, nobody was aware of the fact that we were in a very poor area, it never meant anything to us it really didn't, what you see on the television and the old black and white films and photographs isn't the image that I've got of St Anns at all, the people were happy, kind, worked, helped people incredibly, old people were always looked after, lots of local shops, you think you never moved out St Anns, you did everything in St Anns, you made your friends at school, and really it wasn't until senior school, when you drifted further afield, you never ever had the need to go anywhere than well, where you lived
Jack: erm can you both describe your childhood please?
Jill: Well my childhood, was a lovely childhood, we had a big family there was 6 of us and we all looked after one another and played in the street, played out all day, we went to school and came home and never worried about doing work at school, what we did and came home, we never, it was just another day of going to school and having a lovely time, you knew everyone, and if your parent wasn't in somebody else’s parent would look after you just automatically, so that was a nice memory really, knowing everybody's parents as well as your own parents, so it was like really in a way it was a bit like a kindergarten the fact because everybody looked after everybody else's children, without asking, if the parents weren't there, they looked after you you know, if you wanted to, if you needed to. But played out all the time, had scraps with my twin brother, it didn't matter if you had scraps or not it didn't make any difference, it was just a fun time
Angie: is this early childhood that we're talking about at the moment? Well I was totally different to Jill because I was one of 2,my brother was 12 years older than I was, so by the time I was, what would I be, 6, Derek went off to the RAF for four years, erm, so I was literally the only one, I wasn't spoilt, I had a lovely home a lovely mum and dad, but like everything else it didn't come easy for them, they both worked, me mum worked in the lace industry and my dad was a GPO engineer, so unlike Jill, mine was different, Jill used to come and stay with me at the weekends, just have me and her in the bed rather than share hers
Jill: 6 in a bed
Angie: because you were very very cramped weren't you Jill. But erm yeah, being just brought up as an only one I think, but not a lonely only one, certainly not because like I say everybody lived so close so there was always someone knocking on the door to play with, you know from school, and I think the main thing I think about your childhood, especially now I've had children and grandchildren or two, everything was safe, everything was safe and when you live in a safe environment, it’s so different to how things are er these days,
Jack: So what was school like?
Jill: Well we all went to the local St Anns Well school, everybody went to St Anns Well Road School, and as I say I had a twin brother and erm, the only bad point about going to school with your twin brother, was that they insisted on you sat together, you had to be dancing partners together, he hated it, I hated it, he used to trip me up near the piano so that I'd go into the piano because he didn't want to dance with me, and that was the worse part about going to school, had to sit next to me twin brother who used to pinch me and do Chinese burns on me arm and things like that, but apart from that school was a delight, St Anns well road was just a delight and then I went to Pierrepont, the girls school, and me brother went to the Morley school me mother decided to separate us because we didn't really want to be an item, we wanted to be individuals, so then we sort of went our separate ways within the school so yeah it was great, I honestly can't remember any stress over work or had to do this or had to do that, just went to school came home and had fun, whereas now I think it’s awful the pressures that is put onto kids far more than we ever did when we was at school, can't remember ever doing homework at the junior school can you?
Angie: No
Jill: I can't ever remember, no you just had a lovely time
Angie: Erm I started off at Sycamore school, Infants school which was a nice rosy sunny little place what I could remember, but then when I was 8, my mum thought I was going to the new Elms school and we went out and bought the uniform, all posh and everything and then we realised that we lived on the wrong side of the road for the catchment area, and I got the dreadful news that I'd got to go to the Board school on St Anns Well road, well my mum had got the image of the Board school totally totally wrong, bearing in mind you used to live amongst quite a lot of poor children, I don’t know, but she definitely got the wrong impression so I was doomed to go to St Augustines which was run erm, well it was a convent school run by nuns, put the fear of God into me, I didn't want to go at all and I must've kicked up quite a bit so me mum very reluctantly took me at the age of 8 to have a word with Mr Salt who was the headmaster at the time at Board school and we liked what we saw and me mum backed down so off I went to the Board school in me posh Elms school uniform [laughs] and it was a pure delight the school was magnificent, the teachers were lovely, Mr Calloway, Mr Brown, Mr Teasdale, was it Jill? Mr Teasdale? And of course Mr Salt the headmaster, very strict man but a lovely lovely man, the old whip used to come out and you know they used to get the strap and lord knows what the naughty kids did, but there was never any, like Jill said you just got on with your school work, you were never any problems to the teachers and then I passed my 11plus and I went to erm, the Manning school, so that's when I started to drift away from the girls because they all went to Pierrepoint, a lot of the girls went to Pierrepont or Sycamore, but Pierrepont, Jill went to Sycamore, got to say at this point that I came out with the brains cause I went to Manning and all the girls that went to Pierrepont could swim, that's all I'm going to say [Laughs]
Jill: Say no more [Laughs]
Jack: erm so what did you do for entertainment? In the area where you were both growing up?
Jill: Well when we became teenagers it was the youth clubs, we'd have a picture night at the Kings Hall church, at the bottom, on St Anns and on a Friday, the best ever, we had the mixed club at the boy brigade and that's where we met so many people, we used to take our own, well Angie's record player and all our records and we really had a fantastic time and life used to revolve around going to the club on a Friday night and going to the chip shop on the way home, because we liked the lad who served in the chip shop, never mind what it was we had to go the chip shop and see Tommy Steel because he looked like Tommy Steel [laughs] and also, we played games you know, street games, and at home I can remember on a Saturday night we'd all have the Monopoly out and bought us sweets between the lot of us, us so we'd all have smalls sweets like midget gems or dolly mixtures [laughs] and we'd play games within our own home as well as outside, so that was our main erm, in fact I don't think I ever went until after I left school I didn't go anywhere other than the youth clubs and pictures at Kings Hall Church, so that was our entertainment
Angie: I can remember as a young girl games were very seasonal, I don’t know, I don’t know what erm, what’s the word I can't think of the word, I don't know what season was what but all of a sudden somebody would get a whip and top out and everybody would go bonkers buying new whips and tops and crayoning the tops to make them look, you know the colours when they make them spin and skipping, everybody skipped, have ropes right across the street erm, what the boys used to do, cigarette card, flick cards, oh all sorts of, ox cards, you wrote and draw on it oh and marbles was of course, cause of course the cobbled streets, fabulous choc holes I mean we're all champion marble players from St Anns and that was when I was a younger girl as Jill's said when we were about 13 we discovered the youth club at the Boys Brigade which was great, Friday night was the highlight of the week definitely and also we took
our Duke of Edinburgh's awards there so there was a most serious side to it but it was lovely and the people that we met at youth club, we're still friends now, you know we never lost our friendships at all, erm Jill and I in particular, we see each other on a regular basis, I did fancy Jill's twin brother that was why I got hooked onto Jill as an excuse for making Jill Pettit me best friend, I didn't get him but I got the best friend in the world [laughs]
Jack: Did you work in St Anns
Jill: Yes I worked at the local hairdressers, apprentice to Lila Wakelin and everybody on St Anns went to Lila Wakelins so I sort of knew every shop keeper on St Anns Well road, because you knew one another you know, so yes I worked there for, about 8 years, 8 or 9 years you know, I was married and had a family so, yeah I did work in St Anns, so my husband, his parent had a shop on St Anns Well Road as well, so everything would revolve around St Anns Well road yeah, I knew everybody because they all visited the shop
Jack: and er what did your parents do?
Jill: My mother was a nurse so er that was the reason why we went to the nursery because during the war and after the war, with her being a nurse she had to be on standby whenever she was called so we got a free place in the nursery so that she could do nursing. My dad he was a spinner, at Sennaveves that was a silk industry out in Derby and he worked there right until he retired because it was the thing where you went into one and you were there until you retired, you know it wasn't the ages where you went further out then what you did so I err, my mum she was obviously a local nurse because they used to fetch her, if the midwife couldn't come they used to send for my mum to go and deliver babies and if she delivered before the doctor came or the nurse, she got half a crown so she was quite pleased about that in those days so yeah.
Angie: My mother in the lace industry there was a special name for it but I can't remember what it was, it was like a tac, tack, tacograph or something but they copied the patterns like a stencil thing onto the lace to make, you know, to set the machines to make the lace, she did that in a little place just of North Sherwood Street, it was pretty close to St Anns, my grandmother was also a lace worker and my gran used to be a mender and she used to open the kitchen table wide and have huge veils of lace on it and I, I don't know how they did it in the light that we had in the little houses but she used to pick out the faults that the machine had made and pull them up, knot them and send them back to the factory where me mum worked to be repaired, I don't think it was terribly well paid the work, a lot of the ladies worked in the lace in the houses, drawing and pulling them, you used to see them carting the stuff to the collection point, yes, on the doorsteps pulling the lace, but my dad was a GPO engineer, he had got a good job we even had a little green GPO van parked outside which was unusual at that time cause there weren't a lot of cars around, I can't remember a lot of cars around, can you Jill?
Jill: the people that had cars were business people, the doctor the milkman the midwife
Angie: That's right yes
Jill: The midwife had got a motorbike hadn't she
Angie: Yeah, yeah, so that was the working
Jill: In fact your great granddad was one of the first ones to have a car, Toby's dad, he had a car, it was so surprising, everyone went to see it
Angie: Yeah, yeah [Laughs]
Jack: Do you have any other memories you'd like to tell us about? Any highlights of St Anns?
Angie: Oh that's a wide one
Jill: Sorry?
Jack: Any highlights of St Anns? Or memorable experiences?
Jill: My fondest memory was er, we didn't actually go on holiday because there wasn't the money to go on holiday but we had an allotment and on bank holidays, we all went up there to the garden for the day in dads barrow and we used to stop off at the local dairy that was near the gardens and buy Colwick cheese, cream, and a bottle of orange and we used to have a picnic in the garden. Unbeknown to us on the way up my dad would put a shilling on one of the poles, on top of the tree poles, cut down, Garden avenue and he used to tell us this story, if you always worked hard in your garden the fairies always left a shilling, on the way home we used to feel on the top until we found the shilling and then me dad would buy a block, a full block of ice cream it was just the best you know
Angie: luxury wasn't it?
Jill: and I can remember that every time, I could do it now, see it, that was one of my fondest memories
Angie: yeah, the flower shows, the pubs used to have the flower shows I can remember that very clearly and I can remember the smell of the chrysanthemums all the way along the road, remember when the men used to bring them down from the gardens, I can remember that, my mum and dad liked a drink on a Saturday and I used to love going with them sitting in the pub yard, with the portello and a packet of crisps which was lovely, everything was just lovely, I can't remember, like a massive event just these lovely flash memories that come back to you all the time really .
Jill: There was never a negative toward there, never ever a negative, you know, erm, In fact I never knew what depression was until way after I'd got, never heard of it, never ever heard of depression, erm, so really erm, it was all, although it wasn't plain sailing everyday, it was never negative, it was always a game
Angie: and you know they worked, they did work and it’s not this image of people out of work, scavenging around, that sort of thing image that you get off people we were hard working people definitely and people just got on with their lives, we didn't have a lot, you never, we didn't, today everything’s so plentiful and everybody wants everything yesterday, but you take that out of the equation and you're much happier, well its gone you see, it’s all gone Jack, such as shame, such as shame
Jack: well although there was lots to do in St Ann's, did you go into Nottingham much?
Jill: No not till later
Angie: well we just, when we were like 15 ish, we used to go into town one day a week, go in one evening and we used to go just round the shops and then we used to go for a frothy coffee
Jill: Oh yes at the Dog one and the 49 club
Angie: yes the 49 club, the coffee bars had all just started opening, we didn't drink did we, we never really bothered with the pubs, when I met my husband that was the first time I went into the Scot's Grey's, after the youth club on a Friday night, I was only 15 and I was frightened to death that the police would find me [Laughs] but no we used to go to pictures and, we used to go to Wollaton park on the 39 bus
Jill: It’s funny because we were talking recently, only last Tuesday, Arnold is not very far away from St Anns, but I never went to Arnold till after I was married, never heard of Arnold, because you lived in your community of St Anns was virtually like a village, you never moved out of it and I didn't know anyone who didn't live in it and I was married and probably got both the kids and Sainsburys opened in Arnold and I said 'where’s Arnold?' I'd never heard of Arnold
Angie: crazy isn't it
Jill: and that was you know, although you lived in St Anns, it was like living in a village because you never sort of..
Angie: and we were so close to the town of course, you could've walked into town, just walk into town, walk back from town, on a Saturday you'd walk to the central market, pick your mums bits and bobs up of shopping it was erm, a very closed community really, but you wouldn't want it any other way. Oh then we did go to the Locarno that was another thing we did.
Jill: Yes, yes
Angie: Yeah when we started dancing, used to go the Locarno
Jill: I can remember going once when it had first opened, at lunchtime, two lunchtimes a week, and all of us from school went and we were all in trouble when we got back to school because we were late getting back to school, that was banned then, you couldn't go, that was it you never questioned why you couldn't go or anything like that, you really did obey the rules and never went again.
Angie: I can remember when I was 16 and I'd just about finished, no, I'd finished school and I was working at erm, tell you in a second, the tax office on erm Friar Lane, we used to run across the square catch the 40 trolley bus get down to the Locarno pay your shilling, have two or three bops, get back on the bus and run back to work all in an hour and a quarter and with a bit of luck somebody would've made you a sandwich or give you a bowl of soup or something and that was all in the hour and a quarter. I remember once doing the same thing. I was desperate to get there because it was my 16th birthday and when I got there Keith Peck had arranged for the record happy birthday sweet 16 to be played when I got there that was quite memorable, can' think who sung it, Neil Sedaka perhaps, can't remember. I'm not going to sing it I promise
Jack: I think that's about it
Angie: Well it's been lovely, we could go on and on