Hyde Road

A Memory of Gorton.

It seem a long time ago now but still very clear.

I moved to Hyde Road in West Gorton from Dane Bank when I was 2 years old. My parents had the newsagents on the corner of Hyde Road and Sherwin street.
I went to Thomas Street Primary School which changed to Wenlock Way from 1964 until 1971 when I then started at Spurley Hey.

I think its fair to say in those days we owned nothing but we had it all!!! As kids we played on the railway sidings, building dens from the wooden sleepers that had been tossed aside as waste and using the seats out of the old railway carriges as furnitur in the den.

Sneaking into Belle Vue and spending the whole the school holidays there. I remeber being in there once and fishing in the boating pond for stickle backs and the lad I was with fell in, Jay Killkenny I think he was called, he couldnt go home because his mum would have killed him for being soaking wet, and Andrew Askey getting to close to the monkeys, one grabbed his hair and shook him around (not funny but I howled laughing at the time).

Playing football in one of the discarded wharehouse on Redgate Lane, I think it was a petrol tanker place at one time.

Going over the monkey bridge at Longsight sidings and playing in the old air raid shelters. For some strange reason going past Tank Row and the reservoir use to spook me!!

I remember painting my name on the wall at the entrance to the railway sidings and one of the cloemen telling my mum in the shop. I got a real pasting, I was really proud because I spelt it correctly. It's still there, the banksy of my day I did it in 1970.

Playing in derelict houses and having a little camp fire was all normal stuff then.

Being in Grey street park (or Sandpark) watching them build Coverdale Crescent (Fort Ardwick) not pleasant to look at.

All good fun.