Favourite Memories
Reconnecting with our shared local history.
For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.
Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.
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Search for your favourite UK places and read memories of the local area in days gone by.
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Tips & Ideas
Not sure what to write? It's easy - just think of a place that brings back a memory for you and write about:
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How the location features in your personal history?
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The memories this place inspires for you?
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Stories about the community, its history and people?
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People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
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Has it changed over the years?
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How does it feel, seeing these places again, as they used to look?
This week's Places
Here are some of the places people are talking about in our Share Your Memories community this week:
...and hundreds more!
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Displaying Memories 1451 - 1500 of 2029 in total
In reply to Keith Hawkins' appeal to anyone that knew of F.W. Hawkins shop on Hosier Street, Reading, I used this shop during the 1950s as a small boy while spending the weekends with my Nan & Grandad who lived at 61 Hosier Street.
My Mum & Nan referred to Miss Hamkins as Fanny, I have no idea if this was her real name. The shop was very dark inside with gas light brackets on the walls. On ...see more
My dad, Eric Berry, used to clip this hedge - BY HAND!
When we're little, things always seem bigger than they really are, but my recollections of watching my Dad clip this hedge on the days he did the gardening at St Anne's church, were pretty accurate. It really is as big as I remember!
I also recall going to St Anne's Hall ( a bit further back down the hill?) with my Mum, to collect our ration ...see more
I was the Head Teacher of the Cranborne First School from 1974-1978. The school was situated just off the square. It was a delightful little school and I have happy memories of my time there with my two teachers: Mrs Barbara Bayes and Mrs Gawman (who succeeded me as Head). Lord Salisbury was the Chairman of our Governors and occasionally I had to go to the Manor to discuss business with him. It was quite an ...see more
My father, who worked for Philips Electrical (Mullard Amplifier Division) was the Sound Engineer at both the Wembley Stadium and Pool during the entire Olympic Games of 1948. He had to work very long hours not only during the events but also during the daily rehearsals of ceremonies. I went to one of the last events, with my grandparents, which was equestrian. After the Games finished, my father continued as ...see more
Lovely memories of the High Street, mum pushed us in the big old coach built double ended pram; me and my brother Mike. In them days you stayed in prams way into toddler years, mum's didn't make you grow up too fast! As we got a little older there was the shoe shop at the end of shops (I think its the bank now,) Kim my sister, Mike and myself used to do the Harry Worth star shape in the shop window as it was mirrored, ...see more
My great-grandfather, Thomas Newton Croft, a member of the family that founded the Fleetwood to Knott End ferry, managed it for the local council from c.1896 to his death in 1915. I am told that my grandmother, Alice, used to do cartwheels to entertain the passengers waiting for the boat to come in. The service was re-privatised a few years ago. Being involved in marine business myself I like to refer to it as "the family shipping line"!
I think this was the year. I was sick with chest problems, I loved it there. Getting all the new people's hair washed in little basin and watching all the fleas fall out. Having naps after lunch, sometimes in the dormitory, sometimes in the field. Listening to teddy bears picnic at Sunday tea time. Going down the clift steps to the beach. My name at that time was Frances Smith, I was only little at ...see more
I went to NGS in 1939. It was a great school. Those school dinners cooked on site by Annie the cook and the smell coming up the corridor about 11o'clock. I remember when they started building the air raid shelters at the top of the playing fields. Headmaster Harrison, for Latin. No messing about at that school, or Saturday detention! Still have the stamp album I bought on the market after school. Was ...see more
I was an office boy at Franklin Barns. One of my jobs on a Wednesday was to go the cattle market and collect messages that where left in desks of the back room of The Market Tavern.It was a wonderful place; farmers, drovers, sheep dogs all doing business (not the dogs!) I can remember taking Cyril Franklis tea every morning at 10.30 in his office where he had a model of the new Franklin Barns building ...see more
I spent my first five years 1924-1929 in Blindley Heath, possibly the nicest years of my life. I may have gone to the school there. I clearly remember Gibb's store when I spent six glorious weeks in B.H. in 1934,: a very modern shop with lime (?) trees and a chain fence surrounding the periphery. It had a modern overhanging spring-loaded carrier system, whereby payments ...see more
At the house where we lived from 1928 until 1935, (No 24 Barracks Road, Burnley, now called Cavalry Way), it was called a 'back to back' row cottage. It comprised of two bedrooms upstairs, one just about able to fit a double bed, and one very small room for two single beds. This is where my sister and I slept until seven years later when we moved house, after my brother was born (we were all born in ...see more
Living on the island was like living in paradise - it seemed like a constant holiday! I remember walking from 'Danehurst' along Pitts Lane across Binstead Road and up Cemetary Road to school every day. I loved walking to the beach through the woods near Quarr Abbey and through to Fishbourne. I loved going to Sunday School at the Church of the Holy Cross and being in the choir when Mr Wrigley was Rector. My ...see more
I am not sure which grandfather it was (how many greats do you want?) but the old part of my family, the Strevens, have lived in Broadstairs for the last five hundred years, and have the honour of having erected the post in the middle of the bay. This was one of five snubbing posts that allowed the barges to warp right up to the pier where they loaded tar and coke from the gas works at the ...see more
Perhaps someone will correct me on the year. It was the year when Billy Graham was doing the crusade within the Ipswich football stadium. Many times I'd pass my time away at the docks. I would fish for eels or any fish that would take a bite. One day, a man with his two sons and one daughter came to do some fishing - although they had fishing gear they had no idea on how to tackle up. I was to help them ...see more
My grandad, Joseph Woodgate, was the builder that built a lot of early Wannock Avenue's houses and bungalows. He built Wee Cott - one the first houses to be built which had a very large monkey puzzle tree in the garden, until the hurricane of 1986 and my dad was born there. I have pictures of Hazel Grove under construction and my dad, Ernest Hazel, was named after it. I also have pictures of semi detached houses ...see more
I had a wonderful childhood in Lower Willingdon - we lived, my brother and I, in a bungalow in St Annes Road and went to the village school in Upper Willingdon where Mr Morrell was the headmaster. I remember in the playground was a stone shelter left over from the war where we used to play sometimes. I remember one of the previous contributors, Peter Miller, was the first boy I kissed, in the said shelter. ...see more
Oh, my goodness, the memories come flooding back when I started to read some of the stories. Yes, mine was very much the same as most of yours was. I was taken to Victoria Station and put on the train with a nun. I remember sleeping in the dorm and wetting the bed. Eating dry boiled potatoes that made me gag. Walking one direction along the sea with the wind blowing so hard they made my cheeks red raw and ...see more
It is quite possible that the the little boy to the right in this picture is me at age six. My family used to stay at a friend's caravan in the park above the cliffs. During the summers of 1954 through 1958 we stayed there most weekends in the summer and even a few in the spring and autumn. St. Mary's Well Bay was not a good beach, a lot of rock and bladderwrack seaweed, which does give a ...see more
I remember the large ham and bacon slicer at the back of Newbury's and always worried that someone was going to slice their finger off when I was watching. When I was about 3 my mum was doing her shopping in Newbury's, with me in my pushchair with a cover over it. When we got outside she was mortified and had to go back into the shop and apoligise because apparently I had been doing some shopping of my own and helping myself to things and hiding them under the pushchair cover.
Allendale - 'Happy Memories and Great Days'
In about 1973 an 'interdenominational' group of dedicated visionary young people, many from Tyneside Youth for Christ (Elim Church), based in Newcastle upon Tyne rented the disused and empty fairly large 'lower floor-part' of Sinderhope Chapel, Sinderhope, Allendale for a peppercorn rent of £1O per year, from the ...see more
Pop was at it again with his mates. To the front of this picure the Tudor faced building...THE BEEHIVE PUB, there was a fella called Stumpy (well known older gentleman). He was a gentleman with one leg, who propped himself up against the downpipe of the pub, and who would challenge anyone to put the money down on the path and try and kick his remaining leg from beneath him to win the pot. As he then would ...see more
I went to Kirdford school for about two or three years in the 1960's until 1968, when I went to Horsham High School for Girls. The higher roofed part of the school was Miss Dadswell's class and the lower roofed part was two classes partitioned; these areas were Miss Dodsworth and Miss Hever's classrooms. Each was heated by a coke burning stove. There was a tiny room off Miss Dodsworth's class for her to use, as ...see more
I used to have holidays in Graffham with my Great-Aunt, Lottie Bridger. We loved climbing the hill; collecting eggs from the chickens and even the adventure of visiting the outside toilet. My family lived in Graffham, going right back to the 1500s, and I still have a wonderful feeling when I visit the village. My aunt had no running water, except in the wash house outside, where ...see more
My family and I lived in the post office and stores when this picture was taken. I am Christine Sheldon, one of the twins of the Sheldon family. We loved living there, my dad was the baker and the shop sold everything - and even had a tea room. My twin and I lit a fire in the attic once with straw and set fire to the roof. Coolham is a wonderful place and we were very sad to see that the shop had ...see more
My house backed onto Wyndham Hill and I spent my childhood playing over there. My cousin and I loved to watch the steam trains passing by and sometimes (if our parents weren't nearby) would run onto the bridge at Pen Mill station and hang over to get lost in the smoke - the things kids do! There was also another smaller field beside Wyndham which had three horses; Penny (a chestnut), Dusty (a dark grey) ...see more
On this picture you can see the steps used by the ferry man from the 1920s to the 1940s. He used a pole to steer the punt from the Bury bank to the Amberley bank. The punt was attached to a chain which stretched across the river lying on the bottom. The fare in the late 1940s was a theepenny piece. The ferry man was my 'Uncle' Bob Dudden, who took up the duties of ferryman when he left the Navy after ...see more
My grandfather used to go fishing at Bury, and introduced this lovely spot to my father. He would cycle down to bury from London as a young man, pre WW2. In the 1950's we would drive down and picnic by the river. Dad knew Bob Dudden. As a boy, I would swim in the river and we would always chat to Bob with his broad sussex dialect. My friend Richard and I rode down from Upper Norwood in 1959 ...see more
My grand-parents, Ernie and Winnie Hewby, lived in a big old house towards the end of Castle Hills across the lane from a small farm/small holding. I believe the house was called Standard Lodge and that during the war they ran a small café there and kept some pigs. My siblings and I used to love visiting, my grandfather won a competition for his gardens (he loved gardening) and I've inherited his ...see more
This memory goes from 1953 up to the 1960s because our holidays in them days were always at Rossington, staying with Nanna. Me my older brother Alex and my twin brother John loved it. Nanna and Grandad were Jack and Burtha Bird who lived at 57 Haig Crescent. Grandad was a miner like a lot of people in Rossington. One of my memories was watching for Grandad coming home after night shift. My twin brother ...see more
I was born in the Shrubbery Nursing home in 1956. I grew up in Lane End, about 5 miles away. I have photos of me looking awful in baggy knickers on the Rye (the park in Wycombe town) as a toddler. There was a play area on the Rye that is still there, but in my day there was a little waterway for kids to play in, long since closed as deemed dangerous by present standards. My mother always used to enter the ...see more
I was born in Ivy House - first on the right in Talbot Terrace. My sister Sally now lives in the same street. I don't remember much before four and half years of age. I lived in that house with my grandfather, Demetrie Cambettie the 'hire and fire man' for all the mines in the Llynfi valley, my grandmother, Blodwen. My auntie Eurex and her five kids, Mair, Elfed, Gareth, Beti and Huw, my father Hector, mother ...see more
I was born in Sunderland in 1948 and Christened in Holy Trinity Church, Church Walk, where all of my mother's side of the family had been hatched, matched, and dispatched.
I was raised in Wear Garth till the age of twelve years old when my parents left Sunderland for work in the midlands. Although times were hard in Sunderland at the time for many, we as a family of eleven didn't have much. I have some fond memories of ...see more
I lived in Lemington untill 1954 approx and we lived in the front row of the Pit Row houses. We could stand outside and watch the trains going past full of coal and wave to the drivers, playing on the pit heaps, wouldn't like the washing now.
There was a few rows of these houses. All lived in one room, kitchen sink in a small space off the back door and cooking at the bottom of the stairs. The street was called ...see more
From 1954-1959 I lived at Flat 4 Tooting Police Stn. With my friend Richard King we spent many happy hours up on the roof throwing mud and moss down on the unsuspecting passers by below. Another trick was to throw stones down the chimney pots. My mistake was to pick the pot of my own flat which resulted in a load of soot spewing out into my parents bedroom. My Dad who was an Inspector at the ...see more
John Allen Venner was a Hurst Green Veterinary Surgeon and his wife Emily Baxter raised 10 children at Jacobs Well Farm. The children were John, Emily, George, Jane, Annie, Maud, May, Grace, Harry and Elsie all born between 1890 and 1904. George was my husband's grandfather who later moved to Canada and then Portland, Oregon, USA where he spent his life as a baker, an occupation he ...see more
I was born in 1935 at 25, Pickford Street and lived at that address until I was married. I have so many memories of those years. My first is about New Street Primary School. I lived 100 yards from the school and before I was old enough to go to school I used to go to the school gates and watch the children line up; girls in one half and boys in the other, divided by iron railings, which were later ...see more
I am now an 82 years old great grandmother and I have lived in Australia for many years. My family lived in Coventry, and when I was 12 my sister and brother and I were evacuated to Polesworth. At first the billeting officer, a Mrs Straughan who was running the local Womens Volunteer service, couldn't find anyone who could take all 3 of us, so she took us to her lovely home Pooley Hall. We had maids ...see more
I was a pre nursing student in1962 at the South London Hospital for Women. As part of our course I was sent to work at Woodhurst for 6 months, prior to beginning my S.R.N training.
Woodhurst was the convalescent home linked to the Sooth london hosp. Ladies were sent there for a couple of weeks to recover from surgery. They had excellent care from the nursing staff & the local GP called regularly to ...see more
My family moved to 121 Midland Road during the winter of 1946 as my father worked in a local paint factory till 1948. There was a huge monkey puzzle tree in the front garden. I was 7 and my sister was 10. We loved that house. We used to belong to the Boots Booklovers library in the town and were allowed to go and change our books on our own. I remember going to the Wellingborough Zoo ...see more
I remember my childhood days living on the mountain like they were yesterday, such happy days, playing for hours on the Second Moors and walking to Burks Wood and Fall Tops. Playing on the old station train lines and getting in the signal box to change the points, pretending there really was trains coming, when in fact the station had been closed for some years, daring each other to walk in the old tunnel and ...see more
In 1958 when I was 3 year old, we moved from a small flat on the London Road, near the bank where my father was branch manager (TSB), to Belton Road off Church Hill. I watched our new house being built on a sloping plot of land. My parents lived in that same house until their recent peaceful deaths. The roads around Church Hill became my childhood play places, especially on long summer days - often in large plots of ...see more
Does anyone remember the old swimming baths at Redhill? I started swimming there in the 1970s when it was still a Victorian building. The steps in the pool were of stone and the changing rooms were around the poolsides with wooden doors. You could pay to have a slipper bath! There was a young lady who gave you a box to put your clothes in and you had to remember the number on it to get it back ...see more
Stafford W Brown was a boarder at Beccles College during WW1. The last three Sundays of every term each had a special feature.
First came One Button Sunday, when every boy undid the top button of his jacket for the day.
The second was Pinch Pudding Sunday. At lunch, after the main course, jam tart was served, and the custom was for boys to steal each others portion by stabbing with their ...see more
We used to love looking in the stream for cray fish, minnows and small creatures. We were fascinated by the clear water as we had no streams in London,where we lived. I remember telling my mum about the small creatures that looked like sticks and had bits of gravel and sticks on them, like a coat. She didn't believe me, but I later (many years later) found out they were larvae - I think of the Caddis ...see more
I would go swimming In this lower lake at Earlswood Common from about the age of 8 with a few friends. No adults were present or needed, we had all been taught how to take care of ourselves and help our friends. Even so, parts of the lake were about 8 feet deep in places so the rule was "stay in the shallows if you can't swim". We didn't take a towel just stripped off to our underpants and dived in and ...see more
Benenden was my home for the first 5 years of my life. We lived in Greenwood, a lovely white Kentish weather-boarded house on the Cranbrook Road, sadly knocked down and modernised a couple of years ago. I was born on February 14, 1940 in a glorious country house in Langley called Rumwood Court, which is still there. It was a maternity home in the War. Of course my mum called me ...see more
In the 50's my grandmother and uncle moved to Pardlestone Farm near the top of Pardlestone Lane. My uncle kept a small herd of pedigree Ayrshires. I remember picking lavender flowers from the garden and sewing them in muslin bags and tying them with blue ribbons with my grandmother for the fete in celebration of the Coronation. This was held in the grounds of Mrs Cooke-Hurle who lived at Kilve Court. Another ...see more
St John's Church has its own peculiar smell which I used to appreciate during "the long kneel" (communion). Once a month, (or every week) an army of children would be frogmarched from The Langsmead School to attend Sunday Worship. The Langsmead Room now is the only reminder of the now defunct Boarding School which the pupils funded by collecting a mile of threepenny bits.
My friends ...see more
We moved from Southampton to Trefriw on 5th November 1973. Mum & Dad bought the house 'Llys Llewelyn' opposite the village hall, Mrs Williams' Hair Salon (Harold Gas' wife) and the dreaded entrance to the coal yard. They stripped out the house and turned it into a B&B until we moved to Glan Conwy in Sept 1978. During renos of Llys Llewelyn they found a beautiful kitchen range that you could stand up in and ...see more
Hi All. Den from St. Helens. Summer in Anglesey, first car, first boat, first meetings with young ladies of Llangefni. It could have been 1969, I'm not sure now, a group of mates from St Helens set out on holiday in a Triumph Courier Van in grey, Reg No 837 EDM. On top was a polystyrene white boat and inside a top of the range tent, all belonging to Prescot Camping. The weather then was always ...see more
