The Perils of the Hotel Breakfast

The Perils of the Hotel Breakfast. Day One at the hotel: Well, I have managed to keep breakfast intake to a minimum over the past year but the sight of all these food filled hot plates is releasing a well remembered temptation: greed. The irrational need to consume vast quantities of fatty foods as if there was to be no consequences has totally obliterated my good intentions and diet, not to mention good manners. Here in front of me is a mouth watering array of: bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, and fried potatoes. I’ll just have three perhaps four rashers of bacon no better take five. I don’t often pass this way. Those sausages look good I’ll have three no perhaps four. I’ll take a scoop of beans and a scoop of tomatoes. Oh those button mushrooms look good. I’ll try to push some fried bread underneath the lot. The fried eggs look a bit like white gelatine with yellow gelatine in the middle – still I don’t suppose they can keep hundreds of fried eggs warm – I’ll just take a couple. Hell! The plate looks too full now and it’s hot and there are no trays. I have piled on far too much, how will I manage to get it back to the table without spilling? I’m feeling quite embarrassed now but I can’t put any of it back, can I? And it’s such a long way back to the table; folk are looking at me and thinking, ‘Look at that greedy Pig.’ Well, I’ve managed to negotiate it back to the table but I’ll never be able shift this mountain. I’m used to a boiled egg or a slice of toast for breakfast. There is a good manners rule: you can’t overfill your plate and then leave it, folk will see me as I really am – a greedy pig with eyes bigger than belly. And besides I’m a war baby – war babies are taught never to leave anything on their plates – particularly after the Atlantic convoys have battled through storm and bullets to get it through for you. Right, as Confucius said. ‘Even the longest journey begins with the first step.’ For first step I’ll replace ‘first bite’. The bacon is not as good as it looked, it’s like cold cardboard and there are no frizzly bits on the edges. The Sausage is OK though – must make note to have more sausages and less bacon tomorrow. No, don’t even think of repeating this orgy, tomorrow just have toast and marmalade. The eggs taste as they look – like gelatine but the fried bread, button mushrooms and tomatoes are OK. I’m gradually reducing the mountain bite by bite. Now it’s personal. Everybody else seems to have finished now, they are either on the coffee or gone completely. The waiter is hovering to take my plate for washing up but I’ll not let it beat me. I’ll not let folk think I’m a glutton who has bitten off more than he can chew. I’ll nonchalantly make it look as though I shift a plate-full like this every morning. I must not leave even a crumb on my plate it’s a matter of honour now. I’d better just loosen my belt a bit though. There, that’s it; the last bit of sausage is put away. I’m done. Phew I am full! I’ll not fall for that again tomorrow I’ll just have toast and marmalade and that’s it. Day two: Oh that bacon looks better today and those sausages they were really good yesterday. I do feel quite empty this morning, I’m wavering. Oh you only live once. Go for it my son.

The East Leeds Memories of Brian Conoby

                      The East Leeds Memories of Brian Conoby

I have been scratching my head trying to find some old tales of East Leeds to put on the East Leeds Memories site, then I remembered Brian Conoby’s great tales. Brian is unfortunately no longer with us but I’m sure he would be happy for us to recount the great tales he sent to me a a long while ago now, especially the photo snapped by the Yorkshire Post Newspaper of him walking home from St Charles’s School passed the Woodpecker pub in the 15^th March 1941 the day after The Woodpecker and Richmond Hill School was bombed.

We are saddened to announce the passing of Eddie Blackwel; Eddie was a prlific contriburer to this site. 

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Briab’s tales.

I was brought up at 65 Charlton Road, from the age of two until we left in 1950 My grandma, Mrs. Bridget Conoby lived at 3 East Park View Near ‘the Slip Inn’, near to grandma’s house was a flat roofed house on the corner of Temple View and the Grove it was more like a farm than a house, Mr. Sowery kept hens and there were some stables too. There were some flat roofed housed in Temple View that were known as ‘The Sharp and Thorntons.’ Times laundry was just across the way, No.1, one, Glensdale Mount was Wrigglesworth’s shop which sold bags of coal. At the junction of Glensdale Road and East Park Road near to the railway there was a vinegar works called ULYCUM.

East End Park before the war had a small lake where the playground is now and there was a café near to the bowling green. The park was locked up at night by the park ranger who also looked after the ‘Rec’ located near Welbeck Road.

BLACK ROAD

I fished at ‘Red Walls’ in the Wykebeck down Black road which was a good road in the 50’s, I achieved 75mph on a 350cc BSA down there.  During the war there were army camps down there equipped with big guns and searchlights, on moonlit nights ‘Gerry’ would follow the river Aire up to bomb Leeds, then the guns would open up. In the 60s the TA used the camp for a few years.

You could sit out at the back of the Bridgefield Pub on summer evenings, and have a nice quiet drink. Opposite the bridgefield miners could catch the ‘Paddy Train’ down to Waterloo Pit the track followed Black Road passed ‘Red Walls’.  <!– wp:html /–>I recall prisoners of war clearing snow on East Park Parade, they had a big patch on their overalls, This would have been in the bad winter of 1947 when twelve inches of snow fell.

CHARLIE ATHA.

Charlie Atha had a bicycle shop at the junction of Pontefract Lane and Lavender Walk he lived in a house next door to the shop he would build bike wheels on a jig in the shop window he could do anything with a bike. When I left St Charles’s School I started work at Bellow Machine factory as an electrician’s mate. (Ronnie Hilton, the singer worked there at the time too.) On one occasion a sewing machine mechanic came of his bike in the wet tramlines he was OK but a tram went over the back end of his bike and tore the back stays to bits he gave the bike to Charlie who fitted new stays and re-sprayed it and it finished up just like new. I have often gone to the shop about 2.0 pm. And there would be a note on the door: ‘Gone to the Shepherd Pub back at 3.00 p.m.’ before he moved to Pontefract Lane I was told he had a shop on ‘The Bank,’ where he would hire out cycles.     

BIG ERNIE

Big Ernie commissionaire at the Princess lived near me I would see him about to go on duty at the Princess. When he was on duty he would sit on a chair at the front near the screen  if you went to the toilet more than once he would shout out, ‘that’s twice you have been if you go again I will how you out.’ I recall there was a passageway down the side of the Shepherd Pub where you would queue for the cheapest seats.

THE RENT BOOK

I recently came across a rent book for no 65 Charlton Road for the years 1933 to 1937 the rent in 1937 went down from 10/- a week to 7/6 per week and I recall the reason why: No 65 was a back to back house in a block of eight. The landlord, Mr. Gott, owned the lot, he would come for his rent with a satchel on Friday mornings, my mother would usually make him a bacon sandwich. A pal of my dads who lived in the Charltons near the railway wall had a different landlord and he let it slip they were only paying 7/6 a week. My dad went down to the town hall and found out that back to backs in the area had to have  a rent of not more than 7/6 per week My dad got everyone together for a meeting in our house where they all agreed to stands together and refuse to pay anymore rent until; it was reduced to 7/6. My dad said if we all stick together he can’t chuck us all out. We won and in addition everyone got a rebate of £2/6 shillings too.

Here is a picture of me passing the bombed out woodpecker pub on my way home from St Charles’s School in March 1941 caught by the Yorkshire Post photographer the day after the bombing.

THE ENDURING FLG STONE

My father grew up in the houses which were eventually replaced by the Quarry Hill Flats. When he was about ten years of age, which would be about 1920 he and his mate chiselled their names into a kerb stone outside their house. When the houses had to come down to make way for the Quarry Hill Flats they were moved to the East End Park area. One day Mother, Father and I decided to have a walk to Whitkirk at the time they were just about to lay the kerb stones and Dad saw his initials on one of the kerb stones he and his mate had chiselled at the old house pre Quarry Hill. What were the chances of Dad seeing that kerb stone again, a thousand to one? Dad wrote to the council and told them and they said they would take it up and he could have it in his garden but we never followed it up but The Yorkshire Evening Post gave him half a guinea for the tale,  

Here is my sketch from memory of Black Road showing the ig concrete blocks that were put in position here and on ‘John-O-Gaunt’s’ Hill to slow down any potential German invasion