The Anglosphere

THE ANGLOSPHERE
By Doug Farnill


“You know” said Madge, as she and Brian were walking down the street to their next meeting with the Gang, “young kids are really something these days”. “Yes” said Brian “I’ve got three grandchildren, and they are always up to something”. “Well,” said Madge,” our young Tommy, my daughter Lily’s son, is 16 and he says he should have the vote, because the future is all before him, and that old people – those over 60 – should have the vote taken away because the future doesn’t really matter to them”. “That’s right” agreed Brian “and some of my grandchildren are saying that Governments and electoral politics are pandering to the old people, buying their votes with expenses and social welfare things that are unfair burdens on the up-and-coming generations. Intergenerational transfer of wealth, they call it”.
“I try to keep up with things” nodded Madge. ”I listen to current affairs on the wireless so that I can hold my own in conversation with the young ones when they come to tea sometimes on Sundays. But something is puzzling me Brian, perhaps you could explain before I put my foot in it”. “Go on” encouraged Brian, as they reached the corner of the street. “Well, said Madge, I tuned in yesterday and they were talking about Brexit and the angling spear, and I didn’t have a clue about what they were on about”.
“The angling spear” queried Brian, “you don’t mean like a harpoon, or something that the scuba divers use when they go looking for fish in the reef?” “Was it something to do with the arguments about territorial fishing rights in the North Sea, about who could catch what and how much”. “It was something to do with Brexit” agreed Madge, “but I couldn’t make out that it was anything to do with fishing”. I’ve got it” said Brian “how are your hearing aids Madge?” “I’ve got to say that at the moment I’ve run out of batteries” answered Madge. “Well, that’s the answer, you silly old bugger” teased Brian. “It wasn’t angling spear they were talking about, it was probably the Anglosphere.” “What’s that” asked Madge? “It’s the idea that nowadays, with the tyranny of distance overcome by jet planes and computers, it is far easier for peoples who share language and culture to collaborate more effectively in trade and governance, despite their geographical distances, than attempts at a federation across a Europe with so many different languages and cultures”. “Thanks for that Brian”, not angling spear, but Anglosphere, I must get some new batteries soon if I’m to keep up with my grandchildren” said Madge smiling “a bit of ‘manspeak’ is helpful sometimes.

Knostrop’s Magical Pond Field

Knostrop was a magical place for us kids in the 1940s early fifties, we were well blessed with so many places to play, we had our farm yard, fields, woods and all sorts of walks to do but our favourite place when we were young was the pond field. The pond attracted kids from all over the district but we the Knostrop kids, were lucky it was on our doorstep, you accessed the field from Knostrop Lane but to get to the edge of the pond itself you had to cross the feeder stream this was a Wellington boot job but you still invariable managed to get a boot full of water and a telling off from mam when you got home. We went armed with jam jars at the ready there were sticklebacks in the pond but we were after frog spawn we would put it into a jar, take it home, put it onto a shelf and watch the frog spawn turn first into tadpoles then lose their tales and finally turn into little frogs then if they hadn’t jumped out of the jar themselves we would let them go anyway.
We were told that in early days accomplished skaters would use to pond to air their skating abilities but when there was ice on the pond we would just, gingerly walk across, not sure how deep it was in the middle?
Susan, one of our contributors, has a tale to tell about a calamitous visit to the pond: It was Whitsuntide and Auntie Bertha Beanland who lived in one of the Knostrop Hall cottages had as usual had made a brand new set of clothes for Dianna, my cousin and me her granddaughter. We thought it would be a good idea to explore so we set off dressed in our new clothes in the direction of the pond, Dianna would be about eight and me five, when we got to the pond we decided to swop clothes – we were of course different sizes, then disaster I fell into the pond wearing her new clothes and she waded in wearing mine and tried to drag me out. She then proceeded to dry me off using dock leaves thereby staining her clothes green. We squelched back to Aunt Bertha’s cottage where she made us cocoa and dried our ruined clothes and new shoes by the fire. It must have been heart-breaking for her to see all her beautifully made clothes spoiled. No health a safety warnings in those days either! But we did live to tell the tale.

Incidentally Auntie Beanland and her husband lived ina cottage adjacent to Knostrop Old Hall – a beautiful Jacobean building – Atkinson Grimshaw, the painter famous moonscape painter lived in the Hall im the 19^th century and he used to use the cottage to dry off his paintings and by chance there happened to be still one of his paintings in there when they took possession of the cottage – they lived with it for a while than they thought it dowdy and threw it away. Now Grimshaw’s paintings fetch telephone number prices. How much had they thrown away?

As we got a bit older football and cricket became our games, we could play cricket where we lived in jaw Bone Yard but only with a tennis ball there were too many windows for ‘corky‘ balls and full size footballs so once again we would take to the pond field there was there was a nice flat bit near the top where we could play football or pitch the wickets. To reach that bit of the field for cricket and football we would come by way of the Old Hall Yard passed the Beanlsand’s cottage as just mentioned and by Knostrop Old Hall itself.

My mother and her family actually lived in the Old Hall before she was married but now it was the home of the Benn Family who were OK about us playing in their extensive wooded grounds they would allow us to harvest conkers and they would give us the feathers from their birds when they killed them for Christmas and we would make them into Red Indian chiefs head dresses The Benn’s had a great woolly Alsatian dog called Jack, who loved to play with us the Benn family said as soon as he heard the sound of a ball he would prick his ears up and would be out to join us . If it were winter and we were playing football he would be the goalie he could  jump to prestigious heights and save the ball with his nose I never saw a human goalie as good as him. If it were cricket he would be wicket keeper and he would catch the hard ball in his  mouth we shouldn’t have let him because it sometimes made his mouth bleed – but try stopping him. On the leg side there was barbed wire fence and a corn field if someone hit the ball into the corn field it was hard for us to find but it was no problem for Jack he would dive into the field smell the ball out bring it back and drop it at the bowler’s  end and stand there looking at us as if to say come on lads let’s get on with the game, he did catch his stomach on the barbed wire on one occasion  and had to go to the vets but he happily survived to continue his playing days

I do remember on one occasion Brian one of the lads getting hit on the forehead with a ‘bumper ball’ he disappeared home and returned with a huge pat of butter on the bump that must have been the way to cure bumps in those days. Around teatime the farmer would return to the field with his shire work horses and let them into the field they were so pleased to be free they would frolic about and roll over and over, they were very big and a bit frightening so that was our signal to pick up the stumps so as not to get trampled, anyway it was the turn of the horses to enjoy the magic of the pond field.

The two shafts in the sketch are indications that coal had been produced in the area in the past and once again this time open cast coaling ravaged the area and demolished all the great Halls, don’t know where the water from the pond went? And now the magic pond field is overtaken yet again this time by the Cross Green Industrial Estate, it shows us that a piece of land can change its usage many times over the years it’s called synthesis but I bet if it could make a choice itself it would be to hear children laughing by the pond and the sound of a cricket ball on willow. Happily we were there to enjoy that period too.

Otley

Leeds folk in general usually have a soft spot for Otley; I suppose Otley is part of Leeds anyway today – but it wasn’t always so and there is still a bit of green belt in between, so it still seems to be a town apart even now. How many of we old Leodians cannot recall, with fondness, a glorious day out to Otley or Ilkley, commencing with a ride on one of Sammy Leggard’s blue double deckers from Cookridge Street?  My early perception of Otley and Ilkley was that they were somewhat twin towns but in fact they are quite different in character:  Otley is an out and out market town and Ilkley, which is now itself part of Bradford, more a sort of spa town (I can’t image either would have been happy at losing their independence to the big cities). However, both are located in the same direction, both share the River Wharfe and both formally sported open-air swimming baths where we would burn as children. And of course, both were reached by those grand old blue buses.

Once we had cars of our own Otley became more accessible. I recall one day managing to enter a tiny one-way street in a Bond Mini car, which having no reverse gear made it difficult for us to extract ourselves. In our years of youth, Otley provided a great pub run centred around the black Bull in the market square. A ‘half’ in every pub within walking distance would be enough to leave anyone legless.

Today, at a more sedate time of life, I try to walk, once a year, from the Royalty pub at the top of the Chevin, down into the town and back by way of ‘Jacob’s ladder’. I do this under the understanding: that if I’m still alive when I reach the top then I’m set fair for another year. On a bright Saturday morning in spring or summer Otley is at its best, there remains a fair smattering of timber constructed buildings; cafes with outside tables where folk can drink tea and lemonade alfresco. The scores of cyclists enjoying their day too can give one the impression that you have managed to travel back forty years in time from the bustle of Leeds to a less frenzied time. Unfortunately, there is still the traffic to contend with, which seems to have made a significant comeback since its depletion by the bypass. If you walk down from the Chevin – over the footbridge, and across the dismantled railway line you emerge into that which is my favourite street of terraced houses. Each has a curtain less bay window, which invites you to take quick peep at their tasteful  displays  as you pass by.

A particular favourite of mine has a cello placed in the window and a clutch of empty wine bottles, apparently carelessly placed, but surely engineered to give the impression that the folk inside had a great time last night.

Just alongside the church, where people sit on forms enjoying their sandwiches, there is chance to look again at the monument to the navvies who lost their lives helping to build Bramhope Tunnel; I think there are twenty six listed in all. Past the market stalls, which line the main street on a Saturday morning, the bric-a-brac, arcades and the wonderful smells emitting from the baker’s shops brings the market square with its free standing clock and across the busy Pool Road my favourite butcher’s shop: ‘W. Weegmann’, established 1869. No diet can be so important that you cannot have at least one pie from here. Preferably, you buy one to eat by the riverside, one to take home and several for friends. But, remember you are going to have to tote them all back up Jacob’s ladder and that includes the one inside too! The route to the river takes you past Chippendale’s house with its blue plaque, round the ninety degree bends, an absolute nightmare for the modern juggernaughts and then on to the ‘jewel in the crown’ – the bridge and the riverside gardens. A little wooden building remains, now a café, where I recall my mother buying for me a tiny yellow horse and cart. How many years ago was that?

It’s time to sit on one of the seats by the river, doesn’t seem to be any boats now but still plenty of ducks to share a bit of your crust, be careful, you can’t spare too much. Take in those beautiful riverside cottages and have a look at that elaborate sundial, I think I could just about understand it when I had a few more brain cells than now. From here, you can just see, if it’s Easter time, the cross erected on the top of the Chevin. That’s where you are going to have to climb on the way back. It looks awfully steep. Confucius, he say: ‘Even the longest journey begins with the first step’. So it’s back through the town and begin on the incline. As it becomes steeper, attempt it in bite size bites, a bit at a time. If you are prepared to take it slowly enough you can climb almost anything! When the steps appear, attempt thirty at a time, then twenty, than ten. Have a few sits, let the young ‘uns hurry past. That cross is getting nearer, are you still alive? Yes, just. Look back at the tiny Otley far below. Done it! Take in the air. Have a well-earned drink, the feel good factor kicks in, you’re alright for another year.

Down Memory Lane (AKA York Road , Leeds 9)

         By Linda McCarthy nee Culloden

      For my eleventh birthday, my Uncle Ted gave me a copy of

Edward FitzGerald’s wonderfully unfaithful translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It was a really grown – up present, with its maroon velvet outer cover and wonderful colour illustrations protected by tissue inserts. It plays its part in recalling my memories of where I lived, until the age of 18 years when I went away from my home in God’s County to County Durham – the Land of The Prince Bishops, and nearly sixty years later when I saw the same places through my grandchildren’s eyes.

The extract which means so much to me, is Stanza 71:

‘’The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.’’

Growing up and growing older is inevitable. No matter how much we want to hold onto our childhood past, life is going to move forward. At some point, our childhood becomes something we look back on occasionally, realising it cannot be changed, but whilst we create new memories in the present, we can be selective of memories of time past.           My son Alex and his kids, Hannah fourteen and Ethan who is eleven, came to stay at our home in Old Malton  in late February 2023. Alex had asked that we visit Leeds so that I could show the grandkids where I had grown up and whilst we were there we could pop in and have tea with my brother and his wife who live in Wortley

As we entered the city limits the A64 took us past the turn off for Temple Newsam, where, as a child, I had spent many happy Sunday afternoons. One of my special memories was going there in the winter with our sledge and a flask of Camp coffee, made with

milk of course. The Camp coffee bit had to be explained because, as a coffee buff, my son only has ground coffee made using a fancy machine! I was delighted to see it in our local Morrisons recently but resisted buying it – there are some culinary delights which no longer appeal – another one is a polony  sandwich (even with Branston pickle)!

I recalled a story my dad had told me. As a tram driver, on early turn from Torre Road Garage, he had taken miners up to the opencast mine one February morning. As he reached the crest of a hill the brakes failed to grip on the icy track and the tram hurtled down the hill. Apparently all the chaps on board cheered as the tram slowed to a sliding halt after their roller coaster ride at 70 miles an hour. It didn’t do my dad’s heart any favours!  

          As we drove further into Leeds we passed Seacroft Hospital, where I had made camp fires in the grounds when a girl guide; our leader was a sister at the hospital.  I performed there, at age nine, in a pantomime for the patients one Christmas. That’s when I was positive my purpose in life was to be Dandini in ‘Cinderella’, wear long boots and slap my thigh at every opportunity. Later the only acting I got to do was in a classroom and in a hall full of children.

          Then we came upon the site of what had been The Shaftesbury cinema. As a teenager, my best friend Andrea met her future husband in the stalls and Vincent Price terrified us in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.

          Of course it is no more, nr is the green grocers up on the left hand side of Harehills Lane (just behind the van) where an older cousin worked. it looks a neglected atea now and I couldn’t believe they had demolished the Shaftsbury Public House where my uncle Cecil used to spend most of his days and evenings . He was an addictive gambler and occasionally won more than he lost. Say no more!

At least the playing fields on the left were still there and hopefully are as well used as they were in the past by schools and youth teams. So many of the buildings had been neglected and looked very sad and then we came to the overpass, which, in my opinion, was responsible for the decline and destruction of my childhood community.

Torre Road Tram/Bus Station was demolished and the tram lines which dominated the centre of the road are buried under concrete.   We looked at the parade of shops pictured below. As a child I remember Pridmores, the bakers, (now SIL’S on the photo), which had an off-licence attached. My grandma used to send me there on a Saturday afternoon with a jug for her ‘pint of mild’. I was instructed not to spill any and was given a lacy cover with beaded weights to ‘keep the muck out’. I would have been about 9 years old!

Next door was Mr Perkin’s sweet shop where we handed over our ration books until 1953 for a bag of sweets. The parade of shops had everything: bakers,butchers, Troops and harberdashery, where mum bought her nylons and Maxwell Vites the chemist, where I bought Plaster of Paris from one of their poished wooden wall boxes to make models from a rubber mould The doctor’s surgery where you waited in line and were always seen,The Post Office where I bought a 3d saving stamp every week – my reward for getting grandma’s tiple – Carter’s the greengrocers , the wet fishshop, the hardware shop, . which aways smelled of creosote, where I bought my mum a flowered tray for Christmas one year – it cost me half a crown – a fortune to me at the time . Further down the road was Danny Green’s barber shop where I sat on a plank on a chair so he could cut my fringe – ‘Anything for the weekend?’ was a question I was never asked.

My favourite establishment was the ‘’Murder Shop’’. Its windows were crammed with such a variety of goods you found it difficult to focus. Ladies knickers (the serious kind), vests, men’s shirt collars, mops, bins, woolly hats, gloves, bed linen (especially the flannelette kind – for winter warmth), towels, bowls: they seemed to sell anything and everything. And why ‘The Murder Shop’ you ask. Well their catch phrase was :

 ‘ We don’t cut prices – we murder them’.

Across the tramlines, on the other side of York Road and over what we called ‘the top hollers’ was the street where I lived until I was 12 years old. Amazingly it’s still there and from the exterior looks unchanged. I described to my grandkids, the bath in the kitchen and the cast iron cooking range in the living room and the toilet in the yard at the end of the street. ‘What did you do at night time if you needed to go to the loo?’ I was asked. That led to a description of what a ‘po’ (or chamber pot) was and how it was used. Both grandkids grimaced – no wonder – what a boon modern sanitary plumbing is!! The decorated pot my grandma gave me now holds a tasteful houseplant – the ultimate in re-cycling.

Then it was eyes left, to the site where my old primary school had stood: Victoria or Vicky, as it was usually referred to, was a bastion of the Victorian’s aim to educate the masses. It was a harsh regime, where I first discovered what physical punishment was. But I described fun times such as concerts and plays, country dancing in preparation for ‘Children’s Day’ at Roundhay Park and the extremely competitive inter-school rounders matches played on the concrete playground. It was the place I learned not to volunteer until you knew the task.  I explained about ‘volunteering’ to help Miss Forbester, the head, on an icy day in January. Four of us were taken down to the school caretakers lair where we were each given two buckets of boiling hot water, which we carried very carefully to the outside toilets across a dangerously slippy playground.

Once there the hot water was poured down each of the eight toilets which had frozen solid. Another ‘uugh’ moment! What a headline that would have made for the Daily Mirror nowadays, and Miss Forbester would be fed to the wolves.

I reminisced about my visits to The Star Cinema, usually on Friday nights with mum, dad and their Uncle Robert, to see the latest John Wayne, Yvonne de Carlo, Victor Mature, Marx Brothers or Bob Hope and Bing Crosby films.

There was of course the Saturday afternoon matinee for kids, which gave mum and dad a couple of hours respite, and all for 6d to get in and 3d for a lolly. You could choose to spend it in the next door sweet shop on sherbet dabs, liquorice and kali or a mixed bag with flying saucers which stuck to the roof of your mouth. It could be a rough house so a man with a stick walked the aisles to deter any troublemakers. They had probably sneaked upstairs to spit (or worse) from the balcony so getting in early for a good seat had a completely different connotation in those days!!

By this time we had arrived at the bottom of York Road where they the Woodpecker Inn once stood and stopped at the traffic lights at the Kremlin and now close concentration was paramount. Trusting in the car’s navigation system we entered Leeds and I was confused beyond measure. Leeds is now an orienteering, one way nightmare but some of my early memories still exist, the Corn Exchange, The Arcades and  The Grand Theatre (refer back to Dandini).

Other buildings still stand but have changed their purpose, maybe those reminiscences are for another time.

And what about my grandkids’ reaction to my trip down memory lane? My grandson said it was like a history lesson and for them it certainly is another era. Let’s hope they have such vibrant and heart-warming memories to share with their grandchildren. After all memories are special moments that tell our story.

Linda McCarthy nee Culloden   D.O.B. 26 May 1946 but still curious.

TALE NUMBER 200 ON EAST LEEDS MEMORIES.

TALE NUMBER 200 ON EAST LEEDS MEMORIES
This month marks the 200th tale paraded for us on the ‘East Leeds Memories’ site so kindly and efficiently collected and archived for us by WordPress. Thank you WordPress for brilliantly allowing our tales to live, I am particularly grateful because it allows old East Leeds folk particularly ex-pats in places like Australia to remember their roots. Many who have contributed to the site since its beginnings on 2007 have passed to that great story collector in the sky but in a sense I believe that while we still read their tales they are still with us.
For the 200th anniversary I propose to reproduce the first two stories on the site in 2007 ‘The Pantomime’ by Joan Elliot (nee Dobson) and ‘Working in my Dad’s Butcher’s Shop’ by Eric Allen. Perhaps they are looking down on us?
ENJOY,

THE PANTOMIME
by Joan Elliot
My life in 1941 revolved around: going to school (St Hilda’s) and to the Easy Road Picture house on Monday and Thursday nights; these were the days when the programme changed. If we went with an adult the cost of admission was 7 ½ pence. We were very lucky in that my life long school and after school friend was Vera Wood; she had a sister older than us called Mary. Mary was a very lovely young lady and talented in many ways, she was particularly good for us for she could take us into the pictures and act as our chaperone.
School at that time was quite boring, Johnny North, our teacher, had been one of the teachers brought back from retirement to take the place of the teachers who had been called up for the war; he was far too old, must have been in his seventies and to us young ten year olds that seemed absolutely ancient. Then we got the ‘call to arms’ as the saying goes. The city of Leeds had decided to buy an aircraft carrier: ‘The Ark Royal’. It was think time! What could we do to help raise the money; Save jam jars? Collect rags? Neither of these seemed an option, we didn’t get enough jam to make saving the jars worthwhile and we had lots of uses for rags ourselves; rag rugs was one (if you don’t know what rag rugs were ask one of your elders). Then one of the gang came up with an idea: we’d have a concert.
At that time Frances Ladler, was producing the pantomime, Cinderella, at the Theatre Royal. That was the answer; we would do a copy of that wonderful show. Fortunately for us, the mother of one of the girls in our class was a cleaner at the theatre and she brought us home some old programmes left behind by theatre goers. At the back of Mr Wood’s garden in St Hilda’s Crescent, there stood a big shed, this was our property, or so we thought at the time – I think it really belonged to the railway, which ran along the bottom of the gardens {The Navvy}. We spent hours in that shed, always busy doing something or other. From now on it was to be our pantomime workshop.
First of all we had to get a cast together; there were plenty of willing girls but the boys were another ‘kettle of fish’. We managed to get Peter Dunhill to play Baron-de Broke and Keith Hobson was Buttons, Vera Atkinson played Cinderella and Vera Wood Prince Charming. I played Dandini. I can’t remember who played the ugly sisters but I remember that half our class at school were in there playing some part or other. From that very first day our lives were taken up with: planning, begging, sewing and borrowing old frocks to cut up and make into other things. At this point it should be remembered that at the time the war was in full swing and not a lot was left; clothes and food were on coupons, plus anything of any use was taken up for the war effort but we were given lots of help by our parents and relatives. After a lot of fun and planning we began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The next worry was: where to hold this magnificent production as the shed was certainly not big enough? The houses in St Hilda’s Crescent were in pairs and between each pair of houses there was a yard were the back doors of the houses faced each other. We decided that one of these yards was to be our theatre. We borrowed draw curtains for the bottom of the yard and draw curtains for the top. The scenery was painted on old rolls of wallpaper out of a neighbour’s attic. The stage at the top end near to the gardens was made higher by wood lent to us by another kind soul. I must say at this point that the generosity and kindness of all our parents, relatives and neighbours could not have been better, everyone by now wanted to help.
On the night of the show chairs came out of every house. Mrs Wood’s piano was put under the window and Mary Wood was the pianist. In the shed all the costumes made by the girls taking part in the show were ready.

The show opened and ran every night for a full week at two pence for an adult and a penny per child. We played to a full house every night for a week and raised a grand total of £20 for Ark Royal.

Great tale, Joan and there are still a dwindling few around who can remember that special week over 75 years ago!
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Working for my Dad in the Butcher’s Shop
By Eric Allen
My dad was a butcher and when I was a lad I used to help make the sausages. First I had to collect the ingredients. We hadn’t a car at the time so I had to take the butcher’s bike to Stoke and Daltons for the rusks, which went into the sausage meat. I’d have to collect a full sack and it was very large and heavy. I’d put the sack into the basket of the bike but it was so big and heavy I couldn’t then turn the handlebars properly. This of course made it dangerous to ride but then being stupid I always did try to ride – Well You never push a bike if there is chance to ride it do you? That bike was like a taxi. I’d regularly take our Brenda home to Knostop in the carrier; it was all downhill so we could make good progress. In actual fact, if just kids were involved I could get five on, three in the basket, one on the cross bar and myself.
When I had the ingredients back to the shop I’d begin to make the sausages proper. First I’d mix the ingredients, which made up the insides of the sausages (the sausage-meat), in a mixer. Then it was a matter of stretching the skin over the outlet of the mixer and turning a handle to force the sausage-meat into the skin. We used beast’s intestines for the skins in those days. The problem was they were not consistent in size. One day I got a really big skin – it was really huge. Undaunted I continued winding the handle to fill this huge skin until it had taken virtually the whole of the contents of the mixer, which was supposed to be enough to fill a whole batch of sausages and I just had this one giant sausage. When my dad saw it he went mad, ‘Silly b…..,’ he said, ‘who the b…. hell would want a sausage as big as that?

Gordon Brown and I were joint scores and bag carriers for East Leeds Cricket Club. The bag was a huge affair – it was bigger than us and heavy too being full of bats and pads and all the rest of gear wanted by the cricketers, it’s a good job it had two handles so that we could hold one handle each with both hands to get it off the ground. We had a real job manhandling it onto buses and trams for away matches, for this we would be paid two bob and our tram fare. We took it in turns to be scorer. Only one could be the scorer along with a scorer from the opposition. The beauty of being the scorer was you got a free tea. The one who was just the bag handler for the day had to ‘whistle’ for his tea or spend six pence of his bag money on a sandwich and a cup of tea. When East Leeds was playing at home it was always the highlight of the day for the scorer to have his tea in the pavilion along with the players.
Thanks for a great tale, Eric

The World We Have Lost

The World we Have Lost
Viewing that award winning Irish film The Banshees of Inisherin with its 1920s hovels reminded me of my own time in what now seems a lifetime ago when I was sent as a young boy to stay with an old aunt who lived a rural lifestyle in such an old stone built cottage attached to a farm many a mle from the neatest bus route. It was at a time when I was evacuated there to escape the expected bombing of Leeds in the Second World War.

The cottage had stone walls which were very thick and had tiny windows with deep sills filled with plants and ornaments it was devoid of: Electricity, gas, radio or TV, telephone or running water. There was a dry toilet out the back and a tap bringing water that tasted of iron out of the wall in the yard outside. News always ran late as there were no newspapers delivered either so news came by word of mouth if anyone deemed to call. Upstairs were two tiny bedrooms with one tiny window in the gable-end, you had to pass through one bedroom to get to the other. The lowing of the cattle was the only persistent sound but Oh! those country smells, the cows, the chicken bran, wood smoke from the fire and the smoky oil lamp and of course the terrible aroma from the dry toilet, the more pleasant smells were the lovely aroma of wild mushrooms we would pick on a morning, The lead filled wartime fresh green paint and also the lead scented petrol from the occasional motor car that called. Uncle would sit looking into the fire and adding to the smoke with his tobacco pipe. A bonus for me was the battalion of feral cats always around, There were no street lamps so the sky was always black velvet with a million stars and there were fields and woods for me to explore

My aunt’s own children were now grown and had left home but when they were young and enrolled in the nearest village school they had to walk miles over muddy fields which meant walking in bare feet and only putting their shoes on at the school gates or risk getting told off by the teacher for muddy shoes, one of those children, Muriel, returned for a nostalgic visit to her village school many years later and penned this poem. After her passing around the turning of this century I found the poem, the original of which I have on my wall at home and a copy of it I will include here for your pleasure.

A Village Remembered – Bramhope By Muriel Hird.

Is this the school fifty years smaller with the sound of voices singing country songs through open windows and the scent of bluebells from jars on windowsills?

Is this the old porch were many coats were thrown on fewer pegs, dominated now by the extension of the youth club.

A playground fifty years smaller where once a skipping rope flip-flopped on dusty grounds and was shared by all where droned the singing games, ‘The Farmer Wants a Wife.’ ‘Poor Mary Sits a Weeping’ and many more.

Where are the paths of adventure with hard baked soil and scent of conifer?

Instead the cramped houses of modern suburbia with their picture windows stand and almond and cherry trees stand where once horse chestnuts stood.

Gone too the fields where buttercups clung to bare legs and kingcups nodded.

The post office re-sited with a boutique for company.

The village blacksmith fifty years gone where eager hands pumped bellows midst the smell of burning hooves.

The village joiner fifty years gone where once young feet trampled shavings.

The Village Institute lives on but the grass is not so green where once tiny feet skipped around the maypole to a one two three hop.

The scents and sounds still to be remembered of a country village fifty years ago.

Those were very primitive conditions which we would not tolerate today in our luxurious 21st century world but you know there was a magic about county living which we seem to have lost, We are now a cosmopolitan nation and have embraced many folk from less happy lands than ours and for this we should be proud but just as these folk still, I’m sure, have a yearning back to remember their roots, would it be so wrong for us too to remember back to our own roots in that rural idyll before WOKE and when we stood alone.. I suppose modern UK is alroght butl old UK was alright too.

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

BAOR

                                                 BAOR

After basic and trade training in 1959 while employed on her majesty’s National Service I found myself posted To The British Army of the Rhine which as all National Service squaddies knew meant ‘Germany.’ It was in the time that they will now probably call ‘The First Cold War’ .First stop was to be: Liverpool Street Railway Station.

Liverpool Street Station was as miserable a venue as you were likely to meet, basically as most travellers passing through were lads returning to their units after leave in ‘Blighty’: never a happy event. We would line up for a documentation check, while Military Police (MPs) colloquially referred to as: ‘Monkeys’ strutted up and down the lines making snide comments like, ‘Stand still you gob shites’. On one occasion the squaddie in front of me, after taking such a blast, picked up his gear and saying: ‘That’s all I needed,’ hopped it out of the station and into AWOL (absent, without leave). At Harwich, we would board one of the two troop ships. ‘The Vienna’ is the one I recall. The lads had nick named it, ‘The Submarine’ because it had sunk three times already, once when it was just moored in the harbour. It was usually a night crossing; we slept in tiered bunks. A Scottish Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) reigned supreme on board he ran a tight ship. In the fifties army you never escaped orders being barked with a great intensity. In this case, it was delivered with a harsh Scottish accent. Terry, another of my old mates travelling on that boat at the same time as a Scottish regiment, told of how when they vaulted over the holding barrier in their kilts; nothing was left to the imagination.

The boat docked at The Hook of Holland in the early morning and you started to get the scent of Germany already – and this was only Holland! There were three trains awaiting us: the red train, the blue train and the green train. Each had a destination to different areas of The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). Names like: Bielefeld, Guterssioh, Padaborn, Osnabruck, Wuppertal, Bruggan, Rheindahien, Niemburg, Celle, Iserlohn, Munster, Moenchengladbach and Lippstadt will be familiar to lads who followed this route. You hoped you would recognise the correct station to alight. Another of my favourite national service stories concerns a lad called Roy; he had a travel warrant to join SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe) it was located somewhere in France. His warrant had an unpronounceable destination beginning with about three ‘fs’ on the bounce. He decided his best course of action would be: not even to try to pronounce the name of his destination but to wait until something looking similar appeared on a station notice board, then he would check the lettering with his warrant and if it looked the same, alight from the train. Unfortunately, he lost his warrant so he was unable to compare it with the station notice board, further, as he hadn’t learned how to pronounce the name he couldn’t ask anyone either. Quite a conundrum but obviously he must have arrived there somehow or other.

Minden

My first destination was to be Minden, there I was introduced to the scent  of Germany proper – not that it was a particularly bad scent  just different – a sort of mixture of cigar smoke, cesspools and decaying vegetation. I swear that if I were blindfolded and dropped anywhere in the world I would be able to tell by the smell if it were Germany! In addition to the smell the street lights had a singularly insipid colour too, a sort of grey/ blue, which went well with the shuttered windows and drab concrete buildings. They seemed to go in for a lot of concrete in Germany, but to be fair they were just rebuilding having lost a war. The barracks at HQ REME though were: ‘Marble Halls,’ they provided me with a level of luxury I had not experienced in back street Leeds. I recall, after all these years, having been being given half a day off and taking a bath. You wouldn’t think a bath would be that memorable but that tiled bathroom seemed so luxurious and I could fill the bath right up to the top with lovely hot soapy water – you never had enough hot water to fill a bath right up to the top at home. Particularly welcome, after all the rushing about and lack of privacy at Blandford and Gosport was the fact that for a brief period I had the whole billet to myself. I took my time to soak away for the best part of an hour, undisturbed. It was a little oasis of heaven.

The compliment of HQ 1 Corps Troop REME was just four of us, gash hand clerks, plus dozens of officers who breezed in and out of the office. The four of us shared work in the office and a four-bed dormitory. The other three pulled my leg a bit because I wasn’t very good at answering the telephone. That was another thing we’d never had at home in East Leeds and I had not learned the knack of how to listen properly to the callers. Voices always seemed jumbled to me and being an HQ we had some important callers. The lads would play me up; every time the phone rang, they would make me answer it while they all gathered round, leaning on their elbows laughing at my efforts. This of course made me worse and as one was a corporal; I had to do as he said. One day the caller turned out to be a general and, generals are like gods in the army. I had to ask him to repeat the call three times and I still hadn’t heard him properly, plus the others were making me laugh to boot. I heard him alright though when he shouted: ‘Get off the phone you bloody fool and put someone on who knows how to answer it.’

They were a great bunch of lads for all that. They arranged a pass for me to wear civvies. You were not supposed to wear civvies until you had been in the army for six months. However, it was almost impossible to gain admittance to any of the beer houses in town in uniform as an infantry regiment: the Scots Greys were also based in Minden and they had been a bit rough on the locals, resulting in just about everywhere being put out of bounds to British servicemen. The British regiments out there in West German were very competitive towards each other. Another national service mate, Bernard who was serving with the RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) relates a tale of how two infantry outfits: the ‘Kings’ and the ‘Gloucesters,’ who were in adjacent camps decided to have a real go at each other. Bernard says how their field hospital had to do the ‘patching up’ afterwards and one poor lad actually expired. He says it was played down in the press as ‘just a riot’ but it was a lot more serious than that.

 After a night out on the town, we’d return to that luxurious billet, have a brew and listen to the music of the British Forces Network (BFN) or perhaps Radio Luxemburg. We would compile our own favourite ‘top twenty records’ and see how near they complied with the official one. Teen Angel, Mark Dinning, If I said I loved You would You Mind? Anthony Newly, Image of a Girl, Mark Winter. My favourite of the moment was I’m Mister Blue by Mark Preston.  There was a song; they don’t make them like that any more! Whenever I hear: I’m mister Blue I am transported back to that dreamy barrack room – where oh where did all the time go! Another unit shared the same camp as us: 87 Special Tels. They were a small Royal Signals unit but had a football team, which was always short of players, so, I turned out for their team and in the process managed to see a good deal of the local countryside. Just when I was really starting to enjoy my time in Minden and order came through that I was to be posted to 652 Squadron Army Air Corps, who were based at Detmold. Evidently, their technical clerk had been demobbed.

Lost in Germany

A driver arrived in a ‘Champ’ to drive me down to Detmold. Champs were sort of amphibious jeeps; they were very popular with the lads being so versatile and easy to drive. They were made by Austin but had Rolls Royce engines; they had four forward gears and by pulling a lever the four forward gears became reverse gears. A bonus with the Champs was that they had synchromesh gearboxes, which meant you did not have to double-de-clutch that was the norm as most vehicles had ‘crash gearboxes’ at the time.

We managed to arrive at the Detmold camp in the evening just as it was about to get dark. The ‘Squadron’ as this lot were called, were all assembled in the cookhouse about to set off on a ‘scheme’. Schemes for anyone who doesn’t know are military exercises where everyone goes running about the countryside in trucks and tanks etc., crossing frozen lakes in man-made rafts (we once had to rescue a gung-ho captain who was starting to sink) and shooting off blanks at each other. ‘Who are you then?’ asked the sergeant in charge. I told him my name and how I had just been posted here. Nobody seemed to know anything about it, so the sergeant said,  ‘Oh well, I suppose you’d better come with us and we’ll sort out who you are in the morning.’ This was before I’d even stowed my gear, I just left it in the cookhouse and climbed into the back of a three-ton truck with a load of strangers. By then, it was pitch black outside.

After we had been travelling for several miles, they started to drop us off, one at a time in the middle of nowhere. I can’t recall what it was I was supposed to do or indeed if anyone had bothered to tell me but 60 years on I can still remember how dark it was, I have never known such complete blackness. I sat there on the verge of a country road, somewhere in the middle of Germany, and waited hour after hour for something to happen: not knowing where I was, what I was supposed to do or what was to become of me. I dare not leave the spot and start walking anywhere in case they shot me for leaving my post. The reason I was left standing there alone for so long, it later transpired, was because they had forgotten all about me. After the exercise was over (whatever it had supposed to have been) they had all gone back to camp and had a big nosh up in the cookhouse. It was only after someone had noticed my gear in the cookhouse, and remarked, ‘Didn’t a new bloke start tonight?’ That they decided to come out and look for me. It’s a good job I’d left my gear in the cookhouse or I’d be stood there yet! All ended well with a personal midnight feast served up from the canteen.

To be continued. And just so you don’t get me wrong I loved my two years of National Service.

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We are saddened to announce the pasing of John Holloway who wrote the East Leeds to Orkney tales among others.

The Old Lockup Shop in Burmantofts

The Old Lockup Shop in Burmantofts
A couple of my aunts, assisted on occasions by an uncle, took over a lock-up grocer’s shop on the corner of Jenner Street and Shakespeare Terrace in what was then the run down Leeds suburb of Burmantofts. It was shortly after the end of the war, about 1946/47. I recall on my first visit to the shop – I would be eight or nine – thinking how dreary the prospect of the area was. There was an abundance of rotting woodwork and broken masonry with not a hint of greenery to break the monotony – unless that is you counted the tired green tiles of the Rock Inn opposite. These depressing surroundings did not however become manifest within the residents themselves who enjoyed a wicked sense of humour in spite of their decaying habitat. The shop was located in the middle of an absolute warren of back-to-back terrace streets. The property consisted of: the shop itself and a stock room, which was crammed with so many cartons and tins that my aunts were forever barking their shins and coming home covered in cuts and bruises.

‘Click’ on map to enlarge.
The thing I remember most about that shop was the conglomerate smell of bacon, cheese, butter, tea and the like. In today’s world of wrapped foods such smells are lost to us but in the 1940s it was quite a different matter: bread came unwrapped so did butter; margarine, cheese, ham and the like arrived from the wholesaler in bulk and had to be sliced up and weighed on site with the aid of a little pyramid of brass weights and a set of balance scales. The cheese would be cut with a wire and the ham sliced with a long slender knife. These implements had to be very sharp with the result that cut fingers became an occupational hazard. I suppose all the unwrapped food, cut fingers and lack of refrigeration would be considered a health hazard today but it didn’t seem to harm anyone at the time.
Rationing was still in effect in those early days at the shop. Customers had ration cards, which aunt Doris kept under the counter. There were so many points allowed for fats, sugar, sweets, meat etc. When a customer came into the shop to purchase one of the food items on ration, Doris would have to mark off the ‘points’ on their ration card. She would cross the squares out in blue pencil and say: ‘Right Mrs…do you realise that leaves you with only …points left for the month on ‘marge.’ Margarine was the staple diet for most of us in the war, not many of Doris’s customers ran to butter. I particularly remember bread units, ‘BUs’ as we called them. They had to be cut out of the ration book with a pair of scissors and sent to the Ministry of Food Office. I would help her count them out and band them into hundreds at the weekend, ready to be sent off. Inspectors were always on the prowl to ensure fair play but the black market still managed to flourish.
The shop ran on ‘tick’ or the ‘slate’ as it equivalent was called in the pub trade. Folk in the area were invariably broke after the weekend so they would ‘tick’ up goods on credit at the beginning of the week and supposedly settle up at the weekend when their husband’s wage was paid in or perhaps their pension – not many married women actually went out to work in the 1940s. Settlement from some seemed to drag on and on until it became an embarrassment for them to keep on asking for the money, especially if they knew there was some other priority which made them unable to pay. A few would do a ‘moonlight’ or fall sick, perhaps even die still owing the money. Other times the sisters would take pity on some poor old soul and just let them off because they knew they would have paid if they could. Somehow or other they always seemed to come out the losers with the ‘tick’ system but it was a necessary evil; the shop could not have functioned without ‘tick’.

There was one old lady who would sidle up to the potato rack and keep slipping an odd potato into her basket. They knew she was doing it but never let on. ‘Poor lass, she must be desperate,’ they would say. Another poor chap had an affliction, which made him nod his head violently all the time making it difficult for them to know what he wanted, he’d be holding the queue up but they always persevered with him and never made him hurry. This caring attitude and the knowledge that folk would always find a sympathetic ear made the shop very popular. The customers took to them and they became firm favourites of the community and it seems confidents to the whole area. People would come in and pour out their secrets, problems and particularly their aches and pains. The shop often resembled a doctor’s surgery when they all got going about their infirmities and operations but it usually ended up with a great belly laugh all round. Often the place would be full of women but no one buying, they had just come in for a ‘cal’ and perhaps a pinch of snuff- you could tell the snuff takers by the residue of brown powder beneath their noses. The sisters just put up with it all with a smile, they realised that for some their major social event of the day, just to escape the household drudgery for half an hour and have a ‘cal’ in Doris’s shop.
All three were slight of build but their popularity meant they were never short of champions among the husbands of their younger customers should a bit of brawn be required. Not that there was many altercations, the yob culture was still a distant nightmare away but as a lock-up shop it was always vulnerable to burglary, particularly when the shop was empty after they had left for home. Cigarettes were the attractive item of the day. The neighbours would try to look after their interests at night when the shop was unattended but they couldn’t be expected to be on guard all the time of course. Locks bolts and bars didn’t seem able to keep the criminal fraternity at bay but a brilliant home-made burglary alarm was devised by piling up the large tin boxes that the biscuits came in and placing them tight behind the doors. Taking advantage of their slim physics the last sister to leave would squeeze out through the narrowest of gaps between the door and the boxes. When an intruder came along and forced the locks he would believe himself to be in but he was in for a shock for as he pushed open the door to make good his entry the biscuit tins would be sent cascading across the floor. I’m told the resultant noise was loud enough to bring the willing neighbours running out crying;
‘Quick! – shop’s being broke into.’
It was quite a trek for them to travel from the shop in Burmantofts, to their home in Knostrop. It entailed a mile walk at each end and a number 63 bus ride from the Hope Inn to The Cross Green Hotel the middle. As they dare not leave the day’s takings in the shop overnight they would carry it home and back to work again next morning in an old gasman’s bag. Amazingly, considering all the years they made that journey, they were never mugged once! What’s the price of that happening today?