Posts Tagged ‘Gardeners Pub’’

Walking Down From Cross Green to Hunslet Taking in the Gardeners Pub.

December 1, 2023

Walking Down From Cross Green to Hunslet Taking in the Gardeners Pub

So set off down South Accommodation Road. ‘There used to be tram lines down here and the road was split in two with a high wall in between,’ said Bri.’

‘When you went down Hunslet,’ said Malcolm , ‘you either walked, rode a bike or caught the number 63 bus, the trams ran until 1959 but they had stopped running down South Accommodation Road  long before that.’

‘Good old trams,’ I said, ‘I worked in Hunslet and used to go to work on my bike  I had to be there by 7.30 a.m. but thought nowt of it, it kills me to get up at that time now a – days. But If my bike was out of order I used to catch the 62 bus from Cross Green Lane down to Duke Street near the bus station and then catch a tram to Dewsbury Road, sometimes the bus would be running late and I would see my tram pulling away down York Street passed the bus station but I could jump off the bus and run passed the Parish Church and through the Calls and the trams ran so slowly, especially through traffic so that I was able to catch the same tram in Swinegate and not be late for work.’

We were now coming to the river Aire. ‘This is just an ordinary boring old bridge here now,’ said Bri, ‘it used to be that great big bowed suspension bridge, built for adventure.’ We could still see the river looking over the parapet of the new bridge and that they were making a good job of turning the old blanket and those adjacent old mills into flats. Full marks to the council for persevering with those old Victorian mills it would have been a shame if they had demolished them altogether. When I used to look out of my window on Cross Green Lane that old blanket mill was always in sight and it was derelict as long as I can remember and that’s over seventy years and yet the Victorians built things so good that they can even be rescued and brought back into life after all that time. If you looked up through the windows of the mill from the river bank you could see even the floors of the upper stories were made out of arched brickwork can you imagine the weight of all that and yet it has remained standing

‘Do you remember Jimmy Thrush riding across the bowed parapet of the bridge on his bespoke bogy?’ said Brian.

‘Yes, Jimmy was a daredevil,’ said Malcolm, ‘but we all got up to doing duffs and dares, didn’t we, things we wouldn’t think of doing today.  You know that big green pipe that ran across the bridge outside the railings I was dared to walk over there myself, they had put a great round spikey thing across the pipe 

To stop you doing that but they dared me to do it and I even negotiated the spikes at each end.’

‘Oh you fool,’ said Madge, ‘If you’d fallen in that would have been the end of you the river always looked black and sinister you couldn’t see an inch below the surface and how would you have climbed out the banks were concrete and rose about five feet above the water.’ 

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Malcolm said, ‘When you passed over South Accom Bridge you passed from Leeds 9 into Leeds 10 the housing stock became even worse than our shabby housing stock, one dinner hour while I was sitting in the car having my dinner I did a sketch of the street in front of me I think it was Norwich place.

I Think that was typical of the housing stock but even in the sketch amidst all the squalor a stoic lady is still hanging out the washing. The Hunslet lads always seemed tougher than us, when they crossed over the bridge in numbers we usually stayed out of their way and if we tried to cross over the locks at Stourton they would likely shower us with half bricks from the high point of the old railway bridge.

and remember the old Stourton School tiny by modern standards and yet one year in the 30s they were the champion football school of all England.

When you talked to folk who were old when we were young they would talk about Hunslet with pride they would say on Friday nights Waterloo Road was as busy as Briggate they would mention all the pawn shops and the tripe shops etc., I use to have a poem on my wall at work that an old lady gave me it went like this:

We were approaching Atkinson Street now. ‘Do you remember when we used to walk down here from School to Joseph Street Baths?’ said Brian, ‘we didn’t set off until after playtime it must have been approaching 11 o’clock by then and we had to walk all the way to the baths in Joseph Street and be in and out by twelve.’

‘The St Hilda’s girls didn’t go to Joseph Street baths we went to a swimming bath they had in Hunslet Lane School.’ said Bette.

‘Anyway to continue,’ said Malcolm, ‘we’d walk down here in a crocodile, with our trunks rolled up in our towels, you were a geek if you had a bag in those days – we got changed two to a tiny cubicle it was a tight squeeze you were lucky if you found your own socks when you came out of the water then it was through the slipper baths and line up on the side of the pool.

Those who were practicing for the first class certificate were first to be allowed into the pool candidates had to execute life-saving procedures, diving for the brick and a neat dive in addition to the actual swimming. Then it was the turn of those taking the second-class certificate – three lengths breaststroke and one length back stroke. Finally, the last of the certificate takers had their chance – those who were going for the third class certificate, which was just the one length of the bath. There was also the advanced ‘bronze medallion’ but I cannot remember any of our lot attempting that one although Pat Brown who lived next-door to us and attended Mount St Mary’s was successful in achieving such a medallion.

‘Anyway, I said ‘by the time we ‘gash hands’ were allowed to have our thrash about in the pool it was time to come out and make the long crocodile trip back to school.’ 

‘Did you ever go to Hunslet feast?’ somebody asked.

‘Feasts were very popular with the generation before us,’ Bette said.

‘Yes, they were the “‘Greatest Generation” they lived through two world wars and a depression but they didn’t have the home entertainment that we have today so the feasts when they came round were a time to let their hair down and Hunslet feast was one of the biggest, folk who had lived in Hunslet when they were young and had moved out still came back for Hunslet feast.’

‘It was held on what was then the car park at the Hunslet Rugby League ground at Parkside.’ said Bri.

‘Oh I remember the steam shamrock,’ said Brian, ‘what a beast that was, it was as big as a single decker bus and it was driven by steam it swung from horizontal to vertical if it had hit anyone on its swing it would have knocked them into next week.’

‘There were the dodgems and the carousels but in particular it was the noise and the smells, brandy snap and candyfloss and fish and chips.’

‘Oh fish and chips.’ said Madge, ‘the talk of it is making me hungry.’

‘Well it looks like being a pub  lunch for us today I don’t think there are any fish and chips open in Hunslet at this time.’ said Malcolm.

‘And alas there’s not so many pubs left in Hunslet now there used to be dozens. Look this used to be The Wellington that was a great pub now it’s a dental centre,’ I moaned.

‘What would that greatest generation think now that there are hardly any pubs left and they had an amazing amount.’

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 ‘Yer that’s a beautiful Victorian pub it’s got a blue plaque around the other side and it has been saved because it’s a ‘heritage’ pub.’

‘Oh are we going in there for our pub lunch now,’ said Madge.

‘No please bear with me,’ I said, ‘there is another pub just passed Hunslet Parish Church, it doesn’t look much but it is even older than the garden gate and the beer is great,’  I pleaded, so we walked on passed the church with its beautiful steeple, and approached The Gardeners Arms.

‘The gardener’s Arms doesn’t look as old as the Garden gate but I’m told it pre dates the Victorian era and we used to come in here after football training the ale is like wine,’ I claimed.

‘I was looking for something to eat I don’t drink beer,’ said Madge.

‘Oh, come in you can just have a glass and they do a great pork pie.’

So we came in sat down and had a glass of the landlord’s best and a pie.

‘Oh I enjoyed that pie,’ said Madge, ‘I think I could manager another, I’ll go on a diet tomorrow.’

‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Malcolm.

So we all had another pie and the peas were ready by this time so he had pie and peas and another glass of beer and another then we just continued with the beer alone we all got a round and then we started to sing we went through our complete repertoire and there was another group of four old lads about our age and they joined in with us and we got on talking and they were a similar group of old mates like us and had all been together at  the school just around the corner, Hunslet National School it was called, we told them some of our tales and they regaled us with some of their tales from Hunslet and the beer was flowing like water Madge had taken to singing at the top of her voice  she was really letting her voice go and getting into the spirit of the occasion .

‘Oh I think I’m, getting a bit tipsy,’ she said.

‘Never mind,’ said Brian, ’we’ll carry you home.’

‘Oh don’t commit yourself;’ said Malcolm, ‘she’s one big heavy unit’,

He received his usual slap from Madge.

The Hunslet lads entered into the spirit of the occasion and after we had told some of our tales they responded with some great tales of their own.

The lads were called Brian, Gerry, Barrie and Eddy here are their tales.

Barrie remembers: Maria, she lived in Varley Square just off Church Street. Her job was to go round Hunslet’s Anchor Street, Carris Street, the Askerns’s and Gordon Road knocking people up for work from 4 a.m. onwards. She used a clothes prop with a couple of socks on the end so she wouldn’t break the windows, all for six/nine pence a week. She was a right character not to be crossed. A case of déjà vu Maria also looked after a lad who fell off the same Beeza Street Bridge as Pete’s dad. It must have been a favourite bridge for tippling off but this lad, Alec, was quite seriously injured but happily, he recovered and years later became my next door neighbour.

            Gills (milk man): he had a house at the top of Anchor Road. He only had a small round but he was very reliable. He delivered milk from a milk churn on a special barrow. He poured milk from a ladle into a jug or similar. He delivered to my gran If she went out she would leave a jug on the window sill – large for two gills small for one gill. She covered the top of the jug with a lace cover with coloured beads round the edge to stop flies getting in. The jugs were safe from theft in those days.

Eddy Remembers: When we worked at Richmond Machine Tool Co on Hillage Place we didn’t have much time to get home for dinner and back, so Curly Lonsdale and I we were off on our bikes down Hillage Road, and down Anchor Street. A lady had been hanging her washing out – she had taken the washing in but left the line across the street; Curley ducked underneath it, but it caught me around the neck and pulled me off the bike buckling my wheel.

Brian, who attended Hunslet Nash, remembers a school teacher throwing the heavy board rubber at a lad; it hit his head and bounced out of the three story window. The teacher then blamed the lad for the loss of the rubber and made him go look for it. It took him three hours searching before it was found.

Gerry Remembers: the School Dentist in Bewerley Street. You went on your own; mams didn’t take kids to the dentist in those days. The waiting room was a place of purgatory. You slid along wooden benches listening to the screams from the inner sanctum moving to the front when it would be your turn. Often kids lost their nerve when it was there turn next and went to the back of the queue again. When you got into the surgery they put a horrible green mask over you face and a metal clip into your mouth to keep it open, if you needed the drill it was a foot treadle affair. When they had finished with you, you passed into another room with a line of sinks where kids were spitting blood. Everyone moved up a sink to accommodate the new arrival

            On my way home from school Gerry said I had to pass a little yard where a guy kept ducks and chickens. One day I spotted two duck eggs could be reached under the wire. I pinched them and took them home. Mam gave me a right telling of for stealing – but we still ate the eggs.

Barrie Remembers: A foot coming through the ceiling at Hunslet Nash belonging to a lad who was foraging in the loft for bird’s eggs or something. Of course he shouldn’t have been up there in the first place but he was caught bang to rights because everyone recognised the shoe. Another time in Hunslet Church when they were ringing the bells one lad didn’t let go of the rope and it took him up and he hit his head on the ceiling where the rope passed through a hole.

General Banter: A guy walked into the Omnibus pub looking down in the mouth. His mates asked him what was the matter and he said his father had died that morning. They said he shouldn’t really be in here but he said he was trying to drown his sorrows. So the guys bought him his beer all night but just before closing time his dad walked into the pub. Then there was the guy in the Friendly pub in Holbeck he had a ‘Bobby Charlton’ type comb over which he used to keep in place with black boot polish. An old rugby league player had the Spotted Ox pub. He wouldn’t stand any nonsense from miscreants. On one occasion a guy continued to misbehave and the land lord had no option but to throw him out. He caught hold of his collar and the base of his jacket and ran him into the door, they bounced back so he ran him into the door again after the third time one of the regulars said, ‘Alf the door opens inwards.’

By the time we had had another pint the landlord called TIME. So we shook hands with the Hunslet lads and said we’d enjoyed their tales and we would have to do it again sometime.

‘Right we’ve a long walk home better all go to the toilet with our now walnut size bladders,’ said Brian.

‘Better not walk along the river side in this state,’ said Brian, ‘or we’ll finish up being food for the fishes.’

So we took to the streets: Waterloo Road, Goodman Street, Donisthorpe Street and South Acomm singing and pointing out things we remembered as we passed, the  steep Hill up to Cross green lane  that we used to call ‘The Mucky Hill’ because of the pig sties tested us a bit but we managed to stagger up by helping each other.

‘Better make for my place, it’s the nearest,’ said Madge, acting strangely benevolent.

We managed to climb Madge’s steep steps and just flopped down anywhere. ‘I’ll put the kettle on for you, Madge,’ said Bette, but by the time the tea was made three of us were asleep, and the rest were ruminating on what a great night we had hard.