Tim in the North East

Just looking at LizzieM and Cliff Ton's posts of 9th March 2014 I wonder if the former Abel Collin Trust Maternity Hospital was at 13 Waverley Street on the plot between Arthur Street and Burns Street? This building was called Waverley House - but is now Lovell House, being the infants school for Nottingham High School. However, between about 1946 and 2007 it was the former PNEU school which I attended in the late 1950s/early 1960s. I remember it being said that the building had previously been used as a hospital and the room at the back that we used as the school cloakroom was the former ope

If memory serves me correctly the platform signal boxes were used by the station announcers in the late 1960s / early 1970s

I moved to Newcastle upon Tyne 25 years ago and am more than happy to stay put. Great city, lot going on and ease of access to Northumberland.

The Lilac Leopards were the park and ride service that was introduced along with the 'Zone and Collar' traffic lights that could slow down car traffic going into the city for 10 minutes during rush hour. Not surpringly it was none too popular and did not last long. The Evening Post interviewed an over optimistic City Transport employee who fel that the attractiveness and comfort of the Lilac Leopards would prise people out of their cars. It was probably decades ahead of its time. Modern technology like bus lane cameras and a £60 fine in the post do a similar job

If you go to New Zealand you can tell the Fish and Chip shops run by British ex pats as they tend to be the only ones that sell mushy peas - so do they count as an export? Mind you the fish is Hoki not Cod

In the 1950s and 1960s on the left hand side of Mansfield Road as you headed north out of town there were lots of independent shops: - McGowans the Grocers - The Creamery - J.Shine antique dealer - Midland Stamp Centre - Flewitts bakery - Day estate agents - an art shop -? Augustus somebody - Leslie F Crawley Estate Agent That's all I can dredge out of my memory!

Katyjay For a nostalgic film of clearing snow drifts go to YouTube search for Snowdrift at Bleath Gill and advance to 4:30

You could see (and hear) Placketts security geese in the compound from the A52. Thanks for that memory - I had completely forgotten that until you jogged the memory. I have a vague feeling that Tom Coyne did a feature about the geese on BBC's Midlands Today

If you want to see what it looks like inside see http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/underground-sites/26162-mansfield-road-tunnel-nottingham-may13.html#.V1sqs5B4WrU My memories of it are from trainspotting at the now buried Carrington Station in the early 1960s. You always knew when a train was coming as smoke would emerge from the portal a couple of minutes before the steam engine burst out of the gloom

Other blue buses were Notts and Derby Traction - in practice part of the same group as Midland General

Whilst the predecessor to East Midlands was in Derbyshire in the 1950s and early 1960s it was the local airport for Nottingham. We had family summer holidays in Guernsey in 1961 and 1962 and flew from Derby Airport in their DC3 Dakota. Trent ran an early morning coach from Huntingdon Street Bus Station. Check in and baggage drop (44 lbs per person) was in a timber hut before you walked across to the concrete terminal. The plane was waiting alongside on the Tarmac apron, you walked out to board the plane and it taxied out onto the grass runway for take off. Given the plane was unpressurised th

Went to see J.B.Priestley's An Inspector Calls at the Playhouse in the 1970s - with the largely comedy actor Bill Fraser playing the serious Inspector. He gave a completely superb performance as the chilling character of the Inspector that destroys the complacency of the mill owning family. I have seen the play a few times since at various theatres and with different actors, but for me Bill Fraser's interpretation was definitive.

Two bakers that I think closed years ago were Flewitts on Mansfield Road and Richardsons on Forest Road - the latter in the short parade of shops between Mansfield Road and North Sherwood Street

In the early 1960s platform tickets on British Railways were 2d - but one exception was the extra large tickets issued at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndroblllantysiliogogogoch station on the Holyhead line in Anglesey where they cost 3D. I bought one in 1963 and sold it on eBay 50 years later for a good return on my investment!

Stood at the end of St Andrew's Road opposite the Forest entrance just before my 5th birthday and saw the 10 able bodied members of the team sat iOn the roof of the coach - and wondered how they managed to avoid slipping off!

No just an older detached house without cavity walls (solid brick) - and a tariff I had not switched for 7 years!

Despite the vagaries of the deregulated market, switching to Robin Hood has saved me £70 per month, prices fixed for a year and no penalty for switching again at any time.

In the 1950s and 1960s the church was Pentecostal but may well have been originally built for another denomination

I came across them on uSwitch - and even if you live out of the city they are much cheaper. They now supply me with electricity and gas in Newcastle upon Tyne and are much cheaper than the big operators!

My 1912 edition of The Michelin Guide to the British Isles lists the garages in Nottingham that were also Michelin stockists: R. Cripps & Co Ltd, Lower Parliament Street, agent for Wolseley, Ford, Delauney-Belville, Talbot and Berliet F. Mitchell, Derby Road agent for Deasy, Enfield and Rover A.R. Atkey & Co Ltd, Trent Street, agent for Austin, Renault, Ford, Napier, De Dion and Gladiator Empire Garage Ltd, Mansfield Road, agent for Belsize and Arrol-Johnston E & C Astle, Forest Road W. Stevens, 299 Arkwright Street - Motor Cycles

My first school took us for swimming lessons at Portland Baths on Muskham Street in the Meadows. It must have been fairly small as you got changed in very small cubicles located close to each side of the pool. Schools never managed to teach me to swim - that was achieved when I was about 11 by Nottingham Swimming Club in the Oval Pool at the Victoria Baths using a brand new training aid - inflatable arm bands!

There was also the Moulin Rouge restaurant at 5 Trinity Square. Subsequently became a takeaway. But in the 1960s and early 1970s ut had a large menu - at the foot of which said something along the lines of 'This menu is only a suggestion, the chef is at your command'. Tim

Fabulous film. It can be dated the 1965 or early 1966. Trolleybuses disappeared in July 1966 and the shots around the Lower Parliament Street Bus Depot show an AEC Renown bus - these were 'C' registered - i.e. 1965. I'll take my anorak off now.... Tim

See http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/benchmarks/;http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/ and http://www.oncloudseven.com/fayers/fbmlist.htm Tim

(Many thanks - I did have an idea to send the card to the present owners of the house - but it would appear I am about 90 years too late! Tim