Jill Sparrow

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Jill Sparrow last won the day on March 22

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10,267 Exceptional Poster of Nottstalgia

About Jill Sparrow

  • Rank
    GIGA NOTTSTALGIAN
  • Birthday 11/30/1957

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Utopia
  • Interests
    Mediaevalist and Catwoman!

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  1. Hi Jill,

     

    I'm Jennifer's partner Paul Grant, and Olive Wibberley was my auntie. Olive lived at Radford Boulevard along with her mother Harriet (Hattie) and brother Rex. My mother was called Margaret (Peggy) and she married Frank Grant who worked in Beeston at Broadgate Garage. We lived in Beeston and Chilwell before moving to East Leake. 

     

    Sadly, Olive died a few years before her mother due to having a stroke. Her hairdressing business had dried up and she worked in the lace market to make ends meet. I know she had tried to commit suicide several times in the past. Hattie was 93 when she passed away. Rex died a couple of years later after surviving a house fire.

     

    I have many fond memories of day trips to Skeggy with mum, auntie Olive and grandma Hattie and remember Hattie dragging me around by my ears! She was a right tyrant with a wicked sense of humour. I still have some old photographs somewhere that I'll dig out.

    1. Show previous comments  5 more
    2. Jill Sparrow

      Jill Sparrow

      Thanks for the further information, Paul. Yes, I recall the smell of the ammonia from the perming solution! Olive did a lot of perms as they were very popular in those days.  In fact, she often seemed pretty busy as my mother couldn't always get an appointment the same day but usually she'd manage to pull in a dry cut while one of her perm customers was waiting for the solution to develop or under the dryer.

       

      I can see her now, in her overall, sweeping the floor which was covered with linoleum, and making a pile of my curls which she'd trimmed.  There was an ancient gas fire in that room which belted out heat in the winter.  According to the photos, last time the house was sold, all the fireplaces have been ripped out and the chimney stacks removed. A shame because they were nice, well built houses.

       

      You say that David came to your house once. He must have been in his teens then. Do you think he asked to meet his biological mother and did Olive meet him on that occasion? As he was adopted, I suppose his name was changed. Such a shame that your grandparents couldn't have brought him up. My own grandmother had a son before she was married and he was brought up believing he was her little brother. I think he sussed the truth but at least he was able to stay with his own family. Such was the stigma attached to illegitimacy in those days.

       

      I would love to see the photos. You probably wonder why I'm so interested but I was genuinely very fond of your aunt. She had such patience with me and took such an interest in my dancing.

       

      Do you know anything about The Regent Girls?  It would be interesting to find out about them.

       

      Rex, the apprentice electrician of the 1939 register, must have been very useful around the house. Such a shame about his war experiences.

    3. jennifer

      jennifer

      Hi Jill,

       

      Sorry about the delay but I've now (finally) managed to digitise a few old photographs. Unfortunately these images are quite large ( average size around 10MB each) which is slightly higher than the 0.05MB limit on the forum. Do you have another E-Mail address I can send these images to so you can view them?

    4. Jill Sparrow

      Jill Sparrow

      Hello Paul

       

      Nice to hear from you again.  Uploading images to NS has to be done via a host site which is rather a lot of messing about. I will send you my email address by PM as we never post our private emails where everyone can read them. Really looking forward to seeing the photos and thanks for going to so much trouble.