Jill Sparrow

Members
  • Content Count

    10,618
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    251

Everything posted by Jill Sparrow

  1. They were known as ounce pennies, due to the weight, and often used in 2s or 3s to place over the eyes of a corpse to ensure they stayed closed. The pennies were usually buried afterwards. This custom is referred to in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. In that story, some yokel digs them up again and spends them on ale at the inn, demanding, "Why should death rob life of 4d?"
  2. Not the same one, Beekay, but it's not a common name.
  3. Thinking about it, Mary, a hairdresser working on her own from a front room needed to make a considerable investment to purchase a salon dryer, a permanent wave machine, a sterilizer, etc. All would need maintenance and repair if they broke down. Olive's salon dryer was grey stove enamel. I remember it distinctly. The chair under it was a Bentwood chair with curved arms and a seat cushion. She had her work cut out with me. I was apt to scream blue murder if anyone tried to put a comb through my tangled locks! She must have had some patience!
  4. I'm sure he's right. Perhaps there was another bus run by South Notts. Noreen always referred to catching the South Notts.
  5. So very sad. We've lost all these wonderful buildings and gained.....tin sheds! this one was gone before my time. Always said I was born too late.
  6. Excellent news, nonna! Break open a bottle of wine!
  7. Well, long shots pay off sometimes...and this one did, I'm delighted to say. Olive's mother, Harriet, generally answered the door when my mother rang the doorbell. The front door opened onto a long passageway which led to the stairs and in that narrow hallway was a bentwood chair and a little table with an old-fashioned black Bakelite telephone, Olive's hairdressing appointment book and a pencil. Mrs Wibberley, as we always called her, would write down an appointment in the book and we would often call back later in the day either for my hair to be trimmed or my mother's to be tri
  8. My mother's friend, Noreen used to come over to spend the afternoon with my mum in the 60s/early 70s when I was at school. She'd catch the South Notts 53 in Clifton and walk from Western Boulevard to Bobbers Mill every Wednesday. I'd usually get home in time to spend 20 minutes with her before she left to catch the same bus home. Sometimes, on Sundays, she and her husband, Les, would come over for tea. After a drink at the Whitemoor, they'd catch the 53 home again. During the school holidays, we would go over go Clifton but we always went through town. Lovel
  9. On summer evenings, Sundays especially, when I was a child, it was enjoyable to walk over Bobbers Mill Bridge to the Whitemoor where some of my friends from school might be sitting outside with their parents. One of my best friends from Berridge would be there with her mum and dad who had an allotment nearby. I often went up to the allotment with them. They'd stop at the Whitemoor for a drink on the walk back home. Sometimes, friends of my parents came over for tea on a Sunday. They lived in Clifton and we'd all walk to the Whitemoor for a summer evening drink before they caught th
  10. Last autumn, a friend gave me a bag of conkers to try out the conkers deter spiders theory. I put some in the corners of the sitting room and my ginger moggie had a good time playing football with them in the early hours but still found as many mangled spiders first thing in the morning! I put a few conkers in the garden and am delighted to see they've germinated. To me, it's always a miracle to see this happen. I've potted them up and shall enjoy watching them grow.
  11. Well, I don't live in Selston , Ben, but for you I'll move!
  12. Aren't there any blokes living near you Ben? If so, and they've got females in the household, they'd better look out!
  13. To quote from the Berridge Centenary booklet, ' The Education Committee calculated that Nottingham would need 49 new nursery schools 29 new primary schools and 24 new secondary schools as well as a large number of extensions and Improvements to existing schools. The state of the nation however prevented any large-scale resumption of the school building programme. Work was not to begin on the first five new schools until 1948 and it took a further year before sufficient classroom space was made available to accommodate properly all the pupils kept on for an extra year. This was achieved by the
  14. Whitemoor House looks to be a substantial dwelling of some age. Has anyone any idea who lived there?
  15. I did my teacher training in north Yorkshire. Had friends up there for many years. One of my favourite places for lunch in later years was The Ellerby Inn. From the car park, you could look out over Boulby Potash Mine - a very dangerous place to work from all acounts. Lovely area. I've always regarded it as my second home.
  16. I don't know when it became a Lutheran church, WW, but was always rather surprised that it was. I suppose I thought that most Lutherans were German, for example the great JSB. Seems an odd place for one somehow. From the map, do I take it that the rather grand looking double fronted house with bay windows at both ground and first floor level is a contender for Whitemoor Lodge? I don't remember that building being there when I was a child but do remember the crossing keeper's house.
  17. They were also features of monasteries and convents prior to Henry's antics.
  18. Excellent photo, CT. I was in that area in March and it looked much better in 1930! My mother remembered the fields before Haselmere Road, etc was built. The Lutheran church is already there in 1930. Whitemoor house looks to be Georgian, possibly built around an older dwelling, as many were. A sad loss.
  19. Good for her, Gem. I hope she's had a fantastic day, bless her.
  20. Ay up, our Ben! Missed you! All the best in your new home. Ladies of the neighbourhood beware!!! He's a little terror but lovely with it!
  21. My father was, likewise, in the Royal Navy from 1942 to 1946. He frequently spoke of the antics and adventures he experienced but, unlike some, he had a somewhat cushy time My father disliked authority and preferred to do his own thing so he volunteered for DEMS duties and spent most of his war in the tropics. Apart from Dengue fever and dysentery, he didn't fare too badly. Got paid by both the Royal and Merchant Navy plus 'bounty' ...not the chocolate bar! His letters home to his ration starved family made their mouths water at mention of all the tropical fruit, etc. A
  22. I remember Dalgliesh Brothers and Bobbers Mill Post Office. Walked along there in March this year. It has gone. Thinking back, I do recall the large house being demolished and feeling very annoyed about it. Even as a child I loved old buildings and hated seeing them destroyed.
  23. Wasn't the site redeveloped as Lodge Close in the late 70s? I may be thinking of an entirely different building but I recall an old house behind a wall which stood next to The Whitemoor Pub when I was a child. Perhaps CT has one of his excellent aerial photos of the area from the 30s.
  24. You've jogged my memory there, WW. I remember it too, as a small child,but had forgotten all about it until now.
  25. The Manning site on Gregory Boulevard is now occupied by a gym/swimming pool on part of the admin block and upper quad footprint. Djanogly Academy was built over the tennis courts and hockey field. Pickleface would turn puce but she probably haunts the gym. If I'd been more successful with my javelin that day in 1972, she'd have started her spectral career much earlier!