ChrisB

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Posts posted by ChrisB

  1. Carltonlad, your map of the Central Market (#34) brought back memories of when, in the early 50s, I would go with my Dad to the market and he used to get a mug of tea at a café where you have indicated.

    Remember walking in through the fish section with the wet floors and the smells. My memory has it that the café was more an open stall area, surrounded by a waist high partition with stools or tables and chairs for the customers.

    Wasn't one of them called 'Minnies Tea Bar' ?

  2. Fantastic picture there of Weekday Cross because it shows Widdowsons factory, the bus station when it was still in horseshoe shape, the bridge over the Midland Station and Canal Street going across in the background.

    But what was the building which is broadside on to the viaduct, immediately to the right of the signal on the down line?

  3. Broadmarsh

    More rubbish!

    How the centre could look - but most probably won't!

    Could create 2000 jobs, There could be up to 1000 people working there.

    These 'developers' make the most ridiculous claims because they know that stupid gullible councillors will fall for it every time.

    No one wants Broadmarsh now, that's obvious to anybody. Pull it down, reinstate Carrington Street, make it easier to reach the bus and rail stations and do everyone a favour!

  4. Sometime in the mid 60s a friend and I decided to visit the derelict Edwalton Station. Very interesting, but the contents of the loft had been chucked all over the old waiting room. It consisted of boxes full of internal railway circulars bearing the name MIDLAND RAILWAY and dated from 1880 onwards and were about all the detritus of rule book changes and stuff that high management wanted to tell the rank and file. I sent loads to heritage railways as at the time I had no room for them.

    I can remember that in those days when a station closed, they simply locked the doors and that was it, they weren't boarded up or barricaded off or secured at all. I remember going into the old Midland Station at Kirkby after it had closed and I was amazed to see it had simply been abandoned. Of course people had been in and ransacked the place but there was still plenty of stuff around which would be worth a fair bit today.

    But because I was only a young lad, I daren't take anything in case the signalman in the box saw me!

  5. In my time on the railway, I remember a couple of regular trains, about twenty years ago, which the public wouldn't know about;

    Manchester to St. Pancras parcels, every night via Derby.

    Empty newspaper vans, ever afternoon from Derby to London, return with the next day's papers at night.

    The trains don't run now and the parcel depots have gone too.

    The public know about all the extra juggernauts roaring up and down the motorway now though!

  6. The same ones that were 10p a tin in May...and when I called two days later were reduced further to 8p a tin.

    The same ones that were 10p a tin in May...and when I called two days later were reduced further to 8p a tin.

    Yes but read the ingredients.

    Many of the cheap ones have mint flavouring included, which is fine for some meals but not if you want them with fish & chips!

  7. The trouble is, most city councils won't have spare land just standing there doing nothing. They see such areas as potential sources of revenue which aren't being utilised.

    Here in Derby, our council is office mad, every time a plot of land becomes available, it's "Let's have an office block"

    We've got offices which have been empty for years but they still want more.

    If they ever did pull down Broadmarsh and if by chance the land wasn't used for a number of years, you know what daft idea someone would come up with:

    Let's have another shopping centre!

  8. My preferred option would be to level it and restore the route to a thoroughfare to Arkwright Street.

    But that's never going to happen.

    I often think that but the main thing against it is the exceptionally busy Collin Street cutting across it.

    I think Broad Marsh suffers because it doesn't have a big draw. It had a big department store which was originally the Co-op (less said about them, the better!) then it was Allders but since they folded, there's nothing to attract people in, pound shops and cheap rubbish shops won't do it.

    Strange really, because it's in a prime position, close to the rail station and main bus station but it's poorly designed and not very attractive to either shoppers or businesses.

    Perhaps the best thing would be to put it out of it's misery and pull it down!

  9. I've never read such rubbish as that in the link!

    'People don't dwell in Victoria Centre because it doesn't have a good food offering'

    Have they forgotten that it had a very good food court and it was ripped out so more shops could be put in?

    And presumably because the owners wanted more rental income too!

    Another issue is that bus passengers have to walk through the centre to get to the bus station. Ok, you can go along Milton Street and in by House of Fraser but that isn't a very good access. Vic Centre had a decent sized bus station and that was ripped out too, the present one isn't really fit for purpose but retailing (and profit) comes before public transport, unfortunately.

    The main entrance to Victoria, on the corner of Milton St should be re-considered too, it's a bottleneck for people going in opposite directions.

  10. BUMP!

    Oooh, it's the first time I've done that, it was quite exciting!

    I thought I'd bump this thread because with all the total saturation coverage about Mandela, I'm losing the will to live too!

    Anyway, the best bargain at the moment is 4 tins of Smedley's Mushy Peas in Poundworld, for a pound!!

    A bit watery but not at all bad!

    • Upvote 1
  11. Churchill planned his own funeral meticulously well in advance of his death. One thing he stipulated was that his funeral train should go from Waterloo Station to Handborough in Oxfordshire, the nearest station to Bladon, his burial place.

    One of his aides said to him 'But Sir, you don't go from Waterloo to Oxfordshire, you go from Paddington on the Western Region'

    Churchill knew though, that there was a connection from the Southern to the Western at Reading.

    ' If I die before DeGaulle and he comes to my funeral, I want him to be reminded that we beat the French at the Battle of Waterloo!'

    And he also knew that the Southern Region had a locomotive named 'Winston Churchill' and it was used to take him on his final journey.

    He retained his faculties to the end. Neither the booze nor the cigars ever did him any harm!

    • Upvote 3