[Skills Toy Shop]

Oh! the great memories of Skills Mystery Tours! We never went on holiday so these evening trips were wonderful get-a-ways for us. We got dressed in our bestest clothes, got the tickets and waited outside the shop for the bus (a single decker coach). It was always a trip around the outskirts - countryside- of Nottingham and a stop off at a pub with a garden. A few pints for the folks, lemonade and Smiths crisps for the kids and back on the bus...singing all the way home ending with 'For he's a jolly good fellah" and a whip round for the driver!

Skills have been in Nottingham for years....some of the family went to Douglas School and Radford Boulevard I believe. The company had a fire some years ago which gutted most if not all of the buses...they had a Phoenix Moment and picked themselves up anew. I think the Mystery Tours ended when people started to go on holidays...no call for those wonderful evening trips anymore with kids vying for the back seat and asking 'Are we there yet mam?'

[Boden Street]

Always Bow-den to us Radford folk....never ever heard it pronounced any other way! We lived nearby and used to buy sweets from a little shop on that street...ran by two sisters (hence we called it 'The Sisters'...they were quaint, silver hair waved in those old clips of the Edwardian days.....can't hazard a guess at their age as they seemed ancient to me as a young un...now, probably put them in their fifties!!!

[First job from leaving School]

Forgot to mention.....worked for Woolworths in 1963 on Saturdays and in the long school holidays...was on my way to work when I learned about the assassination of JFK and went to Midorco House in 1964.

[First job from leaving School]

My first job was as a Saturday girl when I was 15, in Woolworths, Broadmarsh branch...long before the BM Centre was thought of.. I was on the garden department first, selling bulbs, and then went to ladies underwear....i earned just over a pound for the day and came out with 19/11d after National Insurance was deducted! My first port of call was C&A across the road to buy something nice to go out in that night.

After leaving William Crane school when I was 16 I worked in an office situated above its own store on Hyson Green, Midorco House. Reps from the company went house to house selling the goods on HP, they used a fleet of Minis all with a similar registration...AMK, ADK and when out in a convoy they looked pretty snazzy! I got around 2 pound 11 shillings per week initially, and after paying my board most of what was left went on buying new outfits in our store downstairs! We three office girls always sent out to the transport caff on Bentinck Road for our breakfast sandwich...toast with fried egg, bacon, sausage meat and tinned tomatoes....even now I can still just about smell those lovely sandwiches!

[Bonfire Night]

Can't push the old pram to go collecting anymore....nothing wrong with me...it's the old pram...front wheels are desperately buckled now!!

[Bonfire Night]

At the bottom of Denton Street (opposite Douglas School) there was a piece of waste ground (had been a church there earlier, later made into a garden of rest)) where we kids from Denton, Kyam and Ronald Streets built our bonfire. A few weeks beforehand we little bands of scruffs with home-made trolleys, broken down prams and battered tansads (push chairs) roamed the cold streets, with holes in our shoes and red rimmed legs from our wellies, asking for old stuff, furniture, rags,,,anything. it was all piled high with a look-out posted just in case any other 'streets' came along and fired it.

I well remember one year the fire brigade coming out....someone had been donated a lot of old rubber tyres....kids being kids, we piled 'em on! Come 5th Nov the bonfire was lit....talk about smoggy London Town....it was thick, choking and that smoke covered a huge area! lesson learned!

We also used to have about three individual fires on the pavement on the street as well....health and safety was probably in it's infancy! Mind you, the casualties from the 5th were quite high....including my older brother when a bunch of bangers went off in his hand!

Those were the days eh?

[Pleasure Park at Colwick and Trent Lane]

I remember going there as a big treat probably mid 1950's...we couldn't afford holidays back then so we went on trips now and again.....we caught a bus from Alfreton Road and then a boat at Trent Bridge...none of your fancy casual outfits...we wore our best clothes.....all second hand but new to us!!

[Nottm Children's Home Skegness]

Reading some of the posts here I wonder if I went to the same place! The Nottingham Girls Home was on Brunswick Drive, Skegness......I went for 3 weeks (from Douglas School) around '53 or '54 and then I stayed on another 3 weeks 'cos I loved it so much. I went to a school on Huntingdon Street (just up from the old Central Market) for the health check. ..perhaps the lads went elsewhere.

In charge of the home there was a Matron, (wore full nurses uniform) and some 'nurses' and lots of free range chickens ...one I took care of as it had arthritis! We went over to the Boys Home once a week for Sunshine Corner....singing and games etc...Mr Ellis was in charge with his wife. i used to have a lovely photo of a group of girls and Mr Ellis on the pier...sadly lost!

I was there at Easter time and we were donated the biggest thick chocolate Easter egg decorated in iced roses... a work of art...it was broken up and shared out.....it lasted for quite some time!

I remember the uniform we wore for church trips on Sundays...beige coats with brown velvet collars. I too loved the cocoa and the bread and dripping for supper.

All in all, it was a pleasant episode in my young life. Thanks for bringing all this back to me!!

[Did You Live In Radford?]

This is my first response so hope I'm doing it right.....I remember the Denman Pub on Denman Street as we lived on Denton Street til I was 9 when the area was demolished. There was a partition wall between the pub and our communal back yard...communal with Kyam Street that is....and we kids used to play ball against it. I remember a friend living on Garden Street???? and there was a pub called The Rising Sun, I remember liking the sunny pub sign.

I also remember a house burning down and a child being killed on Ronald Street, the house was next door to the Havelock Pub I think, just by the arch carriage entrance.

I remember the Balaklava Hotel only because my Dad's family were reputed to have rented it for some time well before I was born. It was at the top of Denman street.