BilboroughShirley

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Posts posted by BilboroughShirley

  1. Dad used to take me to the library in the city when I was primary school age. At that time there was no library in Bilborough. I loved going there. The new library in Bilborough was a nice building. I liked the glass doors with the little wooden hand shapes. It was so  much smaller but had enough novels to keep me happy as a teenager! The city library was best and I was horrified when I made one of my rare visits to Nottingham and discovered that it had been moved! 

    Libraries are such interesting places and I have always found them welcoming. Being interested in family history I have spent lots of time in there. I can recommend: Birmingham, Leeds, Hull, KIngs Lynn, Caistor (Lincolnshire), Beverley and Aberdeen. Libraries and archives have online catalogues and access to electronic publications now. This can save time and money but there is no substitute for being in there and being there to read and talk to the librarian. Before it was moved I think Notting city library was my favourite.

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  2. Thanks for your reply Beekay. Dad's maths and English books have Lenton Council School on the cover ( and Sisson and Parker!) and the date is January 1923. He would have turned 13 then. He talked about a teacher called Mr Hutchinson. He taught them maths and they did log tables. Dad asked Mr Hutchinson who invented log tables and how did they do it. Mr Hutchinson told him off. Clearly he did not know! I am not sure where Cottesmore school is. 

    Best wishes for a happy New Year and all the best for 2022. S.

  3. Big thanks Cliff Ton. This has made my day. I have looked at maps but could not work this one out as I do not know the area or how it has changed. In 1966 dad drove me around there to show me where he lived and I regret that I did not ask him to tell me more. He talked lots about his secondary school which was Lenton Boulevard. I have his maths and English books from there.

  4. The first time I saw a coffin was when I was five years old. It was my grandfather's funeral. I was in the dining room with my mum when the coffin was brought down the stairs. It had blue flowers on. Everyone was silent when I asked "is that my granddad in that box?" Mum just said "yes" and all was silent again. I stayed at the house in Harrington Drive with a relative while everyone else went to the funeral. I missed being able to talk to him and I wish I could have asked him to tell me about his early life. I was too young. My other grandfather died when I was 14 and so from him I heard lots of stories about growing up in Yorkshire and working in the mill, with endless funny stories!

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  5. Interesting weather this afternoon. Huge dark clouds on one side with rain and thunder and on the other side bright sunshine. Not as entertaining as an experience on the M74 a few years ago. Big black clouds and rain with bright sunshine between them producing rainbows coming off the cars in front! Much nicer than aquaplaning on the M9!

  6. On 6/20/2021 at 3:41 PM, Astwood said:

    I remember all of the people listed - I used to go to St Martins and was in the Brownies and Guides there for a while. I remember the Glebe field and the rump of Goose Fair used to pitch up on the Sunday after the end of Goose Fair. There was a service on the dodgems! My name was Janice Matkin and I arranged the 1997 re-union of Bilborough Grammar on the site, sadly no longer there, neither is Glenbrook Junior Girls' school.

    Hi Janice. Good to see you on this excellent forum! Lots here about BGS and other places we know.

  7. Our high streets and cities have also been affected by the removal of decent car parking. Where we live car parking is being reduced and the land used for building new hotels and shops!  I rarely went into the town, preferring to go to the out of town shopping areas where there is adequate free parking. 

  8. In the last 20 years I have been into Nottingham city centre once. I went to visit the archives for research. That was very interesting and pleasant. I came off the motorway and parked at Phoenix park then caught the tram. I did stop off in the market square but it was not like the place I knew and loved as a child and teenager. Farmers shop had been demolished (yes it was very old and in need of repair), and  no Toby's or Pearson's. I stick with the memories of how it was. This is just one of the many reasons why I enjoy this forum. 

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  9. A very sad day today. The demise of Debenhams. I agree with those who say they did not move with the times and our local Debenhams shop has gone downhill. My sad moment is because I worked in Farmers in Nottingham, a store owned by Debenhams (in addition to Griffin and S) and a very happy workplace with a great staff. Farmers closed and moved to Scan in the Victoria centre, then that closed. The demise of Debenhams is the end of the line and a total disaster for all their workers.

  10. I would like to go back to the early 1800s to talk to  my 3 times great grandfather, a person of colour who worked as a fisherman/sailor in Grimsby. His early life is a complete mystery. His adult life and family life is an interesting story passed down the generations. The evidence suggests he was a nice guy.

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  11. On 11/17/2017 at 10:09 AM, bamber said:

    Under the management of Christopher Pole-Carew and David Teague the Evening Post  was, at one time, considered a world leader in newspaper publication, with many awards for its innovations.

     

    It's sad to see the Nottingham Post dying before our very eyes. I doubt it will be around in another five years.

    If you read the book "Someone had to do it", all about Christopher Pole-Carew it tells the whole story. A very nasty episode in the early 1970's. My dad worked there. When the full scale use of computers was established Pole-Carew was dismissed and went to work for Rupert Murdoch at Wapping to get ready for the move from Fleet Street. The other newspaper in Nottingham was the Guardian Journal, printed at the Watson-Fothergill building on Parliament Street. The Journal and the Post combined and the staff from the Journal moved "over the road" as they called it. 

    I agree that the newspaper industry modernised, however it is very annoying to see all the repeated paragraphs and other mistakes in news articles. Gone are the "correctors of the press" who did a good job. I read news articles on my iPhone. The spellcheckers  are no substitute for a person.

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  12. Wonderful day. I now have my new Kenwood Chef. The old one died on me last week, having given good service since 1976! It just had one new motor in all that time! The new one has the good features of the old plus more. A binge of baking now. 

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  13. Intu is in the news due to the possibility of going into administration. When I read their list of shopping centres the Victoria Centre and Broadmarsh were both there. When they were both set up who owned the centres then? Was it the council and then they sold out? It will be a disaster if they both close as a result of what is going on. Another bit of Nottingham history that I am clueless about! I appreciate the posts from Nottstalgia members who put me right. Big thanks.

  14. Watched Supermarket Wars: Battle of the High Street on Channel 5 last night. Very interesting. Gem superstore was mentioned as being the first in the country. I remembered the name but not where it was. A google search came up with West Bridgford and I found some photos. https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=gem+supermarket+nottingham&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiH4dSgnZ3qAhWHbsAKHYtJA6IQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1920&bih=888

     

    Was this the only Gem in Nottingham? As I lived in Bilborough we never shopped there! The Co-op on Bracebridge or Cockington was the shop of choice for my mum. When I went to Coventry I discovered Sainsburys and now our son has introduced us to Lidl. Times change.

  15. It is sad to see church graveyards that are not valued or respected. The one in the town where we live falls into this category. The council cut the grass but do not remove sapling trees that grow up and destroy the monuments. Part of the graveyard was dug up for road widening and headstones were all taken down and laid flat beside the wall. A drive and car park were put in the graveyard. The Vicar will not allow any fund raising to put lights on the path to the car park and does not care that the path is lethal in snowy or wet weather. The one nice thing is that a volunteer plants flowers at the side of the drive up to the church. 

    My mum was cremated and the funeral directors arranged for her ashes to be buried in the garden of remembrance at the Church in Yorkshire that she attended as a child and where she was married. The garden of remembrance is a beautifully kept area of grass with borders. Inside the church is a book of remembrance with the names of all those laid to rest in the garden. The names will remain and there is no threat of vandalism. The books of remembrance are also digitised. A friend of my mum's commented that they walked past the Church and looked over the wall remembering my mum and thinking "she is safe there".

  16. I guess you are recalling the winter of 62-63. A wonderful winter when we never played hockey! I hated sport as the PE teachers were so unpleasant.

    The teaching killed any interest in Shakespeare. I failed literature. The best part was the excellent company of my friends and the enjoyment of A-level chemistry explosions and filling the physics lab with smoke. I was guilty of dropping radioactive isotopes on the floor!  We were lethal!

    I cannot remember my last day there.  I was so happy to get out and get on with my life. What came after was of greater importance. 

     

  17. As we are all now grounded I decided that it is time to bring out the vinyl discs. A few years ago my husband bought a new turn table and it is linked into the sound system. Rolling Stones disc Aftermath sounds so much better on this than it did  on my old record player in 1966! Then  I found the Kenny Ball album with Mozart on, the track on the disc I played for a 6th form assembly at BGS! Mr Williams got a surprise that day and in my reference he said I had an interesting sense of humour! Lots of music today, interesting things on the laptop and a good glass of whisky to kill any germs! Just seen the post about the classic films on the box tonight. Thanks. I think it will be Saturday Night and Sunday Morning tonight.

    Finding a few positives to keep me out of the way in these dreadful times. Keep safe everyone!

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