jonab

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Posts posted by jonab

  2. Hucknall High Street 60s/70s

    in 70's Nottingham

    Posted

    Back to the High Street shops. One that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is Arthur Saxton TV and electrical shop. The also did model aircraft and electric trains. It was across the twitchell from the Central Garage (Yorkshire Bank now) and is now called The Fruit Corner. Next door was a pet shop (now Birds). I don't remember the others on that block The Post Office is as it was and then Wakefields Chemist, now Boots. Are there really two Boots Pharmacies so close to each other? Then there's Stallard's now Bibliana Lounge.

     

    On the other side of the High Street - approximating to the opposite of where I have just mentioned were Wakefield's Army Stores, Frank Sissons and the Hucknall Furniture Company.

     

    Wakefields Chemist was owned By Geoff Wakefield. Wakefields Army Stores by Frank Wakefield and The Furniture Company by Philip Wakefield. All brothers.

     

    Note the modern location references are from the current Google Street View - French version.It might be more dated than the edition you get over there.

  3. Hucknall High Street 60s/70s

    in 70's Nottingham

    Posted

    Mary1947, I also remember the park pond. I think there was a fountain and it had railings around it. Anyway, a small child was playing with a beach ball and a gust of wind blew the ball into the water. Up comes a park keeper to the rescue, he strides the railings and goes into the water. He didn't sink!! This was amazing. Somebody who could walk on water just like Jesus.

     

    I was about 4 or 5 at the time. It wasn't until several years later that I found out the water was only about a half inch deep

    • Like 2

  4. Hucknall High Street 60s/70s

    in 70's Nottingham

    Posted

    On 27/04/2016 at 7:29 PM, colly0410 said:

    I remember when I moved schools from Trent Bridge to Beardall St in Hucknall: There was a teacher at Beardall St called Mrs Daft; I fell about laughing when I heard her name, & the other kids were straight faced wondering what I was laughing at.

    The Dafts were a quite well known 'Ucknall family. I think they were Methodists and went to the Wesleyan Chapel at the bottom of Watnall Road.

    I remember one of the Daft children being insulted by one of the teachers at Beardall Street Infants school and it's something that's stuck in my mind for nearly 70 years. The poor kid (poor in all respects) had the misfortune to have ringworm and dicks (see elsewhere on this site if you need a definition) and tended to be picked on by all and sundry. I would have expected better from a teacher but the kid gave a wrong answer to a question from the teacher. Teacher responded "Daft by name, daft by nature" The kid was absolutely distraught and broke into the biggest shower of tears ever.

    It was nearly hometime and there were several parents waiting to take their home - they heard the riposte and reported the teacher first to the headmistress (Mrs Hoyland) and the Education Committee

     

    We didn't see that teacher again.

    • Like 2

  7. Various old shops, now gone.

    in Nottingham City Centre

    Posted

    On 07/06/2017 at 9:03 AM, Cliff Ton said:

    The James Store was before my time but I remember the electricity version. This is from the late 60s and shows that building (far left); just about in the centre - ahead of the bus - is the Sherwood Rooms. This is just before Broad Marsh Centre was built, and the whole area is about to be changed again.

    sjSj5t0.jpg

    Assuming the pic was taken from a height at (what was) People's College, the road in the foreground must be the bottom of Maid Marion Way. I attended that college in 1960 to do my "O" levels.

    The two rows of parked cars, centre, left are on a road that housed Watmough's sweetie factory. They made boiled sweets in all sorts of flavours and the smell of the hot sweets would waft across into the college. It was really nauseating some days, depending on what flavour they were making. Early autumn was the worst when they were making cough sweets - not only nauseating but choking as well.

    On centre right, behind the bus, is the Dragonet Chinese restaurant. I think this was the first high-quality Chinese restaurant in Nottingham. OK, there was the place up the stairs opposite to what became the library (it was a furniture shop then) and plenty of half-crown lunch places but nothing quite as good as the Dragonet (where chopsticks were the norm as eating utensils. That's not unusual now but it certainly was then.)

  8. Various old shops, now gone.

    in Nottingham City Centre

    Posted

     

    8 minutes ago, NewBasfordlad said:

    The Sign of Four you remember was close to the Three Horse Shoes I do believe, the other side of the open space belonging to Skills or Bartons?

    No, I don't think so. I don't remember aThree Horse Shoes nearby. I'm rusty on the locations but it was definitely just around the corner from the Albert Hall next door (almost) to Clements Pianos and the ships chandlers opened quite a long time later but still while the SoF was there

  9. Various old shops, now gone.

    in Nottingham City Centre

    Posted

    That's not the Sign of Four which I new. The one near the Albert Hall was a small, pokey place painted red. Well before 1980 (I had long gone by then). Perhaps they moved when their original site was redeveloped (which I understand it has been).

     

    I made an error in naming the music shop - it was Clement Pianos at that location. Kent & Cooper were near the top of Market Street.

  11. Various old shops, now gone.

    in Nottingham City Centre

    Posted

    On 31/05/2017 at 9:24 PM, NewBasfordlad said:

    Mary the gas show rooms was on Parliament Street, corner off Glasshouse Street. Spent many a happy hour in there setting up displays, for some reason showroom staff weren't allowed to touch em.

    2

     

    There was a demonstration theatre upstairs in the gas showrooms where they did cookery demonstrations to show off new gas cookers. As the punters went in (it was free) they were given a raffle ticket and at the end of the demo. there was a raffle draw to win whatever had been demonstrated in the cooking. I won the raffle once and received a dish of gammon and pineapple. I was warned when it was given to me that they hadn't time to cook it thoroughly and to cook it properly when I got home.

     

    Something else I remember about that occasion was that I sat in a glob of chewing gum left on the seat. Ruined a pair of trousers!

     

    Another cookery demo I went to was at the Albert Hall where Fanny and Johnny Cradock were demonstrating their skills. Well, Fanny was. Johnny just stood there like a wet flannel doing as he was told.

     

    Is the Albert Hall still there? Nearby on around the corner Derby Road was Kent & Cooper Music, a tiny theatrical-come-joke shop called the Sign of Four (very creepy in there) and also, somewhat later a ships chandlers. This was probably before the Playhouse was around the other corner.

  13. NOOB The Early Years

    in ++ Oo R Ya'? ++

    Posted

    Very interesting social comment there. I've always thought it strange to put coal in the bath but the term seemed quite widespread when I was around Nottm. It never occurred to me about tin baths and them being stored outside. Now the penny has dropped, seems quite obvious and reasonable. Many thanks!

  16. Early Closing - Does it still exist?

    in General Chat about Nottingham

    Posted

    Another topic resurrection:

    'Ucknall's half-day closing was Wednesday. Some inspired genius thought that Ucknall could emulate Sheffield and form a football team made up of shopworkers and call it  "Hucknall Wednesday". I think there were about two volunteers. Most of the shop workers were well past their footballing days at that time. It didn't progress. This was in the early '60's.

  17. Why & when did you leave Nottm?

    in Our Caz's Nottingham Ex-Pats Forum

    Posted

    Margie, the spill chucker on my machine insisted that Hucknall (Ucknall) in my first post to the site should be Chuckwalla. It seems to think my moniker is OK though.

     

    loppylugs, I'm surprised that this thread went dormant so quickly. I glean from skipping through the pages that there are a number of expats here. I'm sure most if not all have genuine and legitimate reasons for leaving Nottm.

    • Like 1

  18. Why & when did you leave Nottm?

    in Our Caz's Nottingham Ex-Pats Forum

    Posted

    Money (lack of) and lack of prospects were the primary reasons for me leaving Nottingham!


     

    I was working at Gerard's as a formulation chemist under George Whalley and Arthur Allen (gentleman Arthur) when it was decided by Head Office (Cussons in Kersal Vale, Manchester) that Gerard's was to be a manufacturing unit only. All other work was to be transferred to M'chester. I was promised by Whalley promised that as soon as he (and Mrs Whalley - Bert) became settled up there they would arrange for me to move. In the meantime, I was put in charge of QC.


     

    Quality Control was not the sort of work I wanted to do and I became tired of reminding Whalley about his promise on the move so I actively started looking for a new job. At that time jobs, like I was interested in, were very rarely known about unless you were one of the "in-crowd". I went to a specialist agency who first of all put me up for a job in Liberia (middle of Africa, salary about seemingly about $1 a year). After that, Helena Rubenstein Cosmetics in East Molesey, Surrey then a company on the Balls Pond Road in London and a company in Eastbourne named Innoxa. I didn't get the jobs (not even remotely interested in the first one in Africa) but something struck me that after each interview with the prospective new employer, the following day I was summoned to Gerard's Personnel department (Mrs Lyon) and asked how my interview went. So much for confidentiality between an agent and his client. What he was doing with all clients was contacting their current employers even during the new job interview trying to interest them in a new employee.

    I decided to go-it-alone and it wasn’t long before, out of the blue (black and white really, it was the Daily Telegraph) I saw an ad for a Development Chemist at a Unilever company in Ashford, Kent. I applied and went for interview. After a couple of weeks, I was asked back for a second interview. At that interview I was told that I hadn’t been successful in the job I applied for (they wanted someone more junior) but, I was being offered a similar, higher grade, position within the company at a quite phenomenal salary. I had achieved something extremely unusual – gone directly into Unilever employment at management level from outside of the organisation.

    All of this was happening Autumn 1978. I arranged to take up my new job in the New Year.

    Don’t know if you remember the weather in the winter of ‘78 but it was one of the worst winters of the 20th century. In view of the poor weather, I travelled down to Kent on the train. On reaching Ashford I asked the taxi driver to take me to the hotel where I was to stay.

    “Don’t know about that, mate. It’s been cut off for a week now. Snow y’see”.

    I hadn’t noticed the snow being all that bad on the journey down from Nottingham but there it was about three/four foot deep where it hadn’t been cleared. I persuaded the driver to try to get there – otherwise I’d have nowhere to stay. We got there – eventually. It was lucky that the hotel was on the same road as the place where I was to work and, even luckier that the road had just been cleared all the way down.

    I started work the next day and couldn’t believe how different things were and how much I enjoyed it.

    That was a Wednesday. On the following Monday, I received a call telling me my father had died. Oh, B*gger! We didn’t get on – in fact he hated me but I felt obliged to return to pay my respects, such as they were. Trust him to FU my new and potentially successful career.

    I went back to Ucknall and to the funeral, then back to the undertakers (Hanson’s on Watnall Road) for a ham cob and a cup of tea and returned to Ashford ASAP.

     

    Does anyone have memories of George and Bert (Alberta) Whalley or Arthur Allen, Mary Dean, Dave King, Mrs Lyon or anyone else of that era at Gerard's? Hanson's on Watnall Road?

    • Like 5

  20. NOOB The Early Years

    in ++ Oo R Ya'? ++

    Posted

    2 hours ago, FLY2 said:

    That says it all then. I'll stick to Speckled Hen, or Autumn Gold, or one of the Marstons products.

     I don't drink much beer these days. Where I live, the stuff sold as beer is what we termed gnat waz in my youth.

     

    I do enjoy a good pint, though, and Speckled Hen is particularly good. I also like Bishop's Finger and a number the beers from mini and micro breweries.

     

    (Is waz spelled with one "z" or two?)

  21. Model Railways

    in General Hobbies and Interest Chat

    Posted

    1 hour ago, NewBasfordlad said:

    The lady had cataracts removed from both eyes and she was awake all the time, bloody braver than me that's for sure.

    Do you mean me?

     

    I'm a bloke.

     

    The surgery is done under a local anaesthetic.

     

    If your need is great enough it's amazing what you will allow to be done to you. I was all but blind before my operation.

  23. Model Railways

    in General Hobbies and Interest Chat

    Posted

    38 minutes ago, FLY2 said:

    You'll probably end up needing glasses like jam jar bottoms too !

     

    I had new lenses implanted into my eyes a couple of years ago. Unbelievable difference in my eyesight and I only need weak (+2.25) glasses for reading - and I'm in my 70's.

     

    It's a quick operation in which an incision is made on the edge of the cornea, a probe inserted and the existing lens is "emulsified" by ultrasonics and removed. A new plastic lens is inserted, a dressing and patch put over the eye and off you go. You can take the dressing off the next day and possibly not see much of a difference in vision but over three or four days you will see it was all worth it.

     

    It's totally painless. The only sensation you get is a slight "push" as the knife cuts into the eyeball.

    • Like 1

  24. NOOB The Early Years

    in ++ Oo R Ya'? ++

    Posted

    I am genuinely shocked. When I lived there I could count amongst my neighbours a cardiac surgeon, a consultant dentist, a relative/descendant of William Booth, theatre director Richard Eyre preceded by John Neville (both directors of the Playhouse), Brian Clough was there for a short time. What happened? Was it the aftermath of the events in 1982?

     

    What about 291 Mansfield Road (next door to the Grosvenor)? Has that area gone down the same sewer?