MartynH

Fly I don’t remember him doing “Hey Jude” but I do remember going to see him at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. i will have to search for it.

Just remembered - about 15 years ago I saw Percy Sledge perform in a small bar / club in Humble, TX just north of Houston. He sang ‘When a man loves a woman”, sorta kinda forced, but good.

I also saw Stevie Wonder at the Dungeon, 10 /- if I remember right which was about 4 times the normal price Here in Memphis we not only have Elvis, Graceland, Sun Studios, Ben E King etc, we also have the Stax Studio, now Museum, with Otis Redding, Booker T and the MG’s, Sam and Dave, Carla and Rufus Thomas etc etc. just need a little Motown and it would be paradise. About 5 years ago I was working with demo contractors out of Michigan and the project manager’s name was Ruffin. His uncles were Jimmy and David - he was good guy as well.

In the 1950’s my Dad had his yard in Ilkeston and occasionally as a young lad on I would go there with him. One of his blokes, must have been a very good guy, took me with him to some nearby river that was teaming with fish. From the bank he was able, no joke, to “tickle” and catch the fish with his bare hands. After that the nearest I got to Ilkeston was the occasional visit to the pub at Trowell corner (can’t remember the name) looking for a bit of change.

Beekay I was actually born in the Grassngton Rd house in 1950 and lived there until I went away to school in 1964, then would come back periodically until my Dad died in 2005. The shops were about halfway down Ainsley Rd on the right hand side if going towards New Bridge. There was a a butchers, the fish shop, a twitchell through to Vale Crescent South , then a Meadows and finally a greengrocers. Were you part of the Railway gang. I remember having many stone throwing set toos with you guys on the railway line climbing over the railings from the Robert Shaw playing fi

Beekay - about the Ainsley Road fish shop, its just my memory or lack of it. But what comes to mind is a rather large lady who was the Mum and an even larger lady who was the daughter. In fact there may have been even two daughters. Either way they did great fish and chips, mushy peas, pies with gravy - yum yum yum

DaveN and Radfordred, spot on with Speedo, Martin’s Pond - came right back, well done! In the winter we would usually go sledding down the embankment on what eventually became the Beechdale Baths side of the railway bridge on Western Boulevard. One winter when we had a particularly heavy and deep snow fall somebody came up with the bright idea of going on the slag heaps just over New Bridge instead. It wasn’t as good and I remember going home covered in coal dust with black and torn clothes and getting the full treatment from my Mum.

Tadpole lane was as Fly described, a lane with a little stream running beside it passing allotments from New Bridge to near Aspley Lane just before the Wheatsheaf. It would come out by some small factories, I can’t remember the names but I think one of them made swimming costumes. Jill, New Bridge, I believe, was built long before the 1960’s. It was mentioned in a Alan Silitoe short story about keeping pigs on the land which I assume became Ainsley Estate The canal I mentioned was up Beechdale and Wigman Road, form the canal there was a cut through to Woolaton that passed private la

Beekay, I agree with you, this post has brought back a load of memories and me to this site. I think the bus was the number 13 to town up Alfreton Rd That fish and chip shop you talk about was, according to my uncle originally from Sheffield but now lived in London, the best chip shop in Britain. I can’t remember the names (Scales?) but it was run by a mother and a daughter. The picture of the Reeves beeroff on Grassington Rd was one of the places in my early teens where we would hang out in the evening chatting up the local birds. Sometime around 1960, give or take, it