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While decorating recently, I found a pile of old Bygones from the early 2000s. Among them was one in which I had an article printed and which also contained the following story. When I first read it,

As I walked the dejected mile and a smidgeon along Gregory Boulevard to school each morning, I'd run the gauntlet of those lucky blighters who didn't get through the 11-Plus, en route for the bus to P

The first Thursday in October meant only thing to the Manning girl: the following day was a holiday. Goose Fair, you see. Manning was the only secondary school to enjoy this privilege since it was d

I'd like to see a street map of the Forest Fields area for around the 1910/20 time. Can anyone help?

The area was being built on from the turn of the century...depends what you're looking for.The whole area is too large to show in detail on here...be more specific...which particular area or streets.

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This is showing around 1915-20. What you notice is that the street layout back then is identical to the way it is today.

There hasn't been any large-scale demolition in that area, so it hasn't changed. If you want to know the streets back then, look at Google today.

forest.jpg

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If you know the area you will see that Wilfred Avenue was flattened to make way for The Manning Girls School and that too was later demolished to make way for The Djanogly Academy.

Another interesting map here:

http://southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/basford-st-augustine/los1915.jpg

I lived at 57 Russell Road from 1961-72 and remember Archer St and other nearby streets being flattened to make way for the Hyson Green Flats.

I went to Forest Fields Grammar School (originally High Pavement) 1961-66

The school held it's carol concerts at St Augustine's now demolished.

Although I now live in Daventry I go back every year for Goose Fair and my daughter who was brought up in Daventry now lives in a student let on Berridge Rd and attends Nottingham Trent Uni.

She thinks Nottingham is amazing but then any twentysomething brought up in Daventry would find most other places amazing lol

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True. It depends on where you define the area known as Forest Fields.

I was taking it as being the roads which run down towards Gregory Boulevard, and the surrounding bits. The streets which disappeared for Hyson Green flats, I would've counted them as being in Hyson Green - but is that the same as Forest Fields?

And when you go up Sherwood Rise towards the Djanogly place, where does Basford start?

Maybe the area has changed quite a bit, depending on where Forest Fields starts and finishes. Discuss.

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Our first house as a married couple was in Gladstone Street, just up from the pub at the Hyson Green end.

My mates dad owned the pet shop on corner of Berridge road Radford road, Lovejoy's seed store.

My cousins lived on Russell street for many years then moved to Oxclose lane, then Rise park.

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I thought Forest Fields was the top side of the Goosefair site stretching out to along the front of the Arbouretum....it was when i lived in bedsits around there on 'burns st, arthur st e.t.c.....'

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Just remembered, some barsteward stole my side panels off my Lambretta one night outside our old house on Gladstone street! Got a new set from Joselyn's on my insurance but had to store the scoot in the front room after that !

But had to get the union jacks repainted at my own expense !

Was a real pain getting it up and down the steps at the front door.

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I thought Forest Fields was the top side of the Goosefair site stretching out to along the front of the Arbouretum....it was when i lived in bedsits around there on 'burns st, arthur st e.t.c.....'

True, I've heard the name used for there as well as the northern side of the Forest. So where exactly is Forest Fields? And is it an official name, or just a name used by locals?

Looking at the Old Maps site, the name never appears. That area is always just labelled Hyson Green. Like this......

hyson1.jpg

And how far north does "Forest Fields" extend? To Berridge Road...Gladstone Street?

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To all those who have kindly responded to my question - very many thanks. I was looking for the area bounded by Gregory Boulevard and Sherwood Rise. Two or three of the maps sent show me what I wanted to know. I was born and bred in FF - on Ewart Road to be precise.

I shall certainly use the forum again as it's good to know there are folk out there who are willing to share what they know.

Thanks again.

Jimbo

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Jimbo, do you remember a chippy on Berridge Rd, on a corner? It was my aunt and uncle's. Definitely there in the 50's as we visited it after the Goose Fair.

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interesting i have lived in forest fields for nearly 10 years now and my understanding has always been it covers the area between noel st and serwood rise gregory bulivard to beech ave beyond beech ave is classed as basford beyond noel st hyson green beyond gregory bulivard is the arbouretum and other side of serwood rise carrington.

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:) Jimbo, as a schoolgirl during the late 50's / early 60's I had a very good friend - best friend we called them back then - name of Joan Bostock who lived on Ewart Road - I believe the number of her house was 96.

I'd catch a bus from the Bells Lane Estate to Gregory Boulevard and then walk up to Forest Fields; I loved walking past the many terraced houses and passing the warren of cobbled streets, before eventually arriving at Joans.

We'd take a walk along to Sherwood Rise and catch the bus into town; and probably go to either the 'Gaumont' or 'Elite' to catch the Saturday afternoon picture show.

In case you're interested, a writer friend of mine: Joy James has helped in compiling a history of the Hyson Green flats, which I suppose you could say 'fronted' one of the entrances into the Forest Fields area. :)

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Jimbo

Questions such as yours are always welcome as the promote the discussion and recording of Notts history.

You yourself will have such knowledge on other subjects that will be of interest to current and future members and visitors to our site.

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Enjoyed looking at the maps of Forest Fields. I traipsed along Gregory Boulevard to the Manning Girls' Grammar School every morning between 1969 and 1975. Ye gods did I detest that place. I'd sit in maths lessons fantasising about stealing a bulldozer and razing the buildings to the ground. Whilst doing so, of course, I was not paying attention to Pythagoras' Theroem and ended up having to write it out twenty times in the back of my maths book. I filled a boxful of maths books with that wretched Theroem and I'll bet I still couldn't recite it if asked. Our maths teacher tried several times to run me over in her green Austin 1100. I know you'll think I'm paranoid...but it's true. I shall not name her: she may still be alive (but quite ancient) and if she is, I wouldn't wander across the road in front of my vehicle if I were her!!

Recently, a strange thing happened to me: I drove past the site of the former Manning School for the first time in years and of course, it was gone. I felt a most peculiar mixture of emotions: sadness and to some extent anger that someone had stolen part of my past. It has to be old age, doesn't it? I mean, I HATED the place with a passion. Does this apparent "softening" of the brain afflict anyone else?

"The square on the hypoteneuse is equal to the illicit use of a JCB for two days..."

See, I told you I couldn't do it!

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Our first house as a married couple was in Gladstone Street, just up from the pub at the Hyson Green end.

My mates dad owned the pet shop on corner of Berridge road Radford road, Lovejoy's seed store.

My cousins lived on Russell street for many years then moved to Oxclose lane, then Rise park.

So you were a mate of Dick Lovejoy?

I new Dick very well he was my appro to start with then we went clambing together.

Colin

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Jimbo, do you remember a chippy on Berridge Rd, on a corner? It was my aunt and uncle's. Definitely there in the 50's as we visited it after the Goose Fair.

Katy you don't mean the one on the corner of Stanley St by perchance.

And if so you must have known Christine?

Colin

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So you were a mate of Dick Lovejoy?

I new Dick very well he was my appro to start with then we went clambing together.

Colin

No mate I knew Richard very well but his youger brother, Phil was my mate.

He was actually my apprentice for a while and we became good mates, only saw him last in 2011 at his local in Cropwell Bishop.

Had a few beers and a meal with him and caught up on old times.

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wish we still had a good old fasioned fish and chip shop on forest fields now two chippies still on forest fields neither of them very good in my oppinion we go of in the car for good ones if we fancy some good ones nearest we have found is appollo on vernon rd but even that can be hit or miss we sometimes go to andys derby rd stapleford if we are that way and have always had good food from them its always fresh they cook in small batches at slack times as you wait for it but at least its always fresh and hot we sit in the car and eat it other wise be cold by the time we got home.

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In the sixties I used to frequent the chippy on the corner of Ewart/Berridge Road.

I think the owner was called Carson or something like that.

He and his lady wife were members of the Salvation Army. The other lady assistant was quite large and reminded me of Betty Driver.

The shop features in the film "The Ragmans Daughter" made in the early 70's.

I've tried hard to get a copy of this film which has some excellent footage of Forest Fields.

There was a clip of the chip shop scene on YouTube a few weeks back but I can't find it now.

The other chip shop I remember was on the corner of Stanley/Berridge but it stopped offering Fish & Chips in the early sixties.

I think they then started to sell fruit and veg. The owners were called. Harpers.

There's no doubt you do mellow with age.

I was non too keen on my time at Forest Fields Grammar.

The caning, detentions, discipline, cross country and bloody rugby used to really get me down but I now get very misty eyed when I visit the area and see the old school building.

As a lab technician in the summer of 1967 I spent time in the laboratories of both FFGS and Manning.

Living on Russell Road it was a quick walk to work that summer.

When the schools went back in September I had to return to Roland Green in Wilford. Used to catch the number 40 at the top of Exchange Walk then get off at the end of Wilford Road and walk over the toll bridge.

I think pedestrians were supposed to pay 1d to cross but I never did.

In Spring 1968 I joined Boots in their Beeston labs and never looked back

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Lab technicians in the Manning School laboratories...I remember two of them: one male and one female. They scuttled in and out of the back room with jars and pickled specimens of various kinds. Those labs were untouched since the school was built in 1930 and when I think of the facilities other more modern schools had, we must have been very deprived.

Anyway, I didn't like the labs- especially the biology lab because at certain times of the year there were cages of locusts in there. One year they all escaped!!! Horror. I don't like locusts (especially when they've been round Tesco's in the week before Christmas!) but I draw the line at dissecting the poor things (I am a vegetarian and very very opposed to experimentation on animals...although I am pro-experimentation on maths teachers, especially those who used to drive green Austin 1100s).

I note that the bridge outside what was the Manning School has also gone. I remember it being built.

What really did please me was seeing that the netball courts and hockey field have been built on. That was my wildest dream back in the 70s. No more running round that freezing field in the fog being 'got at' by the hockey mistress (who didn't like me but at least never tried to run me over). Any girl who did not remove her muddy boots before entering the changing room was made to go round and pick up all the clods of earth that had fallen off them which, invariably, made her late for the next lesson...you guessed it- MATHS!

Our maths teacher hailed from the Emerald Isle and sometimes spoke rather strangely. She went on inordinately about someone called "Al Gebra", whom I imagined to be some sort of Edward G Robinson-type gangster : black overcoat, black Homburg, spats and a violin case under his arm. Then she'd get started on what she called the "Pytagoras Tearoom", at the same time drawing little triangular shaped objects on the board. These resembled nothing so much as the cucumber sandwiches so beloved by my mother (with the crusts cut off!). Not understanding what the blazes she was wittering on about, my fertile imagination constructed some dodgy Italian cafe, run by Al Gebra and his Mafiaesque cronies..."You messa wi da sandwiches, we blowa your 'ead off!".

Lost in thought with a dreamy smile on my face, a piece of chalk would come whistling past my left ear (yet again), with a shrill demand that I tell the class the value of pi. "What sort of pie?" was my usual response, thinking that lemon merangue was probably my favourite but I've always had a weakness for blackcurrants.

Desk lids shot up in a frantic pretend search for pencils etc., while my classmates laughed themselves to the point of needing the loo.

"Are you trying to be funny?" came the frustrated response.

In a maths lesson? P L E A S E!

Happy days. I can do maths now. Once I'd got away from the Manning I found it was not that difficult but I still think of Al Gebra when I eat a cucumber sandwich. Bellissima!

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