Roughest area in Nottingham?


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#68 That post bought back some memories. In the late 70s I was part of a crew installing central heating all round that area. We worked as two man teams and were paid by the job and could earn very g

It's kept this thread alive for several pages, but I think we've earned our reward now.

Chapel - its posh there intit? A mate of mine used to insist on pronouncing it Chapelle San Le-nard, as though it was on the Riviera.

Looking at the other end of it, when I was a kid, Wollaton, West Bridgeford; Mapperley and the Park were all considered 'posh' along with a few others we didn't know. When it comes down to it, I suppose it depends on where you're standing at the time.

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There were some "posh" areas, Mappleh Park being nearest to us from Comyn St. A gang of us were setting off to go conkering there and the advice from my mates Dad was "It's posh up there so behave yersens and don't go chalking "BUM" on the walls!"

We weren't arf refined in them days!

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Just checked my 'Note books' from the 90s,and as a rough rule of thumb the five 5 most troublesome areas in Nottm were,

Stelley,Broxtowe,Aspley,Carlton rd, and( if counted as Nottingham) Long Eaton.

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lived on broxtowe estate, Frinton and Shipley Roads till i was 20 thought it was rough then, went back last year worse than i remember. really upset me with all me old memories

,

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Hi Benjamin1945.....As a newbie l am touring the topics that interest me. did l read a thread that you once lived on the Bestwood Estate. If so you must remember Stan Lownes. Hard man, ex RAF l believe. l recall he smashed up the Rose in Broxtowe one evening.

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Yes Robbie,knew stan very well,.........without going into detail we share Grandchildren,.....a very hard man,.......real character.

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but my parents (and grandmother) used to reckon old Narrow Marsh was the roughest of the lot.

When the area was demolished the residents moved en masse to the newly-built Southglade Estate and that was rough as hell in the 1980s.

In the pre and post-war era the corporation housing department did exercise a kind of apartheid. Aspley, for example, was for "respectable" types whereas neighbouring Broxtowe had a less salubrious reputation.

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My mum used to tell me about Broad Marsh when I was a kid. She told me that between the wars it was definitely a no-go area. She said coppers had to patrol in twos and threes. It was not unusual for a policeman to be on the receiving end of a house brick. Of course, the old slums of Broad Marsh are long gone. Now she also said that when the residents were re-housed, they put them in Broxtowe Estate and Denewood Crescent. I know for a fact that at least one house kept pigs in the bath and another put wire round the legs of the kitchen table and kept chickens. I also heard about the donkey tethered in a front garden.

In the mid-seventies, I did a bit of window cleaning to supplement my milk-mans pay. We did quite a few on Denewood and surrounding roads. Most customers were good clan living citizens, but one or two were mucky. They still had the small panes of glass in the windows. A couple of times as my head drew level with a missing pane, the smell coming out nearly knocked me off the ladder.

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but my parents (and grandmother) used to reckon old Narrow Marsh was the roughest of the lot.

When the area was demolished the residents moved en masse to the newly-built Southglade Estate and that was rough as hell in the 1980s.

In the pre and post-war era the corporation housing department did exercise a kind of apartheid. Aspley, for example, was for "respectable" types whereas neighbouring Broxtowe had a less salubrious reputation.

Southglade est bamber,do you mean Bestwood est ? Southglade rd is on Bestwood est.

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Edwards Lane Estate. I did Mr Softee ice cream selling there in the late 60's. Rough but fair.

Nowadays, totally different.

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A rough or disreputable area is not to be confused with a poor area. In my teens I went to Palin St., Baptist Church and we were trying to raise money to get our own priest. The project was called 'The Manse Fund'. Our priest would have worked for peanuts but he would need somewhere to live. We raised money in various ways and one was for us all to go out collecting house to house for the 'Manse Fund'. I remember collecting in the Basford area and could not believe the poverty I encountered. We should have been giving 'them' money! However, some dipped into their purses for the fund. I never got a bad word and found the people very understanding towards the cause. I am saying this as a poor guy at the time - outside lav, no bathroom or hot water, lived week to week on the wage packet, but we were still relatively better off. Basford was poor but decent. The area I'm on about always had the most crooks, prosses and bad people and apparently it still does.

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Hyson Green was considered rough when the flats were there (although Balloon Woods and Basford flats were considered to be rougher, this in the early 80's) but apparently it was half decent a generation before. Normanton, in Derby, was similar; I lived just off Normanton Road in the mid-1990's and it was no worse than the Green, but on a return visit a couple of years ago I walked down there and felt distinctly uncomfortable. Maybe it's because I no longer lived there and maybe because I'm now 20 years older and wiser, but there was an air of distinct menace and I did not linger.

Incidentally most of the folk out and about down there seemed to be East European rather than the Asians and West Indians who dominated the area twenty years previously. I had both as neighbours and we all got along famously.

And Peveril, for goodness sake either pee or get off the pot!

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