Why & when did you leave Nottm?


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I'm sure i've asked this question in a previous topic,but as it's a new year no one may notice! I'm not usually logged on in the daytime but as I am crook with a sore chest I thought I would pass some time & see who else is online..............Katyjay your turn first lips0

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I left Nottingham in the 1970’s, hubby got a job at a pit outside Doncaster where his parents lived, Nottingham pits weren’t taking on at that time. We came back regularly to see my family. Always con

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 (gentl

Back in the 60s and very early 70s I blotted too many  Nottingham copy books too often. Self exile was the only answer. I left in 71 and very seldom returned other than to visit elderly Ps and sibs.

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Hi Caz, hope you are feeling better soon. Sounds like you need some goose grease on yer chest!

We left Nottingham in 1977 to move to Surrey. We thought this was a huge step at the time, little did we know we'd be moving even further away. Hubby worked at the National Water Sports Centre at the time, and applied, and got, a job with the British Canoe Union then based in London. This office moved 3 miles from our home eventually.

We left old Blighty for 2 reasons. Firstly, Hubs office was moving and second, we loved the States when we had a holiday there in '83. So we took the big step of emigrating, 3 kids, mother in law and a cat in tow, to what we believed would be a better life for the kids. I know we did the right thing, we've had a wonderful life out here, with a lot of hard work thrown in. It paid off, we're reaping the benefits now.

Why did you move, Caz?

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I left in early 1975 to start a new job at a brand new mine in North Yorks.

We had a council house promised us at Skinningrove, right at side of the beach!

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  • 1 month later...

I got fed up with the NCB (!) and went to work for BPB Instruments (part of British Gypsum) in East Leake in 1975. They sent me to South Africa for two years in early 1976. When I returned from South Africa, they were opening an office in Colorado and I said I would like to go. So in October 1978 I came to the USA and have been here ever since.

I get back to visit as often as possible and was there at Chrismas - my first Christmas in England since 1979, and my wife's first in England ever. So - we took her to the panto at the Theatre Royal and had a BLAST. She is a school Principal, so to see the kids shouting, singing and having fun made it for her!

BOOM BOOM, Basil!!!

I'll be there again at the end of March - couldn't pass up on a British Airways deal - $500 round-trip including one night's hotel in London!

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I get back to visit as often as possible and was there at Chrismas - my first Christmas in England since 1979, and my wife's first in England ever. So - we took her to the panto at the Theatre Royal and had a BLAST. She is a school Principal, so to see the kids shouting, singing and having fun made it for her!

BOOM BOOM, Basil!!!

I'll be there again at the end of March - couldn't pass up on a British Airways deal - $500 round-trip including one night's hotel in London!

Hi Limey. We went to see the panto in January - boom boom basil - great.

if you like a pint or two then maybe we could have another forum members meet when you are over here

Might be a bit of fun if we can persuede Mick to consume a little more than his usual 2.

Pity all those homeless people sleeping in shop doorways between the Poacher and Slab Sq. smile2smile2

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Hi Limey, we love Colorado. Did some good skiing there before we became woosies and found it too cold anymore! We have Brit friends in Parker, anywhere near you?

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I worked at East Leake for a couple of years Limey, 1973 to 75 I believe, I was working down their Marblaegis Mine as a lecko.

Remember the club not far inside the works gates??

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Hi Caz, hope you are feeling better soon. Sounds like you need some goose grease on yer chest!

We left Nottingham in 1977 to move to Surrey. We thought this was a huge step at the time, little did we know we'd be moving even further away. Hubby worked at the National Water Sports Centre at the time, and applied, and got, a job with the British Canoe Union then based in London. This office moved 3 miles from our home eventually.

We left old Blighty for 2 reasons. Firstly, Hubs office was moving and second, we loved the States when we had a holiday there in '83. So we took the big step of emigrating, 3 kids, mother in law and a cat in tow, to what we believed would be a better life for the kids. I know we did the right thing, we've had a wonderful life out here, with a lot of hard work thrown in. It paid off, we're reaping the benefits now.

Why did you move, Caz?

Sorry for the delay Katy been tied up ;) I left for the same reasons all of us Expats did I suppose a better way oflife for my kids & myself,which we have certainly had living in OZ no argument. My eldest son is back in UK & has been for a lot of years,but at least he has dual citizenship !bravo!

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I worked at East Leake for a couple of years Limey, 1973 to 75 I believe, I was working down their Marblaegis Mine as a lecko.

Remember the club not far inside the works gates??

Why, yes I do! And the cricket field next to it! Our offfices were in the huts just up the track (past the carpark) from where the club was! Our equipment was in Blue vans (mostly Bedfords in those days) with the BPB "world" logo and "BPB Instruments - Slimline Logging Systems on the side!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I left Nottingham for the Royal Air Force in 1960, straight out of school. That gave me the wander bug. Ended up in Oz in 1970.

Always had a hankering to go back and settle there. Most recent visits in 1994 and 1999. In '94 lived for the year in Towcester, and in '99 lived for six months in Stapleford and Beeston.

But to be honest there were just so many people. Especially in Nottingham. In '99, early one afternoon I walked across Slab Square, and seemed to be jostled by people every step of the way. It was just solid people. And to the best of my knowledge there was nothing special on that day.

We drove up to Dove Dale, mid week - no school holidays or anything, and it was crowded. More people than Bondi Beach on a Summer weekend.

I fled back to Oz, just to be able to breathe.

Hugs Alison

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Hi Limey, we love Colorado. Did some good skiing there before we became woosies and found it too cold anymore! We have Brit friends in Parker, anywhere near you?

Sorry - I missed your post. Unfortunately, I no longer live in Colorado - left in 1980 and finished up in Michigan - by way of Wyoming, Massachusetts and Virginia!

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...... left in 1980 and finished up in Michigan - by way of Wyoming, Massachusetts and Virginia!

Do tell us of your time in Wyoming...one of my ultimate fascinating places!

Cheers

Robt P.

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I'd have liked to live in Montana, but for two things, the winters too long and it's so cold up there in winter!

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I'd have liked to live in Montana, but for two things, the winters too long and it's so cold up there in winter!

My No 1 ultimate fascinating place on earth.....

Had a couple of weeks there and saw most of it, except the north-east...

Glacier National Park, Flathead, Madisons, Butte, North Yellowstone, Billings, Boseman, Little Big Horn.....

30 years younger, and I'd be there - even as a hobo!

Matlock Bath never quite the same since seeing MT smile2

Cheers

Robt P.

Light snowfall!, Glacier National Park MT,1992

post-34-1171819416_thumb.jpg

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...... left in 1980 and finished up in Michigan - by way of Wyoming, Massachusetts and Virginia!

Do tell us of your time in Wyoming...one of my ultimate fascinating places!

Cheers

Robt P.

I lived in Sheridan, in north central Wyoming - and was involved in the coal exploration business in Wyoming and Montana. Sheridan is just east of the Big Horn Mountains and is a spectacular place to live. It is also well known because there are a number of local ranches that raise polo ponies - and from time-to-time the Queen would visit one of the local ranches. I was regularly asked if I was with the RAF - because they were the only Brits they came across.

I was fairly well known in town - to the extent that I would walk in shops to be greeted by "OH! You're the Englishman". On one occasion someone I knew was visiting from Oklahoma - he only knew I lived in Sheridan, I was English and my name was Eric (he didn't know my surname). He went into a bar and asked the lady behind the bar if she knew me - he was astounded when she picked up the phone and dialled my number!

There were two small ski areas in the Big Horns, so that took care of the winter, and in the summer it was a spectacular place to ride a motorcycle. It was also a popular place to go hang gliding so I would often ride up the mountain on a Sunday, watch the gliders and go for a beer at a lodge up near the top - Magic!

Shopping was mostly performed through the Sears catalog! Once or twice a year I would drive to Billings, Montana (135 miles away) to go to the mall!

Wyoming is the least populated of the lower 48 states - only about 500,000 people. I thought nothing of driving to Gilette to drop mail off to my guy working there, and being home for lunch - a 200 mile round trip! Back then we still had the 55mph speed limit but it was widely disregarded because of the huge distances. The states were supposed to have an 80% compliance rate with the limit in order to gain Federal funds - the Governor of Wyoming said he would be lucky to get it down to an 80% noncompliance rate! At that time Montana would give you a $5 "Wasting a natural resource" fine if they bothered stopping you going over 55 - and they usually didn't bother unless you were going close to 90!

I must say I loved living there - but as I get older the winters just seem too long and too cold - I think southern Virginia will be our retirement location!

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...... left in 1980 and finished up in Michigan - by way of Wyoming, Massachusetts and Virginia!

Do tell us of your time in Wyoming...one of my ultimate fascinating places!

Cheers

Robt P.

I lived in Sheridan, in north central Wyoming - and was involved in the coal exploration business in Wyoming and Montana. Sheridan is just east of the Big Horn Mountains and is a spectacular place to live......

Many thanks for that.......quite superb.

Sounds idyllic - but perhaps less so when you have to work hard for a living!

I came close to Sheridan in 1992. when I travelled from Billings down Interstate 90 to the Little Big Horn Battlefield, as in 'Custer's Last Stand, on the MT/WY/SD borders. Strangely eerie place amongst the high grasses - you just KNEW that something terrible had happened there....such a strange atmosphere prevails.

Cheers

Robt P.

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...... left in 1980 and finished up in Michigan - by way of Wyoming, Massachusetts and Virginia!

Do tell us of your time in Wyoming...one of my ultimate fascinating places!

Cheers

Robt P.

I lived in Sheridan, in north central Wyoming - and was involved in the coal exploration business in Wyoming and Montana. Sheridan is just east of the Big Horn Mountains and is a spectacular place to live......

Many thanks for that.......quite superb.

Sounds idyllic - but perhaps less so when you have to work hard for a living!

I came close to Sheridan in 1992. when I travelled from Billings down Interstate 90 to the Little Big Horn Battlefield, as in 'Custer's Last Stand, on the MT/WY/SD borders. Strangely eerie place amongst the high grasses - you just KNEW that something terrible had happened there....such a strange atmosphere prevails.

Cheers

Robt P.

Yes indeed! The chap who managed the apartment complex I lived in had a T-shirt that read "Custer had it coming"!

....and now I live not far from Monroe, Michigan - Custer's hometown!

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  • 2 months later...

Alison, I must have just missed you at school. I left straight from school in December 1963 to join the Royal Navy as an Artificer Apprentice. I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in October 1965 and have basically been here ever since. I went back in 1994 and what suprised me was the density of motor vehicles. For a place with lots of public transport, there are just too many cars. I guess I didn`t catch the crouds because I was there in December. Funnily enough, with snow on the ground, it was warmer than over here on a cold dry winters day and I loved it. The fresh gfood over there is fantastic, the quality is much higher than here. I hope to get back there soon.

Regards to all

Andrew Cole.

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  • 9 months later...

Browsing through old topics and came across this one. Interesting.

We left in Spring 71. Moved to Toronto.

Reasons were mainly what another poster noted.

After our first daughter came along I really wondered about her future. Everywhere seemed to be getting more and more crowded.

I had always wanted to go to Oz after a buddy of mine moved there and liked it in 64. My wife was close to her parents and felt like if we went there she would never see them again, but she would be willing to consider Canada.

I was probably like most people and thought all Canada had was snow, pine trees and sled dogs, but she had a cousin in Toronto who said it was a good life if you were prepared to work and fit in with folks.

At that time Canada was actually advertising in the British papers for a whole list of trades. So we sent in the forms interviewed in Birmingham, sold all our worldly goods and went. Parents thought we were crazy. Maybe we were but we never regretted it. Second daughter born in Toronto. She never tires of telling us she is the only GENUINE Canadian in the family. So what! :-)

Although I now live in the States I would move back to Canada in a moment. The warmer climate of Ga. is nice, especially in the winter, but I miss the wide open spaces of Alberta where we had eventually settled and those icy cold nights with the Northern lights flickering overhead.

Give me the snow, pine trees and sled dogs anyday.

Dave

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...So we sent in the forms interviewed in Birmingham, sold all our worldly goods and went...

Before I was sent to South Africa, I was supposed to go to Canada, so I applied for the work permit and went to Birmingham for the interview. The chap who interviewed me noticed where I lived, and asked if I knew "Trent College". "Yes, I replied, my mum works there!"

He replied "Oh! You are Mrs Marshall's son!" (a bit obvious I thought), but his son had attended Trent and he actually knew my mum! Turns out his son married the sister of a girl I was at school with - it really is a small world!

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Before I was sent to South Africa, I was supposed to go to Canada, so I applied for the work permit and went to Birmingham for the interview. The chap who interviewed me noticed where I lived, and asked if I knew "Trent College". "Yes, I replied, my mum works there!"

He replied "Oh! You are Mrs Marshall's son!" (a bit obvious I thought), but his son had attended Trent and he actually knew my mum! Turns out his son married the sister of a girl I was at school with - it really is a small world!

Aye-up Eric

Things were so much easier then it seemed.

I'm sure they did background checks etc. but if they did it was very low key. Worst part was having to pay for a medical checkup. Couldn't do that on the NHS. If I remember rightly it was about 100 pounds. Lot of money in those days.

Time we'd bought the tickets we were about broke. Couldn't have returned if we'd wanted to.

Dave

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I left Long Eaton in 2002, aged 29. Before that I had lived there with my parents my whole life - so I think they were glad to get rid of me!

I met my (now) wife at a concert in Toronto in 1999. She is from Rochester, NY and was in Canada for the day. I was on vacation visiting my grandparents who emigrated to Canada in the 60's.

Anyway, we stayed in touch as friends via email for a while and then she arranged to spend a semester studying at Nottingham Uni as part of a student exchange program. She arrived in Nottingham in Jan 2000 and during that time we first started "dating" and when she left to go back to the USA in June 2000 we decided that we would keep the relationship going. So there was about 18 months of a long distance relationship while she finished her course back in the USA. I visitied her a few times and started my immigration application for the States

Anyway we were engaged in August 2001 (on one of my visits to the USA). I moved over permanently in April 2002 and we were married in May 2002.

Been living in Rochester, NY for almost 6 years now and there are good and bad points like most places. I like the fact that we can afford our own detached house - as the house prices here are relatively low compared to other places in the USA and a steal compared to houses in the UK. We live two blocks from Lake Ontario and are surrounded by some wonderful scenery.

On the other hand the job market up here is a bit stagnant and so I've been mainly working through agencies. I also miss the culture and not having a thriving "downtown" area. Downtown Rochester is dead after 5pm as most people go home from their jobs to the suburbs...so it feels a bit dead.

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Alison, I must have just missed you at school. I left straight from school in December 1963 to join the Royal Navy as an Artificer Apprentice. I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in October 1965 and have basically been here ever since. I went back in 1994 and what suprised me was the density of motor vehicles. For a place with lots of public transport, there are just too many cars. I guess I didn`t catch the crouds because I was there in December. Funnily enough, with snow on the ground, it was warmer than over here on a cold dry winters day and I loved it. The fresh gfood over there is fantastic, the quality is much higher than here. I hope to get back there soon.

Regards to all

Andrew Cole.

Hi andrew. Sorry about the late reply. Firstly thankyou for replying to my message. I didnt go to mundella school, i was born in carlton and i went to westdale lane infants and junior school then to cavendish grammer school until 1968. I moved to netherfield in 1973 and i am still there. When i was looking for information about my friend christine i was also surprised at how many cole families there was in aus. She has 2 sons and a daughter and about 8 grandchildren at the last count i think! Anyway if you need to chat feel free to message me again. Chrissy.

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  • 9 years later...

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?

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An interesting post, Jonab (iPad keeps wanting to call you Jonah). Pleased you found somewhere suitable to work eventually...

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