Balloon Woods Flats

[Bip 88]

I have a number of very interesting slides which I took of the Balloon Woods Flats while they where being demolished. I wish to post them on here but unfortunately don’t have any means of transferring them from slide format, can anyone help with any suggestions on how I can do this without going to great expense.

[Stan 385]

...I have a Cannoscan 5001 with a device for scanning slides directly to computer,Den you could pop down and borrow it! Failing that there are many places that would scan them to disc for you.

[Bip 88]

Thanks Stan for the offer I may take you up on it if I can't find anywhere.

my canoscon N1240U dosn't have that feature.

Where would I go to get them scanned?

[Frank 13]

I've also got some slides that I'd like to transfer to computer. They are of the Basford high rise flats during demolition.

Let me know if the scanomatic gear is available for borrowing !!

[Caz 25]

I used to live at Balloon Wood flats many moons ago................nothing else to tell you really just thought I would mention it...................LOL!!

[Bip 88]

I used to live at Balloon Wood flats many moons ago................nothing else to tell you really just thought I would mention it...................LOL!!

You will know Firbeck rd and Plantation rd then Caz? and The Balloon Pub which goes by the name of The Wollaton Arms now...rumours are that the Wollaton arms is being demolished soon.

The Balloon pub is a Indian Restaurant called the Spice ???????

[Caz 25]

Yeah Den I know all those places. My eldest son used to attend Firbeck School. I used to regularly walk to Bilborough, Glaisdale Rd I think ? to do my shopping in the days when I didn't have a car. The flat was great but the surrounds !tony!

I once had someone flash me on Hartington Walk & I didn't even have to pay him LOL!

I remember the pub very well,I never went in there though. I also remember there used to be a caravan shop which used to come to Balloon Woods on certain days or times & we used to be able to buy our groceries from them,not much choice I remember but it was the best of a bad job.

We had all walks of life in those flats,young ,old,black,white & everything in between & I don't recall any trouble though I imagine there would have been. The lifts were used as a urinal & the smell was shocking to say the least. Just the thing when you've been to fetch your fish & chips

One memory stands out from those days, I remember the death of Elvis Presley being announced on Radio Trent I suppose? we had friends round for drinks & I can still recall it like it was yesterday.

[Bip 88]

How small a world it is Caz. I moved up there in 1963, lived with me mum and dad at number // Plantation road just down from the infants school well before those flats where built, got married and left in 1970 for Mucky Hucknall.

Did me courting in those woods in fact I met the wife in them, she was walking her dog, but that’s another story.

Her family lived at // Firbeck road across from said school.

The pub was built after the flats were erected on the spot where they mixed the cement for the building work.

I use to go in the pub with the wife’s old man on a Sunday dinner; bit rough I can tell you, to play darts, he loved his darts and was a good player too.

I remember riding me bike up there, pretending I was a motorbike scrambler going up and down the hollows, when I was old enough I got a motor bike and did the same.

Apparently those hollows were dug out during the war days when coal was short.

The flats came down in???? and replaced with two story houses and two bed roomed bungalows.

If you saw those houses and bungalows now you wouldn’t believe they were only twenty years old if that.

The last time I past through there it looked like Baghdad, glass everywhere, cars on bricks, burnt out cars in back gardens, gardens turned into rubbish tips, and kids running about with nappies around their ankles, unbelievable.

Sorry but if you put a pig in a house it doesn’t take long before said pig turns it into a sty.

Just before they built the flats there was a rumour that there might be something wrong with the foundations of said flats.

I also remember a section of the Nottingham canal being filled to accommodate the housing on the other side of the railway line.

Do you remember Merrys on the corner of Plantation and Birchwood also the post office on the corner of Trowel road and Birchwood?

[radfordred 6,278]

I used to live at Balloon Wood flats many moons ago................nothing else to tell you really just thought I would mention it...................LOL!!

You will know Firbeck rd and Plantation rd then Caz? and The Balloon Pub which goes by the name of The Wollaton Arms now...rumours are that the Wollaton arms is being demolished soon.

The Balloon pub is a Indian Restaurant called the Spice ???????

last time i passed the old Balloon pub was the Wollaton Arms

and the old Gondola was an Indian restaurant called spice .

[mick2me 3,029]

If you saw those houses and bungalows now you wouldn’t believe they were only twenty years old if that.

The last time I past through there it looked like Baghdad, glass everywhere, cars on bricks, burnt out cars in back gardens, gardens turned into rubbish tips, and kids running about with nappies around their ankles, unbelievable.

I sed it here before, and I'll say it again.

"You put a hog in a palace, it still remains a pig"

[Caz 25]

You wouldnt believe it would you I just wrote an entire post & deleted it dugh!!!

Anyway I will start again. Yes I do remember there was a post office Den but i'm not sure where it was in relation to Trowell Rd.

I quite enjoyed living in the flats & they were the means to an end,in that it was the only way to get onto the council list,after a year we literally queued outside the Technical services dept on Derby Rd all day & night to be able to pick up the keys for a council house & that house we stayed in until we emigrated,we paid the princely sum of 33 quid a month for the mortgage. Bloody hell it costs more than that to get my eyebrows done these days !rotfl!

[Bip 88]

The shop I mentioned [Merrys] has now been converted into a dwelling house and the Post Office is no longer a PO but a Posh Hair dressers, as if we need another, there’s an old established one not fifty yards away. , When the PO close so did the PO box outside, the residents complained about not being able to use the box any more and the powers to be said tuff shite so they complained to their local MP and he got it replaced, and guess what? They recited it across the main road on the Wollaton arms side, so now me mum of 86 has to cross a very busy road to post a letter…her nearest post office now is a bus journey away.

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

I used to live at Balloon Wood flats many moons ago................nothing else to tell you really just thought I would mention it...................LOL!!

CAZ, I am also called Caz!

When did you live at Balloon Woods? I left there in 1979. Who did you know who also lived there? If you don't mind me asking...

!jumping!

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

You will know Firbeck rd and Plantation rd then Caz? and The Balloon Pub which goes by the name of The Wollaton Arms now...rumours are that the Wollaton arms is being demolished soon.

The Balloon pub is a Indian Restaurant called the Spice ???????

last time i passed the old Balloon pub was the Wollaton Arms

and the old Gondola was an Indian restaurant called spice .

I am another, different Caz! I used to live at Balloon Woods. We used to play outside the Gondola. I used to go to Firbeck Primary, and we used to have to walk through the tunnel under the road near the Gondola to get there. I think we lived there 9-10 years in all.

I used to go to the Balloon Woods Adventure Playground quite a bit. I loved it! We used to do all sorts, go camping, swimming, walking, etc It was great!

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

Yeah Den I know all those places. My eldest son used to attend Firbeck School. I used to regularly walk to Bilborough, Glaisdale Rd I think ? to do my shopping in the days when I didn't have a car. The flat was great but the surrounds !tony!

I once had someone flash me on Hartington Walk & I didn't even have to pay him LOL!

I remember the pub very well,I never went in there though. I also remember there used to be a caravan shop which used to come to Balloon Woods on certain days or times & we used to be able to buy our groceries from them,not much choice I remember but it was the best of a bad job.

We had all walks of life in those flats,young ,old,black,white & everything in between & I don't recall any trouble though I imagine there would have been. The lifts were used as a urinal & the smell was shocking to say the least. Just the thing when you've been to fetch your fish & chips

One memory stands out from those days, I remember the death of Elvis Presley being announced on Radio Trent I suppose? we had friends round for drinks & I can still recall it like it was yesterday.

Wow! I also remember being at Balloon Woods when Elvis Presley died! It was a fantastic hot summer, and it didn't seem real. I lived on Hartington Walk, number 548 with my mum, sister and brother. We lived there when the power strikes were on, and I remember having to use candles, and to me it was a great adventure, having to do that

I remember the caravan shop as well. Yeah, it didn't really have much choice but it was the nearest shop to us. My mum used to get her 'big' shop from the Co-Op on Cockington Road. I went with her in the holidays and it seemed a very long walk back home, in the sun, loaded down with heavy groceries.

I also remember the old post office, and the launderette. I remember spending what seemed like ages there! Also, there was a row of shops where mum sometimes bought her bread, and I remember her getting ham & the lady having to slice it on one of those big slicing machines

[mick2me 3,029]

Caz, who now lives in Australia, is not currently active here.

You can send her a message by clicking on har name.

[mickety 1]

Wow! I also remember being at Balloon Woods when Elvis Presley died! It was a fantastic hot summer, and it didn't seem real. I lived on Hartington Walk, number 548 with my mum, sister and brother. We lived there when the power strikes were on, and I remember having to use candles, and to me it was a great adventure, having to do that

I remember the caravan shop as well. Yeah, it didn't really have much choice but it was the nearest shop to us. My mum used to get her 'big' shop from the Co-Op on Cockington Road. I went with her in the holidays and it seemed a very long walk back home, in the sun, loaded down with heavy groceries.

I also remember the old post office, and the launderette. I remember spending what seemed like ages there! Also, there was a row of shops where mum sometimes bought her bread, and I remember her getting ham & the lady having to slice it on one of those big slicing machines

There used to be a beer off facing the co-op on Cockington that had one of the best deli counters in Nottingham, they sliced huge hams and other fresh meats, maybe it was that, I dont know if such a shop existed over on Firbeck but you could ask bip about that.

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

There used to be a beer off facing the co-op on Cockington that had one of the best deli counters in Nottingham, they sliced huge hams and other fresh meats, maybe it was that, I dont know if such a shop existed over on Firbeck but you could ask bip about that.

Thanks for replying. The row of shops was parallel to the way the school was facing. If you were standing with your back to Firbeck school and walked straight down the road, there was a road going across & the shops were on that road. I can't for the life of me think whether they were left or right at the junction, but I seem to think more left. There was the grocery shop and a newagents, and I think there were maybe one or two more shops there.

Going from the other way, if you stand looking at what was the post office, on the corner, with your back to the Wollaton Arms side of the road, the shops were up that road facing, on the right. We used to go there on the way to school, when I attended William Sharp

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

Caz, who now lives in Australia, is not currently active here.

You can send her a message by clicking on har name.

Thanks, have emailed her

[mickety 1]

In that case it was on the Firbeck Estate, the row of shops are still there, not that you can call them shops these days, the BBC own one of the shops, Woof the childrens series was filmed there as was 'A thing called love' starring Paul Nicholls.

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

In that case it was on the Firbeck Estate, the row of shops are still there, not that you can call them shops these days, the BBC own one of the shops, Woof the childrens series was filmed there as was 'A thing called love' starring Paul Nicholls.

wow! Think I might have to go & have a look round, to re-aquaint myself with the area. I believe the Adventure Playground is still going strong.

Did you know the Lowe brothers? I think there were a few of them! Or the Mullins? they lived at the bottom of the street down from the school

[mickety 1]

I didnt grow up in that area so no I dont know those names, my Daughter lives at the end of the estate in the last house next to the railway line, I remember that I was always diverted during filming when I went over.

[radfordred 6,278]

Cockington shops

[Nottingham Libran Lady 0]

Cockington shops

Yeah, that's a great pic! Thanks. Think I remember the Spar shop was a newsagent

[sussexred 23]

I remember about 1971 when my mate Phil and I used to meet two girls from Balloon Wood flats in the fields between there and Wollaton. I can't remember Phil's girl's name but mine was Paula. They were probably about 15 at the time.......