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

Now,from my addled cerebral remnant.

The `Spar' was the local newsagent in the 50`s,on the far side was a butchers shop. I have a memory also of an `Off Licence' and a `chippy'. What I am sure of is the opposite corner where I worked fo 3 years after school and on Saturdays.There was the Co-op grocery,the Greengrocery next door where a couple of High Pavement lads,(Chris and???) delivered on a Saturday and a chemist on the end.Next to this was the local G.P`s house. Hope this fills in a little more detail. I`m sure Dennis will remember more.

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Former BWF inmate from approx  75 til '78  - 513 or 315 Hartington Walk Ground floor. Me and my brother had a great time growing up in the flats as we played football both on the tarmac rectangle in t

Looks like former pub The Gondola & Indian restaurant Spices is to be demolished, should be listed?

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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.......

haha , yeah they WOULD be! hellothere

I remember when I was 12-13, we knew a girl called Tracey, and she seemed so grown up. She had curly dark blonde hair and big glasses. I think she was about 14. She was always 'away with the lads' if you see what I mean! She seemed SO grown up and wise. Then she got pregnant & apparently her dad threw her out! I never heard of her after that....

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Caz II

You have included your email address in your signature.

Its not a good Idea to have your email on any web page due to email gathgering robots.

We have 2 secure script driven contact systems here which does not show your address to the bots.

The email member link, and the Internal PM system.

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I reckon Stan you have covered it all meduk.

I can only add that as a Cub our weekly meetings were held in the infant’s skool just up the hill on the left. I believe the skool is the Portland infant’s skool that I believe too is still there.

When our weekly Cub meeting finished I would run down the hill to the chippie for the mandatory bag of chips and batter bits soaked in vinegar with copious amounts of salt on the top…….never did me any harm.

Bip.

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Caz II

...To avoid spam, please edit your profile, visit your control panel and enable ability for members to be able to email or PM you...

Thanks mick, much appreciated

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I removed your email earlier, as bots are active on our user list.

I also just tidied of your signiture font formatting. How does it look now?

(Hint: Highlight text before hitting formatting command)

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hi there came accross this site while on a recent visit to nottingham. i lived on balloon wood flats from 1972-1974 386 beeley walk and went to firbeck primary school for the time i was there. i remember the community place being built at the edge of the flats and have seen that it is still there. there was a tunnel under the road from the school to the flats and a portacabin shop that used to me called maid marion i think. i had a couple of friends that lived opposite the school and i got a rabbit from one of them. God there are so many memories coming back here.

mark

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Hi Mark

I remember Beeley Walk, it was the third floor. I lived on Hartington Walk, 548, in Moorstead block. I lived there until 1979, if my memory serves me correctly. I think we lived there about nine years. It was before the new bridge was built over the railway line when we moved in, and we used to play under the new bridge before it was opened. I distinctly remember the caravan shop, it was two caravans put together side by side. I also remember going through the tunnel to Firbeck School. We used to slip down the slope when it was icy!. Do you remember a Mr Walker at Firbeck? He was dead strict, but a really good teacher. He gave me my lifelong love of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I have managed to get some pictures of Balloon Woods from the internet but they must have been taken after I left, because the blocks are all called different names, mainly Cornish & Welsh names. I checked with my sister, and we definately lived in Moorstead block, facing the railway. There used to be a tarmac square below us, where we used to play such things as dobby chain! haha I also remember my mum taking us to the pictures to see The Railway Children, and afterwards we used to pretend that was us, as there were three of us! :-) Although it was slightly wrong as I was the middle one and my bruv was the youngest. Yeah, loadsa memories. Do you remember the Adventure Playground? I was always hanging around there....

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hi kaz, yes i remember the playground and the railway bridge before it was built as well, i have found some pictures of the net as well, i was talking to my mother about it all the other day and it got my memory buzzing, it was 306 beeley walk i lived at and you got to it over the bridge where the gondalla was. they were good times and never forgave my mum for leaving the place and coming back to sheffield. got a pic of me and my sister at that time as well. i used to help the milkman as well on a few days at weekends deliver the milk lolpost-1608-1220993296_thumb.jpg

i must admit i was a bit bad and used to mess about in the lifts and our block looked onto the railway lines at the back and my bedroom overlooked a paly area to the front in a small square .. god this is bringing back so many memories post-1608-1220993586_thumb.jpg

mark

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Haha I used to mess around in the lifts too! That's teenagers for you! Me and my mates were messing around in em once, and I suddenly became ill. I felt small and weak, and I felt like a great weight was pressing down on my shoulders, settling down like dust. I told my mates I didn't want to do that anymore, but that I didn't want to spoil their fun, so they should carry on and I would wait for them. The next thing I knew, they had got stuck! When they got out my mate Debra said I knew that would happen but I didn't. But now Im older I think maybe I did know. I think you used to live in the same block as me, or the one next door! It was Moorstead at the time, but I think they changed the names in later years. If you wanna email me I am on cboultby@hotmail.com

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My mums pic is in the Images of Nottingham book, in a picture with them all holding placards about the state of the flats. The man in the pic is John Bishop. I think he was some sort of social worker. My mum is sitting down at the table, with dark hair near the front

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Wow, just found this thread, it brings back many memories.

First of all, looking at the picture of the shops on Cockington Road, the shop with the blinds down used to be Cocko Chippie, it was a great fish and chip shop, our family ritual in the 50's and 60's was to visit the city on a saturday morning, buy cod from the fish market and while mother was cooking it, coated in flour, the old man and I would go to Cocko chip shop and buy a load of chips, they were so good that they couldn't be reproduced at home, it was impossible. Can you remember those amazing crusty pies that they sold, I can still taste them now, Pukka Pies eat your heart out, you haven't got a clue.

Pre Balloon Wood flats, the woods were magnificent, there was an old sand quarry with a steep slope that you could sledge down. the famous swamps with their fallen trees you could walk along, the old mining bell pit up the top end, opposite the old Rolls Royce, Merlin testing station.

Every so often, the lads from the TA used to train in there firing blanks from old Lee Enfield rifles, we used to go along afterwards and pick up the brass 303 cartridge cases.

Then there was Jackos Hollow, a clay pit related to the old brickworks across the old railway line, a perfect place to play 'Tin Can Lurkie', remember that. I recall when the area was surrounded in stuble from cropping, the amazing sunken dens built between there and Balloon Woods, the remains of the brickworks, the Jacksons house, orchard and coal mine with miniature railway opposite, the half sunken barges in the canal, the amazing pit with its dumped old cars, the Kennels, the farmhouse that got vandalised within a few days of it's owner being carted off in a coffin, my brother and his mates constructing a cricket pich on 'The Back Field'.

Oh dear, I could go on, happy days, does anyone want to know more, were any of you involved in these adventures.

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Wow! Fantastic childhood! :-) Yeah, I do remember going down to Nottingham Canal, and catching sticklebacks, news and frogspawn. And building dens. And climbing trees. We had proper childhoods then!

He he, I remember being stuck in an old oak tree which I had climbed but couldn't get back down from. My bruv n sis teased me, saying things like, " we need to get pillows we'll be back soon" When I asked them why, they said it was because I would be sleeping up there all night if I didn't climb down! hahah the rotters! Eventually a man mowing the grass came and just picked me out of the tree and put me back down on the ground.

When you say the back field, do you mean the one down Moor Lane?

Caz, Nottingham Libran Lady

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Wow! Fantastic childhood! :-) Yeah, I do remember going down to Nottingham Canal, and catching sticklebacks, news and frogspawn. And building dens. And climbing trees. We had proper childhoods then!

He he, I remember being stuck in an old oak tree which I had climbed but couldn't get back down from. My bruv n sis teased me, saying things like, " we need to get pillows we'll be back soon" When I asked them why, they said it was because I would be sleeping up there all night if I didn't climb down! hahah the rotters! Eventually a man mowing the grass came and just picked me out of the tree and put me back down on the ground.

When you say the back field, do you mean the one down Moor Lane?

Caz, Nottingham Libran Lady

There was a bridle way running from Trowell Road, opposite Copsons, along the back of Firbeck school and next to Balloon Woods, over the old railway bridge, which is still there, had a branch off right to 'Jacksons Farm' and it's little coal mine, another branch off left to 'The Kennels' then on to and over a stone hump backed canal bridge and ending up at a farm, which despite my research on old maps, it's name still defeats me.

We used to call it the 'Black Path', for obvious reasons, it was surfaced from the detritus of the various coal pits down there, if you sniff around the back of Firbeck school, even today, you can find evidence of it.

The 'Back Field' was situated between Firbeck Estate and 'The Black Path', travel along the road from Balloon Woods traffic lights down towards Derby Road and you can still see it's remnants between the road and Firbeck Estate, near where the old train bridge still exists.

Over 50 years ago, the farm over the canal obviously had been still trying to eke out a living, I recall fields of barley around Jacksons Hollow and Jacksons farm and also over the canal.

The back field was always a mysterious survivor, it was always a somewhat overgrown grassy area that we used to play in. When the grass got very high, we used to put some unfortunate on the parapet of the railway bridge and play at '10 eyes open, 10 eyes closed' , remember that.

However, in the early days before things got out of hand, my older brother and his friends the Bishop kids, being keen on cricket, went up the back field with a lawn mower and made a cricket pitch, they cut the grass, levelled a wicket and got on with it, imagine anybody having the nicety to do that now, I think not, too many syringes in the grass.

The old railway bridge was always our meeting place when we were kids, why not, we could survey the world from there, see what changes were going on and react accordingly.

We knew the times of every train, we got familiar with their crews, remember the half niners, the Waverley, the old pick up freight that came past at half ten every day, the 12:30 diesel railcar to Sheffield, perhaps I should write a book about my experiences, my memories of those days and the adventures that we had are so clearly etched on my mind. No doubt about it, I had a fantastic childhood, it's memories will always live with me.

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I have a number of slides of the flats taken when they were being demolished....I lived on Plantation road from 1963 until i got wed in 1970.

The black path mentioned earlier was my race track in my teens, I use to ride up and down it as fast as i could down to the railway bridge and back up towards the cross roads.

Where the Spices indian restaurant is now is where I met my wife to be, she lived just down the path that went by the skool that led one onto Firbeck road, she lived at number one Firbeck. family name of Hickling....

Bip.

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Balloon Woods flats were a disaster, they were designed by some morons to be the national way to go, I believe that identical developments were carried out in Sheffield and Glasgow, possibly other cities, including Newcastle, too.

The existing local residents hated them from the start, which was understandable, chucking up such concrete monstrosities on what we would now call brown field sites, yet in such a prominent position on the edge of the green belt was unforgiveable.

Unfortunately, this local hatred of 'Legoland' as it was referred to, was passed on to the poor sods who had to live in these leaky, badly built pieces of rubbish, everyone was tarred with the same brush, they were all considered thieves and scroungers by the great and good of Firbeck Estate and Trowell Road, sad, but thats the way it was, rightly or wrongly.

I recall walking round them just prior to demolition, it was sad to see the remains of peoples lives scattered and vandalised, doors kicked in, windows smashed, whatever idiots of architects designed these buildings no doubt made a lot of money out of it, the planners who approved them were obviously taken in by this piece of triumphant social housing, they should have all been sacked, I presume that the poor sods installed in there, hoping for a better life, were just unceremoniously chucked out.

Having blighted the area, remember the attempts to shove the M42 motorway along Trowell Road, my God, what a disaster that would have been.

I recall it being announced and walking up to Firbeck School to view the plans, triumphantly revealed by some grinning little pillock from the Motorways Agency.

We had no warning as to the consequences of all this, I remember noting our family house being one of the unlucky one's and being stuck on the edge of a giant concrete cutting. Everything was to be wiped off the face of the earth as far as Middleton Boulevard.

At the time I was part time at Trent Poly and working as an assistant architect for a sensible firm in the city, I was no novice as being conned by plans and was able to question all sorts of technical aspects that Mr Grinning Pillock had no answer to.

The great and good on Trowell Road succombed to the offers of monetary reward and sold their houses to the council, who could blame them, problem families were subsequently chucked in there, well it wasn't very long before the bulldozers were due to move in, so who cared.

I eventually teamed up with a bloke who lived on the corner of Birchwood Road and Trowell Road, he wasn't about to cave in, we went for the jugular of these scumbags.

I recall a highly charged meeting at Wollaton Village Hall, we were well prepared, Structural Engineers reports, the lot, the powers that be sat there with their filthy mouths wide open.

I used to spend all my evenings canvasing for funds, I recall a local family on Hillbeck Crescent, I knew them well and that they were very poor, the father, very ill and incapacitated came down stairs from his sickbed and emptied the contents of his old coffee jar savings into my hands, I refused to take it, but, he was adamant, he said he would be insulted if I didn't, what do you say to heroes like that, helping the lives of everyone, but having nothing themselves, I still get tearful thinking about it today.

Only one person refused to co-operate, he was a rep who worked from Birmingham and the motorway would have made his job easier, nothing wrong with that, I agreed with his situation.

In the end, the influential people came from the Erewash Valley Golf Course, having had it savaged by the construction of the M1, their heavy metal members, concerned at the prospects of having a motorway interchange built on what was left of their course, went into overdrive and totally took the scheme apart, had it been left to us working class types, no way, you have to swallow your pride and get help from whatever cause.

I recall that at the time, the local Labour councilor was a complete tosser, he was trying to use the situation as a stepping stone to his own political ambitions, we weren't fooled by that, he was a truly obnoxious git, wherever you are , sir, thanks for manipulating the situation to suit your own career, I hope it went nowhere, and you are in a situation where you have to rely on appalling people such as yourself to survive.

Thats my bit, any comments?

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it was not that bad really living in the flats but then i was only 7-9. yes you are right about the same sort of flats in sheffield and they were pulled down in 1986 they were built by shepard construction in the late 60s early 70s. it was a shame as the flats inside were massive much bigger than you would get nowadys. when it boils down to it they were social housing. i have got happy memories of the area and i still like nottingham now even though i am born and bred in sheffield

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There's nothing wrong with social housing, just the useless idiots who plan these places, consider who is going to live in them, and the lack of interest in running them afterwards.

I used to live in an attractive but expensive village in Essex called Finchingfield. When I got divorced, we had to sell the family house and the place was too expensive to buy an affordable property in afterwards, I was forced to rent a scummy, rip off farm cottage outside the village.

Eventually the great and good local authority saw the light and constructed some very attractive, joint ownership and council properties, allegedly for members of the local community, hmmmm, really?

I applied for a joint ownership property and was turned down.

Fortunately for me, the list of people offered properties by the housing association had to be approved by the parish council, they looked at the list and asked why not a single name on there was known to them. They demanded to see the list of applicants and saw my name on it.

'Oh, so despite the fact that Pete has lived in the village for 10 years, has a son at the village school, is deputy chairman of the PTA, is school cricket, football and swimming coach, school trip organiser, play director, member of the fete commitee, member of the village cricket team, village scout leader, he doesn't deserve a house here then, yet these outsiders do'.

I was invited to select the house of my choice the next day by the chairman of the housing association, with full apologies.

When I eventually moved in, I couldn't believe it, all the other occupants had no connections with the village, there was even a homeless family from Brazil put in there, nice people, but it wasn't the point was it.

I dare say that these stupid decisions continue to be made, even when I tried to move on from the property, you can't believe how difficult it was and what a rip off the housing association made of the whole thing. Good luck to anyone attempting to go along that path, try and avoid it at all costs, I'd sooner live in the gutter than be manipulated by these people.

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I had a similar problem with a housing association when I tried to sell our last house. SWMBO had bought it a couple of years earlier when she got her divorce. The thing is, if you have been a good tenant , (always paying up on time,) they don't want to loose your money!!

It took over a year to sell , even though we found the perfect tenants twice (Retired couple downsizing, and a young couple starting out ) But Harbour Housing kept delaying their approval ,so much so that both couples pulled out.

Because of these delays we nearly lost this house (Had to get a bridging loan to pay two mortgages etc and the in laws helped tremendously )

Eventually a single woman (Just divorced the same situation as SWMBO had been in) was approved not long after we moved out (But even she nearly gave up on them)

One of my main reasons for getting out?? after 20 years I would only own half a house that I would have paid squillions of pounds for, and the endowment mortgage wasn't guaranteed to pay off what we owed . I eventually worked out that I could buy a house twice the size and it would still cost me about the same monthly!!

At the end of the day I felt they just wanted Single White Females because they were more likely to pay!

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