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I must say, I have bitter-sweet memories of living at BALLOOON WOOD FLATS (as this is what this particular topic is about, not so much politics!) - but my memories are to do with the friendships that developed (or otherwise, hence the bitter bit!) and the social scene of living there. I lived there up until 1979. I remember long hot summers, and the winter of discontent, when we had power cuts, but as kids we didn't mind as it was exciting and spooky to have to light up candles. I always remember the tv detector vans in the roads below the flats, and most ppl would switch off their televisions very quickly! They called at our flat, and we had to be very quiet and hide in the bedrooms (which, incidentally, were downstairs). I remember peeking around a wall and seeing the dark shape of a big man through the frosted and wired glass of our front door. It was very frightening, and, afterwards, our mum made sure we never went through that again, by making sure she always bought a licence! I remember watching the bin men down below, and being fascinated by them. I also my mum trying to clean the windows, and sitting on the ledge, holding on and cleaning the outside. I hadted that, I always thought she might fall

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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 agree with your words caz it is a forum for memories and not politics.. i hope you found the pictures brought back some memories are they the same ones as you found? or do you have some different ones. do you remeber when they were building the youth/comminty on the road that led into the flats.. i imprinted my hand prints there and last time i went round the flats on a visit to nottingham in 1983 they were still there. i used to love going into the woods climbing the trees, once i got stuck up one and could not get down trying to remeber who got me down lol. do you remeber opposite the school there was a family i think a big one that used to breed rabbits? cant remeber the name of them. but i do remeber that i wagged school one day was sat on the bank with another lad as we were scared to go into lessons as we had to use pens and not pencils so if we got anything wrong we could not rub it out.

i remember at that time only really one bus company went up to the flats Red Buses Trent i think and they had conductors on them and got to know all of them. had to catch the bus in a bus station in nottingham which is now a casino. did your mum ever drag you to the launderette which i think was next to the post office

i remember the 1973 power cuts and candles we had to get from the portacabin shop and how spooky it was on the landings.. ahh good times sometimes wish i could go back in time lol

mark

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smile2 Omg! Yeah, I remember the launderette well! haha we used to spend what seemed like HOURS there! I think it's now a hairdressers or something. Yeah, the buses were all Trent if I remember correctly, and sometimes you got the ones similar to the London buses, where you got on at the back and could sit looking through the big window behind the driver. As kids we used to pretend we were driving the bus, as we could see the road in front! haha And I remember going to the bus station which is now a casino! I used to look at the Playhouse sign from there whilst we were waiting for the bus to come to take us home, and thinking that the Playhouse must be some giant fun place for kids to play, and I wished I could go there! I also got stuck up a tree, in the play area directly in front of Moorstead block, next to the railway line. A gardener eventually got me down. My bruv & sister teased me, making out that if I didn't climb down I would have to stay there all night, and they would have to fetch pillows and blankets for me! I also remember having to write with real ink pens, and being really worried about it! Do you remember a Mr Lomas who was the headteacher at Firbeck? He was an awful old man, all wrinkled like an old toad! Then we had a better one, and I cant remember his last name but I think his first name was Gerry. He was lovely. Mr Walker was in the top class, then the next one down was Mrs Dickinson. I also remember Mrs Clarke when I was in the infants. Also, we had a lovely teacher called Mrs DellaGana, who took me & my friend Tereasa to Southampton to visit her mother! haha I know that sounds a bit bizzare!
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I do apologize, I got a bit carried away agreeing with firbeck.

But a little banter added never hurt anybody

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I do apologize, I got a bit carried away agreeing with firbeck.

But a little banter added never hurt anybody

Sorry, but as I understand it, politics are tied up with everything, memories or otherwise, the very existance of Balloon Wood Flats was down to misguided politics, I shall leave it at that.

Caz, I was intrigued to see that you had Mr Lomas as headmaster at Firbeck, when did he leave then.

I take your point about him, he was a bit of a funny old wrinkly, I was there when he started which must have been about 1960. The problem with him was that his attitude was inconsistant, he could be very pleasant one minute then a nasty piece of work the next, he never seemed to let his guard down, I never thought that the teachers felt very comfortable with him. I recall being humiliated by him in front of the school and having my legs smacked, all for sorting out one of the school bullies, I should have got a medal for that. On the other hand he introduced some good ideas, we had guest teachers from the USA and even the Soviet Union, and he liked to bring in kids from inner city schools that we took on nature walks, I recall some kids from Radford who had never seen a cow!

You would not have liked a previous head, everyone thought that the sun shone out of it's backside. I won't give a name, nor go into details, but due to certain incidents, I look back now and am convinced it had a problem, it makes me shudder to think of it. The problem is, that when you were a kid in those days, teachers could do no wrong in parents eyes, so you never had a chance of making a complaint, not that you would, the consequences would be terrifying, so you kept it to yourself.

I remember once, the steam hauled Waverley Express set fire to the embankment near the train bridge, it was a bit of a climb there and they were always chucking sparks out of the chimney.

My mate and I managed to isolate the fire and stop it spreading to Jackos Hollow and the Back Field by beating it out with branches. We were quite experienced in this and felt we weren't in any danger, well, all you had to do is run if things got out of control.

The next day we went into school to find that someone had told the teachers what we had done, instead of being congratulated for our bravery, we were once again humiliated and smacked in front of the school.

The next time the bank caught fire, we went to a friends house and called the fire brigade, what happened, the fire brigade and police turned up and threatened to arrest us for causing it, you couldn't win. Fortunately my mates mother was with us and gave the services a complete b#####'ng. The result, whenever it happened again, we ignored it and watched everything burn down, it wasn't worth getting into trouble over.

That wasn't too political was it?

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:blush: no, that wasn't too political! haha sorry.... I seem to think Mr Lomas was there a couple of years or so after I started. It was him, I think, that gave me my fear of water. We used to go swimming at Beechdale, and if I am small now (4ft 11!) I certainly was then. He made us go into the big pool but at the shallow end, all lined up along the shorter side, and ordered us to put our feet on the bottom. Of course, that meant we had to duck our heads under, which terrified me, but he was so horrible I was scared to disobey him. I hated it! He obviously thought that the teachers and swimming instructors weren't doing a good enough job, so thought he would tell us, and have no nonsense. But his no nonsense has given me a fear. I can swim, but I can't jump in, and don't like going under water. I don't have much confidence in water at all. I can't go on those water slide things either. I have been brave & tried them but I hate them. And I feel such a coward because of it, but I think it all goes back to Mr Lomas. Yeah, I know what you mean about teacher not being able to do wrong. I was bullied mercilessly by a bitch called karen (I SO hope she's reading this!). She had dark brown curly hair, big brown eyes and the longest black lashes. She lived in a nice house just down the road from school, and she sucked up to the teachers something rotten. But I saw the other side of her. She and her cronies would 'get' me in the cloakroom. They would tell my mates to clear off so that I was on my own. I would have my head slammed into the metal coat pegs. They used to say awful things to me, and scare me to death. I tried to tell the teachers, but no-one would listen to me, they all thought the sun shone out of her a**e! This went on a while, until Karen's sister started school. The only thing I could think was that if I made her sister feel as miserable as Karen was making me feel. she would go back & tell her parents, then I would get told off, and I would explain why I was being horrible to Karen's sister. Surprise surprise! haha It worked! I was horrid to the younger girl, but not half as horrid as Karen had been to me, but it was noticed. By that time, Gerry was the headmaster, and he took me into the foyer and sat down and talked with me about it. I cried my heart out, as I was so ashamed of myself, but it came out about Karen and then it stopped, finally. But no-one would listen to me, because she charmed them, she came from a 'nice' family, had a nice home, a dad with a good job, etc. But I came from a one-parent family with no money. We didn't have a car or a nice home, and we never went on holidays. I wasn't the prettiest of girls and didn't wear the best clothes, so no-one took any notice of me. I like to think, now, that Karen will be married to a monster, have six kids hanging off her elongated ugly boobs, and be stressed, with a dead end job and a fag hanging out of her mouth! Haha But the truth is, she's probably really glamourous, slim and earning a lot of money and living in a nice house somewhere nice.
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and i bet you are a lot happier than she will be.. i got bullied as well and talking to my mother she said she went to the headteacher and he did nothing saying that it does not go on in this school. in think he hated having to have kids from the flats, i remember one kid who was in school and had his jaw wired up must have been in as fight or accident cant remember what but that always sticks out in my mind as the contraption he had on him looked so big.

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Caz can you please stop quoting the previous post as it is doubling our data base and there is no need for it , Ta

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Caz can you please stop quoting the previous post as it is doubling our data base and there is no need for it , Ta

okay, errr, I don't know how to NOT do it! haha do I just delete the quote bit from the top?

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caz, do you remeber in the bus station while waiting for the trent buses there was a single decker bus there that was a cafe type where you had drinks of tea etc i think it was what most of the drivers used but i knwo we used to go into it.

the launderette next to the post office it seemed to me back then that the washing always took hours to do and i always used to take comics in to read while the washing was going. did ypu ever used to go down to wollaton park and the adventure palyground they had there with the zip wire thing. i remeber that i used to walk down there with my sister in tow somtimes and then other times with my mum for picnics. dont think anyone wuld let kids of the age we were then do the things we did back then nowadays but good times they were

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I cant remember the bus that was used as a cafe, but I do remember the adventure playground, I was always there!

Yeah they had the zipwire thing, and also a net strung up so you could bounce on it. I remember, also, that we dug tunnels underground. They were good!

I remember once I went in the short one (tunnel) with two lads (no, before you think anything, it wasn't like that! but let me explain!). We just sat talking, then Paul decided to climb out of the hole in the end, which was a bit tight, and he got stuck! His legs were below ground and his top half above. Lee, who I was in the tunnel with, said, " what shall we do with him? I know, take his trousers down!" haha but I thought "I'd much rather you kiss me! " ha ha, as I fancied him, but it didn't happen.. :-)

My mum was the secretary of the committee, which ran things like the Adventure Playground, the community centre, and also a Saturday morning picture show which they put on. They sold sweets & things to munch through as you watched. It was dead good. They also organised jumble sales at the centre, and we also went on camping trips run from the playground. I will have to look at your post again, cos I cant remember what else you put, millsands! haha

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Wasn't the single decker cafe bus run by Midland General/Notts and Derby Traction.

When you say it was at the bus station, do you mean Mount Street in town.

I've been wracking my brains trying to think of the number of the Midland General or Blue Bus that terminated in Birchwood Road, was it the D9, can't remember, sad isn't it.

The E1 went up Strelley Lane, B2 and C6 to Ripley or Heanor, there was also a fast one called the F9 that went virtually non stop to Langley Mill. To go to Wollaton Vale entailed catching the F5 or later the E8.

Remember the brilliant driver called Rocky, everyone but the establishment loved him, in appearance he looked like Douglas Bader and was just as bolshie. He was great, he knew everyone by name and took liberties to get everyone home on time, if Derby Road had a traffic jam, he went another way, up past the Playhouse. If he felt that the bus was uncomfortably full, he wouldn't stop to pick anyone else up.

If he saw you walking to the bus stop, he would screech to a halt and pick you up on the spot. When you caught the bus and it was Rocky driving, you looked at each other grinned and held on for dear life, well worth it though, what a bloke, I wonder what happened to him, I always reckoned he had been a fighter pilot in his early life, he had attitude man!!!!

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hi again kaz, just got back from my mums along with an old school report from july 1974 lol it seems i was in a G Dickinsons class she gave me a good report lol but Mr Lomas was not quite as positive seems about right for him. It is so strange to look at school reports now and see what you were doing then and how in a way they were right in this life .. but i dont think i would have changed anything. yep i remeber the beechdale baths and going there i think i only went a couple of times as we moved to sheffield early 1975.

mark

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I forgot about my school reports, I dont know where they are! MMMM I wonder if my sis might have em. It would be interesting to look!

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I forgot about my school reports, I dont know where they are! MMMM I wonder if my sis might have em. It would be interesting to look!

i must admit caz it was strange seeing the old report after in previous posts we were discussing the teaches and head at that time .. he said in mine i need to slow down... happy days shame we cant bring them back

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Challenge anyone to beat my first school report issued at High Pavement, which began:

"Why is this boy here at our school?"

Cheers

Robt P.

What should it have said Robt? .......he should be in Borstal........ !rotfl!

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