Things you don't see anymore


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Some folks only request information, which is fair enough by me. Maybe they don't want discussion, chat, banter etc. Different people want different things from a forum, and that's fine.  If

Things you don’t see anymore (times 2) A 1945 photo of my aunt, wearing a turban and scrubbing her front door step on Queens Grove, Meadows. She dug her heels in and refused to move when the

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Bus conducter/esses.

Used to rule the bus leaving the driver to concentrate on the driving.

Would get children to stand up for grown-ups when it got full.

I remember one fierce conductress on our bus home from school. When my friend and I got on she`d say,

'Not upstairs, you two! Get downstairs where I can keep an eye on you.' Oh swizz!

Then if it got full she`d say, 'All right, then. Upstairs and let these people sit down. But behave yourselves, right?'

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7 0'clock razor blades in green paper packets, only dad was allowed to touch em.

Big bottles of pop with large black screw caps the size of spinning tops, they were like a bakelite material with a big fat red rubber band for the seal, and those with a type of porcelain stopper with a tension spring to seal it up.

Men who looked like they wore mascara but theyd just done a shift down pit.

Spud guns when every kid nicked mams tatoes, cap guns, I once put six in at once and it split the gun! or just hit the caps with an hammer, plastic rockets that also held caps that you threw in the air or against the wall to set the cap off.

Those slabs of Palm toffee, banana, chocolate and I think caramel flavours, Victory V's, Spanish root (a twig you chewed)

John Bull printing sets.

Camp coffee in a bottle.

Pavements daubed in white chalk for hopscotch, girls skipping, spinning tops being whipped with amazing accuracy.

Party sevens, 7 pints of beer in a giant can that you opened with a flat tin opener with a pointed end that left a triangular shaped hole.

Dynamo hubs that powered you cycle lights, a small wheel that sat against the side wall of the tyre to create the energy, trouble is when you stopped at traffic lights the bike lights went out...ouch.

Men hanging paraffin lamps on their cars at night to warn others of a parked vehicle, signs on the back of new cars 'RUNNING IN, PLEASE PASS'. A free squirt of redex at the petrol station.

When I left school I worked close to the palais and every Friday mam would give me the dreaded list, I had to go and buy from central market across the road in my dinner hour, things included were, conger eel, pigs feet, haslet, braun or brawn, tongue, oxtails, cow heel, tripe, chitterlings and a thing called hodge I think? I got told off once cos I had bought hock instead of hodge.

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Was going to say Trolley Bus Posts (the ones that supported the wires) but noticed 2 recently, theres one at bottom of Sherwood Rise near the Polish Club and another near The New Bull Pub going into Eastwood, the latter must? have been from Nottingham to Ripley route which I understand was at least at some time operated by The Midland General, the other one also on same route so who knows

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...have been from Nottingham to Ripley route which I understand was at least at some time operated by The Midland General..

Run by Notts & Derby Traction in tram ("Ripley Rattler") days, then by MGO until closure in 1953(?)...

Cheers

Robt P.

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Thanks rob, do you know when the actual trams stopped running? I can remember a new bus stop being installed outside our house on Nottingham Rd New Basford 1950's and these funny numbered (F4 B2 ??? etc) blue and cream buses stopping at it but funnily enough unaware of them before that? was it a new venture or change of route?

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Thanks rob, do you know when the actual trams stopped running?..

1932, i think...as inferred in this extract from a Ripley tourist (another oxymoron!) site:

"Between 1913 and 1932, anyone standing in Ripley Market Place would be able to hop on board the ‘Ripley Rattler’ for a ride on what was considered the most dangerous tramway in Britain. It ran for 11 miles, from Upper Parliament Street in Nottingham to Ripley, with several stopping points on the way and was the longest tramway in the world.

The tramway was so notorious that D H Lawrence, who lived only a few yards from the line, was moved to write an amusing short story ‘Tickets Please’. The single track had 316 passing places, all on the left hand side of the main track, so that when riding from Nottingham passengers had to endure a succession of swinging movements, the more violent the faster the tramcar travelled.

Accidents happened regularly; trams reportedly got jammed under bridges, came off the track and on one occasion, a double-decker tram crashed into the church wall [Alpine Street,outside the White Swan, 1917?] and threw the passengers travelling on the top into the graveyard. A woman was killed saving a child from being run over and a man named Harry Parkin was honoured for bringing a runaway tram to a halt..."

IIRC, the F4 bus took over the route when the blue A1 trolleybus ceased in 1953.

There used to be an excellent "Ripley Rattlers" website which I can no longer locate...a mine of information.

Reckon I posted the link many moons ago in the forum...I'll have a dig.

Cheers

Robt P.

Edit:

http://nottstalgia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98&st=0&p=8148&hl=ripley%20rattlers&fromsearch=1entry8148

Found the link, Post 7.

Although the site doesn't seem to exist any more...

Interesting 2004/2007 thread though...

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I can remember a new bus stop being installed outside our house on Nottingham Rd New Basford 1950's and these funny numbered (F4 B2 ??? etc)...

The impressionable Bells Lane Estate urchins found the blue Midland General traffic which went along Nuthall Road rather strange, and somewhat intimidating - expect that Kath will agree. Perhaps partly due to the fact that we were never able to use them, due to the Colliers Arm 'protection point' barring inward use from that stop.

Also rather intrigued by such seemingly 'exotic' destination blinds as Aldecar, Codnor and Waingroves...which may as well have been located in another solar system!

Cheers

Robt P.

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"Between 1913 and 1932, anyone standing in Ripley Market Place would be able to hop on board the ‘Ripley Rattler’ for a ride on what was considered the most dangerous tramway in Britain. It ran for 11 miles, from Upper Parliament Street in Nottingham to Ripley, with several stopping points on the way and was the longest tramway in the world.

Not the longest tramway in the world. The Notts/Derbys tramway system was 'planned' to be the longest but never achieved it. There is a tram in Belgium - (Coast tram) started 1885 that is 42 miles (68km) long and is still running!.

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Rob, I did once ride a blue bus, a neighbour friend of mine had relatives somewhere in Derbyshire, maybe Alfreton way, so we went to visit them one day. I remember walking up towards the Colliers Arms to get the bus, I never thought about you not being allowed to get on before that. I don't remember much about the ride at all, but do remember a lot of countryside, which made a big change from riding the #22 into town, and not having any breaks in the housing/shops from terminus to terminus.

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I think the "corpo bus protection scheme" only applied to picking up inwards and alighting (that word fascinated me as a kid) within the limits outbound? otherwise no point in bus stops outward bound within the limits? In fact I know in 1950's it was thus as no end of young women who worked at likes of bairns wear, walker read, and mayfair factories caught buses homeward in New Basford.

Another thing that fascinated me when very young was the British School Of Motoring advert that seemed to be in every trolley bus on the division between passengers and drivers cab, a doctored illustration of mainland Britain as a smiling person driving a car, remember that?

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I think the "corpo bus protection scheme" only applied to picking up inwards and alighting (that word fascinated me as a kid) within the limits outbound? otherwise no point in bus stops outward bound within the limits?...

Yes indeed...

Outward passengers, picked up en route, could not alight before the Colliers Arms.

Inward passengers could not board after the Colliers Arms, but alight anywhere beyond.

Cheers

Robt P.

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Never saw "the sign" at/near colliers but remember the one just past the 44 terminus at Bulwell Hall, Talking of that area am still trying to find the route of the coal line that crossed the road to Hucknall somewhere there on it's way to Hucknall no.1 pit, I know virtually opposite the bus turnaround theres a lane leading up to back of bulwell hall woods around hucknall aerodrome and eventually joining farley's lane/shortwood ave, was that part of route? have found old railway lines at latter location

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Also recall the BSM adverts...with a smiling suited instructor greeting an elegant Tory woman pupil.

Not really meant to recruit the riff-raff as would be drivers!

A group of various national companies seemed to dominate the various options of bus advertising...with the outside strip between decks being popular, for wider observation.

Some that spring to mind would be: Brylcreem, Hovis, Pearl Assurance, Wimsol et al...

Cheers

Robt P.

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Talking of that area am still trying to find the route of the coal line that crossed the road to Hucknall...

Sure that we have discussed this, at some length, before...

Did I not convey the route from my 1927 OS map?

We also threatened to inspect the area, but never did!

Perhaps combine it with a group meet-up...attracting 2 attendees! pieinface

Cheers

Robt P.

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I remember the BSM adverts inside the trolleybus, the map of Britain had Scotland as a smiling face, that may have been why I ended up here!

I have wondered whatever happened to Mutton? Everything these days is sold as Lamb? What happens to the Adult sheep these days, do they all end up as dog food?

Owdtite. !hungr!

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My uncle was a driver trainer at Midland General! He worked all his life at the garage at Langley Mill - and lived about 1/4 mile away on Mansfield Road. They never owned a car because they always had free bus passes. They traveled Europe on the bus!

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@ a check up yesterday the dentist said my lad was the 1st kid under 16 he had seen without a filling or extraction this year !

I'm blaming Calpol & Coca-Cola & Walkers crisps & Maccy Ds & the popular Bulwell dummy from Greggs.

Quite sad really

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