St Anns in the 60s


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I left St. Anns in 1951 when we moved to the`sticks' (Bilborough).(which in those days was really a good place to live.) I started at Blue Bell Hill School with 2 friends (Johnny Hardy and Pete Coffey

Just like to add a few more comments about St Ann's. The council said that the house's were slum's and was unfit for humans but what is a slum when St Ann's was a people's community. Children we

When you think how many of us spent time dancing at the Locarno in the early 60's, we must have seen each other many times and not known we'd be chatting away to each other on a computer, in our homes

I had a couple of mates who lived on the same road as you I believe, however, a year or so earlier, it was considered a dangerous place to venture up.....

Nah, we never locked the front door (no key) always parked my motorbike at the front of the house, never had a problem, ever.

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Well I was only young, and went on what my older mates told me, it was a bit along the lines of why some people don't venture up there after dark now.......

But let's face it, back then lots of people didn't lock doors or cars even, in many areas.

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Re locking doors etc, I think a bit of a fallacy? at least at night? I do recall doors being unlocked all day but at night there were "honest" burglars about in those days ( would rob your house but didn't vandalise it or murder you cause you "dissed" them) and police would, at least with commercial premises? check doors etc in their night time uniforms with black buttons and helmet badge. Burglary (at night) also carried a heavier sentence than daytime housebreaking but in both cases first offenders usually "went away"

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Re locking doors etc, I think a bit of a fallacy? at least at night? I do recall doors being unlocked all day but at night there were "honest" burglars about in those days ( would rob your house but didn't vandalise it or murder you cause you "dissed" them) and police would, at least with commercial premises? check doors etc in their night time uniforms with black buttons and helmet badge. Burglary (at night) also carried a heavier sentence than daytime housebreaking but in both cases first offenders usually "went away"

Never ever remember a single burglary.

Seriously, we never had a front door key.

Having said that we had nothing t steal anyway !

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We 'ad nowt worth burglarizing... !rotfl!

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We lived in St Anns for 5 years, 1967-72, and I can't remember any burglaries either.

They were much more relaxed times,for example many people used their elecricity meter as a money box.

If you got an old piano key and filed it correctly it would fit the meter. the meter reader wouldn't blink an eye when he found the odd ten bob or pound note in there.

We had one neighbour who had lived in the same house on Norfolk Terrace all her life, she told us about the celebrations on hearing of the relief of Mafeking. She and her friends tried to make their way to the Market Square, but the crowds were so big they could get no nearer than Hockley.

Like many of the old folk there, she did not want to leave.

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re the money box, I assume you rewound the dials also? as regards it being a dangerous area an ex gf's sister lived on Gordon Road and ex told me similar before we visited for 1st time in 1964, about only dangerous time I knew in old St Ann's though was when Cranson gave me and Issy a lift home from your house! worked on the new estate for over 20 years later and twice saw guns there, once a loaded sawn off shotgun on kitchen table "in case of visitors" and once a handgun hidden in airing cupboard, (mate also found over a grand hidden in top of hot water cylinder) Like your old lady oldace I knew one there who recalled victoria station being built, said as a girl she used to visit often to see the big hole being dug out and another who lived in a cavehouse near "The Gate Hangs Well" pub

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I didn't reset the dials, the meter reader knew what was happening. There was a rebate each time, sometimes he gave us some money, other times he told us how much we owed and we gave it him. As long as the money was forthcoming he was happy.

He probably preferred the notes to all the shilling coins he had to carry.

He would be able to explain the notes, as many people would ask for change when he called.

I can't remember ever him being robbed, nor the tallyman come to that.

The reputation old St Anns had for aquisitive crime was exagerated.

Regarding Cranson, Once when I was pillion on his Black Shadow, he opened it up leaving a traffic island. I went backwards and just managed to grab the rear mudguard stays. My head was inches from the tarmac, and I could see the look of horror on the face of the car driver following. When Cranson saw my boots going by his head he braked hard, and I shot back up. I turned to the car driver and gave him a smile and a wave, he was still open mouthed. This all happened in a couple of seconds, but you know how time slows when the adrenalin hits. BTW this was before helmets were compulsory.

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  • 7 months later...

My parents, Grandparents and various family members all lived in St Anns in the 60's. We were moved from Northumberland Ave in the slum clearances in the late 60's. I don't really remember much but my Gran always swore you never had to lock your front door in those days. I recently watched the Stephen Frears documentary filmed in 1969 and can't believe how we used to live.

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I was brought up in St Anns from when I was too young to remember about 1960 when we moved to the Meadows.

Lived at Kings Lynn Terrace off of Turner Street, and then Alfred Street South, where Mum was the Manager of the Lady Bay Cleaners Shop.

We lived opposite Agar's fruit and veggie shop near the corner of Blue Bell Hill Road and Robin Hood St.

My Aunt lived off Union Road for years before moving to Clifton in the mid 50's. Both my Grans lived in St Anns.

The only violence I ever remember were the race riots on St Anns Well Road in the 50's, Riots??? More like a slaughter, the Teddy boys beat the living daylights out of West Indians....

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Hello catfan, Me, and brother used to push a Barrow up Union Road to a coal yard on the right hand side near the top of Union Road. We used to load the barrow up with coal,and push it in a foot of snow all the way to Edwin Street. It was hard going i'll tell you

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my grand mother lived on westminster terrace off westminster st and my aunt mable and her family lived round the corner on hungerhill rd next to the bear off opposit hungerhill gardens

my aunt and uncle lived on broard oak st wich was just round the corner as you go up the hill towards woodbourough rd, just opposit the gates to the gardensand in the school holidays i would often stay up in st anns.

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Hi Dave and Babs (plus anyone else) Didn't really know the old St Ann's at all, in fact first time i ever went near it was when I got lost aged about 14 out on a push bike ride! finished up on Carton Hill which dropping down from Lowater St towards Porchester Rd in the dark looked to me remarkably like Sherwood Rise, I honestly thought I was on the latter! Can't recall which way I finally got home! In later years got to know it better via trips to Dennis Rogers on Lowater St, another bike scrapyard somewhere at end of Alfred St (did such morph into TMS?), Olivers bike shop, and a one man band chrome platers on Robin Hood St who was cheap! there was also a cycle shop somewhere who stove enamelled motorbike frames for £5 (note the recurring pattern,lol) also during one of my signing on periods got a few weeks work cash emptying then dismantling (sledge hammer job) a large nissen type hut of type mentioned in recent picture the past posting in a yard on Dakeyne St, firm was called Mingori Pipe Benders? we used to go in local cafe at dinner (till it got shut down by health dept!)

Later still got to know the new St Ann's estate probably better than most via working on the district heating there for over 20 years ( got a new firms van + FOC petrol for own use!) no end of the old street names live again (usually with a close, gardens or walk replacing the street or road name though)

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  • 1 month later...

Me and my first wife got married at St Peters ,Radford in 1959, we then moved into rooms on Alfred st Central,

we were there for five years,untill getting a council house in Bestwood Park, our place faced Dane st, i parked

my car just across the road in Dane st, never had one bit of bother all the time we were there,

People then were down to earth working folk.

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Ayupmeducks,

Yes i remember the race riots on St Anns Well rd , it was a bloodbath for the west Indians, the Police

could not contain the riots, so they had to bring in the Army to assist them, this did not fizzle out over night, it went

on for almost a week, we lived very near, but we were told to stay away, happy days!! !jumping!

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  • 2 months later...

We lived in St Anns, went to the Board School and then to Morley and Sycamore, my sisters were among the first to attend Elliot Durham when it opened in 1966. We lived on Duncombe Street and the front bedroom overlooked the playground of St Anns Board School and one day when my mum was cleaning the windows (I think she did them every day)! she saw that I was being bullied by a lad that towered over the rest of the school and she came running across the street to sort him out!!. We were moved out in 1970 when they demolished the rest of the street.

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  • 8 months later...

My Dad's family lived on Beacon Street, just off the Wells Road. My Grandad sold the house, as the area was being re-developed and then they moved to Warton Ave.

In regards to the St Anns documentry, when it was repeated on TV back in 1994 - I remember friends of our family being outraged at it's showing, as many of them had been brought up in the St Anns area, and felt that the documentry painted the whole suburb with the same brush. I think looking at images on Picture the Past, certainly prove that the area wasn't as "Dickinsarian" (I think I've made that word up,Lol) as the documentry showed. After all my Dad's family had a bathroom in their house on Beacon Street,Lol

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We lived in St Anns, went to the Board School and then to Morley and Sycamore, my sisters were among the first to attend Elliot Durham when it opened in 1966. We lived on Duncombe Street and the front bedroom overlooked the playground of St Anns Board School and one day when my mum was cleaning the windows (I think she did them every day)! she saw that I was being bullied by a lad that towered over the rest of the school and she came running across the street to sort him out!!. We were moved out in 1970 when they demolished the rest of the street.

My mate Johnie Lancaster lived on Duncombe Street.

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Hello catfan, Me, and brother used to push a Barrow up Union Road to a coal yard on the right hand side near the top of Union Road. We used to load the barrow up with coal,and push it in a foot of snow all the way to Edwin Street. It was hard going i'll tell you

Remember that yard well !

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Beachbum, as you lived in the butchery world you may know the answer to this....

Was there a butcher's shop somewhere on St Ann's Well Road in the early 60s where the owner/boss/manager was a woman?

I had an uncle who worked in such a place.

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Beachbum, as you lived in the butchery world you may know the answer to this....

Was there a butcher's shop somewhere on St Ann's Well Road in the early 60s where the owner/boss/manager was a woman?

I had an uncle who worked in such a place.

Sorry does'nt ring any bells, I do remember a little butchers outfit not far from Commercial Sq, up a little alleyway to some small premises. You may know them now as Pork Farms.

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My grandma lived on Corporation street just up from Robinhood chase, I used to catch a 31 bus from Mapperley to top of Hungerhill or Manning street and walk down to her house every Saturday morning.

We then used to walk down to St Ann's wells road and go first to the pork butcher for 1/2Ib of pork dripping ! then to the bakery for a crusty loaf then back to her house and murder it all !

All my mums family grew up in that area and earlier on SunHill which was behind the Sheppards Race service station and the police station at the corner of Ransom Road and St ann's well road.

I had another great aunt up in Thorneywood, which was up St Bartholomews road.

I also remember walking through the allotments on Hungerhill road.

I have traced most of my mums family for my family tree most lived around that area..

Brian

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