Were you at Berridge?


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Through this door...and it's the original, although painted black in my day...I walked with my mum one cold morning early in 1962. I was just 4 years old. The door led to Miss Smith's office and my mu

How many Berridge children have secreted themselves inside this niche situated in the playground which fronts the old infant building, hoping to be left behind when the bell rang at playtime's close?

Sitting on this exact spot, facing the stationery cupboard in Mr Parr's classroom, in spring 1969, I sat my 11+ exam.

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Awe Noel james was is my cousin 2yrs older than me would loved to have seen that punch ... my mum gave Mrs Platt a beating cause she made me cry .. looking back this was the best time of my life my best friend was katalina Bradley if any one can remember her she was a Irish lass. did not stay at the school long as th we family went back to Ireland they lived on Gregory boulevard ... I lived on kirkstead terrace ...

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On 3/12/2013 at 11:19 AM, Jill Sparrow said:

Well done, Pidge Pie. All these names bring back warm memories.

I once punched Noel James on the nose (look out, it's confession time) because he was irritating me in the playground. His nose poured with blood which was a slightly different colour from what was usually escaping from his nose! (Do you mind, I've not had my breakfast yet!) He ran off to Mrs Platts who was on duty (and we were all terrified of her) to report what I'd done and she refused to believe him. You see, I had the reputation of being so well behaved that I couldn't possibly punch a little boy on the nose...see what you can get away with when you look angelic?

I am still in touch with Jane Humphries who was my best friend through Berridge. Also spoke to Mr Williams a few years ago when he retired from teaching. I was amazed that he remembered me!

So come on, Pidge Pie, let's have some more memories out of you. What about Miss Smith (top infants), I remember you and she had the odd run in but by no means as regularly (or as painfully) as some.

 

Awe Noel james was my cousin he's a bit older than me would loved to have seen that punch ha ha ha ... my mum had a go at Mrs Platt gave her a hiding for making me cry .... oh but they was the best days back in the day .... I lived on kirkstead terrace .... then moved to Shirley terrace ... park is where my house used to be ... my best friend was kathlina Bradley if any one remembers her she was an Irish lass did not stay long as they went back to Ireland she lived on Gregory boulevard...

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I was there 54 - 57 before passing my 11+ and moving to FFGS.

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Welcome cazann. You're a bit younger than me but I well remember your cousin, Noel. I hope his nose has stopped bleeding!

You may remember John Heawood aka Pidge Pie, who also lived on Kirkstead Street now long gone.

Look forward to sharing your memories of Berridge.

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Noel was, like all little boys back then, a member of the short trousers brigade. He also wore a grey jumper most of the time.

I remember him playing marbles around a metal drain cover in the playground at playtime along with Michael Brennan, John Heawood and others. Scrabbling about on the ground with the marbles resulted in dirty knees and crusty scabs! Noel flew a bit close to the wooden rulers at times but always had a smile on his face, except when I punched him on the nose of course! I often think about those boys who were constantly on the receiving end of the cane or, worse still, Miss Smith and her roller towel and marvel at how cheerful they all were. The explanation has to be that they got regular whackings from their parents at home and no one thought there was anything unusual or wrong in it.

How times have changed, eh? Can you play marbles on an X box?

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Never tried to play marbles on a games console... so true how times have changed .. noels sister Julie was in my year funny when memories come to mind as he lived up to his name as he lived on .Noel street ... I loved playing marbles on the cobble roads bare in mind we was a lot safer in them days ...

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Thinking about parental discipline brought back a vivid memory of a trip to Woolworths on Radford Road when I was around 3 years old. Oh yes, I can hear all the psychologists out there protesting that no one can remember what happened to them prior to the age of four, but I can assure them that my recollections stretch back to sitting in my coach built pram. Just don't ask me what I did last week!

In 1961, mohair coats were all the rage and, not to be outdone in the fashion stakes, my mother had one which she greatly prized. It was fairly generously cut with large fabric covered buttons down the front in a pale cream colour, purchased from Anne Brooks, further up Radford Road.

It should be remembered that Woolworths of this era had bare wooden floorboards from which rose the solid, dark wooden counters, far too high for a small child to see over, with green bevelled edge glass panels around the goods on sale.

My mother was a regular customer and I was familiar with the layout of the store, my main area of interest being the biscuit counter to which I have alluded elsewhere on Nottstalgia. Mmmmm, the lure of those caramel coated shortbreads. No surprise, then, that the first word I ever uttered was not "da da" or "ma ma". Oh no. It was "biccies!"

On this particular day, mum had taken me into Woolworths. Only recently released from the tyranny of reins, pink fleece lined leather with a silver bunny rabbit etched on the front, I must have been suffering from wanderlust. Following the mohair coat along the aisles, I was more interested in the huge mirrored construction suspended from the ceiling which, with hindsight, I suppose enabled the staff to spot the light fingered fraternity.

We had meandered around the entire store when, suddenly, a face peered quizzically down at me from above the mohair coat. A face totally unfamiliar to me. For a second I pondered how and why a strange female came to be wearing my mother's precious coat, before screaming blue murder at the prospect of being lost and abandoned.

Within seconds, mother appeared, wearing her own mohair coat and administered a slap round the back of the legs for wandering off!

Of course, the reins went back on again until I could be more attentive and, worse still, there were no caramel coated shortbread biscuits that day!

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I can remember right back to being about 2 yrs old we had real snow it covered us and as for fog wow didn't we know it was that thick year in year out could not see a thing in front or behind ... winter no matter how bad the snow piled we had to walk to school ... kids have no idea the fun we had out doors oh how I miss those days and feel so disappointed on what the kids of today miss out on

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A stone's throw from Woolworths and on the other side of the road was one of my favourite childhood haunts. Ford's. I absolutely adored that place. Until I was older, I had to be carried up the steps because they were so high my little legs couldn't manage them. Once inside, however, it was a paradise of glass fronted counters and ranks of drawers from floor to ceiling, all containing neatly folded items of underwear or linen. Vests, pants, bras, baby clothes and let's not forget the dreaded liberty bodice which I was forced to wear until I went to grammar school due to my tendency to develop bronchitis every winter. Ford's had drawers full of those! Corsets galore. Cushion covers, striped flannel sheets, pillow cases to match...all squirreled away in glass fronted drawers set in oak framed counters. I can't imagine what it would cost to fit out a shop to those standards in today's chipboard, MDF, plastic-obsessed society.

Then there was the aroma of linen mixed with polish. I can smell it now! Mum would ask for what she wanted, state the size and an assistant would dive into a drawer under the counter or sometimes shin up a ladder on wheels to a drawer near the ceiling. I was all attention, I can tell you! After Woolworths biscuit counter, it was the place I wanted to work when I grew up!

Once retrieved from a drawer, the item would be spread out on the glass topped counter for inspection. Nothing was wrapped in a plastic bag and there were no bar codes. Each garment had a tiny price ticket attached with a pin. I recall that most things cost 2/11d or 1/6d! If mum purchased, the item was wrapped in a brown paper bag. If not, it was folded neatly and returned to its drawer.

Lovely shop. Doubtless the building still stands but, like everything else, the craftsmanship which created those fascinating little drawers will have been ripped out of it!

Ford's was a chain of stores and they were to be found all over Nottingham but I loved the Radford Road version because of the multi coloured tiles beneath the windows and the ornate brass handles on the door. I don't buy liberty bodices any longer but I still miss that shop!

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The Dreaded Liberty Bodice Jill,..........still sends a shiver thru me,..........i had summat similar to you as a baby,..........and was the only Lad at School that wore one,loved PE and all sports at school but changing was a nightmare............but even today don't feel right without wearing a tight 'T' Shirt under my shirts.

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You too, eh? I have to admit, you're the only male I've ever encountered who wore a liberty bodice! Thought they were an all female preserve! I voiced my dissatisfaction loudly every time we emerged from Ford's with new ones but mum would say I should think myself lucky as the one she had worn at my age was stuffed with cotton wool in the winter months...mum had pneumonia as a child and the insulated liberty bodice was my grandmother's response! Apparently, as the spring and summer advanced, the cotton wadding was removed by degrees until just the garment itself was left. So we should consider ourselves fortunate! It's one way of being wrapped in cotton wool!

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Yes Jill,i never met another Male who wore one,so you can imagine the 'Ribbing' i used to get............like to think it was character building,probably why i enjoy lots of Banter............

tell you what Jill if they still made em i'd wear one now on cold Winter mornings............lol.

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A classmate of mine at Berridge, Alison Smith, lived in one of the Victorian houses a few doors up from Merriman's shop on Berridge Road. She was always fashionably turned out and was the object of my envy due to her perfectly straight, chic-bobbed hair. Well, just look at the unruly riot of tresses on my head! Of course I was jealous.

Alison turned up one day in a pair of shiny patent, kitten-heeled shoes with a petersham bow on the front. I was livid, covetous, GREEN with envy! Told my mother all about it at lunchtime and begged for a pair of my own. All I got was an old fashioned look.

Whilst mum bought our clothes, shoes were my father's domain and my sister and I would be marched off to Clay's footwear on Alfreton Road. They had displays of silver lurex dancing shoes in the window! I salivated over those. No chance!

"Very sensible choice, sir," the chap would wink to my father as he wrapped yet another two pairs of black, round toed, clodhoppers in a brown paper bag. To add insult to injury, he'd hammer metal segs into the soles when we got home to make them last longer.

My older sister, a Peveril pupil at the time, complained bitterly about looking and sounding like a carthorse clopping down the road. It fell on deaf ears. The response was always the same:"When you're at work and you can afford to buy your own shoes, you can wear what you like! While I'm paying, you'll have good, sensible shoes!" And thus it was!

Bet Alison Smith has corns!

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Benjamin 1945, they don't make liberty bodices any more. I know this for a fact because to my everlasting shame, I made enquiries with a view to keeping warm in winter! It's all Damart these days! Most people have never heard of the liberty bodice! When I've described one, they think I'm making it up!

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Ah the dreaded liberty bodice. Rubber buttons and all. Vest (shimmy) next to the skin, then liberty bodice, then a full underskirt, all worn till June, no matter how warm Spring was. Cast not a clout till May is out.

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Liberty Bodice.... Contradictory really. Liberty means freedom, but Bodice implies constriction. Strange.

 

I remember being told that I had a Romper Suit made out of an old parachute. Probably why I'm called FLY. LOL

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When you consider what Victorian women and children wore, the liberty bodice was precisely that...freedom from whalebone or metal stays! My grandmother wore a Spirella corset and she was a suffragette in her younger days! Perhaps I got off lightly with a liberty bodice, although my family would tell you I've inherited grandma's feminist leanings. There's no reason why you can't denigrate male chauvinism and be warm at the same time! Is there?

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Last summer, I had a multi fuel stove installed which meant ordering coal for the first time in many years. This started me thinking about the coal fires in my childhood home and the coal man who brought our fuel.

His name was Mr Bill Young and he lived in Thames Street, Bulwell.

Mr Young seemed endlessly tall to me as a child as he dashed between his cream coloured lorry with sacks of coal on his leather waistcoated back which he tipped effortlessly into our cellar through the wooden hatch in the wall.

Once all the coal had been tipped, he would come into the kitchen for a cup of tea and my mother would pay him, retaining the small, square slip of paper which bore the name of his business.

My mother was very fond of Mr Young because he was reliable and my older sister thought he was incredibly dishy.

My Young made a coal delivery to our house on Saturday 30th November 1957 but he wasn't paid by my mother that day because at 5am that morning she had made a delivery of her own. Me!

So, it was my auntie who dragged the poor chap inside to look at the newborn occupant of the Moses basket. Mr Young was a bachelor and gazing at a tiny infant, even one as winsome as myself, was probably the last thing he wanted to do. The truth is possibly that my auntie, who was a stunningly good looking widow with four children, thought she would make a close assessment of our coal man with the toned physique and good looks!

Mr Young delivered our coal until 1974 when we had gas central heating installed. No more blazing fires...until now. I believe Mr Young still lives in Bulwell and is connected with its local history society which, in my book, is a very worthwhile occupation!

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