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Since joining Nottstalgia some weeks ago, it has afforded an insight into life in Nottingham as my parents and rellies knew it. My only surviving rellie is Aunt Jean (nee Reaville), 86 years young, who lives in Sydney. She, my mother, two other sisters and a brother were raised by my Gran single handed after her husband left her early in the piece.

Jean is as sharp as a tack and clearly remembers life at 22 Woolpack Lane, then 7 The Hermitage before the family moved to 8 Holme Road in West Bridgeford.

On the phone last night, we were talking about the war years and she told how she finished school, Queens Walk School, in 39 when they closed the schools due to the war and threats of bombing raids. She was 13 at the time.

She vividly remembers the night that Nottingham was badly bombed and how all the family, including the boarders that Gran had taken in to help ends meet huddled down in the cellar and listened to the bombs exploding and the sound of an anti aircraft battery that was in the fields across the road. She describes it as hell with the sounds of the bomb explosions and those close by shaking everything.

After the all clear was sounded, they left the cellar and she recalls looking out the front room window and describes the sight as if all Nottingham was on fire. She said that she could not describe it any other way but as Nottingham burning and she recounts how frightened she was and that it even gave her shivers talking about it.

8 Holme Road had and still does have clear views straight across the fields towards Nottingham and the Co-op Bakery was directly across the Trent from them. That was burning badly as well and it was soon found out by word of mouth that many had died at the Co-op that night. My Aunt tells me that many died that night across the town and recalls the air raid shelter that took a direct hit and killed all the occupants.

She tells that daylight was just as frightening because of the smoke everywhere and people scared that the bombers would return. She told us of the bombs dropping in the field between her house and the Trent and said she could still feel them going off.

My parents and rellies never spoke much of the war and its effects and Jean is giving some insight as to what it was like.

Her stories of early life in the Lace market and the Hermitage are fascininating; her tales of life when she was older (late teens) and the fact that were pubs on every corner and her comment that she had been in all of them makes the wife and I wonder just what we are going to find out about my family!!

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Good stuff Trevor, don't push her too far too fast , but it would be great if we could get your Aunt Jean onboard the site and find out more from her.

Once again , thanks.

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Good stuff Trevor, don't push her too far too fast , but it would be great if we could get your Aunt Jean onboard the site and find out more from her.

Once again , thanks.

Thanks Beefsteak but she would not have a computer in a fit. As for pushing her, her last words on the phone were 'ask me any thing about the time I was in Nottingham and if I can remember, I will tell you".

I am sending her print outs of her old haunts, Woolpack Lane, The Hermitage, Holme Road, school, etc so that should generate something. I will post anything of interest that I learn.

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my father and mother lived at 37 sneinton hermitage when they first got married with my grandma lizzy clements also dads two sisters mable and eilein befor that they lived at 1 colwick rd just round the corner although my dad george or little wemmie as he was knownwas a bit older than your aunt it would be interesting to know if she knew this family.but great stories from her anyway ,get her to tell you what she can now while she can all interesting information for your family in later years if you want to do family history research.

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For a long time I'd been thinking of taking my video camera to my Mum's and filming us as we spoke of the family and the olden days. I would have gotten so much info from her memories. Unfortunately, I left it too long and she became ill and passed away, I'll always regret not doing it.

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I got a lot of information out of my Mother before she died a while back...but it was hard work...she would say..."We were so poor I don't want to talk about it" She spent her early years just off Colwick road in houses that are long gone now.As a kid she played on the Colwick Park estate and was constantly chased away by keepers.At age 17 she worked a twelve hour day for 19/6 a week...she gave that her Mother and got just sixpence a week back.Even in those days it was a pittance.

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try it with your aunt if she agrees as you say she is now yor eldest relliebe nice just to keep as a keepsake even if you never us for any thing elseand if you got children and grand children who may not be interested now but like most of us we have got more interested as we have got older. i have started wrighting my life story for my own children and nieces and nephews when i have gone, as hippo girl always sez i need to do it as i have seen so many changes and done so many things in my life.

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I recently sat down in front of my video camera and recorded all I could remember of my life to the present day. Then edited the results on my computer and added slides and photos of the places that I mentioned. This was not so much for my kids as my grand kids and those yet to be born. Wish the technology had been available to my great grandparents. I recommend it if you can stand to listen to yourself!

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I recently sat down in front of my video camera and recorded all I could remember of my life to the present day. Then edited the results on my computer and added slides and photos of the places that I mentioned. This was not so much for my kids as my grand kids and those yet to be born. Wish the technology had been available to my great grandparents. I recommend it if you can stand to listen to yourself!

Thanks loppylugs. It is so true what you, Michael Booth and piggy and babs say about recording one's history before it is lost. When we are young, we know better and are out for a good time and are just not interested in how our parents had to work hard to feed and clothe us or what they had to put up with.

When we get older, we are too busy raising our own families and when they are teenagers, most are disbelieving buggers and are not interested in our past; only today. A common thread begins to show.

It appears to be It is only when we progress to senior citizens do many of us start to show an interest in our past and for many; it is too late and so much is lost for ever.

SWMBO has been tasked to source a video camera and learn how to use it!

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Have mentioned this before but around 1980 (maybe as early as 1976) got talking to an old lady who lived on the new St Ann's, quite lucid, told me how as a very young girl she lived in a house that was "part cave"! backing onto castle rock near the gate hangs well? pub, moved to the old St Ann,s and recalled Victoria Station being built! says after school she and friends used to go and see what new work had been done that day,

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Remember those old folk when we were kids,who use to say to us"you'll be my age before you know it".Well readers here we are.

Try to record your life as best you can

After our grand children,we are usually just a memory to the later generations.Let's leave more than a headstone in a cemetery,or a bunch of old fading photo's. I think we owe them more because we know better.

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I've enjoyed reading the posts from you all regarding 'Jean's Memories'. One of the things that comes to my mind is that my parents had just survived the Second World War and times were extremely hard. Many buildings lay in ruin and many of those that were left were in poor condition. You see on the pages of the Nottstalgia Forums of the poor equipment that they had to use in their daily life and the hardships they were forced to endure. I then began to think of what our grandchildren would think of our lives of today. Our's is a life of comfort and privilege with homes full of the latest technology, double glazing, central heating and so on. I suppose our grandchildren could read our memoirs and sit there laughing their heads off saying 'They had to type out words on something called a keyboard and not just think them, ha ha'. The mind boggles as to what else they'll be laughing at us for.

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when i look at the changes in my life time and wonder how my parents managed or did not manage

my mum said they did not have electicity in there house untill late 40s as they lived with my grandad who would not have that new fangled dangerous stuff put in the house so they had gas mantles candles andparafin lampsuntill after he died. he would not have caned food in the house either. when rellitives sent food parcels to them from australia and ammerica during the war and while we were still on rations she had to hide the tins and open and put in dishes when he wasnot there . how i laughed when she told me this when i was younger but now i think how sad. and of the dangers of the old lighting compeared with electricity even in them days

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  • 4 weeks later...

'piggy and babs' timestamp='1332752788' post='118817']

my father and mother lived at 37 sneinton hermitage when they first got married with my grandma lizzy clements also dads two sisters mable and eilein befor that they lived at 1 colwick rd just round the corner although my dad george or little wemmie as he was knownwas a bit older than your aunt it would be interesting to know if she knew this family.but great stories from her anyway ,get her to tell you what she can now while she can all interesting information for your family in later years if you want to do family history research.

Piggy and Babs, I spoke to Jean about your relatives and she could not remember them. She said that the 5 kids in the family kept to themselves and made their own fun. My Aunt said that house backed up to a long high rock face. From their bedroom window, she could see trains passing close by and that Pownalls had a place nearby. Ask your rellies if they remember the Reaville family, mother Mary and the kids Madge, Bert, Sybil, Joan and the youngest Jean.

Jean and I was again discussing the bombing of Notts when we spoke and she said that the bombs exploding in the field across from their house in Holme Road 'blew all their windows out'. I told her that she didn't tell me about that and she said 'You didn't ask!' She also said that on another occasion, incendiary bombs dropped around the area and one had hit their roof and 'skated off somewhere'. She could not remember what became of it. She remembers German fighters being 'a bit of a nuisance' and other bombing raids and the people talking of those that had died or were injured because of the air raids 'but it was something you had to put up with as there was nothing you could do about it'.

We spoke of her early years in the Lace Market and I found that their house backed on to a dye factory and when the men cleaned out the vats and filled them with water, she and other kids were allowed to swim in the vats. She told me how the men used to ask her mother if she (Jean) could go in the factory and sing to them. She said the men used to enjoy her singing and this was a girl who was about 8 years old at the time. It now transpires that their father had been booted out of the family home by my grandmother during this time for apparently 'sharing his favors with other women'.

Discussed her time at the Hermitage and this was where the family moved after the Lace Market and where my grandmother was now the sole provider for the family. She went around private homes, sometimes every day, collecting unwanted clothing which she took home and her kids helped her sort the items out. She would hire a barrow and that became my mother's job to collect the barrow the night before the market and the next day when the barrow was loaded, off they would go to Sneinton Market to sell the second hand clothes. Her barrow site was near to Jackie Pownall's place and Aunt Jean tells me that her mother and Pownall Snr knew each other well. I also find out that my Aunt Madge, 14-15 years old at that time, was chased by Pownall's young son, also called Jackie (although both of them were christened John). Apparently young Jackie 'had a crush on our Madge but then again, everybody else did as well'.

Business must have been good as my grandmother expanded her business, starting a stall at the old Central Market as well.

As Jean tells it, they never went hungry or without decent clothes to wear but the kids all had to help to some extent with sorting, washing and ironing the clothes ready for market, pushing the barrows as well as cooking meals and doing the home chores. This was all done at the same time as they were going to school. To listen to Jean describe life in those days makes you feel how good you had life when young. This was the first time that I had learnt of my mother collecting a barrow from somewhere in Sneinton, whatever the weather, taking it home and then helping push it to market early the next day.

As Jean said: 'It was part and parcel of life, what else could you do, stand on your head and pee in your shoe.'

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unfurtunately all of my family from this time are no longer with us although my farther was the eldest he survied the longest and he died in 1989 in his eighties. powndalls was on colwick rd just past the bridge on the righthand side as you came from town

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