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Post by march4 on Sept 7, 2019 21:50:40 GMT
Even though it is much before my time, the area around Watery Lane has a long history. There were a number of springs here, hence the name of the road. There are other roads close by with spring in the name. These springs form Furnace Brook which eventually runs through Goms Mill and links up with Cockster Brook at the bottom of Longton Hall Road. Furnace Brook and Furnace Road are so named because there were a number of iron furnaces in the area of Watery Lane. This was a major industry a couple of hundred years ago. Goms Mill was so named because Furnace Brook was dammed here so that four or five mills could be built grinding flint and grain. I wonder if one of the mills was owned by a Mr Gom. As an aside the current vicarage in Watery Lane was once a coaching Inn where local justice was dispensed. There used to be stocks outside and some evidence of a gallows also. Things have certainly changed now.
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Post by BuzzB on Sept 7, 2019 22:05:16 GMT
Lived in Meir for all my 60 (nearly) years. We had many happy hours on the aerodrome, camping, watching the gliders, watching the old blokes training their whippets was a regular pastime. I even learned to drive on the old runways. A few years on and myself and a few mates started a Sunday footy team from the Station Hotel in the Ansells league ('78-79) . Our home pitch was on the aerodrome, park up on Jack Ash Lane, change in cars and off to the pitches. There must have been a dozen full size pitches, a fair few air raid shelters were still up too. Away teams used to hate coming to play us up there. Memories of the Vic for me was just walking up the steps onto the Boothen and seeing the pitch, awesome, a feeling that has never come close at the Bet365. As for Brookfields, it was THE go to toyshop, as OS has said the shop they owned directly opposite is still going but has been sold.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2019 22:34:41 GMT
One for the Meir lads, a photo of the Broadway cinema under construction, Pickford place? in the back ground.
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Post by Mr_DaftBurger on Sept 7, 2019 22:51:02 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls!
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Post by BuzzB on Sept 7, 2019 23:07:45 GMT
View AttachmentOne for the Meir lads, a photo of the Broadway cinema under construction, Pickford place? in the back ground. Yes that would be Pickford Place. My old Mum worked at the Broadway as an ice cream seller, I also remember the '72 lads had a bit of a reception there. Scandalously demolished by the council and stood as an unused car park until this century when they decided a KFC would add to the 19 or so takeaways nearby.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2019 23:37:39 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! Ironic indeed. The bowling green. Do most patients cry there as they wait to see their docs?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2019 23:53:10 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! Ironic indeed. The bowling green. Do most patients cry there as they wait to see their docs? Seriously now. How the hell was a building like that taken down? As we all know - it wasn't just a pub!
As was said on "Benidorm". "Squeeze my tits and call me Barbara - but what the hell happened?"
Mark Fisher before he retired said that most councils would be putting preservation orders on a lot of our properties. Our council just want to knock em down as unfit for human habitation!
Go to Stratford upon Avon - our types of properties are treasured, and a two up two down will cost you a million.
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Post by tcdobinghoff on Sept 8, 2019 7:58:12 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! What a wonderful photo - I could have gone into town planning in the late sixties - how glad I am that I didn’t, so many wonderful building and houses replaced by unimaginative eyesores. As someone has said, how did that happen ? I was at LHS. When I was in the 6th Form a group of us used to go to the Kings Arms at lunchtime for a game of snooker and a pint. It was soon put a stop to unfortunately. The son of the Landlord joined LHS, he was known as The Noo Boy and he got us a pass. Tales of the aerodrome also brought back memories to. That march down to the aerodrome to play rugby was just hell and underpants were banned !! I was also often in “Saturday Morning Detention “ at LHS when it was up Sandon Road ( anyone remember “Tut” Meredith ) I lived at Heron Cross so had to take two buses in my uniform with my cap on and my satchel through Longton then up to Meir - could be quite an ordeal when all the local lads were out and about on a satdee.
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Post by tcdobinghoff on Sept 8, 2019 8:11:33 GMT
Even though it is much before my time, the area around Watery Lane has a long history. There were a number of springs here, hence the name of the road. There are other roads close by with spring in the name. These springs form Furnace Brook which eventually runs through Goms Mill and links up with Cockster Brook at the bottom of Longton Hall Road. Furnace Brook and Furnace Road are so named because there were a number of iron furnaces in the area of Watery Lane. This was a major industry a couple of hundred years ago. Goms Mill was so named because Furnace Brook was dammed here so that four or five mills could be built grinding flint and grain. I wonder if one of the mills was owned by a Mr Gom. As an aside the current vicarage in Watery Lane was once a coaching Inn where local justice was dispensed. There used to be stocks outside and some evidence of a gallows also. Things have certainly changed now. I used to live near Cockster Brook. Us kids used to spend hours wandering along it doing “doffers “ (dares) , building dams ( and blowing them up with bangers around Bonfire Night ) , catching water voles, building dens in the marshes, finding skylarks nests. When we got tired of that we would play on the “saffrucks” where the potbanks from Longton dumped their waste. We used to collect cups and saucers and through the cups up in the air and skim saucers at them before they hit the ground. Sometimes we would catch one Joe Lawton’s horses and ride it but you had to be careful as he had a gang of “boys” who looked out for us. If we so much as saw a policeman on a bike coming along Lineside we would run for it. Spent a lot of time being chased come to think of it. Cockster - what a natural playground.
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Post by OldStokie on Sept 8, 2019 11:17:08 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! A great pic Daftbugger. That's where me and Boothen Ender Billy used to sell our sticks. Knocking down that beautiful building and the wonderful Art Deco Broadway Cinema on the opposite corner was social vandalism. When I was nine years old we went to live in a terrace house right by where the bus is in the picture. Our house was directly over Meir Tunnel and when trains went through it, all our windows used to rattle. The building right behind the pub was Lymer's Butchers and they had a slaughterhouse which was just at the back of the pub as you see it. I can still recall the squeal of pigs echoing around the place when killing was taking place. Not nice, especially because I love porkies. TC... I remember Bob Meredith at LHS. He was the housemaster of Brindley. I was in Brindley House. A lovely old chap he was. Hugo Hertz was the music teacher. It was farcical that we spent an entire year in his class learning 'The Lost Chord'. I can still remember the words to this day. "Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, when my fingers wandered idly, over the noisy keys... etc." Can you imagine kids enjoying this stuff! Before we moved to that house I lived in Anson Road, which was at the top end of the Harrowby Road estate. 12 of us lived in a three bedroomed house. Most of the lot who lived there had come from The Nook in Longton when they demolished it. Anson Road was a depository for the real nutters from The Nook... the Wooldridges and the Crossleys were in abundance. Practically all the blokes who lived there worked down the pit. Either Florence or Weston Pit or Foxfield. (Dennis Smith came from Leacroft Road, which was just down from Anson. They were hard buggers who lived there so it's not surprising that Dennis was a nutter and as hard as nails.) Me and my dad and bro lived there with my auntie and her husband, Tommy the Lion Tamer Wooldridge. They called him that because when he was pissed up one Saturday night, after the mob had left the Wagon and Horses at the bottom of Harrowby road, they all decided to go to a fairground down Blythe Bridge. On the way they bought fish and Chips and Uncle Tom, being as drunk as a monkey, offered a lion some of his fish through the bars of its cage. The lion took the fish and while he was at it, he also took three of Uncle Tom's fingers. He ended up at Longton Cottage Hospital where they sewed up the stumps. And before anybody thinks I'm kidding, trust me, on my kids' life that's absolutely true. Uncle Tom didn't work down the pit. He'd been buried on the face and when they got him out he was unfit for further duty. So he became a professional poacher. I learned a lot from Uncle Tom. Early on a Sunday morning he'd roust us kids up and we'd set off for Seven Fields. Seven Fields was opposite the end of Jack Ash's Lane... on the other side of Grindley Lane... topside of Creda before they built that housing estate there, and you could walk from there to Fulford. He had a deal with the farmers up there to share some of his loot, so we never came back without a dozen rabbits, half a dozen woodpigeons, and some trout. It was Uncle Tom who taught me how to tickle trout. By the time I was seven I was an ace trout tickler. He had a fantastic double-barrel 16 bore shotgun that had engravings on the silver parts. Nobody except Uncle Tom was allowed to touch it. We lived on rabbit stew and pigeon pie. Stoke memories. When we were kids we all sat in front of the wall - on the cinder track - at the front of The Boothen End. We spent half our time dodging shots that went wide. If Frankie Bowyer was shooting, God help anybody who got hit by one of his shots. He bost the net frequently. Except for Harry Burrows, I've never known a Stoke player who could hit the ball so hard. A pic of The Broadway with the Drill Hall behind it. I could tell you a load more stories about the lot from Anson Road, but I'd be here for a week. Saturday Night Fever would take on a whole new meaning if you shoved the Anson Road lot into the script. If I wrote a script for it, I'd call it 'Clogs and Broken Windows'. OS.
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Post by somersetstokie on Sept 8, 2019 11:44:14 GMT
You were lucky . . . . . .
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Post by march4 on Sept 8, 2019 12:53:50 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! A great pic Daftbugger. That's where me and Boothen Ender Billy used to sell our sticks. Knocking down that beautiful building and the wonderful Art Deco Broadway Cinema on the opposite corner was social vandalism. When I was nine years old we went to live in a terrace house right by where the bus is in the picture. Our house was directly over Meir Tunnel and when trains went through it, all our windows used to rattle. The building right behind the pub was Lymer's Butchers and they had a slaughterhouse which was just at the back of the pub as you see it. I can still recall the squeal of pigs echoing around the place when killing was taking place. Not nice, especially because I love porkies. TC... I remember Bob Meredith at LHS. He was the housemaster of Brindley. I was in Brindley House. A lovely old chap he was. Hugo Hertz was the music teacher. It was farcical that we spent an entire year in his class learning 'The Lost Chord'. I can still remember the words to this day. "Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, when my fingers wandered idly, over the noisy keys... etc." Can you imagine kids enjoying this stuff! Before we moved to that house I lived in Anson Road, which was at the top end of the Harrowby Road estate. 12 of us lived in a three bedroomed house. Most of the lot who lived there had come from The Nook in Longton when they demolished it. Anson Road was a depository for the real nutters from The Nook... the Wooldridges and the Crossleys were in abundance. Practically all the blokes who lived there worked down the pit. Either Florence or Weston Pit or Foxfield. (Dennis Smith came from Leacroft Road, which was just down from Anson. They were hard buggers who lived there so it's not surprising that Dennis was a nutter and as hard as nails.) Me and my dad and bro lived there with my auntie and her husband, Tommy the Lion Tamer Wooldridge. They called him that because when he was pissed up one Saturday night, after the mob had left the Wagon and Horses at the bottom of Harrowby road, they all decided to go to a fairground down Blythe Bridge. On the way they bought fish and Chips and Uncle Tom, being as drunk as a monkey, offered a lion some of his fish through the bars of its cage. The lion took the fish and while he was at it, he also took three of Uncle Tom's fingers. He ended up at Longton Cottage Hospital where they sewed up the stumps. And before anybody thinks I'm kidding, trust me, on my kids' life that's absolutely true. Uncle Tom didn't work down the pit. He'd been buried on the face and when they got him out he was unfit for further duty. So he became a professional poacher. I learned a lot from Uncle Tom. Early on a Sunday morning he'd roust us kids up and we'd set off for Seven Fields. Seven Fields was opposite the end of Jack Ash's Lane... on the other side of Grindley Lane... topside of Creda before they built that housing estate there, and you could walk from there to Fulford. He had a deal with the farmers up there to share some of his loot, so we never came back without a dozen rabbits, half a dozen woodpigeons, and some trout. It was Uncle Tom who taught me how to tickle trout. By the time I was seven I was an ace trout tickler. He had a fantastic double-barrel 16 bore shotgun that had engravings on the silver parts. Nobody except Uncle Tom was allowed to touch it. We lived on rabbit stew and pigeon pie. Stoke memories. When we were kids we all sat in front of the wall - on the cinder track - at the front of The Boothen End. We spent half our time dodging shots that went wide. If Frankie Bowyer was shooting, God help anybody who got hit by one of his shots. He bost the net frequently. Except for Harry Burrows, I've never known a Stoke player who could hit the ball so hard. A pic of The Broadway with the Drill Hall behind it. I could tell you a load more stories about the lot from Anson Road, but I'd be here for a week. Saturday Night Fever would take on a whole new meaning if you shoved the Anson Road lot into the script. If I wrote a script for it, I'd call it 'Clogs and Broken Windows'. OS. Great post, mate. Times have really changed.
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Post by somersetstokie on Sept 8, 2019 13:14:50 GMT
Saturday Night Fever would take on a whole new meaning if you shoved the Anson Road lot into the script. If I wrote a script for it, I'd call it 'Clogs and Broken Windows'
Mention of Clogs reminds me of being banned from a pub once. I was working on a shop opening team in Chesterfield, for a national Bristol based retailer. This was a ten day job and we had found a good pub we were happy with just round the corner. It served good ale and doorstep sandwiches but was a bit rustic and we always referred to it as the Clog and Whippet. However they had ambitions to improve and were just refurbishing a function room when we were there. One evening a new carpet had just been laid and the landlord was stood in the doorway smugly looking at it. He had his thumbs in his braces and his three year old son sat on his shoulders and I unfortunately couldn't resist saying "eeee lad, one day all this will be thine". He couldn't have liked this as he just turned to me and said "bloody smart arsed southerner, get out of my pub and don't come back" and that was it!
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Post by march4 on Sept 8, 2019 13:41:54 GMT
I must admit, I used to avoid the Nook. Not sure why as I never felt unsafe walking the streets at night even though there was next to no street lights. Drunks walking past you singing were somehow a reassurance. Edensor graveyard was always scary at night although the Meynell Arms nearby was always warm and welcoming. Mrs Slaney who ran it was very posh and dressed like a business woman. Elkes' shop across the road sold most things and I was always told that was the place to go during the war if things were in short supply. Further down the road, the Three Tuns was a proper hotel It was always busy with travelling salesmen. I think it was run by Mrs Willett. Never went to the Edensor Hotel much - it was run by the Copestakes. St Greg's school was just down the road from there and Daisy Bank marl hole. Edensor marl hole was at the back of the Meynell Arms.
We used to walk to the Vic. My memories are all in black and white or was that all the sooty smoke and blackened buildings?
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Post by tcdobinghoff on Sept 8, 2019 15:18:52 GMT
I must admit, I used to avoid the Nook. Not sure why as I never felt unsafe walking the streets at night even though there was next to no street lights. Drunks walking past you singing were somehow a reassurance. Edensor graveyard was always scary at night although the Meynell Arms nearby was always warm and welcoming. Mrs Slaney who ran it was very posh and dressed like a business woman. Elkes' shop across the road sold most things and I was always told that was the place to go during the war if things were in short supply. Further down the road, the Three Tuns was a proper hotel It was always busy with travelling salesmen. I think it was run by Mrs Willett. Never went to the Edensor Hotel much - it was run by the Copestakes. St Greg's school was just down the road from there and Daisy Bank marl hole. Edensor marl hole was at the back of the Meynell Arms. We used to walk to the Vic. My memories are all in black and white or was that all the sooty smoke and blackened buildings? Yes March they were ! I always assumed they were built out of black stone ! I went away to University and once when I came back they had cleaned Fenton Town Hall - I couldn’t believe it, lovely natural stone, I had never thought about it growing up. I think you are older than me because I never knew the Nook but my Dad used to tell me about it. Before the war he said his older brother was one of the few who could walk through the Nook and not be bothered ( I never knew him as he lost his life on the Burma Road but he was a tough lad, amateur boxer) and even the Police had to go round in twos. Incidentally I am a Copestake but I didn’t know the ones from Edensor Hotel - there aren’t many Copestakes outside of Stoke I always have to spell my name and often people think I am eastern european !!
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Post by march4 on Sept 8, 2019 15:47:16 GMT
I must admit, I used to avoid the Nook. Not sure why as I never felt unsafe walking the streets at night even though there was next to no street lights. Drunks walking past you singing were somehow a reassurance. Edensor graveyard was always scary at night although the Meynell Arms nearby was always warm and welcoming. Mrs Slaney who ran it was very posh and dressed like a business woman. Elkes' shop across the road sold most things and I was always told that was the place to go during the war if things were in short supply. Further down the road, the Three Tuns was a proper hotel It was always busy with travelling salesmen. I think it was run by Mrs Willett. Never went to the Edensor Hotel much - it was run by the Copestakes. St Greg's school was just down the road from there and Daisy Bank marl hole. Edensor marl hole was at the back of the Meynell Arms. We used to walk to the Vic. My memories are all in black and white or was that all the sooty smoke and blackened buildings? Yes March they were ! I always assumed they were built out of black stone ! I went away to University and once when I came back they had cleaned Fenton Town Hall - I couldn’t believe it, lovely natural stone, I had never thought about it growing up. I think you are older than me because I never knew the Nook but my Dad used to tell me about it. Before the war he said his older brother was one of the few who could walk through the Nook and not be bothered ( I never knew him as he lost his life on the Burma Road but he was a tough lad, amateur boxer) and even the Police had to go round in twos. Incidentally I am a Copestake but I didn’t know the ones from Edensor Hotel - there aren’t many Copestakes outside of Stoke I always have to spell my name and often people think I am eastern european !! Longton was a smelly place in those days but the Nook had a smell all of its own and you started to smell it as you walked along Greendock St (although it used to be called New St). Knocking it down was for the best. I too grew up thinking the buildings were black stone. There again I thought the whole world was always foggy in October and November. One thing that was always bright green was the pitch at the Vic. Even when it was muddy, it was still greener than anywhere in Longton.
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Post by somersetstokie on Sept 8, 2019 16:09:20 GMT
Stoke on Trent always had a reputation as being smokey and from vantage points around the area, such as Spring Hill on Cannock Chase, probably 25 miles away, you could see the pall of Smoke above the city. There used to be a saying locally that if you could see Stoke Church from Lime Kiln Bank it was a bad day for the pottery industry, because less smoke and haze meant that the kilns weren't fired up and producing.
After the introduction of the Clean Air Act of 1956, Stoke became a Smokeless Zone and production changed from coal fired kilns to electric ones.
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Post by kustokie on Sept 8, 2019 16:23:07 GMT
Visiting the Meir Health Centre I couldn't help but think of the irony of it being built on the Kings Arms site! Nice they incorporated the signs into the car park walls! A great pic Daftbugger. That's where me and Boothen Ender Billy used to sell our sticks. Knocking down that beautiful building and the wonderful Art Deco Broadway Cinema on the opposite corner was social vandalism. When I was nine years old we went to live in a terrace house right by where the bus is in the picture. Our house was directly over Meir Tunnel and when trains went through it, all our windows used to rattle. The building right behind the pub was Lymer's Butchers and they had a slaughterhouse which was just at the back of the pub as you see it. I can still recall the squeal of pigs echoing around the place when killing was taking place. Not nice, especially because I love porkies. TC... I remember Bob Meredith at LHS. He was the housemaster of Brindley. I was in Brindley House. A lovely old chap he was. Hugo Hertz was the music teacher. It was farcical that we spent an entire year in his class learning 'The Lost Chord'. I can still remember the words to this day. "Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, when my fingers wandered idly, over the noisy keys... etc." Can you imagine kids enjoying this stuff! Before we moved to that house I lived in Anson Road, which was at the top end of the Harrowby Road estate. 12 of us lived in a three bedroomed house. Most of the lot who lived there had come from The Nook in Longton when they demolished it. Anson Road was a depository for the real nutters from The Nook... the Wooldridges and the Crossleys were in abundance. Practically all the blokes who lived there worked down the pit. Either Florence or Weston Pit or Foxfield. (Dennis Smith came from Leacroft Road, which was just down from Anson. They were hard buggers who lived there so it's not surprising that Dennis was a nutter and as hard as nails.) Me and my dad and bro lived there with my auntie and her husband, Tommy the Lion Tamer Wooldridge. They called him that because when he was pissed up one Saturday night, after the mob had left the Wagon and Horses at the bottom of Harrowby road, they all decided to go to a fairground down Blythe Bridge. On the way they bought fish and Chips and Uncle Tom, being as drunk as a monkey, offered a lion some of his fish through the bars of its cage. The lion took the fish and while he was at it, he also took three of Uncle Tom's fingers. He ended up at Longton Cottage Hospital where they sewed up the stumps. And before anybody thinks I'm kidding, trust me, on my kids' life that's absolutely true. Uncle Tom didn't work down the pit. He'd been buried on the face and when they got him out he was unfit for further duty. So he became a professional poacher. I learned a lot from Uncle Tom. Early on a Sunday morning he'd roust us kids up and we'd set off for Seven Fields. Seven Fields was opposite the end of Jack Ash's Lane... on the other side of Grindley Lane... topside of Creda before they built that housing estate there, and you could walk from there to Fulford. He had a deal with the farmers up there to share some of his loot, so we never came back without a dozen rabbits, half a dozen woodpigeons, and some trout. It was Uncle Tom who taught me how to tickle trout. By the time I was seven I was an ace trout tickler. He had a fantastic double-barrel 16 bore shotgun that had engravings on the silver parts. Nobody except Uncle Tom was allowed to touch it. We lived on rabbit stew and pigeon pie. Stoke memories. When we were kids we all sat in front of the wall - on the cinder track - at the front of The Boothen End. We spent half our time dodging shots that went wide. If Frankie Bowyer was shooting, God help anybody who got hit by one of his shots. He bost the net frequently. Except for Harry Burrows, I've never known a Stoke player who could hit the ball so hard. A pic of The Broadway with the Drill Hall behind it. Rest story I could tell you a load more stories about the lot from Anson Road, but I'd be here for a week. Saturday Night Fever would take on a whole new meaning if you shoved the Anson Road lot into the script. If I wrote a script for it, I'd call it 'Clogs and Broken Windows'. OS.
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Post by johnnypotter on Sept 8, 2019 20:27:20 GMT
Great posts, fellow Potters, it is great reading them. A lot of thought has gone into many of them, hope they have brought you good memories. You can always rely on Stokies to make a top effort, well done to you all.
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Post by maninasuitcase on Sept 8, 2019 20:45:20 GMT
Chinese swings on normacot rec along with the big slide. If you went too fast your shoot off the slide and rag your arse on the red ash. I remember climbing to the top took forever as a nipper.
Woodcocks paper mill on Kendrick street where my nan lived. Trying to see of we could find the mens mags in the waste paper. The paper mill was next to Georges bridge where i used to wave at the trains going by.
Blue circle had a cement depot behind the paper mill which was abandoned.
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Post by Mr_DaftBurger on Sept 9, 2019 11:18:30 GMT
Chinese swings on normacot rec along with the big slide. If you went too fast your shoot off the slide and rag your arse on the red ash. I remember climbing to the top took forever as a nipper. Woodcocks paper mill on Kendrick street where my nan lived. Trying to see of we could find the mens mags in the waste paper. The paper mill was next to Georges bridge where i used to wave at the trains going by. Blue circle had a cement depot behind the paper mill which was abandoned. Red ash football pitches! Whoever thought that was a good idea was a sadist bastard!
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Post by somersetstokie on Sept 9, 2019 12:33:31 GMT
I related yesterday a short account of how I once got banned from a rustic Derbyshire Miners pub that we christened the Clog and Whippet, for Parody of the Landlord.
I also got barred from a Birmingham pub around the same period. I was working for a National Retailer who had their HQ in Hockley in central Birmingham, and I was attending a Middle Managers course. My colleagues and I probably appeared respectably middle class, wearing smart 3 piece suits, and looked like right idiots when we went out and about in a fairly run down victorian industrial area. I ventured out one lunchtime and seeking some real Black Country Ale, ended up walking into a pub in Handsworth. After standing at the bar for a few minutes I realised that this must be a strongly "multi cultural" area and I was the only white guy in there! It was at that point that one of the "Brothers" came up to me and quite politely but firmly told me that I wouldn't get served as this was a "Blacks only" pub!
This was of course in the days before the introduction of the Race Relations Act, but it was certainly a reality check and made me think quite a bit.
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Post by The Stubborn Optimist on Sept 9, 2019 13:34:17 GMT
Chinese swings on normacot rec along with the big slide. If you went too fast your shoot off the slide and rag your arse on the red ash. I remember climbing to the top took forever as a nipper. Woodcocks paper mill on Kendrick street where my nan lived. Trying to see of we could find the mens mags in the waste paper. The paper mill was next to Georges bridge where i used to wave at the trains going by. Blue circle had a cement depot behind the paper mill which was abandoned. Red ash football pitches! Whoever thought that was a good idea was a sadist bastard! I learnt to play football on red ash, Sneyd Green Park and Drive Park. In fact the sadistic bastards at Sneyd Green went one step further. The pitches were marked out with bricks laid in to the red ash. Over time the ash had eroded away, leaving the bricks protruding out by 2 or 3 inches. Many a cropper I came honing my silky skills.
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Post by maninasuitcase on Sept 9, 2019 13:41:18 GMT
Chinese swings on normacot rec along with the big slide. If you went too fast your shoot off the slide and rag your arse on the red ash. I remember climbing to the top took forever as a nipper. Woodcocks paper mill on Kendrick street where my nan lived. Trying to see of we could find the mens mags in the waste paper. The paper mill was next to Georges bridge where i used to wave at the trains going by. Blue circle had a cement depot behind the paper mill which was abandoned. Red ash football pitches! Whoever thought that was a good idea was a sadist bastard! The red ash pitch on stone road rec was a nightmare when the wind was blowing. Couldnt see nowt for the dust.
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Post by GRUMPY 1 on Sept 9, 2019 20:17:04 GMT
Red ash for us too at Malthouse school Bucknall. Slide tackles were out.
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Post by wendywasp on Jan 20, 2020 7:41:45 GMT
Anyone remember "Cromwell's Caves" - just off Gravely Bank? It was an old sand quarry - but for kids it had to have more importance than that! I've been looking for any reason that Grange road was called Jack ash lane. I always assumed growing up that it was something to do with Jack Ashley ? But can't find any links to that... Also brought back childhood memories about Cromwell's caves. Lots of mysteries surrounded that area. My mum used to call it that in her child hood and she was born in the house she still loves in Sherwood road ! I spent almost every day playing there sitting on the huge granite boulders. The cave is now in someone's Garden. And contained a secret tunnel to caverswall castle. Looking on old OS maps I found it to be an air shaft to the colliery ! But many years ago a bag or some coins were found near st Francis church and it's said Cromwell's men camped there with the intention of taking caverswall castle !?
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Post by lawrieleslie on Jan 20, 2020 8:11:07 GMT
Does anybody remember the Good Friday Stoke on Trent Paperboys annual trip to Blackpool? Paid for by the newspaper association it was a great day out transported on PMT double decker buses. Good Friday was chosen because no papers were printed on that day. I delivered papers for Matt Dillon on Wolstanton High Street and the kind old soul used to give us ten bob each to spend.
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Post by neddy on Jan 20, 2020 8:34:35 GMT
What about snooker in the elite in stoke pre match and a Tico pie lol!
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Post by elystokie on Jan 20, 2020 11:53:19 GMT
I discovered something vaguely interesting re Meir Aerodrome recently, I've spent a fair bit of time up Parkhall Hills (we always called them the sandhills when we were kids) in my life and always wondered what the odd concrete structures up there were for, there's several dotted about the place.
Apparently they were installed as part of some sort of elaborate lighting plan from WW2, the objective was to pretend to the Germans that Parkhall was actually Meir Aerodrome and they should drop their bombs there instead.
Very secretive at the time apparently, the area was out of bounds to the public and manned 24/7.
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Post by OldStokie on Jan 20, 2020 12:50:50 GMT
I discovered something vaguely interesting re Meir Aerodrome recently, I've spent a fair bit of time up Parkhall Hills (we always called them the sandhills when we were kids) in my life and always wondered what the odd concrete structures up there were for, there's several dotted about the place. Apparently they were installed as part of some sort of elaborate lighting plan from WW2, the objective was to pretend to the Germans that Parkhall was actually Meir Aerodrome and they should drop their bombs there instead. Very secretive at the time apparently, the area was out of bounds to the public and manned 24/7. That's interesting Robbie. I always wondered mesen what they was for. You learn something new every day. Re the Brum memories. For a while in the 70's I worked for Davey Roadways running out of the Mich. One day I did a 'quickie', a load of tyres to the Mich depot in Oldbury. 1st time I'd been there so I stopped on the road in to ask the way. An old Asian fella was delivering the mail so I thought I'd ask him. I expected not to understand him but when he answered, he said in pure Black Country vogue, "Ar mite. Yo'm not fur awiy. Tike the second roight an eets just dine theer." I thanked him and bost out laughing when I got back into my cab. I'd learned a valuable lesson... never judge a book by its cover. OS.
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