A trip down memory lane

[Arran]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Some back to back housing was exactly that, being a terrace the was 2 houses thick. This meant that houses had no back yard or rear windows, but were often built with alleyways every 2 houses to allow for side windows. Some were only 1 room deep but were 2 rooms wide to compensate.


By the 1920s they were judged to be unhealthy & even by the 1930s many had been pulled down.

I've heard a row of them have been preserved in Birmingham.

There are still many of these houses in use in Leeds - a city where they were regularly being built until around 1900.

In parts of Dublin some old houses didn't have their own toilets but instead there were outside communal toilets in the street that the public could also use.

[George 1978]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I lived in the house that I grew up with for so long that I was interested in the history of the house (as well as our neighbours throughout our street) and wondered when it was built. I was told that it was the early to mid 1920s according to old maps where prior to that in those years, it was open space and allotments (I assume). It was inner-city so I wondered why it took so long for it to built on. My parents never wanted to move while they will still alive, but I wanted them to move to the suburbs so that their final years could be made a bit more comfortable and perhaps even get a bungalow or something but it wasn't as simple as that as what local housing systems are like in recent years.

I went to the Local Studies department at Nottingham Central Library quite a few times in the late 1990s and was so fascinated looking at the old electoral registers - this was the point when I used to spend hours by myself looking at the local newspapers on microfilm and other things besides. Interestingly, those only seem to go back on microfiche to 1931 where only some homes on the street were occupied at that point, yet typing my old street name into the British Newspaper Archive website for the local Nottingham newspapers suggest that it was already a residential street since at least April 1928 when it had its first mention - some resident had a negative claim to fame in the local papers if you know what I mean - I even found out that my late father had been a victim of burglary at his old address thanks to this resource back in 1953, and he kept schtum about it while he was still alive, either because he had forgotten about it in time, or hadn't forgotten about it but just didn't want to talk it, and one cannot blame him.

I believe that fascinating BBC 2 documentary A House Through Time from earlier on this year will probably also prompt others to do the same and find out who was treading on their very floorboards 50 years prior to themselves doing it - I know that who lived in my flat exactly 10 years before now because ironically enough I was so close to doing a mutual exchange with that very person and moving to the flat that I live in now a good six years before I actually did!

[Donald the Great]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Sounds interesting tracing your previous tenants. Never know what skeletons in the closet you will find.

[George 1978]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I think that is the problem - finding "skeletons" from the past and unearthing something that could be controversial many decades on. I know that one has to be careful just in case that happens.

I know that my old address had no mention on the British Newspaper Archive website and one could breathe a sigh of relief at this prospect, but it is still fascinating to do.

[Donald the Great]

Re: A trip down memory lane

There are still many of these houses in use in Leeds - a city where they were regularly being built until around 1900.

In parts of Dublin some old houses didn't have their own toilets but instead there were outside communal toilets in the street that the public could also use.

I was born in an grew up in an old fibro house with the outside toilet( dunny) which on cold nites seemed a mile away. We had no pull chain flush in those days. Every week a big man would call at our place and remove what we called the "thunder box"for disposal.. and be back again in a few hours with the box emptied and ready again for use. Sorry this anecdote is a bit on the nose folks.

[tex]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I was born in an grew up in an old fibro house with the outside toilet( dunny) which on cold nites seemed a mile away. We had no pull chain flush in those days. Every week a big man would call at our place and remove what we called the "thunder box"for disposal.. and be back again in a few hours with the box emptied and ready again for use. Sorry this anecdote is a bit on the nose folks.

Funny how toilets went from manual emptying to pull chains to flush handles to push buttons

[tex]

Re: A trip down memory lane

GETTING LOST AS A KID.

There can be few things as traumatic for a child than getting lost, i still think about the time i got lost as a seven year old, these days you are unlikely to see a seven year old child walking to school unaccompanied by an adult but back in the 60s it was not unusual. I would call for my buddy Ian on the way to primary school and we would make the 10 minute walk together. One particular morning we arrived at the school gates to find they were still locked so being the restless souls that we were we wandered off and kept wandering until realising we were lost. We were in fact about fifteen minutes from the school but we had no idea where we were, we both stood crying until a woman stopped to ask what was wrong, through the sobbing we were able to explain that we had gotten lost so she took us back to her house and she phoned the police, she gave us lemonade and sweets to calm us down, i distinctly remember bewitched being on her black and white telly as we waited for the police to arrive. When they did we were taken home to very relieved parents who were waiting on the doorstep. After the initial telling off it was all hugs and kisses and more than a few relieved tears, i never forgot this incident and am often reminded of it by my mam

[Zincubus]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I still get lost as a 60 year old !!

I rarely ever dream JUST the occasional BAD dream which is always about getting lost !!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Donald the Great]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I recall getting separated from my mother and older brother during a day at the Sydney Easter Show. Was easy to get lost given the thousands of visitors that attended the annual show ..where the country meets the city. I digress. I was about 8 from memory and it was a terrible feeling. One second I had my mothers hand and the next nothing. I found myself among a throng of strangers and was being pushed further and further away from where we had been. I yelled "mummy mummy" but the noise of the happy chattering people drowned out my pleas. I suddenly burst into tears. I managed to remove myself from the thronging mass of people and over to a wall where I continued to wail. An elderly couple asked me what the matter was and I told them. "Dont worry" they said "we will find your mother". They then took me to the announcers booth from which a message was relayed over the public address system. Eventually my distressed mother turned up and took me in her arms. This was a very worrying time for someone so young.

[staffslad]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Although I have never to my knowledge been lost, I remember an incident from childhood that really scared me. I would have been perhaps 6 years old and I went with my parents in the car. They had to go into a couple of shops and I didn't want to go so they left me in the car on my own. The doors were locked so no-one could get in, but suddenly all the talks we had had at school warning about stranger danger came back to me and I was convinced someone was going to kidnap me. I was so scared that I started crying and hid in the footwell between the front and rear seats. I was so relieved when they came back--maybe I had been alone 20 minutes or less. Even now that panic that gripped me is so fresh in my mind.

[Richard1978]

Re: A trip down memory lane

I've been lost a few times in shops but normally my parents managed to find me.

One odd occasion was when my brother managed to get lost in Lewis's department store in Manchester, especially as he wasn't that young at the time.

Me & my Dad informed the staff who put an announcement over the PA but this only confused him as it didn't tell him where to go to, but eventually they managed to track him down.

[George 1978]

Re: A trip down memory lane

That one reminded me of when my late father was shopping in our local Co-op and on the PA system, the voice asked for a staff member who had the same surname as my father (and myself for that matter) to come to the manager's office at once. My father, who upon hearing the de ja vu of the namesake being mentioned, actually thought that the message was for him and he went and found the office, and the staff up there had no idea who he was and asked why he went up there.

I am certain that Nottingham's Victoria Centre was like that with lost children, putting the message across on the PA system so that the world and his dog could her it.

[Donald the Great]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Anyone have a new subject?

[Mulletino]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Riding your bike to the local Newsagent on a Saturday morning to spend pocket money on a new comic (or useless sweet/toy).

Used to love that on Saturday mornings, going to buy an Amazing Spider-man comic, New Eagle, Whizzer and Chips, Dandy, Cheeky, Beano, Scream etc. Sometimes they'd have new sweets in like Star Wars heads that you twisted to get small candy out of or chewing gum with movie/TV cards in. Later on it was to see what new computer magazines they had, i.e those ones with the type in listings or to buy some cheap Mastertronic or Firebird game.

I wonder if kids nowadays still do this? or is all their entertainment online?

(I've recently been buying the old annuals if I see them at a charity shop or flea market)

[zabadak]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Wow, certainly didn't have any money to do that!