A trip down memory lane

[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

[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

[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.

[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

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 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!

[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.

[staffslad]

Re: A trip down memory lane

My mother lived in a terraced house until she was 21 years old. I think they were built in the 1910s or 1920s. They were not back-to-back, just a single row with an alley at the back and the fronts leading directly onto the pavement, so no gardens. Friends of my parents moved into one of the houses in 1972 when they got married, so I got to spend time in one quite a bit when growing up. Originally they had outside toilets but inside ones were installed at some time. They were demolished in 1976 or 1977.

[Richard1978]

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.

[Zincubus]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Sorry I wasn't even thinking about your point

I just saw some terraced houses pic and it reminded me of the daughter in laws comments


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[tex]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Our son and his wife have just been over from Florida and she was blown away by all the terraced houses


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Thats right a lot of terraced housing still standing but i was referring more to the back to back housing seperated by a back entry

[Zincubus]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Few images... this type of housing was demolished in the 60s/ 70s/80s but a lot of it still stands today.

Our son and his wife have just been over from Florida and she was blown away by all the terraced houses


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[Donald the Great]

Re: A trip down memory lane

BACK TO BACK HOUSING.
Mainly a product of the north of England but found in many cities, back to back terraced housing built in the 1920s/30s. This is where i was born and raised in damp and draughty housing with an outdoor toilet at the bottom of the yard. Hearth fires and sach windows were the norm with a clothes maiden that would be suspended from the kitchen ceiling.
Fireplaces in the bedrooms because central heating was unheard of and a coal grid outside which the coalman would pour a sack of coal down into the cellar. Fond memories for sure but the reality was grim

I lived in a terrace house from age 15 to around 20. My mother almost became a cripple when the back stairs collapsed and she fell onto concrete below.

[tex]

Re: A trip down memory lane

Few images... this type of housing was demolished in the 60s/ 70s/80s but a lot of it still stands today.

[tex]

Re: A trip down memory lane

BACK TO BACK HOUSING.
Mainly a product of the north of England but found in many cities, back to back terraced housing built in the 1920s/30s. This is where i was born and raised in damp and draughty housing with an outdoor toilet at the bottom of the yard. Hearth fires and sach windows were the norm with a clothes maiden that would be suspended from the kitchen ceiling.
Fireplaces in the bedrooms because central heating was unheard of and a coal grid outside which the coalman would pour a sack of coal down into the cellar. Fond memories for sure but the reality was grim