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Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, 1955


DaveJC

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15 hours ago, Hopman said:

https://www.commandocomics.com/

From what I remember of these, they were mostly WW1 and WW2 stories. The books lasted longer than the wars!

I was thinking more the weekly comics of the day . I don’t remember commando comics coming in till later.

Victor, Hotspur, Valiant were the proper old school comics with loads of war stories and tales of derring-do. Never trust Johnny Foreigner !!

After that there was Tiger and the Eagle which was the Rolls Royce of boys comics. I mean. Who didn’t want to be Dan Dare ?

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I was allowed one British comic a week ( the American stuff was verboten) . I read the Dandy and Beano until the Eagle came along with its centre page cut away of  some modern ( or future) tank, ship, aircraft etc.  My generation grew up with "The only good German is a dead one". Fortunately, I learned differently and one of my best friends in adult life had served with the Luftwaffe until his capture in North Africa.

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2 hours ago, Lysanderix said:

I was allowed one British comic a week ( the American stuff was verboten) . I read the Dandy and Beano until the Eagle came along with its centre page cut away of  some modern ( or future) tank, ship, aircraft etc.  My generation grew up with "The only good German is a dead one". Fortunately, I learned differently and one of my best friends in adult life had served with the Luftwaffe until his capture in North Africa.

My late great uncle, who was a para, was captured by the Germans during the Arnhem conflict. He ended up in a POW camp where the commandant was a German colonel who had also served in WW1, he was very fair with the prisoners in his charge. The camp was liberated by the Red Army where the officer in charge walked straight up to the German Colonel, who was waiting to surrender, and shot him in the forehead, my great uncle was not impressed.

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The Chantry Picture House on Chesterfield Road has been mentioned on the Gleeson Gates thread, I’m pretty good on this side of Sheffield, but this one has me totally foxed. I recall the Gleeson building, was the Chantry demolished to make way for it?

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32 minutes ago, DaveJC said:

The Chantry Picture House 

There's a name which brings back a memory. The Star paper had a page of adverts for the films currently showing at the city's cinemas. This nine- or ten-year old used to scan it avidly each week, looking for films which I could persuade my Dad to take me to see. At that impressionable age I found some of the names quite exotic: I think there was an Essoldo, and there was the Chantry - a name I still don't really understand, as it usually means a small chapel. Was it a converted church>

 

There was one cinema which advertised that it had "Two houses", and I wondered why you'd build one cinema right next door to another one.

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1 hour ago, DaveJC said:

The Chantry Picture House on Chesterfield Road has been mentioned on the Gleeson Gates thread, I’m pretty good on this side of Sheffield, but this one has me totally foxed. I recall the Gleeson building, was the Chantry demolished to make way for it?

Virtually in the same spot but rebuilt 

Currently Voice Call Centre with Kashmiri Aroma underneath and entered by the car park 

Sorry, just seen the Gleesons  Gates thread and it’s covered on there with photos of how it looks now

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1 hour ago, Athy said:

There's a name which brings back a memory. The Star paper had a page of adverts for the films currently showing at the city's cinemas. This nine- or ten-year old used to scan it avidly each week, looking for films which I could persuade my Dad to take me to see. At that impressionable age I found some of the names quite exotic: I think there was an Essoldo, and there was the Chantry - a name I still don't really understand, as it usually means a small chapel. Was it a converted church>

 

There was one cinema which advertised that it had "Two houses", and I wondered why you'd build one cinema right next door to another one.

Named after the Sculptor Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey 1781-1841, who was born nearby in the Norton area.

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1 hour ago, DaveJC said:

Named after the Sculptor Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey 1781-1841, who was born nearby in the Norton area.

Great info, I would never have guessed that.

It's reasonably common for a street or a pub to be named after a prominent local person, but I've never heard it applied to a cinema before.

 

I do wonder why anyone would name a cinema after a sculptor, mind.....

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1 hour ago, Athy said:

Great info, I would never have guessed that.

It's reasonably common for a street or a pub to be named after a prominent local person, but I've never heard it applied to a cinema before.

 

I do wonder why anyone would name a cinema after a sculptor, mind.....

There’s the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Place, close to Leicester Square, but I do take your point as I can’t bring to mind another.

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55 minutes ago, DaveJC said:

There’s the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Place, close to Leicester Square, but I do take your point as I can’t bring to mind another.

Ah yes, I hadn't thought about Royals!

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5 hours ago, DaveJC said:

Named after the Sculptor Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey 1781-1841, who was born nearby in the Norton area.

Not so sure the actual cinema is  named specifically after the man himself but more after the specific area. You have Chantrey Rd, Chantrey pub. You can buy books on Chantreyland .

Just a thought!

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14 hours ago, paulhib48 said:

Not so sure the actual cinema is  named specifically after the man himself but more after the specific area. You have Chantrey Rd, Chantrey pub. You can buy books on Chantreyland .

Just a thought!

Just a very good point, yes it would be logical if it was the man first, area second, businesses last. 👍

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DaveJC (above) said that in this case the cinema was named after a location which was named after a man.

You are quite correct though in the general case.  Wealthier people might well leave an endowment to the local church to pay a priest to say masses on behalf of their soul.  The belief was that the prayers would hasten the soul's passage through purgatory and on into heaven.  If you were rich enough a small chapel within the larger church could be fenced off, probably having your tomb (possibly below) an altar and enough space for the priest.  When he wasn't saying masses for you, then such priests were often involved in charitable works such as teaching or tending to the sick.  Many of the chantries were lost at the reformation, but some of the charities survived to become the basis of hospitals, almshouses and schools.

The term chantry comes from being a place where masses were chanted by one priest, in particular contrasting with the main church where they might be sung by a choir.

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This thread brought back some memories. I was born in '47 and had all the guns, caps and cap bombs. I also had an uncle who was a 'Little Mester' and so sported a sheath knife of bowie knife on my belt from the age of about 7 and roamed the woods behind Millhouses park cutting sticks to make bows and arrows and catapults. Strangely by today's standards, I too have never killed anyone, robbed people at gun or knife point or had any desire to do so - probably because I always knew that I'd get cuffed round the ear by a beat policeman and taken home to my parents for worse punishment!. One thing we did do which I wonder if anyone else remembers was to make 'touch burners'. These were clay rectangular troughs with a hole in one end and a lid with a chimney at the other which we made with clay dug from the old brickworks site on Smithywood Road opposite our house and dried in the sun. They would then be filled with dry grass, sticks and, if we lucky, bits of old tarry rope dropped by the brewery delivery drivers, and lit to produce copious amounts of smoke through the chimney. Then we would run around the street with them held high pretending to be trains. I also could be found on Saturday mornings in either the Chantrey or Woodseats Picture Palace for the children's matinee which usually consisted of a cowboy film - often a serial, a couple of cartoons and a newsreel.

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Touch burners!! We made ours from clay found in our gardens and used dried rotten wood as fuel...A swift run down the road and copious amounts of smoke made for a satisfactory afternoons play with our pals. I wonder, does anyone remember making "tanks" from an empty cotton bobbins, elastic and a couple of matchsticks?                                                                                                                                                          

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Yes, but wasn't it a pity when wooden cotton reels were replaced by plastic.  Nowhere to put the drawing pin.

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19 hours ago, Lysanderix said:

Touch burners!! We made ours from clay found in our gardens and used dried rotten wood as fuel...A swift run down the road and copious amounts of smoke made for a satisfactory afternoons play with our pals. I wonder, does anyone remember making "tanks" from an empty cotton bobbins, elastic and a couple of matchsticks?                                                                                                                                                          

Don't forget the stub of candle.

 

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I think I've mentioned before the touch burners but not sure if I mentioned the "Bull Roars".

In the fifties most people in terraced houses still used their outside W.C. 's.

These were normally single storey buildings at the top of the yard with a pent slate roof and a wooden gutter drained by a small cast-iron downpipe.

We kids would sneak into the back yards and purloin some paper hanging on a nail inside the toilets. Even better, posh people had proper toilet paper which was more effective for our purpose.

The paper would be crunched up and carefully fed up the downpipe.

A lit match would be applied and a quick scarper to the end of the entry.

The resulting loud booming racket was accompanied by a cone of flame extending above the guttering.

Needless to say we were in the next street before the irate householder appeared.

Thinking about it now, it's the biggest wonder we didn't set fire to half the lavvies.

Incidently the best clay for Touch Burners came from the bottom of Hillsborough Park Pond.

The victorians went to a lot of trouble to line the pond base with impervious puddle and we kept pinching it.

hilldweller

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I just wondered what the modern day equivalent of these kids pranks would be. No doubt modern day technology would be a big part, however we have had a series of garden related incidents, such as the setting fire to conifers whilst garden hopping, we’ve had a garage window smashed but the perpetrators ( I assume more than one) failed to gain entry. I don’t see any harmless fun being had.

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1 hour ago, hilldweller said:

I think I've mentioned before the touch burners but not sure if I mentioned the "Bull Roars".

In the fifties most people in terraced houses still used their outside W.C. 's.

These were normally single storey buildings at the top of the yard with a pent slate roof and a wooden gutter drained by a small cast-iron downpipe.

We kids would sneak into the back yards and purloin some paper hanging on a nail inside the toilets. Even better, posh people had proper toilet paper which was more effective for our purpose.

The paper would be crunched up and carefully fed up the downpipe.

A lit match would be applied and a quick scarper to the end of the entry.

The resulting loud booming racket was accompanied by a cone of flame extending above the guttering.

Needless to say we were in the next street before the irate householder appeared.

Thinking about it now, it's the biggest wonder we didn't set fire to half the lavvies.

 

Disgraceful I call it.😂

I'm surprised to see you use the word "entry" for (I assume) a back alley, as I thought that was a Newcastle term. We called such paths gennels (with a soft G) although I also heard ginnels with a hard G.

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Roarers - now for a spot of name dropping... back in the 90's I spent a day with Lord Patrick Lichfield, the photographer, and one of the tales he told me was of his time in the guards when they did just that in the drainpipes of the four or five storey barracks buildings. Made my early efforts in the local terrace houses look a bit tame!

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I think that, these days, folks are much less tolerant than in our youth and kids' imagination is stifled by technology and electronic games which only require them to choose between certain pre-defined options - usually violent ones at that.

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