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Northern Avenue Shopping Centre Arbourthorne


DaveH

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They built on that area Brimmesfield Close sometime, I reckon, between 1957 and 1959, certainly before I moved off Eastern Avenue in September 1960 when I was eight.

But did you notice Dave, I walked home every day on my own (with my mates and no parents), as did all the other kids and I was less than six at the time. That's before TV put the wind up everyone by informing them of the dangers out there.

Yes I remember the burning tip, there was a gate in the iron fence at the confluence of Northern Avenue and the top of Spring Lane and a pathway led down towards Norfolk Park and a path went to the west towards Arbourthorne Road near to where it met Fellbrigg Road. The burning tip was to the right of the path leading down towards Norfolk Park and it scared the crap out of me and never went on it. I had a mate at school called Steven Greenacre and he had a relative that lived at the farm below Cherry Pond. I noticed you knew Cherry Pond too. Once after school, me and some mates walked to Cherry Pond and got caked in mud as we walked up from there to Eastern Avenue. The worst mud we encountered was from walking up the edge of a ploughed field along the way. We emerged onto Eastern Avenue with what felt like divers boots so caked in mud were our shoes. Our old lady went nuts.

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They built on that area Brimmesfield Close sometime, I reckon, between 1957 and 1959, certainly before I moved off Eastern Avenue in September 1960 when I was eight.

Thanks Dave, that would sound about right. While I have lived on the Arbourthorne they have always been there. We moved up there in 1958, when I was 3, into the prefabs on Algar Place. Although we survived the gales the area was due for redevelopment with the current (but not much for longer, they are already being emptied and boarded up now) Finnegan houses. We moved out at the end of 1965, moving onto Eastern Avenue opposite the Carlton cinema, - which had closed as a cinema in 1959. My mum still lives there.

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But did you notice Dave, I walked home every day on my own (with my mates and no parents), as did all the other kids and I was less than six at the time. That's before TV put the wind up everyone by informing them of the dangers out there.

Yes I remember the burning tip, there was a gate in the iron fence at the confluence of Northern Avenue and the top of Spring Lane and a pathway led down towards Norfolk Park and a path went to the west towards Arbourthorne Road near to where it met Fellbrigg Road. The burning tip was to the right of the path leading down towards Norfolk Park and it scared the crap out of me and never went on it. I had a mate at school called Steven Greenacre and he had a relative that lived at the farm below Cherry Pond. I noticed you knew Cherry Pond too. Once after school, me and some mates walked to Cherry Pond and got caked in mud as we walked up from there to Eastern Avenue. The worst mud we encountered was from walking up the edge of a ploughed field along the way. We emerged onto Eastern Avenue with what felt like divers boots so caked in mud were our shoes. Our old lady went nuts.

As a kid living in the prefabs on Algar Place you could go out of our back garden straight onto Arbourthorne playing field. I would run down the level part of the playing field to where the embankment fell away steeply towards Norfolk Park and stay there just to take in the view, - the farmland, the pond, the horses in the field and the park entrance. On a clear day (pre clean air act days, and we all used coal to heat our homes in those days) you could see the city centre and the town hall beyond, - what a view. On a number od occasions we would venture down the hill, through the farmland to the park to play on the swings, roundabout and rocking horse just inside Norfolk Park to the right of the Arbourthorne Cottages entrance, and with the café to the left. However at that time, that wasn't just "playing out on the field" to us, it was such a walk that we considered it a day out. We usually went as a group of kids, out of sight or contact with our parents for hours and as you said, in those days all considered perfectly safe and ni harm ever came to us. In fact, after the 1962 gale the wrecks of the damaged prefabs became our playground where we could play, hide and make dens. The wrecked prefabs were in a dangerous state, but again no harm ever came to us and our parents knew we were playing "in the ruins". I don't think they minded that much because when they were the same age they had played in houses destroyed by bombing in the blitz.

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Do you remember the Police Box on the corner of Eastern Avenue and Northern Avenue.

The Northern Avenue shopping centre occupancy you discussed a bit ago got me thinking. The layout as I remember it going anticlockwise and starting at the chips shop is thus:- Before I start, Shaws used to sell wet fish from a sort of garage on the road that arced behind their chip shop. I start at Shaws chip shop and looking at it from the front, on the left hand side of the double front they had a gas meter in a wooden structure that formed a sort of inside table to sit at but I recall it was very tight against the window. Immediately to the left and adjoining Shaws was a Chemists, either Squires or Hursts or something like that and then to the left of that, nothing. The edge of the building was as if they were going to build but untidily the builders had left each alternate brick course sticking out and some of us actually climbed a few feet up the wall on the protruding bricks. Question is, why was that particular plot not built on?

Going now to the left and across Northern Avenue the first shop was Badgers, a general grocers. Smashing bloke Mr Badger, my mother would take me in there and buy groceries including a bag of broken biscuits because they were cheaper. He had a range of biscuits in square cube boxes, each with a clear lid, in front of his counter from which he deliberately broke the biscuits into the bag and presumably charged her the lower price. I once went in with a load of pennies I'd saved over Christmas and being influenced by TV advertising, asked him to count the pennies needed for a bottle of Vimto. There wasn't enough and I knew that but he let me have it anyway, top man. Next door to the left was Shentalls, proper old fashioned chain with big wooden counters and a huge hand turned bacon slicer. Again, next door to the left was an empty plot and the side of the building was left as if the builders had just walked away before it was finished, most odd.

Going left across Cawdor Road, again, another empty plot adjoining what was Ellis's Fruit shop which would have been in the middle of the block had a unit been built onto the end. And to the left of the fruit shop Austins, the butchers and other groceries and from memory it had a yellow facade, probably tiles.

Back across Northern Avenue now, where the B&C was built in 1958 there again was an empty space for an adjoining building but left unbuilt until the B&C came along. To the left I can't exactly recall what the shop was but there was a wallpaper shop at some time but that was perhaps associated with B&C's self service. Oh and by the way, my mother's B&C number was 11094 - jeez, the stuff you remember. Going further left to the other end of that block was Hallats, the paper shop, post office, sweet shop and supplier to me, over the years, of a large number of Lucky Bags and other sugar products - how I have still my own teeth at 62 is a mystery, must have brushed them enough.

Anyway, I hope that triggered some memories for y'all.

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Thanks for that very interesting post Dave, - just the sort of memories we need.

I can remember some of these things but not all.

Interestingly my mum, - who in later years worked in the B&C Co-Op and can also remember here dividend number in the days before they switched over to those blue savings stamps, was looking at that picturesheffield photo the other day of the opening of the Co-Op (8 August 1958), mainly because it turns out the 2 lads stood closest to and facing the camera are my cousins Peter Burnand and Frank Sneezby. They are a bit older than me, - more your age Dave so you may know them. Mum commented that the 4 blocks of shops originally had "a shop missing on each block" as you describe here. Currently all the missing bits have been built except one, -the one on Ellis's fruit shop has never been built. Your first quadrant had a flower shop built onto it which is currently a pizza / kebab take away. The next quadrant had a betting shop built onto it and of course the Co-Op completed that remaining sector.

My cousin Peter lived on Dagnam Road almost opposite the bottom of Algar Crescent. My cousin Frank, and his sister Kathleen lived at the top of Northern Avenue where it met East Bank Road, opposite (from 1956 at least) Hurlfield boys school, - even though all of them, like myself, went to Norfolk.

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Do you remember the Police Box on the corner of Eastern Avenue and Northern Avenue.

I can't say I remember this Dave, even though from 1965 I lived very close to this junction and from 1958 had to go past it on our way to the shops or to Manor Top. I would like to know more about this, - which of the 4 corners at this crossroads was it on?

Manor top side of Eastern Avenue

Carlton side of Eastern Avenue

Shopping centre side of Northern Avenue

Spring Lane side of Northern Avenue

Given these divisions there was for many years a large telephone junction box on the Manor Top EA / Shopping centre NA corner, but I have no memory of a police box as such.

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The police box was on Manor Top side of Eastern Avenue and Shopping Centre side of Northern Avenue. In other words it was on your left as you came up Eastern Avenue from City Road end and just before you turned left up Northern Avenue towards the shopping centre. I seem to think there are GPO pillar there now.

There was a red phone box on the other side but slightly further along Eastern Avenue towards and on the same side as the Carlton. Push Button A or B type of phone box when I remember it, circa 1957/58.

I remember the first telephone on the road to be fitted to a house just up from us on Eastern Avenue. Alan Kenworthy, he was a salesman for Marley Tiles and needed a phone, presumably for his job. He also had a ford Anglia company car and I recall the Marley Tile logo above the rear bumper.

I don't remember Frank or Peter but my brothers referred to a Frank Sneezy from time to time. My brothers were mad keen footballers and runners, Malcolm and Michael Thursby, both went to Norfolk. Our Malc had a mate called Alec Maclean who I think lived down your road, his father was a lorry driver. It's great poking around in the old memory and it's amazing what you can recall, like neighbours names, I can still name most of them, can you dave?

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The police box was on Manor Top side of Eastern Avenue and Shopping Centre side of Northern Avenue. In other words it was on your left as you came up Eastern Avenue from City Road end and just before you turned left up Northern Avenue towards the shopping centre. I seem to think there are GPO pillar there now.

There was a red phone box on the other side but slightly further along Eastern Avenue towards and on the same side as the Carlton. Push Button A or B type of phone box when I remember it, circa 1957/58.

The police box was in the position I thought you would say. I know there was this big junction box used by the GPO telephones on that corner. Gangs of kids would climb on it and sit on it, but I still can't remember a police box being there, but vaguely perhaps there was. I don't think there is a post box there, - nearest one was always up in the shopping centre, appropriately outside the post office.

I can't even remember clearly a phone box being outside the Carlton and from 1965 I lived opposite it. Was the box outside the Carlton? I seem to remember a couple of those boarded up windows on the side of the Carlton that runs along Eastern Avenue at one time being small shops?

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I don't remember Frank or Peter but my brothers referred to a Frank Sneezy from time to time. My brothers were mad keen footballers and runners, Malcolm and Michael Thursby, both went to Norfolk. Our Malc had a mate called Alec Maclean who I think lived down your road, his father was a lorry driver. It's great poking around in the old memory and it's amazing what you can recall, like neighbours names, I can still name most of them, can you dave?

It will have been my cousin that your brothers knew, not the most common name so I think he was the only Frank Sneesby on the estate. He will have been at Norfolk (secondary around 1961 - 65 ish, but like me went to Norfolk Juniors and infants before that.

I can remember many names from school but unfortunately for most of them the day we left school was probably the last time I saw many od them as we all went our different ways in life.

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I lived at 62 Cawdor Rd from 1957 - 1976 at the junction of Cawdor Rd & Errington Rd , the Arbourthorne hotel was right on the T junction

mr Drabble was the landlord for quite a while, then Mr Pickering who at whitsuntide used to throw hot penny’s off the balcony to all the kids dressed in their whitsun best packed below.

the shortcuts shop used to be a general grocery owned by Roger Taylor (no not the tennis plaster) his wife had a hairdressers off the access road around the back

the north east quadrant was the bookies the chemist and the chippy 

the south east was the post office run by Trevor Taylor I was the paperboy spare lad, doing my own round & picking up any other round that didn’t turn up

the south east Quadrant Fruiters never had anything best to it that I knew of, but there was a track at the back of it running parallel with Errington Rd up to east bank Rd and was the garages

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