Nah then folks, during the 60s..

Nah then folks, during the 60s on the Vic Hallam Pigeon hut estate i lived at Newstead Rise and on sundays there was a bloke pushing a weird looking cart and he was vending Walls ice cream. The cart was smallish which leads to 2 quetions, 1. Does anyone remember him? 2. Where did he go to get his re-stocks to continue his round(s)? We unkindly named him Polly or Parrot, bluddy kids eh!

Birley Past. Were people aware that Donalons shop split fag packets and sold the smokes (guards) individually, and that Stephen Wiggett could play the Harry Lime theme on guitar (aged 11), and his dad drove a Ford Cortina......

Zakes on Sheff 12. When i went to the Rex pictures i bought my spice in the shop opposite because the Rex was too dear. Aftet flicks turned out i bought chips and snips frum the chippy on Stanhope Road and walked back towards Birley passing what was then the 95 bus terminus in the dip then past the Birley Moor road shopping parade where there was a chemist shop with a fantastic toy shop upstairs, i just loved those Airfix models. Then further on were two petrol stations, i once (or twice) managed to cadge a kite and some bullet hole stickers which were usually given away with free petrol. I finally got hoam......My mates and me used to fly our kites on those lovely fields with long grass and rare flora long before that blasted golf course appeared on Birley Lane!

Nah then folks, during the 60s on the Vic Hallam Pigeon hut estate i lived at Newstead Rise and on sundays there was a bloke pushing a weird looking cart and he was vending Walls ice cream. The cart was smallish which leads to 2 quetions, 1. Does anyone remember him? 2. Where did he go to get his re-stocks to continue his round(s)? We unkindly named him Polly or Parrot, bluddy kids eh!

I know the ice cream cart used to go on the Alport in the early 70s.I have no idea how he replenished his stock though:huh: ps I still live in the Vic Hllam pigeon huts:hihi:

Hackenthorpe. 1961 - 62 was the time i arrived at Birley Spa Junior Schooel much to their pleasure (i think). Having just left Rainbow Forge Infants (pond with goldfish and lotus leaves) i was ready for a fresh challenge and to meet new pals. Feeling confident having mastered Janet&John, Chicken Licken etc i stepped forth. After a cuppla tentative days in class i realised if i was to break the ice and pal up it would have to be in the playground. It dint take long to reach this goal because we were soon playing and swopping marbles (the in thing in them days) and playing 10-a-side at footie using a tatty threadbare tennis ball with a hole in it. Oh, for those halcyon days again, please! More next time, depending on amount views and replys. Meantime, see if your name is below. Mr Rawlings, Mr Williams (what a trunt), Mr Wilson, Miss Morton, Miss Noakes, Miss North. Dont remember any others. Now us youngsters. Gerald Dandy, Stephen Coulson, Nigel West, Christopher Sherwood, Mark Sherwood, Paul Allison, Andy Morton, Jean Sykes, Barbara&Frances (twins, surname i forget, lived on Cotleigh Place or Close), Elaine Lawson (moved to Devon two years later. Fancied her), Kay Osborne (went to her birthday party in Occupation Lane, saw her in Penthouse Dixon lane bout 1974), Stephen George, Martin Smith, Danny Spokes, Martin Precious, Lorraine Barstow, Julie Webster (fancied her too), Katherine Stevenson (very forward for one so young), and the lad with wooden or plastic arm that could do the same things a normal arm can do, cant think of his name, bless him, Robert (?) Evans, ( he could turn his eyelids inside out, fold them over), Barbara Allen (another i fancied). Get in touch the ones i forgot. This does not affect your statutory rights. My name is not included and that does not affect my statutory rights either!

Hackenthorpe. 1961 - 62 was the time i arrived at Birley Spa Junior Schooel much to their pleasure (i think). Having just left Rainbow Forge Infants (pond with goldfish and lotus leaves) i was ready for a fresh challenge and to meet new pals. Feeling confident having mastered Janet&John, Chicken Licken etc i stepped forth.

 

seeing the names :janet & john: brings back memorys. i have 3 boys under 10 and would love to get hold of some books from the janet & john series, to show them what their dad learnt from at school. if anyone knows where any copys can be obtianed from, please let me know.

Eat Pussy and save a mouse! After a tedious six hour session of tick-tack-toe at my mate of the days home we decided to grab some fresh air and play our version of postmans knock. As the reader knows, there are very many doors and windows on the Birley estate just begging to be knocked upon. At that particular time of year the nights were drawing in early at a rapid rate. We used this to our advantage to operate under the mantle of darkness. We knocked on windows of many sizes and on doors of many colours, there was red ones, green ones, blue, yellow and ones so dirty you couldnt even guess what colour they were. Eventually, we arrived at our 57th victim, we ghosted up the pathway to the living room (lounge) window and rapped sharply three times and with rapid beating hearts turned to escape as we had done 56 times before, straight into the arms of the house-holder who had come back home from wherever he had been. Upshot? Thick ear number one of the week!......There wasnt a victim nr 58 that night. Ugh......

U B 2 OLD B 4 U NO. Hello friends, anyone remember the disco at the Centre Spot? No? Then let me tell yew......It was called HIGHWAY 69, in 1969 strangely enough! I used to borrow a bikers leather jacket from a greaser mate of mine who lived up the road and wear it Satday nights at the Spot and do that energetic shoulder shaking dance in positions, standing, stooping, crouching, half laying then fully laying. That built up a reight thirst and more importantly impressed the birds. It was a great time had by a 15 year old whipster like me......Ugh. Ps. There was a really good chips&snips shop nearby in them days.

For goodness Zakes! One friday evening in the autumn of the year 1967 young Zakes had a fallout with his parents because they wouldnt give him the coinage for the next days matinee at the Rex picture palace which would have included a penny worth of scraps on the way home. Young Zakes tried to reason with them by pointing out to them that he had been a good boy for two days and that meant that he had earned a treat and the flicks would be a good idea as way of a reward. The parents stood firm giving young Zakes no other alternative but to run away from home to teach them a lesson. He decided to travel light, so he took a torch with him and soon he was outside standing on Newstead Rise. He walked the full circumference of Birley estate five times within the hour not meeting a soul until he came upon a lad frum school a year older. They went back to this lads house on Birley Moor Crescent. The older lad snuck in then snuck out laden with a bar of five faces chocolate, some black jacks and a packet of nibbits, three capstan full length, a box of Capt. Webb, a blanket and a cushion. Young Zakes was ushered to a tatty looking Bedford van parked on a green patch behind the houses, and thats where he slept on a cold windy night. Young Zakes arrived home the following morn to the smell of bacon, egg and mushrooms, he had been sorely missed and he was allowed to go to the flicks after all......TRUE STORY THAT.

Close your eyes and think. Young Zakes was visiting his bestest aunty who lived in the village of Wortley just this side of Barnsley. It was late springtime in the year 1966 and young Zakes on this his second and last day there was still licking his lips having greedily ingeested his aunty's home made warm white crusty bread along with scrambled eggs, heavenly! Only yesterday he had enjoyed the delights of her rice pudding (also homemade) with thick browned skin topped with cinnamon. It was no surprise that young Zakes was in a reight good mood. He had decided seventeen minutes ago to pay the local golf course a visit and see what was appertaining. On his way there he stepped out of the warm sun into the cooling shadow of a copse of holly and such like trees to be greeted by the twitterings of linnet, siskin, gold finch and of the very rare tomato sh-t warbler. Out again into the light and the ever warming sun young Zakes strode onto the fifteenth fairway and over to the rough where he walked with a stoop in search of lost golf balls in the hope of making them unlost again. Thirty three and a third minutes later young Zakes was ambling back in the direction of his aunty's semi-detached cottage with four re-found golf balls tucked into the pockets of his sky blue pink coloured corduroy trousers. Almost there, young Zakes with twitching nostrils identified the wonderful smell of freshly baked home made yorkshire pudding...... To be continued.

Tiger, after cold shower. It was a warm sunday evening in late spring of 1966 not long before Englands finest hour in international football. Whilst his dad was out having a pint of Bentleys or something similar at the Spa club, and his mum sprawled out on the settee eating Bourneville chocolate and wetching Dr Findlay (on one of his cases) on the box (monochrome) young Zakes was sat in the armchair next to the window engrossed in the act of stripping a golf ball. Little did young Zakes know that afore this evening was finished and afore his dad got home he would be nursing his eleventh thick ear of the month. Young Zakes busied himself with a rusty made in Sheffield penknife gotten from his dads rusty tooel box. He made a small incision into the outer shell then with eager fingers proceeded to peel the said shell. Inside he found what looked like a ultra thin elastic band and started to unravel it, this elastic seemed to go on forever and when finished it must have been at least two miles long. When the elastic was dealt there was a small black rubber ball leftover. Young Zakes, being a nosey sod wanted to know what was inside of the black ball but couldnt find a way to open it. So the rusty trusty made in Sheffield penknife was put to use again, this time as a dagger. Young Zakes stabbed forth and a whitishy latexy liquid squirted out with such force it covered the window side of the ceiling, and the freshly laundered net curtains also copped a load and were sopping wet through and that's when it happened. WALLOP!! (Wonder if Dr Findlays any good at treating ear ache)? Ugh.

Hear are some cheap tack poetic ditties from my days in Hackenthorpe and Birley in the early sixties. Please feel free to put your own tunes to them.

1. POLLY IS A SWEET LITTLE BIRD, SHE SWINGS FROM BOUGH TO BOUGH, SHE MAKES HER NEST IN A RHUBARB TREE, AND WHISTLES LIKE A COW.

2. THERE WAS A BIRDIE IN THE SKY, IT DID SOME DOO DAH IN MY EYE, I DID NOT LAUGH, I DID NOT CRY, I JUST THANKED GOD, THAT COWS CAN'Y FLY.

3. WE'RE OFF, WE'RE OFF, WE'RE IN A MOTORCAR, THE COPPERS ARE CHASING US, WE DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE, THERE'S A COPPER AROUND THE CORNER EATING APPLE PIE, I ASKED HIM FOR A SKINNY BIT AND HE HIT ME IN THE EYE, I WENT TO FETCH ME MOTHER, ME MOTHER WOULDN'T COME, SO I GOT A RED HOT POKER AND STUCK IT UP HIS BUM.

4. IN DAYS OF OLDE WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD, AND TOILETS WEREN'T INVENTED, THEY MADE A HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, AND SAT THERE QUITE CONTENTED.

UGH.