I recently took a stroll down the lane, up to my old house on the coal board estate, one of the last few still standing. It brought back memories, mostly good ones but not all.
what was the bank opposite post office road.
Probably the only decent looking building in the lane, now looking very down at heel, what a shame
the level crossing. The subway under the track waz a magic place. the entrances originally had quite delicate shelters above them. We'd stand under the track when a freight train came over and frighten ourselves daft. Also whem you came out of the Saturday matinee at the hip, the subway became all sorts of things: cowboy forts, castles, dungeons as you acted out the fantasies that the movies you'd seen stirred up.
the appaling 'market place'. If an architect or town planner haad sat down and tries his or her best to make the town look as deporessing and bleak as possible-this is the design they would have come up with, the effect emphasised by the insulting miners memorial situated there.
th wall of what was Cook's off licence. Mary Cook was my cousin Hazel's best friend. Further was Tommy keenan's at the end of Albert Street where my grandparents lived(number 16). It sold ale from hand pumps. My grandad would send me to Keenan's with an empty quart pop bottle and Tommy would fill it with beer. Illegal, but nobody minded. My grandad would let me supp the froth off the top of the bottle when he opened it. Further along the lane opposite the Top House was Newnham's another off licence.
'scotch hill' aka Ashcroft Avenue seen from the bottom of the hill. We lived in number 39 the middle of the three houses. The hill was a wonderully frightrening trip down on your bike or your roller skates. It doesn't seem as steep now.
