Voices of Kingstanding
70 published memories in Growing Up.
Clement Watts · 1950s · Mayfair cinema, College Road
We didn’t sneak in, well only when we had no money. I couldn’t sneak in because the manager knew me and if he saw me he would have known.
Read the full memory: Too well known to sneak inCharles Southam · 1940s · Mayfair cinema, College Road
We used to go to the Mayfair on Saturday afternoon. The ‘tupenny crush’ thing. All the kids in there would throw bits of paper at each other. Good fun!
Read the full memory: The tuppenny crush at the MayfairHarry Felton · 1940s · Kingstanding Baths
As near as I can remember to get a free pass we had to swim a couple of lengths in a certain time as to prove yourself proficient.
Read the full memory: Plunged in and swam one mileCharles Southam · 1940s · Kingstanding Baths
If you hadn’t got a swimming costume you could hire what they called slips. They were almost like ‘V’ shaped pieces of material, front and back. You could tie them at the sides.
Read the full memory: Hired slips and woollen trunksMargaret Potter · 1940s · Kingstanding Circle
My earliest memories…. being carried by my dad to the Odeon cinema in the dark with my pyjamas on, i suppose ready to be put to bed when they got home.
Read the full memory: Steak and kidney pies at Rochelle’sDorothy Capewell · 1960s · Parkeston Crescent
I lived in Parkeston crescent but my best friend, Margaret Gaughn, lived at the top of the crescent and my paper round was all of Twickenham Road, Parkeston Crescent and Rivington Crescent so as…
Read the full memory: Paper rounds, laundry vans and the MayfairDorothy Capewell · 1950s · College Arms, College Road
The track was, of course, very narrow and not very long but ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ I think that gambling or placing bets must have been illegal except for in the bookies office…
Read the full memory: Running Dad’s bets to the College Arms
Terry Jay · 1960s · The Odeon
Went as a child with his sisters, buying sweets from Mores sweet shop beforehand — and later worked in the very same building as a bingo caller in 1966.
Read the full memory: A lifetime in one building
Veronica Marshall · 1950s · The Odeon
A regular at the Saturday matinee — Roy Rogers and Trigger, Gene Autry — who once lost her teddy bear when a friend borrowed it during a screening. Years later she used the cine…
Read the full memory: Saturday matinees and first dates
Alan Hitchman · 1950s · The Odeon
Walked to the matinee from about ten years old, with his younger sister — cowboy films, cartoons, Flash Gordon serials. Remembers “a big foyer” and an organ that “popped up some…
Read the full memory: A grand place to a young boy