It is not just the landed aristocracy who can demonstrate a link with a place that goes back centuries. My mother’s family came from Derby and were there by the beginning of the 19th century, and only war and work drove some of them away.
For 130 years my family lived in the space bounded by Traffic Street, and Hope Street, and London Road, and Wellington Street. They worked the mills, maintained the railways and fought for Queen, King and Country. If they did ever leave, it is to here that they returned.
For this was one of the working parts of Derby. Within easy reach were timber yards, silk factories, print works, saw mills, an iron foundry, the canal and railway.
Now I was born in London and have lived in Manchester for over 40 years so my memories of Derby are from visits I spent there in the 1950s and until I began some family research a few years ago had all but forgotten the place. That is, until I began writing short stories of some of the family for the Derby Telegraph. Over the course of about a year Jane Goddard of the Telegraph published some of these stories and they are available on the site derbytelegraphbygones.co.uk
It is a wonderful source of stories, memories and pictures and should be of interest not only to people connected to Derby but to anyone who wants to sink themselves into the history of a place.
Picture; mother in the backyard of 12 Hope Street, Derby circa 1928, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
For 130 years my family lived in the space bounded by Traffic Street, and Hope Street, and London Road, and Wellington Street. They worked the mills, maintained the railways and fought for Queen, King and Country. If they did ever leave, it is to here that they returned.
For this was one of the working parts of Derby. Within easy reach were timber yards, silk factories, print works, saw mills, an iron foundry, the canal and railway.
Now I was born in London and have lived in Manchester for over 40 years so my memories of Derby are from visits I spent there in the 1950s and until I began some family research a few years ago had all but forgotten the place. That is, until I began writing short stories of some of the family for the Derby Telegraph. Over the course of about a year Jane Goddard of the Telegraph published some of these stories and they are available on the site derbytelegraphbygones.co.uk
It is a wonderful source of stories, memories and pictures and should be of interest not only to people connected to Derby but to anyone who wants to sink themselves into the history of a place.
Picture; mother in the backyard of 12 Hope Street, Derby circa 1928, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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