Being one of the baby boomers has its ups and downs. On the down side is the fact that we take a lot of stick for having reached retirement and still seem to have years left to enjoy it but of course the truth is there are fewer years ahead of us than behind. But we missed two world wars, worked during a period of relative full employment and unlike my children had access to full and free education after the age of 18. But for me it was also about growing up in the 1950s.
True, there were few of the electronic toys available to us. Television when it finally came was black and white, interactive multi tasking games extended only to Monopoly and pretending we were Dan Dare in the local park with liked minded friends, but there was a freedom allowed to us to explore and the Tower of London, free on a Saturday to children remained a magical place which always called me back.
And when I was with my grandparents I was regularly taken to the cattle market and even have a picture of myself astride a stuffed cow. Then there was the old footbridge which according to my grandfather was blocked off and in danger of collapse. To this day I have always wanted to walk on it just once but like so much of the Derby I knew it has gone. As has Hope Street which is now a car park a fate which seems to have befallen many of the small streets around about which I knew as a child and were home to my extended family back as far as the 1860s.
But a child’s memories are all over the place and things remembered come in small doses like the early morning bus we took once from Chellaston back into the heart of Derby. Grandfather smoked and so we sat upstairs where the air was blue and the men sat on those long bench seats which seemed odd given that across the aisle there was just a row of single seats. This was the 1950s, when it seemed all men and many women smoked and it was still possible to meet your football hero on the top deck of the local bus heading to the same match as you with a cigarette in his hand.
It was the trolley bus from town to Shelton Lock in the early 60s that I remember most. Now I didn’t travel well on a trolley bus. I don’t know what it was. The sleek green and cream machine glided along almost silently but it was always touch and go whether I would make it. Perhaps it was that distinctive smell, a mixture of leather and disinfectant which with the warmth of the inside made me feel ill. So nothing seemed better than when we reached the terminus. I almost didn’t mind the long walk up Derby Road to number 170 where my grandparents had relocated in the late 50s. Grandmother with her string bag and me with something I had managed to persuade her to buy me.
Shelton Lock is still there as is what I take to be the terminus and the long ribbon sprawl of houses up the slight incline towards the village.
They say you should never go back and there is something in that. When we drove down from Manchester, we missed 170 at first and almost passed Shelton Lock. When we did finally find the house it was on the point of demolition, its long garden much overgrown and much smaller than I remembered but still with the old stables at the back. The fields beyond which they had bought with the house were now an estate. But on that warm July day I could still smell the lingering scent of the long grass of the fields and be back again aged ten with wide open countryside ahead of me and nothing else to worry about for three hours.
Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
True, there were few of the electronic toys available to us. Television when it finally came was black and white, interactive multi tasking games extended only to Monopoly and pretending we were Dan Dare in the local park with liked minded friends, but there was a freedom allowed to us to explore and the Tower of London, free on a Saturday to children remained a magical place which always called me back.
And when I was with my grandparents I was regularly taken to the cattle market and even have a picture of myself astride a stuffed cow. Then there was the old footbridge which according to my grandfather was blocked off and in danger of collapse. To this day I have always wanted to walk on it just once but like so much of the Derby I knew it has gone. As has Hope Street which is now a car park a fate which seems to have befallen many of the small streets around about which I knew as a child and were home to my extended family back as far as the 1860s.
But a child’s memories are all over the place and things remembered come in small doses like the early morning bus we took once from Chellaston back into the heart of Derby. Grandfather smoked and so we sat upstairs where the air was blue and the men sat on those long bench seats which seemed odd given that across the aisle there was just a row of single seats. This was the 1950s, when it seemed all men and many women smoked and it was still possible to meet your football hero on the top deck of the local bus heading to the same match as you with a cigarette in his hand.
It was the trolley bus from town to Shelton Lock in the early 60s that I remember most. Now I didn’t travel well on a trolley bus. I don’t know what it was. The sleek green and cream machine glided along almost silently but it was always touch and go whether I would make it. Perhaps it was that distinctive smell, a mixture of leather and disinfectant which with the warmth of the inside made me feel ill. So nothing seemed better than when we reached the terminus. I almost didn’t mind the long walk up Derby Road to number 170 where my grandparents had relocated in the late 50s. Grandmother with her string bag and me with something I had managed to persuade her to buy me.
Shelton Lock is still there as is what I take to be the terminus and the long ribbon sprawl of houses up the slight incline towards the village.
They say you should never go back and there is something in that. When we drove down from Manchester, we missed 170 at first and almost passed Shelton Lock. When we did finally find the house it was on the point of demolition, its long garden much overgrown and much smaller than I remembered but still with the old stables at the back. The fields beyond which they had bought with the house were now an estate. But on that warm July day I could still smell the lingering scent of the long grass of the fields and be back again aged ten with wide open countryside ahead of me and nothing else to worry about for three hours.
Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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