There will be quite a few who remember the High Street like this.
It is the summer of 1977, the Silver Jubilee celebrations are still in full swing, and I came back for a brief holiday.
And in that summer of ’77 Eltham looked pretty much as I had left it four years earlier when I finally accepted that Manchester would be home.
Now when I left to go to College I always assumed I would be back, after all Eltham was where I grew up and where I had been very happy.
But the degree led to a job, I was already married and so seamlessly and without really giving it much thought I settled down in the North.
And on those occasions when I did return I noticed the little changes, and then after a longer period away the transformation was pretty dramatic.
The Odeon on Well Hall had closed, the station had relocated and cutting across Well Hall Road was that motorway.
Nor was this all, Willcox’s and Burtons on the corner opposite the church were no more, the Post Office was a pub and somehow a little bit of my childhood was lost.
Still that is the price you pay for moving away.
Not that this is a lament just a recognition that all things must change.
But in the meantime I shall gaze again on the High Street I remember.
Picture; the High Street in 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons
And in that summer of ’77 Eltham looked pretty much as I had left it four years earlier when I finally accepted that Manchester would be home.
Now when I left to go to College I always assumed I would be back, after all Eltham was where I grew up and where I had been very happy.
But the degree led to a job, I was already married and so seamlessly and without really giving it much thought I settled down in the North.
And on those occasions when I did return I noticed the little changes, and then after a longer period away the transformation was pretty dramatic.
The Odeon on Well Hall had closed, the station had relocated and cutting across Well Hall Road was that motorway.
Nor was this all, Willcox’s and Burtons on the corner opposite the church were no more, the Post Office was a pub and somehow a little bit of my childhood was lost.
Still that is the price you pay for moving away.
Not that this is a lament just a recognition that all things must change.
But in the meantime I shall gaze again on the High Street I remember.
Picture; the High Street in 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons
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