My memories of Ashton are pretty much frozen in time.
We settled down on Raynham Street in the March of 1974 and I left three years later.
I have been back but each time I return the town has changed just a little bit more and it becomes more difficult to locate places I once knew and in some cases impossible now even to remember what they were called.
One whole strip of shops on Penny Meadow has gone including the newsagents along with the old PSA building round the corner.
And while the Albion warehouse was still there I tried but failed to remember the name of the pub opposite.
It was a place we used sometimes when we couldn’t be bothered to walk the extra distance to the Lord Napier.
Now the Lord Napier usually won out because it had a couple of lava lamps and back in the 70s I was a sucker for a lava lamp.
Sadly the name of that other pub eludes me even now.
I notice that in Andy Robertson’s picture it is called Sullivan’s and back tracking through Google street maps that was its name back in 2008.
And in much the same way that building on the corner of Whiteacre Road and Botany Lane is only a vague memory.
Of course those who still live in Ashton will remember both but I am at a loss, and points to that simple truth that sometimes you should never leave going back to a place for too long.
During the same visit I went looking for the house of Pam and Ian.
Rhey lived in one of those really tall properties looking out on the railway line.
It may have been located on Ashlynne but I can't be sure. All I do remember is that back when they moved in they made the awful discovery that there was no power to the upper floors of the house.
They thought there was power after all when they viewed it there were power points but when they came to move in with all that optimism of first time buyers, the power points had vanished leaving only the screw holes and no electricity, and if that were not bad enough the previous owner had taken all the lamp bulbs, which made moving in on a cold Saturday in January no fun.
Our more modest house on Raynham Street proved less of a disappointment but that is another story and leaves me only with the memory of standing outside the Albion waiting for the 153 express into Manchester at 6.30 in the morning, which pretty much meant that during the winter I only saw Ashton in daylight at weekends.
And since posting this this morning someone in Ashton has told me that Sullivan's was the Corporation and with that the memories flood back.
Pictures;
of Ashton-Under-Lyne 2105, courtesy of Andy Robertson
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