My (ex)-home town
Jun 2, 2010 9:21:50 GMT
Post by onlymark on Jun 2, 2010 9:21:50 GMT
The thread on women and violence got me thinking about the influence of the surroundings in which you were brought up. It is difficult to convey the social and mental attitudes, but easy enough to have an idea of the physical surroundings by means of photographs. Many follow.
The last few days I’ve been in England for a family get together and stayed with my father who lives still in the same house from when I was nineteen. We moved only half a kilometre from the houses shown later to the other side of the village, originally arriving in this village a few years before my teens.
Before then there were two other places, both mirror images of this place. Mirror images in that they were coal mining villages, relatively small and built within walking distance of the local mine.
Surrounding this village are (or rather, were), one pit in the village, one about a kilometre away, and two more within two kilometres.
There is a town of about 50,000 inhabitants a five minute drive away and a further town of about 100,000 inhabitants about a ten minute drive away. All the towns and villages are linked by housing which runs between them, there is very little open space along the lines of the roads, but plenty off to the sides.
Those who are familiar with England will recognise how typical these places are, others can compare them to their places of growing up in their own country.
So – there were two pubs in the village, the major one was levelled about fifteen years ago and is now a supermarket –
The second stumbled from new owner to new owner, the last one only surviving three months before closing the place down –
This is the road approaching, to the traffic lights in the distance, and then the centre shops begin –
This is the main shopping area –
Often in the photos you’ll catch a glimpse of the countryside surroundings. This for many years was my escape. But it is a bit of a false picture as in its heyday the village was also surrounded by coal spoil tips and settling ponds full of coal dust. Fortunately these have now become overgrown and money has been spent on beautification whereby the spoil tips are hills of grass, the ponds are filled in and the old railway lines are footpaths. But the centre of the village has also changed – it is dead.
We do have horses though –
So, running down the high street from one end to the other the first shop is a charity shop –
The rest will speak for themselves. Mainly takeaways, betting shops, another local supermarket, empty shops and various trades. You’ll see I’ve tried to make it not too obvious where it is by wiping out some of the phone numbers. I hope it doesn’t detract from your viewing pleasure –
This next place, when it was a normal chip shop, had a not very good reputation. At the end of one year me and my father called in as it was a last resort type place when all others were closed. We purchased our meal (mix and two fish cakes for me, saveloy and chips for my dad) open, not wrapped so we could eat them straight away. Used the required amount of salt and vinegar (no salt but lots of vinegar for me), tried the chips and my Dad said, “These taste quite good!” in surprise. I, with the smart mouth, said “His fryer’s probably had its Christmas present and he’s changed the fat ready for next year”.
The owner rushed from round the counter, knocked the meal from our hands and pushed us out the door, hungry.
Beans on toast at home it was that evening.
The road then disappears out of the village, making a hasty exit –
The shops line one side of the street, the other side is taken up mostly by an old folks home. About 85 - 90% of the occupants are women, then men having succumbed at an earlier age to industrial disease, smoking, drinking, hard unhealthy working life, or pit accidents (many less accidents in later years thankfully) –
If you pop down the side streets on either side of the road the view is how you might think, terraced houses. I was born in one exactly the same but elsewhere –
This is the road to the pit –
Behind the main street –
Behind the old chip shop –
Greenery in the distance –
Someone trying to make an effort –
Some streets directly off the main street give a clue as to its agricultural background, before the coming of the mines –
The local church. The hall off to the side being the meeting point for the Boys Brigade. This I tried for a year to do something different but it didn’t suit me, just a passing phase –
At the top of the road to the pit is the old main entrance, the main road in and you can see how nature begins to reclaim the land. Some is now an industrial park, but many units are empty –
At the end of the village from where we entered is a small estate where I lived before moving to where my father is now, as I said, just across the village about half a kilometre.
These we called ‘rabbit hutches’ –
When the local mine was going full swing a new seam of coal was opened up. As an attraction to get miners to move to the area to exploit it the National Coal Board built these houses to be rented, you couldn’t buy one.
As a worker for the Coal Board you got a ‘coal allowance’, more or less an amount of coal free each month to use to heat your home. The amount varied as to your status in the hierarchy as regards how close you worked to the coal face. My father, who worked underground servicing and maintaining hydraulic pit props got less than a ‘face man’, but he got more than me as I worked mostly in the vehicle and plant (heavy machinery) garages on the surface.
However, we both at one time had an allowance.
Also, however, in the way of government organisations worldwide, the National Coal Board built these houses on the cheap. This meant no fireplace or boiler. It meant that the whole house used only electricity for heating and hot water, and everything else.
We had a large block of concrete encased in a cupboard which was heated by an electric element. Air was then blown across it and hot air vents were in the downstairs rooms (upstairs not being heated, as is/was normal). Hot water was by means of an immersion heater in a water tank.
When electricity was too expensive, most of the time, in the winter we used paraffin heaters to heat just the living room and showered on work days at the pit.
We used to heat up a tank of water twice a week for my mother to have a bath though.
Thus we had an allowance we couldn’t use. We still claimed it though as there were many miners who didn’t have enough. Every month a coal truck would come, deposit a couple of tons on our driveway, we’d phone up a mate or two who had coal houses elsewhere, they’d arrive and we’d sell them ours cheaper than the retail rate.
Many an unhappy hour was spent ‘bagging’ and placing it in car boots each month.
So I lived here several years –
To finish off - my old street –
What’s your old street look like?
Do tell.
Maybe you can see why I moved away.
The last few days I’ve been in England for a family get together and stayed with my father who lives still in the same house from when I was nineteen. We moved only half a kilometre from the houses shown later to the other side of the village, originally arriving in this village a few years before my teens.
Before then there were two other places, both mirror images of this place. Mirror images in that they were coal mining villages, relatively small and built within walking distance of the local mine.
Surrounding this village are (or rather, were), one pit in the village, one about a kilometre away, and two more within two kilometres.
There is a town of about 50,000 inhabitants a five minute drive away and a further town of about 100,000 inhabitants about a ten minute drive away. All the towns and villages are linked by housing which runs between them, there is very little open space along the lines of the roads, but plenty off to the sides.
Those who are familiar with England will recognise how typical these places are, others can compare them to their places of growing up in their own country.
So – there were two pubs in the village, the major one was levelled about fifteen years ago and is now a supermarket –
The second stumbled from new owner to new owner, the last one only surviving three months before closing the place down –
This is the road approaching, to the traffic lights in the distance, and then the centre shops begin –
This is the main shopping area –
Often in the photos you’ll catch a glimpse of the countryside surroundings. This for many years was my escape. But it is a bit of a false picture as in its heyday the village was also surrounded by coal spoil tips and settling ponds full of coal dust. Fortunately these have now become overgrown and money has been spent on beautification whereby the spoil tips are hills of grass, the ponds are filled in and the old railway lines are footpaths. But the centre of the village has also changed – it is dead.
We do have horses though –
So, running down the high street from one end to the other the first shop is a charity shop –
The rest will speak for themselves. Mainly takeaways, betting shops, another local supermarket, empty shops and various trades. You’ll see I’ve tried to make it not too obvious where it is by wiping out some of the phone numbers. I hope it doesn’t detract from your viewing pleasure –
This next place, when it was a normal chip shop, had a not very good reputation. At the end of one year me and my father called in as it was a last resort type place when all others were closed. We purchased our meal (mix and two fish cakes for me, saveloy and chips for my dad) open, not wrapped so we could eat them straight away. Used the required amount of salt and vinegar (no salt but lots of vinegar for me), tried the chips and my Dad said, “These taste quite good!” in surprise. I, with the smart mouth, said “His fryer’s probably had its Christmas present and he’s changed the fat ready for next year”.
The owner rushed from round the counter, knocked the meal from our hands and pushed us out the door, hungry.
Beans on toast at home it was that evening.
The road then disappears out of the village, making a hasty exit –
The shops line one side of the street, the other side is taken up mostly by an old folks home. About 85 - 90% of the occupants are women, then men having succumbed at an earlier age to industrial disease, smoking, drinking, hard unhealthy working life, or pit accidents (many less accidents in later years thankfully) –
If you pop down the side streets on either side of the road the view is how you might think, terraced houses. I was born in one exactly the same but elsewhere –
This is the road to the pit –
Behind the main street –
Behind the old chip shop –
Greenery in the distance –
Someone trying to make an effort –
Some streets directly off the main street give a clue as to its agricultural background, before the coming of the mines –
The local church. The hall off to the side being the meeting point for the Boys Brigade. This I tried for a year to do something different but it didn’t suit me, just a passing phase –
At the top of the road to the pit is the old main entrance, the main road in and you can see how nature begins to reclaim the land. Some is now an industrial park, but many units are empty –
At the end of the village from where we entered is a small estate where I lived before moving to where my father is now, as I said, just across the village about half a kilometre.
These we called ‘rabbit hutches’ –
When the local mine was going full swing a new seam of coal was opened up. As an attraction to get miners to move to the area to exploit it the National Coal Board built these houses to be rented, you couldn’t buy one.
As a worker for the Coal Board you got a ‘coal allowance’, more or less an amount of coal free each month to use to heat your home. The amount varied as to your status in the hierarchy as regards how close you worked to the coal face. My father, who worked underground servicing and maintaining hydraulic pit props got less than a ‘face man’, but he got more than me as I worked mostly in the vehicle and plant (heavy machinery) garages on the surface.
However, we both at one time had an allowance.
Also, however, in the way of government organisations worldwide, the National Coal Board built these houses on the cheap. This meant no fireplace or boiler. It meant that the whole house used only electricity for heating and hot water, and everything else.
We had a large block of concrete encased in a cupboard which was heated by an electric element. Air was then blown across it and hot air vents were in the downstairs rooms (upstairs not being heated, as is/was normal). Hot water was by means of an immersion heater in a water tank.
When electricity was too expensive, most of the time, in the winter we used paraffin heaters to heat just the living room and showered on work days at the pit.
We used to heat up a tank of water twice a week for my mother to have a bath though.
Thus we had an allowance we couldn’t use. We still claimed it though as there were many miners who didn’t have enough. Every month a coal truck would come, deposit a couple of tons on our driveway, we’d phone up a mate or two who had coal houses elsewhere, they’d arrive and we’d sell them ours cheaper than the retail rate.
Many an unhappy hour was spent ‘bagging’ and placing it in car boots each month.
So I lived here several years –
To finish off - my old street –
What’s your old street look like?
Do tell.
Maybe you can see why I moved away.