Memory Corner.. For your old photos, memories & stories..

As a lot of us are sorting through old photos & memorabilia, it might be nice to have a thread where we could share some of them..

Family history research, discoveries, your memories, stories, photos.. Trips down & around "Memory Corner"....

Whether serious or funny, if you want to share them then this is the thread..

Thanks

Marley..

 

Really great photo

sorry to disillusion you about the hair but it was a very popular style as it was quick and easy to do.

 

Cor! This thread could keep me posting all week . I'll see whether I can dig out some photos but I don't really need them (or haven't got them) for my memories.

I remember, when I was at school that, in the winter, the lamplighter used to come down the street on his bike (he did it all year but we only saw him in the winter because of the timing).

He carried a long pole over his shoulder (I guess it was about 8ft long) and he whilst still sitting on his bike (one foot on the ground) he would stick the pole up through the gap in the bottom of the lamp. On the end of the pole was a hook which was used to push the lever to open the gas tap. The hook was then used to pull a loop at the end of a short chain that lit the pilot light.

I also remember chatting to him about his job. He used to have to come back early in the morning to turn the gas off. He explained that his long pole made the job a lot easier as, when he first strted in the job, he used to have to carry a ladder and climb it to turn the lamp on. The lamp posts had two metal bars sticking out horizontally just below the glass lamp and they were there for him to lean his ladder against. He still used to come out once a month with the ladder so that he could clean the glass.

He was bemoaning the fact that he was being done out of his job by these new-fangled contraptions that lit the lamps automatically. They were small time clocks with an electric ignition that lit the lamps!

 

More reminiscing:-

"Last Tram Week" was the week that they were doing away with the old London trams that had been around since the turn of the century.

I remember being on one the "Last Trams" but can't remember what route we were on. It was July 1952 and we boarded the rattling bone shaker as it ding dinged its way along.

The journey I can remember was when I went on the last tram to use the Kingsway Tunnel thre months earlier. I can still see us entering the tunnel and a big cheer going up from people standing all around. I don't remember seeing the newsreel cameras but, I understand, there were loads of them there.

The tunnel has been out of use for 60 years but, apparently, it will be used in the new CrossRail project.

 

Talking about trams, here's one for you Loli - you are too young to remember the Trolley buses in Hull but as a kid I found them fascinating, they ran on the old tram rail routes but looked just like normal buses with a gantry thing on top to pick up the power from overhead wires. They had rubber tyres so didn't need rails, there was a network of overhead electric cables throughout the city. They were ahead of their time really - it's a shame they have gone, the diesel replacements are no-where near as 'green'.