Memorable stuff from your formative years

[A signaller]

In the '60s, the ground floor/basement of this now rather spiffy gaff, on the corner of the road in which I was born was bombed out. Of course it was a magnet for us kids with our evo-stuck (badly) Airfix FN's. The first and upper floors were still lived in and it would only be a short while before we were 'asked to leave', sometimes in English.
View attachment 417354

Looks tidy enough, where's that?

 

[721CXT]

Looks tidy enough, where's that?

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

 

[A signaller]

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

South of the river, being a "northerner" I rarely ventured into bandit country, worked in Croydon a few times, and survived, but I take your point, as I watched through the late 60's and early 70's the bomb sites on my manor slowly evolve into new flats and houses. That ever changing building is still going on, in the city, and odd spots in and around the old homestead, where mum still lives, it is constantly changing, getting more and more congested. More and more outsiders and foreigners taking over what were once the indigenous populations ancestral turf, now a morass of tongues , smells and strange religions, and all the individuality that set it apart that made it unique, from all the other individual little community's that formed the whole, gone, now one big bubbling pot of crap.

 

[Tedsson]

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

Reminds me of Pimlico. After the war and well into the sixties it was an utter shitheap.

(That paperboy gets around!).

You could get an entire terrace of houses for £15,000. All split up into dingy flats, decrepit bedsits, full of squatters and junkies etc. The area was so shite post-war they even made an Ealing Comedy (shorthand for not funny) called Passport To Pimlico where the locals declared independence from the U.K. to go it alone.

Like this but significantly tattier (then).

Nowadays those houses sell for £4-6million (I hoiked the photo off Rightmove and the middle one is £4.4million). There are others up to ten mil.

 

[Cregg Bristle]

Aforementioned belts in aforementioned bric a brac shop

 

[AlienFTM]

South of the river, being a "northerner" I rarely ventured into bandit country, worked in Croydon a few times, and survived, but I take your point, as I watched through the late 60's and early 70's the bomb sites on my manor slowly evolve into new flats and houses. That ever changing building is still going on, in the city, and odd spots in and around the old homestead, where mum still lives, it is constantly changing, getting more and more congested. More and more outsiders and foreigners taking over what were once the indigenous populations ancestral turf, now a morass of tongues , smells and strange religions, and all the individuality that set it apart that made it unique, from all the other individual little community's that formed the whole, now one big bubbling pot of crap.

Zero Alpha's grandparents and back lived in Hammersmith (some lived opposite The Dove on the riverbank, later bombed out, now a peace park. Why that street starts about number 13 immediately in front of the Dove).

Couple of years ago we found where some had lived (and moved over the road) near Ravenscourt Park. Apart from cars and street and house furniture, very little has changed in 100 years. Funny how it goes.

 

[robinrocket111]

Same too in 1960s Bootle. We called it playing on 'the debris' often 1/2 a whole street of terraced houses had been demolished in the blitz. Given it was only 20 years after the end of the war it wasn't that surprising that they'd been left. That said, I had a mate who lived there in the early 80s' and some of the streets still hadn't been rebuilt by then.

As a truck driver, I've had a few nights out down near the Mersey docks, any idea what year they demolished and outlined the church that was destroyed during the Blitz. I know it's a park now as I've wandered around there a couple of times going for a pint and some tucker?

 

[robinrocket111]

Aforementioned belts in aforementioned bric a brac shop

How much were the belts and where?

 

[Cregg Bristle]

How much were the belts and where?

Small shop on the corner of Bedminster Parade and East St. in Bristol. Couldn’t see the price tag but I’ll pop in and ask if you like.

 

[robinrocket111]

Small shop on the corner of Bedminster Parade and East St. in Bristol. Couldn’t see the price tag but I’ll pop in and ask if you like.

Don't worry to much, I personally can't afford them. But that's the sort of stuff that should be looked after, the leather looks quite dry and not left in a window.
Perhaps some knows of a museum that would have them, after all in a way its the second innings form of trench art.

 

[Goatman]

Well, I had to find an appropriate thread. With love from The Igloo :