life in 20th and 21st century in england

Barclays bank.. next to it was James Bros [grocery and wine merchants] Flick.com

photo. London museum

Sainsburys. Romford . 1905

Similar to the shop that was in the Northampton

The building in Northampton that is now used by Barclay Bank was occupied by Sainsburys.

Sainsburys first started by John James Sainsbury and his wife Mary Ann Sainsbury nee` Staples in Drury Lane. London.

Northampton has other Sainsbury Stores in the town. A very large one at Duston and one in the town centre.

From reading Northampton cookery book. printed in 1905 i was interested to see the adverts for companies in and around the town centre of Northampton.

Adams brothers confectioners, bakers, cooks, caterers, Cafe 22 Marefair 155 Kettering Road 209 Wellingborough Road

Bakery Adams Avenue. The only business still going in 2013 and has expanded.

James Bros grocers 22 The Drapery

Cockerill Florist 18-20 The Drapery

Fitness . hatters, hosier. glover shirt maker. 3 The Drapery

Knight jewellers. Mercer row

Higgins general drapers The Parade

Kirby chemist. 58 Abington Street

Phillips fish, poultry ice merchants 2 George row

Jefferys furnishing showroom Gold street

Parkin boot maker. 3 Mercer row

Hanwell gas cooker gas lighting Abington street

Wesley Bros and Clark millers and corn merchants. Poultry, bird, rabbit, dog food. 3 Abington Street

The Wesley and the Clark family both came from Blisworth Northampton.

St Giles Street there was a boot and shoe factory owned by Francis h. Crick [found DNA] grandfather .

1950`s

Sainsburys was a shop with assistants.They would serve you from behind the counter, weighing out items of food required ,patting the butter into the amount you ask for and wrapping it up.Cutting cheese and cooked meats to order.

The food was served from marble counters to keep the food fresh, and the floor was tiled for ease of keeping clean.

There wasnt any fridge. freezers available yet.

I was to learn how to cut cooked meat and bacon and bone a whole side of bacon when i worked for Liptons/ Worthingtons in Hillmorton Rugby in the late 1960s.

Supermarkets hadnt been build in England. The Co Op was the first to open self serve shops in 1947.

As rationing finished in 1954 more food became available and supermarkets were the shops of the future.

Sainsbury moved shop to Abington Street.

This was very popular with customers as there was bus stops out side of the shop. giving easy access to people carrying grocery home.

The shop was very busy most of the time.

market square . northampton .on wet day

Northampton market square July 14 th 2012 . lions London Culture Olympiad touring display 3 giant hand crocheted lions. shaun richardson lion heart project

Northampton Market Square June 29 th 2013. armed forces day . An allotment in the middle of Market Square

Market Square.Northampton , February 15th 2014.Drag Racing Car from Santa Pod

They was promoting the sport of racing very fast cars on straight runway.

We had visited Santa Pod raceway in 1960-1970`s.The sport is very noisy.

Pictures of the Old Greyfriars bus Station in Northampton. As of March 3rd 2014 now closed and to be demolished.

October 19th 2013. Northampton Market Square. from the fountain area looking up towards the shopping centre.

2014 The fountain is has been replaced as it isnt up to health and safety laws.

2014 The Bus station has been replaced by a small one on the ground where the Fish Market had stood for years.

After visiting the the old bus station for the last time on Saturday February 1st,2014 . i was shocked how run down it was . A building waiting for the demolition men to come and destroy it.Downstairs broken toilets and a newsagent serving lots of people. It was always a place to sit and wait in the dry with plenty of seat available. Many friends were formed there as people waited for their bus.I wanted to take photos of the building but felt it was in such a sad state i didnt like to. After talking to some people who was on their way to catch a bus home. They are very upset that soon they will standing out in all weathers at a bus stop in The Drapery. 60 years ago it was like that, then we didnt have a bus station for the town buses. The country buses run by United counties[ the green buses] was on the site where the new Derngate Theatre is now.

March 1st 2014 . Open day for the new bus station. A parade of buses of all ages came from the Greyfriars Bus Station for the last time.I was doing my voluntary work on reception for Relate so unable to witness it for myself . People on Facebook have captured the event.

March 3rd 2014 the new Northgate bus station opens for business.

0n a Saturday in 1950`s we caught the local United Counties bus to Towcester ,my parents and my sister and i to Blisworth. The conductor got to know us well and would order the bus driver to stop at the entrance to the farm of my grandparents. My mother would take over running the house and looking after her mother who had Parkinsons .My father on his only day off from the railway who do any repairs to the farm. Nancy Gulliver and her father Fred Gulliver always went to the cattle market . It was here that Fred could meet his fellow farmers and have a chat before going to the PLOUGH INN with his fellow farmers for half a double diamond.Nancy , my sister and i would go to town shopping. We had been at school all week at St Giles School , but didnt mind as sometimes we was treated by our aunt.

In 1950`s after school finished.

We would walk to the market square to buy cakes from Richardsons cake stall.

This was a caravan parked near to the bottom of the Market Square.

The cakes would be very cheap as it was the end of the day.

If i remember right they were about 1d each.

Richardsons bakery van on Northampton market 1950`s

Statue to Sir Francis Crick and James Watson .being dug up and removed . getting ready for opening up the road in Abington Street .Northampton .

March 19th 2014

Statue to sir francis Crick and James Watson. They discovered DNA.

Photo.flickr autumngold

ABINGTON STREET . NORTHAMPTON as of September 2013 before the street is opened up to traffic again. The council hope there will be more people shop in town if they have access to the town centre by car.

Walking down Abington Street Northampton in 1950`s. It was a very busy road . On school days there was a lolly pop man to see school children across the road.

The other side of the road was a small sweet shop where we could get 1d sweets. including flying saucers . rice paper and fizzy sherbert. the shop was next to the school of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame School was opposite the New Theatre in Abington Street .This school had many girl pupils.

Where Marks and Spencers shop is now, this space previously housed the Gas showrooms and offices. During term time lunch time sessions of cooking lessons were held. these was free to every one.

A group of us from the Northampton Technical College in Georges Avenue came into town on the bus and sat in the cookery lessons. Sometimes we was treated to sample of what had been cooked that day. Further on pass Fish Street on the left hand side was buildings that were demolished to make the road wider. One of them on the corner of Dychurch Lane had been a butchers shop and as children we was told to keep away. It was said that the butcher used people to make pork pies which he sold in the shop. This frightened us as children and hurried by.

More information about a missing lady and her baby. This may be the people the story relates to.

`WIG AND PEN, NORTHAMPTON.

Back in 1892 when the Wig and Pen was known as the Black Lion it shared a wall with a butcher`s warehouse. This warehouse was the scene of a murder when Andrew MacRae killed Annie Pritchard and her infant child. The torso and legs of Annie Pritchard were discovered in an old sack near Althorp Station on August 27th 1892.

Andrew Macrae was found guilty of murder and was hung on 19th January 1893 at Northampton Gaol.

Annie Pritchard young baby was never found and there have been reports of people hearing an infant crying coming from the back wall of the Wig and Pen.

Link to an article in the New York Times 18th November 1892 concerning the case.

Annie Pritchards fate Opening of the trial of Macrae, charged with her murder

www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk

Just across the lane you could smell coffee being grounded in Kinghams. The smell coming through the vents. Passed Wiggins the coal merchant shop. This shop was busy with people ordering their supply of coal to heat their homes,we came to the market place.

Coffee shop. formerly Kinghams grocery/ coffee shop

I believe the covered space of the wall near the back door maybe where the vent was that let the coffee fumes out. Please correct me if i am wrong.

Admiral Rodney Pubic House

48 The Drapery

Northampton

Last Licensee Leonard Parker 1954-1956

His daughter attended St Giles School

Photo Northampton Museums and Art Gallery

1950-1960` White and large flowered design dress.

Bouffant net petticoat. as worn under above dress.

www.anothertimevintageapparel.com

Ladies dresses/ petticoats similar to ones sold in Littlewoods store in 1950-1960`s.

The dresses with the full skirts needed net under skirts made of many layers to keep the skirt in this shape.

Also available at this time a paper nylon material that was dipped in hot sugar solution and left to dry,which made the material stiff This was also made into petticoats .

photos from.

www.myvintagevoque.com

White Sailor collar dress. Pencil skirt button thro` dress. Blue dress with thin belt . Ladies fashion of 1950`s-1960s

Navy blue and coloured spotted dress.

A Littlewoods store .photo Flickr

Shop front similar to the one that was in Abington Street, Northampton

The shop in Northampton employed many school teenagers as Saturday girls.

Other shops that offered employment on Saturdays was Brierleys. Gold Street. Woolworths Abington Street. B.H.S Abington Street

I worked in Littlewoods Abington Street . Northampton.

I was able to get a job as the lady next door to us in Far Cotton , Her daughter was the manageress of the store.She took me for an interview and i was accepted

As teenagers in 1960`s we all wanted to work to earn our own money.

Jobs were easy to find.

From the age of 14 yrs i started work , working Saturdays and during the school holidays.

The day began we chose our blue overall from the stock hanging on the rail. The style was of 1940`s design,of a wrap around with a tie belt. This was to change later to a modern overall.

I was to make many friends while working there,meeting a cousin on my mothers side.Her family the Floyd family lived at Litchborough ,Northants

If they was short of staff i worked during the school holidays. For working all day on a Saturday we was paid 19/6d. Todays value would be £43.10p for a days work 6d was taken out by the company.

My first purchase was a white short sleeve jumper costsing half my wages at a price of 10s. It was good to be able pay my way and buy myself clothes.

I worked in many parts of the shop including the warehouse learning how to stock control. I missed the contact with the public and soon returned on the shop floor.I had started on the sweets and biscuit counter. Each week the same people men and women came in for the weekly shop of boiled sweets and biscuits to take to work with them. This work meant everything was weighed out on the scales from metal tins. I progressed to the meat and bacon counter to the cafe. Here we was very busy and i was rushing round clearing the tables for the customers. I also worked in the kitchen stocking up the very large dishwasher. i worked on mens wear outer clothing. As i was shy and this took a lot of courage to do. The counter i most enjoyed was the ladies department either the dresses, skirts and large net underskirts. These were the fashion of the day and very difficult to get into the bags. The ladies underwear was the most rewarding her i was able to advise the customer to what she needed. At Easter time we had a counter right by the front entrance just inside the shop doors. the counter was full of Easter eggs, mainly the large cheaper eggs with no packaging. The idea was to catch the customer before they left the shop and buy an Easter eggs after doing their

shopping in the store.

A few doors away from Littlewoods Store was Victor Values. It was the first self service grocery store in the town centre. Later was taken over by Tesco, before being sold to Bejams then Iceland. Everyone wanted to shop there. We carried a basket and picked up anything we wanted, not having to ask the shop assistant first. We forgot we had to pay at the checkout for the goods in our baskets.

photo. Tesco plc.

The days before central heating was fitted in homes, a trip once or twice a year to Wiggins Coal Merchant office in Abington Street Northampton was essential to order coal for the fire.

Grosvenor Centre shopping centre Northampton

.photo susan clarke Christmas time 2013

photo. Steve C. flickr

Northampton town during the 1970`s changed a lot.

I left in 1968 to live at Rugby and only knew of the changes because my mother kept the local newspaper Chronicle and Echo for me to read.

Each month she would bring a bundle of Northampton newspapers for to read up on what was going on in Northampton.

The old roads with blocks of terraced homes were demolished and in their place was built Grosvenor shopping centre.

After school at St Giles i often when home with my friends who lived in and around Wood Street. Their homes were quite spacious with lots of rooms.

It was in this road that a Chinese restaurant was opened and for my 21 st birthday i was treated to a meal. Lots of small dishes of food was placed on a round table and we also had our main food. I had never seen so much food on a table for so few people.

In 1460 the land where the shopping centre was built had been Grey Friars Church and burial ground. Humphrey Stafford 1st Duke of Buckingham died after the battle of Northampton and was buried in Greyfriars. I do not know where his remains were placed.

My daughter worked for a time in a shop in the shopping centre and was upset by a ghost haunting the shop. This was a shoe shop and now has changed to more owners.At present[2013] the shop is still empty. Upstairs some of the people working in the shops are disturbed by strange goings on.

University of Northampton [ front view. St Georges Avenue].

Formerly Northampton Technical College

Between 1961-1963 i attended classes.

Two years dressmaking . Tutor. Miss.W Cantle and Mrs Corneilus. who worked part time at Northampton College .

The college had an account at Adnitts[ Debenhams] and anything needed i collected on my way to college. Material. button, zips, cottons for our dresses was usually bought from either Adnitts in The Drapery or Phillips in Abington Street.

English lesson, once a week.with a male teacher.

Tutor. Henry Bird. Design course once a week in the Northampton School of Art. Part of the lesson was done with people drawing a picture with an elderly man in nude sitting in the room.We sometimes went out into town and sketched old buildings.

At the end of the lesson on a Friday i was asked to wait for Henry Bird to close up the class and we would walk from the School of Art to the Derngate bus station where we would both catch a bus home , him to Hardingstone and me to Blisworth.

Henry Bird was famous Artist. He was married to an actress .They had one son and lived at Hardingstone, Northampton.

His work included drawing female nudes , that were , big and beautiful. His way was to ask the young ladies into his studio by saying they could have cream cakes and sherry or gin. I was 17 years old and was asked to model for him, as he said I was big and beautiful. I declined the offer saying I was very flattered that he asked me to be a model. I was given a cream cake by Henry anyway as we continued to be friends.

In 2013 while doing family tree research i found that Henry Bird ancestors came from Astcote near Pattishull Northamaptonshire.

Samuel Bird born Astcote 1806, married Elizabeth Jones. Samuel Bird was Henrys great grandfather. he was a carpenter.

Drawing lessons on drawing people and cloth twice a week with a female teacher at Northampton School of Art.

At the end of the college year we took the City and Guild dressmaking exam. I passed with class one pass. the highest you could get . Miss Cantle had trusted me to make all her clothes. This included a full length winter lined coat and a evening dress studied with dress pearls and two smocked child dresses for her niece.

All photos black and white. Permission from University of Northampton

University of Northampton Dining Room .

Some dinner times were spent in the dining room.

On a nice day we would walk over the Racecourse

and buy some chips from the local chip shop.

University of Northampton. pottery classes .

I attended these classes as a evening class, also i attended evening classes for two years to learn the Italian language

after spending all day studying at College and Art School.

Make Believe play.

New theatre . Abington Street. Northampton

Some of the cast are in the photo.

The children in the play included pupils from St Giles School.

The school was in St Giles Terrace .

There was a entrance into the New Theatre from St Giles Terrace.

From where we was able to go in the back entrance of the theatre.

We was able to get ready in our costumes and have our stage make up applied in our classroom before going to the theatre.

The dressing rooms back stage where quite small and not easy to get to with narrow stairs

I was dressed in a pink silk kimono and made up to look like a Japanese girl.

In the photo is Mr Ian Knight . Son of Jessie Knight of Harpole Hall , Harpole.

Photo from a Northampton Newspaper

Please look at www.britishpathe.com for more clips on the New Theatre and backstage with Laurel and Hardy in 1953

New Theatre , Abington Street . Northampton

Auditorium.1947.

A view from the stage to the audience as i remember it when we performed Make Believe.

Photo courtesy. Alan Chudley. Matthew Lloyd.

www.arthurlloyd.co.uk

Photo. Relate office Hazelwood Road, with the sold sign above the door.

Hazelwood Road. Manfield clinic, Relate offices, Northampton Drama Club. All three of these buildings i was associated with.

Manfield Clinic i attended as a young girl.

I was born with badly formed legs and wore leg irons each night to try to straighten them.

Northampton Drama club.We trained in the Drama Club rooms.Later renamed Masque Theatre. The drama club rooms was two doors away from Relate.

As pupils from St Giles School some of us were chosen to perform in a play called MAKE BELIEVE.

We all dressed up in different costumes from around the world.

It was performed at New Theatre Abington Street, Northampton

Mrs Jessie Knight of Harpole Hall Harpole, organised it to raise money for charity.

Afterwards we was treated to a meal at the Wedgewood Resturant

A few weeks later we all went to Harpole Hall to learn to play cricket with Mr Knight and then have tea with Mrs knight.

The large gardens had apple trees in the orchard between the house and the lake.

In the middle of the lake was a small island which two punts were used to get to it.

Swans used to nest there each year..

To me the garden was a magical place.

It reminded me of the sort of garden that Enid Byton, Famous Five and Timothy the dog would have found.

Mrs Jessie Knight was very good friends with Henry Bird, the artist as they both enjoyed painting.

Henry Bird had been my tutor at Art School.

Mrs knights funeral was held at St Giles Church in 1983 . Afterwards she was cremated at Creaton.

Relate office. Hazelwood road.

The office where Princess Diana visited and sat and listened to a counselling session.

By the stairs there appears a ghost, a man wearing a flat cap and smoking a pipe. He seemed to appear when people were talking loud or arguing. I spoke to a former next door neighbour in Hazelwood Road and was told it maybe a former owner of the house , Mr James Pickles.

I was to go there for counselling after my marriage broke up and use the same room that the Princess had sat in.

When i had finished counselling it was decided Relate needed to open on a Saturday as they had many clients waiting for counselling . They would have to interview people to work as receptionists. My former counsellor put my name forward and i was interviewed by a panel of three people. I got the voluntary job. I was to work there for 15 years each Saturday until the building was sold and Relate moved to St Giles old Vicarage, St Giles Street where i continue to work.