Accrington May 1957. - Page 2

Tealeaf · 02-02-2004, 12:29

What Clock? If you mean the round object in the town hall window, then that may be a clock - then again, it may not. If it is, then I could'nt tell the time either from it.

The simple reason we can approximate the time is that we know the front of the town hall faces approximatly south. The picture is taken in May, according to the caption, so by roughly working out the angle of the sun and the length & direction of the shadows we can ascertain that this piccy was taken sometime in the afternoon.

A similar technique can be used for the sunken gardens, which roughly face East by South East. In the Piccy of Avenue Parade, we see the shadows by the lampost are long and lean, suggesting it is coming towards the evening.

As for Saturday, then that should be pretty obvious. What are all those guy's doing lolling around the front of the town hall? Why are'nt they at work? For that matter, why is'ny the photographer at school (possibly work). Was this camera a birthday present, with Jambutty rushing out to take some Piccy's of the town centre? I'm pretty sure these were all taken on the same day, and that day was a saturday.

mez · 02-02-2004, 12:59

i think the clock tells the time of 2-25pm

Atarah · 02-02-2004, 13:00

Hi, am surprised no-one has mentioned the Walter Smith confectionery van passing the Town Hall. I believe there were two shops, one facing the bottom of Water Street, where they reduced the price of the bread and cakes on a Saturday afternoon, and wasn't it their bakery on Cotton Street?

Tealeaf · 02-02-2004, 13:08

My eyesights knackered; my computers about to die......Walter Smith Van? i can just about make out "Accrington" on it's side....no doubt it was rushing around on a saturday sfternoon with a compliment of cut price loaves!

jambutty · 04-02-2004, 05:11

Like most towns of the era Accrington was clean and virtually litter free mez. But we didn’t have cans of pop for a start only bottles and you got tuppence of threepence back for the empties. Chewing gum wasn’t just chucked to the ground either although there wasn’t much money around for sweets and things so that helped too.

Wow! K.S.H. That’s a neat bit of colouring and not by numbers either. I don’t mind what you do with my photos just as long as you don’t claim them to be your own.
Before they built the sunken garden the whole area was boarded off to hide the River Hyndburn and it was bricked over (with Nori brick of course) presumably to prevent the smell from emanating into town. The river saw the light of day at Bull Bridge and flowed on its merry way towards Church, or maybe it was coming the other way. I can’t remember.

Er! Wingy. There were no trees on the Coppice when that picture was taken apart from the odd one. That eagle was just a patch of land without grass. Erosion I guess! I suppose that is why trees have been planted on the slope to help prevent erosion. I mean you wouldn’t want The Coppice to come trundling down Avenue Parade would you?

You are almost right tealeaf but you forgot to take into account that it was May and the sun wasn’t at its highest so shadows even at midday would be longish. If you mess around in something like Paint Shop Pro you can make out Walter Smith on the side of the van quite clearly and just about make out the time on the clock. According to the clock the time was 1.11pm and the pictures were all taken within an hour or so.

The pictures were taken one sunny afternoon in May ’57 but it wasn’t a Saturday. If it had been a Saturday teenagers would have been on The Deck and not men and I wouldn’t have been taking pictures. I wasn’t at school or work because I was on leave from the navy and all my mates would have been at work so I had little to do except wander around taking a few pictures. They were the last three on the roll too and that is why there were no more.

Tealeaf · 04-02-2004, 08:55

Ah well....amost right! I though it was about 2ish when the first 2 piccy's were taken, and I completely misread the length of the shadow on the lampost at avenue parade which is why I'd thought it was later.

I'd also forgotten that in '57 we had a proper navy & also national service & that alot of people would be on leave at any time.

The coppice got forested over in the early 80's. Unemployment at the time went through the roof and this was a work creation scheme that was dream't up.

The river Stink, of course, flows from Accy to Church - not t'other way round!

Darby · 04-02-2004, 09:08

Jambutty wrote:
Before they built the sunken garden the whole area was boarded off to hide the River Hyndburn and it was bricked over (with Nori brick of course) presumably to prevent the smell from emanating into town. The river saw the light of day at Bull Bridge and flowed on its merry way towards Church, or maybe it was coming the other way. I can’t remember.

I'm not too sure about the sunken gardens being boarded up. But the opposite side of Broadway was. And if you went over the boardings there was the "Crocodile"...the red brick culvert for t'river Stink. We use to come out of the Odeon on Saturday mornings, and walk on the "Crocodile" emerging opposite the back entrance of the Market Hall just where the Tripe Stalls (well, Wooden huts on iron wheels) where situated.

I use to buy a couple of Black Puddings (lean ones), and take them home for my dinner (with lots of malt vinegar), and mushy peas (I always heard from them later).

Tealeaf · 04-02-2004, 09:21

What happened to the tripe & black pudding stall that used to be on the market? Have they gone or have they moved, and if so where to? I only ask because I love a bit of black pudding myself & you can't get the proper stuff down here, and I don't have much time to look when I'm back in Church & Accy.

Mik Dickinson · 04-02-2004, 09:57

The coppice got forested over in the early 80's. Unemployment at the time went through the roof and this was a work creation scheme that was dream't up.

Exactly Tealeaf and that was when i moved over here.Could not get a job for love nor money back then.just finished my apprenticeship in 82 and off i went.Have not looked back since.

Tealeaf · 04-02-2004, 11:06

Hi Mik. I left in 74.......so it's my 30th anniversery away this year. Having said that, I'm back every 2 or 3 weeks, so the accents not gone, albeit I've been a weekday cockney for 25 years.

The Unemployment in Accy is'nt to bad now.....certainly not as bad as in the '80's. It's a lttle lower than the national average, which on the European measure is about 4.5%,(and falling) compared to Germany's 9.5% (and rising)

There's still manufacturing around, but as elsewhere, if you work it's increasingly in services. The main problem with Accy is the shortfall of high "value-added" service or product outputs, with the resultant effect that nominal income levels are generally depressed. However, this is reflected in property prices being way below the national average which togeather with other prices being low (i.e. a pint in Lancashire is the cheapest in the country according to CAMRA) the real standard of living is'nt to bad.

The underlying cause - I just been discussing this with Darby - is, in my opinion, a definitive lack of imagination on the part of the powers-that-be, irrespective of which political party they are with & the honest committment many of them make. Allowing for the Sacred Heart to be demolished & at the same time a unpopular, tacky and expensive town centre redevelopment takes place proves my point.

Anyway, I've had my rant for this morning.

jambutty · 04-02-2004, 14:38

The sunken gardens weren’t boarded up but the land was before the sunken gardens were built. Great playground for us kids until a patrolling copper told us to clear off. You do remember what a copper was, don’t you. You know those tall guys in a navy blue uniform and that funny tall hat and a hand that couldn’t half clip you round an ear. But that same hand would stop the traffic to let you cross the road.

Thanks for reminding me of the Crocodile Darby. I knew that the culvert had a name but just couldn’t remember what it was.

Nothing like a good rant first thing in the morning tealeaf. It gets the liver working, so they tell me.

By the way we have a proper navy now and much better than it used to be. But we had a proper navy then even if some officers still imagined themselves as Bligh and tried to treat the crew (us lot) as slaves. “Hang ‘im from the yardarm Mr Christian.” No keel hauling in my time but they had the ‘swimming test’, which was almost as bad. Somewhere out in the vast ocean the ship would stop and all sailors that hadn’t passed the ‘swimming test’ had to swim once around the ship fully clothed. Glad I never served on a carrier.

Tealeaf · 04-02-2004, 15:23

Hi Jam,

Well, our navy is now smaller than the French, Indian & Chinese Navys; the "carriers" we have are jumped up cruisers; frigates and destroyers you can count on both hands and we've a couple of subs....conditions for the matelots may be better, though - these days they have separate showers for the girls amongst them.

The point about having a decent navy is that it should be more powerful than other navies. Simple. While we can never compete with the Yanks for size, at least we should be in a position to tell our European "chums" what to do. Can we? Answer no. We have surrendered our maritime heritage & our fishing grounds to that bunch of rogues called the Common Market....Anyone can come in & empty the North Sea of whatever fish is in there - Frogs, Spaniards, Danes - you name 'em. Anyone that is, apart from the British fishing fleet whose quota this year restricts them to not much more than a couple of cans of sardines.

Get out the EU, rebuild our Navy and sort out this Euro Riff-Raff A.S.A.P., that's what I say.

jambutty · 04-02-2004, 16:52

My sentiments entirely tea or rather tealeaf. We may not have the quantity but in the manpower and these days womanpower we have the quality. But then we always have had.

The French have never forgiven us for putting Napoleon in his place and the Spanish are still sore at losing their Armada to a smaller fleet.

Mik Dickinson · 04-02-2004, 21:12

To tell you the truth the Germans have never forgiven us for the following dates:-
1914 to 1917
1939 to 1945
1966 i.E. World Cup
2001 the defeat in Germany namely 5 - 1

Darby · 05-02-2004, 06:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by jambutty

My sentiments entirely tea or rather tealeaf. We may not have the quantity but in the manpower and these days womanpower we have the quality. But then we always have had.

The French have never forgiven us for putting Napoleon in his place and the Spanish are still sore at losing their Armada to a smaller fleet.

I still do some work for the RN, and last year I visited Whale Island (you'll know where I mean Jambutty), in Portsmouth. Definitely not the Royal Navy we served in

As for technology...well, on paper.... yes....in practice...no. As for carriers....I served on HMS Centaur, and we had real planes then. Now the Harriers have a combat air patrol range and duration of 50 miles and 30 minutes. A Typhoon would be in and out in 2 minutes flat.

Fleet size....When I served in the Far East, the Far East Fleet was 38 ships(Belfast the flagship). Now the whole RN is less than that. We've almost as many Fleet Auxiliary's as warships

Never mind, I can go back to bed now