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When I left school in ’52 I went to work at Scaitcliffe Colliery at one end of Scaitcliffe Street after six weeks training at Bank Hall Pit in Burnley and became a pit pony. I wanted to be an electrician but they wouldn’t give me an apprenticeship so I pushed tubs of coal from the face to the chain. I left after a year and joined Uni-Relays on Abbey Street to install Radio Luxembourge to go with the Home Service and Light Programme on what today would be called cable radio. I reckon that I have run across most of the rooftops in Accy and surrounding areas hauling a cable behind me. Still couldn’t get an apprenticeship to become an electrician with them either so after a few months left to join the navy to become an electrician. The navy had other ideas and I became a Radio Electrician.
Just across the road from the baths down a side street there was an alleyway on the left that led to a door where you could buy 1d and 2d packets of Smiths crisps after swimming. You got a proper sealed bag with the little blue salt packet inside but the crisps were small bits, but lots and lots of them - enough to fill a hungry child’s belly.
The Saturday mornings at the Odeon was OK but the Bug Hut (Kings Hall) was better ‘cos they had the Flash Gordon serial and cowboy films and it only cost 3d on the benches at the front or 4d on proper seats. 6d upstairs.
Whenever I could scrape together a few pennies I would go to the Hippodrome to watch the variety shows from the Gods of course. If I couldn’t get a few coppers I would stand outside the entrance with that sad urchin look on my face hoping that someone would take pity on me and take me in. Some did and some just gave me the 6d that it cost to go up in the Gods. One nice lady even gave me a bag of sweets.
We used to do something similar at Peel Park. The exit gates would be opened about 20 minutes before the match ended so we watched from the top of The Coppice (you could see half of the pitch) and after half time we would make our way down to the ground. We would stand outside and cheer and shout for Stanley. What usually happened was that the gatekeeper would tell us to come in and we would get passed down to the front to sit on the benches pitch side of the wall and watch the last few minutes of a match. Jack Hacking the goalie was my hero because I was a goalie too.
I can’t imagine that sort of thing happening today.
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