Accrington Web - Hippodrome

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We've mentioned the Hippodrome before, but I wanted to show you this lovely "connected" photo - a Mr and Mrs Buckett had an "eating house" at the top of Ellison Street, which was next door to The Spread Eagle Pub on Blackburn Road. This shop has, I believe, also been a toy shop, a "tourist information" type of shop run by Hyndburn Transport, and I think its now an insurance company, but take a trip back in "The Tardis" and get an idea of how it was. The Bucket family, and many many more in Accrington, took in lodgers who would have been appearing at The Hippodrome theatre. Here we see what appears to be staff from the theatre and maybe the lasses who ran the cafe. (I believe that a couple of the Bucket sons were well known boxers in their time).

Great photographs. Don't they look smart?

The Hippodrome, just as remember it. Up in t'Gods. The Gods were so steep you felt as if you'd fall onto the stage. Great stuff once again Atarah!!

I remember once as a child going to watch some show there and we had to hire a "box" because all the seats in the general auditorium were gone. My dad was really embarrased and refused to sit at the front of the box in case someone saw him, recognised him and considered he was getting above his station in life. God, the things that stick in your mind.

Great photographs, Atarah. The Ellison Street one looks like it was originally black-and-white and has had tints added by someone who didn't know about Accy Coporation bus livery!

Yep, it does look as though it has been "touched up" - here's another anyway
Yesterday myself and another Accyweb member went "exploring" - we were actually stood on the corner of the backstreet you can see here, trying to visulize how it once was

If you wandered along the backstreet shown in Atarah's last picture, and no one was looking. You could climb into the Hippodrome through a street level window. Very dark and dirty was the corridor you climbed into, but if you followed it along you eventually came out onto the stage. There were skylights above, so there was actually lots of light. The Asbestos safety curtain had been lowered but vandals had cut holes in it so that you could swing out over the Orchestra pit from a great rope that hung from the fly tower. The remains of the house curtain was strewn in great mouldering swathes of crimson over the front seats of the auditorium. Wandering around in the gloom at the back of the theatre there appeared to be what was once the Gents. On the wall someone had painted a huge Vargas - style bathing beauty. Funny how we were not in the least bit concerned about Rats.

How long ago was that A-b?

Errm. I would be about nine years old, so I guess around 1965-67

I wish I'd known. All I ever remember of the Hippodrome is a vague recollection of seeing it by looking down Ellison Street from a Blackburn bus.

This remind you of when you used to sneak into the Hippodrome A-B?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atarah

This remind you of when you used to sneak into the Hippodrome A-B?

Ye Gods!!.... Atarah where did you find that one! Oh what a nightmare!! It's destroyed my memories of a once magical place!!

FABulous, Atarah. Just fabulous. Are there any more?

I never knew what it was like inside. At least from this photo I can imagine what it once was.

Over the past couple of years we've been inside 'The Winter Gardens' in Morecambe which a group are striving to renovate. I can understand your reaction to the Hippodrome photo Darby because when I first went into the derelict Winter Gardens it was quite a shock to see as I remembered the times I'd been there when it was a successful theatre. At least that one is still standing and hopefully one day will be re-opened. I had no idea we'd had anything rivalling it here in good old Accy.

It is surprising what we used to have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

It is surprising what we used to have.

Aye...we use to have a council that cared, and people to match!!

Accy was quite a wonderful place to be as a lad growing up in the 40's and 50's. We still had tradition then. Wakes weeks, when you thought the world had stopped (it had in Accy, second week at least). I can even remember Maypole dancing up Church Kirk, and in Oak Hill Park. Stopped in the 50's unfortunately (still have it in Bavaria..bless 'em, they hold onto their tradition in a very big way).

Market on Tuesdays, Fridays, and especially Saturday was exciting and worth a long walk into town. Playing on't Tanpits and Nelson Square was great. Cricket played against stumps drawn on a garage door. Football, on the Wreck, with games lasting 6 hours or more!

Walks and adventures down the Dunk or up Priestly Clough.....The days just weren't long enough...Scrumping in Stozzies orchard at the back of Dill Hall Lane. Pinching veg out of the allotments on Old Bob's.
Streets were clean (didn't need the council for that..every housholder did their front, and back!), you could stay out until it was passed sunset without threats or "Bad Men" groping you.

Flicks..we had 6 in Accy, 1 in Church and 3 up Ossy. Buses ran every 10 minutes (well Ossy to Accy then on to Clayton). Town Hall housed all the council offices (well almost all of them). Churches were clean and well looked after. Roads didn't have holes in 'em or sleeping policemen. Everybody spoke to one-another, humour was always there, and you could call a person of a different persuasion, exactly what you wanted without the thought police calling round. The Bobbies were quietly around on the beat, and you knew who was your local beat bobbie, and beware if he caught you doing something wrong. No court, no ASB's...just a clout round the lug hole, and a warning "next time...you're for it proper".

People had responsibility and were aware of the need to be polite, clean and mind yer own business. :engsmil: :engsmil:

Yes....days of yore........Sadly, all gone............. :( :( :(

Yeah, Accy was once a nice little industrial town that you could be really proud of...and I was-----

What memories - you brought back one long-forgotten. My mother used to take me to the Hippodrome every week on, I think, Saturday, for either the early show or the matinee. We then often went to Kendals for one of their good Lancashire meals.

HOWEVER - on one occasion she miscalculated, I don't know exactly how she managed it, but we went to the Hippodrome, and it seemed to be all grown-ups, and men at that. We sat bemused as this funny woman came on stage and started taking her clothes off. I now believe it was Phyllis Dixey's one and only visit to Accy! I had no idea what was going on, must have been about 7 or 8, except that I didn't think it was very entertaining, just watching this daft bat get undressed. I know now that my mother was too embarrassed to get up and leave. God knows how she managed to get it mixed up, even if she had been into that, she wouldn't have taken me ...!

Anybody remember the Christmas pantomime? - Magic!

Aye, I think I went to see "Babes in the Wood" one Xmas. God it was cold in the gods.

The cast threw toffees at the kids. I was so disapointed as they couldn't reach the gods where I was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darby

Streets were clean (didn't need the council for that..every housholder did their front, and back!)

Oh such memories you invoke. My Grandmother used to bleach the flags front and back and donkeystone the kerb as well as her own step! That was in the 50s/60s. Washing was pegged out across the back street. As kids we used to run up and down the back flapping under the sheets pegged out to dry, with various housewives chasing after us when they caught grubby handprints on their clean washing.

I remember the local beat bobby he caught me and a friend having a fag and marched me home all the way up the street to my front door and told me mum that if she didnt stop me smoking I would surely end up in prison and his final warning "I will be watching for you", scared the s*i* out of me for years.

For those of you who have never come across the estimable Miss Phyllis Dixey here is a short biography.

"Phyllis Dixey was Britain's wartime "Queen of Striptease". Her heyday began in 1940 when she took on the lease of the Whitehall Theatre in London. With her legendary "Peek-a-boo" revues she became enormously popular, acquiring a word-of-mouth reputation for sauciness that, in fact, was never quite matched by her performances. The Whitehall played to wartime audiences as packed as those of its rival, the more famous Windmill Theatre. Dixey eventually fell from favour as raunchier competitors began to appear and finally she was made bankrupt. At the time of her early death she was working as a cook."

So famous was she at the time that they even named a Lancaster Bomber after her and painted her image on it.

Name: Phyllis Dixey
Serial No.: LL842
Service History: 50 Sqn VN-F
Fate: Missing In Action 24/25 July 1944 attacking Stuttgart.

They don't make em like that anymore - more's the pity!