Re: Years Gone By
 

o does anyone remember sauls up (black abbey st? i think) all the foodstuff was in carboard boxes.

Re: Years Gone By
 

yep me nan used to take me for butter n loose tea. lol

Re: Years Gone By
 

THE QUEEN :eek: What was that for mez?

Re: Years Gone By
 

The public baths at the top of St James Street just below the Scaitcliffe Colliery. Just across the road from the baths was a side street and up a ginnel on the left was a ‘shop’ where you could buy a penny or twopenny bag of Smiths crisps. Actually they were the broken bits but the bag was proper full to bursting. You certainly got your money’s worth. You had to watch out for the blue one though. It was very, very salty.

As for the baths it was mixed bathing most evenings after six and Sunday mornings but most other times it was single sex swimming. Mornings was usually reserved for schools where we were taught to swim by a teacher stood on the poolside.

The ladies changing cubicles were upstairs on the balcony and the blokes were at the poolside. There was a three level diving board where we kids would launch ourselves into space in either a real dive or a bomb into just 6 feet 6 inches of water. The pool had stone steps at each corner leading into the water right to the bottom. There wasn’t a lifeguard as such but the attendant who looked after the boilers and the tub baths (I think they called them slipper baths. The swimming pool was the plunge baths) would look in once in a while. I never heard of anyone drowning.

I swam my first mile there when I was about 13. 72 twenty five yards lengths of the baths was 1,800 yards which is a bit over a mile.

The original Woolworths was across the road from the front of the Town Hall and a bit to the left. Free sweets if you were sneaky and quick enough. Although you did get a hefty clout round the ear if you were caught and chucked out of the front door with words like, “I know where you live. Wait till I tell your dad” reverberating around a throbbing lug hole.

Accrington had an abundance of cinemas. Empire and Princess on Edgar Street I think it was. Then there was the Odeon, the Palace, the Ritz and the bug hut. Sorry I mean Kings Hall. Best of all was the hippodrome theatre on Ellison Street just above the tram and bus depot.

The Coppice had no trees, which made sledging down in winter a fast treat.

Re: Years Gone By
 

hey it were a long time ago i can't remember .....(its the grey cells you know )i think it was a tour of the counties after her coronation.

Re: Years Gone By
 

Not sure, but I think it was her Coronation year, 1953. All the kids in Ossy went to the traffic lights at Church to see her sail past on her way to Accy.

Re: Years Gone By
 

Has she ever been back since? How many other Royals have been to Accrington? Princess Diana obviously and it's not long ago since Princess Anne was here, they landed her helicopter at the side of us.

Re: Years Gone By
 

I think Prince Charles came to Oswaldtwistle to open Foxhill Bank nature reserve, about twelve years ago.(?)

Re: Years Gone By
 

Aaah right :)

Somethings telling me Edward was here not so long ago too but I'm probably wrong ... I usually am :rolleyes: :D

Re: Years Gone By
 

think it was him who came back last summer n set fire to the benches.:D

Re: Years Gone By
 

Maybe...to destroy the evidence were he'd carved 'i wuv Camilla' on them twelve years earlier.:D

Re: Years Gone By
 

so you noticed it as well?:D

Re: Years Gone By
 

well my hubby has asked me to ask who remembers the first supermarket in accy and what was it called .... ????

Re: Years Gone By
 

I remember being at junior school, where along with all the other schools in the area, - our class planted some of the trees on the coppice - great it was - out of school for a whole week

Re: Years Gone By
 

I'm guessing now.

You could call the old Co-op a supermarket. It had trollies and aisles etc, and had been like that since the '50's.

Or there was Reiley's, owned by Jack Reliey next door to Moor End Post Office, which I remember being there as long ago as the sixties.