My Teenage Years
After failing the eleven plus exam I went to Mirfield Secondary Modern School for one year. The headmaster was Mr. Bassett, a ginger haired man of whom we were greatly in awe. The headmistress was Mrs. Lockwood whose motto was 'If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well' and she would have liked this to be the school motto also but didn't manage to get it past Mr. Bassett. The wearing of headscarves by the girls was banned by Mr. Bassett who called them pudding cloths.
Blackpool 1956
Three Kitson Hill Estate lads on a day trip to Blackpool in 1956. Michael Bridgewater on the left, Kenneth Smith in the centre and myself on the right. The coach trip was organised by Old Bank Bakery where Michael's granddad worked. We hit the Tower at one end of Blackpool, the Pleasure Beach at the other and all three piers in between. The photo was taken by one of the ubiquitous street photographers who abounded at any seaside resort at that time. I regarded them as a nuisance then but strangely miss them now that they have almost disappeared.
First Holiday Without Parents
Our first holiday without our parents saw us catching Joseph Wood's coach and arriving in Bridlington complete with our ridge tents. We had naively thought we could just turn up and camp out on the cliff tops but when we got there we found 'no camping' signs everywhere. Three of us had travelled by coach but the fourth, Robert Guy, worked on the railway so he had taken the train. We were such masters of organisation that it needed a miracle for us to link up in Bridlington but fortunately such a miracle happened and we bumped into Robert in an amusement arcade during a break from trying to find somewhere to camp on that first afternoon. We had no idea what to do and as it was already getting dark we had no time to find a camp site so we spent the first night in a barn with the farmer's permission. It turned into a good holiday after that when we found the Marston Road camp site next day. It was lucky that we had return tickets for the coach however because we ran out of money with two days still to go.
Ingoldmels 1958
Four lads on holiday at Ingoldmels, Lincolnshire in 1958. We were better organised this time and were, from left to right, my brother Brian, Kenneth Smith, myself, and Robert Guy for a whole week in a caravan. We managed to break one of the caravan windows through boyish exuberance and it made a large hole in our holiday money to get it repaired.
In a caravan in the next row to ours were three girls on holiday from Nottingham; what more could we wish for? They were Betty, Shirley, and Sylvia.There were few pubs outside of the town itself but there were clubs lining the seafront road and also on the holiday camps. It was a requirement of these clubs that you had to be a member for 24 hours before you could drink there so we took out temporary membership of as many as we could on the first day.
Brian and Betty won a Rock and Roll dance competition at one club and the prize was six cans of beer. Beer in cans was relatively new then and we didn't really trust it but we saw it off anyway.
One abiding memory is of cardboard cutouts in the pubs depicting Diana Dors wearing a tight fishtail skirt with the slogan 'I never say no to a Golden Godwin'. Golden Godwin was a Babycham type drink. I owe a debt of gratitude to Paul Sullivan, author of the Official Diana Dors Archive and Website for granting permission to reproduce this advert here.
Diana Dors was born Diana Mary Fluck on 23 October 1931 and came to prominence as a glamourous actress in her earlier career. Her talent as a brilliant character actress largely came to the fore in her later years when her fading beaty allowed her to take on more serious roles which had previously been denied her when the focus had been on her beauty.
This actress was one of our greatest British talents until her death in 1984 and Paul's website, linked to above, is well worth a visit for anyone who remembers Diana and is especially valuable to those who may never have heard of her because the memory of this actress should never be allowed to die.