Elephants in Basil Street…

Arthur Beyless, who lived in Charnwood Street as a child in the 1950s, has sent me these photographs of Basil Street, off Farnham Street, along with some of his memories:

Basil Street, c1968, with the Gimson works at the far end

‘Off Farnham Street, at 90º angles, were Basil Street and Edward Street. Both these streets were no-thru streets as the engineering works, Gimson’s, backed on to them – in Basil Street with a brick building with a small door into the works in the corner, and Edward Street by large iron faced gates which led to the works, where the pig iron was stored ready for loading onto the railway trucks. Edward Street is where most of us boys learnt to ride a bike.

Basil Street: back of odd numbers, c1968

‘Nearly every step of the way down Charnwood Street to Spinney Hill Road there were shops of many descriptions. The saying goes “you could buy anything from a pin to an elephant”, although I do not recall ever seeing an elephant in Charny in the shops for sale. It came quite close once when the circus came to town and some, supposedly, were put up in a garage in Basil Street for bed and breakfast.

‘When I was speaking to Mr Lord of Newby Street in April 2011, he recalled that, when a child in the 1920s, the circus came to town and disembarked at Humberstone Road Station, across from the bottom of Farnham Street. The animals were moved into the street, and the elephants, “trunk to tail”, walked up Farnham Street and were bedded down in Basil Street, where they could not run off’.

Farnham Street with Basil Street leading off on the corner, c1968

Many thanks Arthur – and if you’d like to see more of Arthur’s photos of old Leicester visit his website at http://www.yesterdayimages.co.uk/.

Who was the Charnwood Street artist?…

Several people have mentioned an artist in Charnwood Street, and I’m hoping someone can tell me for sure who this was. Brian Papworth remembers that ‘on the corner of either Flint Street of Shenton Street an artist had his studio in an old shop and you could see his paintings through the window as you passed by’. Ruth Wragg also recalls watching an artist who ‘used to paint all sorts of wonderful pictures… us kids used to watch him to see how long it would be before he would shoo us off’. I’m told that his name was Fred Weston, but I can’t find him in any of the street directories. Can anyone tell me more about him, and what sort of things he painted?

Charny reunited…

I’d like to thank everyone who has left comments on the Charny blog. There have been over seventy so far, and it’s great to see that they have helped to put some people who lived in the area back in touch with each other.

Malcolm Ball (left), Valerie Bowers and Tony Towers around 1942 (Tony Towers)

They have also added some really interesting information and memories, and provided me with photographs that I would never have found anywhere else. This one is of Tony Towers (on the right) sitting on the front step of his house at 252 Charnwood Street around 1942 with Malcolm Ball, the son of Les Ball who had the cooked meat shop next to Frank Lee’s on the left, and Valerie Bowers. Her family kept the B P Cycle Radio Co. wireless shop at 250 Charnwood Street. Tony was born at 252, next to Paddy’s Swag Shop, in 1935 and lived there until he joined the Royal Air Force in 1953.

Many thanks, Tony – and keep sending the comments…

A Charny street party…

Here’s another great photo sent to me by John Tait who lived close to Charnwood Street in Grove Road. It was taken after a street party around 1946 or 1947 from the flat roof of a street shelter. John remembers that the photographer was late and the food had already been eaten by the time he arrived. That’s the photographer’s car in the background.  John is the small boy in the white pullover on the front left. He was about six years of age at the time, and his mother is at the back on the extreme right, holding his brother Victor in her arms.

Does anyone recognise any of the other people in the photo – or can tell us what the occasion was? I thought it might be the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, now the Queen, and Prince Philip, but that was in November 1947 and it doesn’t seem likely as everyone is wearing summer clothes.

Many thanks John. I’ll pass on any responses.

Great bargain sale at Issitt’s of Charnwood Street…

This advert from the Leicester Daily Mercury on 31 January 1920 gives a good idea of what was sold at Issitt’s clothes and drapery shop at 168 Charnwood Street:

Just in case you’re wondering, a bed tick was a bag used to enclose bedding materials like down or feathers for pillows, or as a cover for a mattress – derived from the strong tightly woven cotton or linen fabric known as ticking. The Boys’ Strong Cloth Knickers were presumably short trousers, and the ‘slops’ seem to have been smocks or overalls. If anyone can confirm that, please leave a comment!

A Charnwood Street house…

Houses at 142 – 160 Charnwood Street (Denis Calow. )

Brian Papworth lived with his parents and younger brother at 146 Charnwood Street, between Farnham Street and Flint Street, from around 1955 until the house was demolished. This end of Charnwood Street was beyond the main run of shops, though it had a few corner shops. The house itself, he remembers:

was rented from a private landlord and had no internal toilet, bathroom. Heating was provided by open fires in both living rooms and bedrooms, although we never used the bedroom fire grates. The house had three ground floor rooms. The front room looked out onto the street but was not used as a living room, so was largely wasted. The middle room was the main living room and looked out onto the yard at the back.  Between the front and middle rooms was the stairway which descended to the cellar from one end (accessed from a door between the two rooms) and ascended to the first floor from the other end from a door in the middle room. This room was heated by an open fireplace.

Plan of house at 146 Charnwood Street (Brian Papworth)

The third room, behind the middle room but much narrower, was the kitchen, with the sink, gas cooker and store cupboards (no fridges or washing machines in those days!). The kitchen also looked out onto the yard from a side window. The yard was shared with neighbours at 148 and paved, with a small garden (10ft square) and a shared outside toilet. The garden was a small patch and as my father was no gardener it lay unused most of the time, although I remember our neighbour growing flowers in his garden.  The cellar was unlit, with a grating which opened onto the outside pavement under the front room window. This was how coal was delivered and dropped into the cellar.

The first floor was a copy of the floor plan of the ground floor. At the front was bedroom 1 which was my parents’ bedroom. Behind bedroom 1, with the stairwell in between, was bedroom 2 which me and my brother shared, and behind this, directly above the kitchen was bedroom 3. We did not use bedroom 3 as it had no lighting and was very small.  Bedrooms 1 & 2 also had wall mountings for gas lighting which had been removed. Although electricity had been installed I believe there was only one circuit and this was used for both lighting and any appliances (such as an iron, television and radio), and so there were no three pin plugs.

Brian’s brother in the yard of their house at 146 Charnwood Street

There was no bathroom, and washing was in the kitchen sink or a tin bath. The only toilet available was shared and in a brick outbuilding at the bottom of the garden – problematic in the depths of winter.  The back yard and garden was accessed via an alleyway which was situated in Farnham Street and came in behind the Charnwood Street properties. This also gave access to the end Farnham Street properties. The block of houses served by this access only went up to our neighbours at 148.

We moved to Charnwood Street because it was close to my Grandmother so we could be minded, and also it was near to the City Centre and had all the shops you could wish for. Charnwood Street was colourful and vibrant. It was busy with shoppers every day except Sunday. To a child it was bit like a wonderland. However from my adult perspective now the housing conditions were primitive. We did not know a lot better at the time, and so you accept it as the norm, but when we started seeing relatives rehoused in Council houses we the saw how poor ours were. Despite the poor quality of living, though, we were very happy and both my brother and I managed to get a place in grammar school and the entry into a good life. When we left we moved to a  new three bedroom terraced council house which had indoor plumbing and central heating – such luxury!

Many thanks for these memories, Brian. There are more to follow of the Charnwood Street shops themselves.

The photograph of 142 – 160 Charnwood Street by Denis Calow is reproduced from the ‘My Leicestershire’ site under a Creative Commons licence (http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15407coll5/id/641/rec/9).

A Charny family…

John Tait (centre back) and brothers outside 29 Grove Road in 1952 (John Tait)

Here’s a lovely family photo sent to me by John Tait, taken in 1952 outside his home at 29 Grove Road when he was 13 years old. John is in the middle at the back, wearing a school blazer. The others in the photo are his brothers Derek (back left), aged 15; Victor (front left), aged 11; and Geoffrey (front centre), aged 4. On the right at the back is Terry, aged 14, who was adopted. John’s eldest brother Jimmy and his only sister Phyllis had left home by the time the photo was taken.

John writes that:

In 1959 we all left the area and our parents took on a public house in the city centre, in Humberstone Gate, called the Black Lion. We were not there for many years as father’s health was fading, mother’s too. They had to retire, and after living in various city locations they applied for and were given a maisonette on the new St Matthew’s estate as retirees. The rest of us had left the nest!

The family was living at 29 Grove Road at the time of the bombing which destroyed several houses in 1940: ’It was said at the time that a light was responsible for the bombing. My own opinion is that our road was not far from the railway goods yards and local engineering works, so I believe they were the targets’. Their own house escaped the damage, but ‘on my way to infants’ school in 1944 I also recall seeing chips out of the slabs on the pavements, and being told that they were the work of the Luftwaffe strafing as they flew overhead after dropping their bombs as they flew home’.

Many thanks John for the photo and the memories.