Nostalgia - What are your memories of Stafford?

[John Marwood]

I have a set of place mats made from the wood panels in the back ( spitoon ) bar of The Chains

And a round of toast from St Johns market upstairs cafe ( buttered )

And a Just Pants Plus carrier bag ( parrallels ) from the new fangled Sheridan Centre

Not to mention a Harry Fenton oil painting

 

[Gramaisc]

Gas-Mask bags from Wakefields.....

Death-traps!

I used an RAF one as a school-bag. One day, I was in a rush to get home with it and wore it in the round-the-back-of-the-neck-and-under-the-arms fashion, so that it was easier to run with it securely held to the small of my back. At the time I lived in Bourton on the Water, which has a lot of back-alleys running parallel to the main road. As I ran down one of them, I noticed that I had a shoe-lace undone, so I stooped down to tie it up - and the bag slipped round onto the back of my thighs. I couldn't get it back up and also couldn't get the strap over either shoulder to release it. I made the mistake of trying to work the strap over the top of my head, but this just succeeded in making it even tighter. By now my face was being pressed into my chest and my arms were sticking out backwards. I was struggling to breathe. I decided that I had to try to get to a public space before it was too late. I could only see backwards - through my legs - and couldn't walk properly, due to the ever-tightening strap. I became aware that a chap was watching me, but I couldn't speak by this stage, and I fell over when trying to shuffle towards him. I lay on the floor for some time - in some distress - before he finally decided to undo the strap.

When I had recovered enough to speak, I asked him why he had just stood there for so long and he replied that he had thought that I was having an epileptic fit..

 

[basil]

I have a set of place mats made from the wood panels in the back ( spitoon ) bar of The Chains

And a round of toast from St Johns market upstairs cafe ( buttered )

And a Just Pants Plus carrier bag ( parrallels ) from the new fangled Sheridan Centre

Not to mention a Harry Fenton oil painting

30 bob the lot.......

 

[basil]

Gas-Mask bags from Wakefields.....

Death-traps!

I used an RAF one as a school-bag. One day, I was in a rush to get home with it and wore it in the round-the-back-of-the-neck-and-under-the-arms fashion, so that it was easier to run with it securely held to the small of my back. At the time I lived in Bourton on the Water, which has a lot of back-alleys running parallel to the main road. As I ran down one of them, I noticed that I had a shoe-lace undone, so I stooped down to tie it up - and the bag slipped round onto the back of my thighs. I couldn't get it back up and also couldn't get the strap over either shoulder to release it. I made the mistake of trying to work the strap over the top of my head, but this just succeeded in making it even tighter. By now my face was being pressed into my chest and my arms were sticking out backwards. I was struggling to breathe. I decided that I had to try to get to a public space before it was too late. I could only see backwards - through my legs - and couldn't walk properly, due to the ever-tightening strap. I became aware that a chap was watching me, but I couldn't speak by this stage, and I fell over when trying to shuffle towards him. I lay on the floor for some time - in some distress - before he finally decided to undo the strap.

When I had recovered enough to speak, I asked him why he had just stood there for so long and he replied that he had thought that I was having an epileptic fit..

Yeah but what if you'd encountered "Town Gas" !!!! ?.......

 

[Gramaisc]

Gas-Mask bags from Wakefields.....

Death-traps!

Yeah but what if you'd encountered "Town Gas" !!!! ?.......

Nearest would have been Cheltenham - no fear with that sort of dilution distance..

 

[basil]

Good point, well made.......

 

[gilbert grape]

Haven't been a member long enough to be involved from start of the thread but for my bit, my memories are things like.....
Fire station on Mill Bank, living in Castletown, as I still do and feeling in danger of being cut off each time the river flooded badly as it cut each major route off. Undergound toilets in Market Square and main street being hectic at knocking off time. Having to choose between the Odeon and the Picture House on a summer Saturday. Snapits and stink bombs from the Jervis's on Bridge Street, hours spent in Lotus Records or the record shop in what is now where oxfam etc is(?) memory fades at that bit! Being on the childrens ward every bleedin holiday time due to going through puberty with Diabetes and being homesick but still being able to see our street beyond the gas works and windmill.
Keymarkets, Presto, Woolies having a meat and cheese counter, wimbush's, Jenkinson's, Sportsco in the old High House.
God I enjoy a good old waffle about older days!

 

[Mr J C]

Haven't been a member long enough to be involved from start of the thread but for my bit, my memories are things like.....
Fire station on Mill Bank, living in Castletown, as I still do and feeling in danger of being cut off each time the river flooded badly as it cut each major route off. Undergound toilets in Market Square and main street being hectic at knocking off time. Having to choose between the Odeon and the Picture House on a summer Saturday. Snapits and stink bombs from the Jervis's on Bridge Street, hours spent in Lotus Records or the record shop in what is now where oxfam etc is(?) memory fades at that bit! Being on the childrens ward every bleedin holiday time due to going through puberty with Diabetes and being homesick but still being able to see our street beyond the gas works and windmill.
Keymarkets, Presto, Woolies having a meat and cheese counter, wimbush's, Jenkinson's, Sportsco in the old High House.
God I enjoy a good old waffle about older days!

God this brings soooooo many old memories back lol

 

[Glam]

Just a useless bit of info,wasn't dragged up in Stafford mesen,but we did used go the park occasionally on a Saturday. I remember the time when there was a cigarette machine and 2p chewing gum
dispenser outside the Windmill chippy!

 

[gilbert grape]

Just a useless bit of info,wasn't dragged up in Stafford mesen,but we did used go the park occasionally on a Saturday. I remember the time when there was a cigarette machine and 2p chewing gum
dispenser outside the Windmill chippy!

But oddly, never one with balloons!!!

 

[John Marwood]

Bazooka Joe featherlight?

 

[basil]

Haven't been a member long enough to be involved from start of the thread but for my bit, my memories are things like.....
Fire station on Mill Bank, living in Castletown, as I still do and feeling in danger of being cut off each time the river flooded badly as it cut each major route off. Undergound toilets in Market Square and main street being hectic at knocking off time. Having to choose between the Odeon and the Picture House on a summer Saturday. Snapits and stink bombs from the Jervis's on Bridge Street, hours spent in Lotus Records or the record shop in what is now where oxfam etc is(?) memory fades at that bit! Being on the childrens ward every bleedin holiday time due to going through puberty with Diabetes and being homesick but still being able to see our street beyond the gas works and windmill.
Keymarkets, Presto, Woolies having a meat and cheese counter, wimbush's, Jenkinson's, Sportsco in the old High House.
God I enjoy a good old waffle about older days!

Yes they're all in the memory bank somewhere.....

 

[vodelia]

Trawlers chip shop near the McDonalds in town circa 1992..

The fields at Baswich before Saxonfields estate was built. Parent's garden backed onto them, hours of sledging in winter and hide and seek in the gauze bushes in summer We go walking near there a lot and I bore my family with tales of ''when it was all just fields...''

Being at BWH and messing about in the nearby derelict children's home at lunchtimes, was it called Rotherwood House??

Nights in Reynolds/Props/Colosseum

The Litten Tree when it was Faces American diner...

A clothes shop called Nirvana that was near Grapes Corner then moved to kind of near Wilko, sold grungey type stuff, velvet jackets, floppy hats. Was ran by a really nice lady.

The police S.P.A.C.E scheme in the summers, cheapo daytrips to Alton Towers and films at the Picture House before it became Spoons. And the Friday afternoon discos at what was the Labour Club!!

Lots of happy memories of growing up in Stafford in the 90s and happy to still live here now.

 

[gilesjuk]

Nights in Reynolds/Props/Colosseum

A clothes shop called Nirvana that was near Grapes Corner then moved to kind of near Wilko, sold grungey type stuff, velvet jackets, floppy hats. Was ran by a really nice lady.

I remember Nirvana, very small place, and Props went down hill as soon as the old chap stopped running it, it used to have a really good mix of alternative music.

 

[Mr J C]

Nights in Reynolds/Props/Colosseum

A clothes shop called Nirvana that was near Grapes Corner then moved to kind of near Wilko, sold grungey type stuff, velvet jackets, floppy hats. Was ran by a really nice lady.

I remember Nirvana, very small place, and Props went down hill as soon as the old chap stopped running it, it used to have a really good mix of alternative music.

Used to love going Props after a night working at the Firkin - was a good way to unwind and the place had great atmosphere and music

 

[gon2seed]

in the nearby derelict children's home at lunchtimes, was it called Rotherwood House??

Think it was, but we just called it 'Rotherwood' when Social Services, had to de-camp there, temporarily, in the mid 80's. The old offices, on Forgate St, had been burned beyond use, by a disgrunteled ex-client. The scrub land, behind the old peoples retirement complex that stands above Gaol Squ', looks set to be developed for a similar scheme. Social Services is now in the Council Complex at St Chads Place/Tipping St'.

 

[wizzard]

Trawlers chip shop near the McDonalds in town circa 1992..

The fields at Baswich before Saxonfields estate was built. Parent's garden backed onto them, hours of sledging in winter and hide and seek in the gauze bushes in summer We go walking near there a lot and I bore my family with tales of ''when it was all just fields...''

Being at BWH and messing about in the nearby derelict children's home at lunchtimes, was it called Rotherwood House??

Nights in Reynolds/Props/Colosseum

The Litten Tree when it was Faces American diner...

A clothes shop called Nirvana that was near Grapes Corner then moved to kind of near Wilko, sold grungey type stuff, velvet jackets, floppy hats. Was ran by a really nice lady.

The police S.P.A.C.E scheme in the summers, cheapo daytrips to Alton Towers and films at the Picture House before it became Spoons. And the Friday afternoon discos at what was the Labour Club!!

Lots of happy memories of growing up in Stafford in the 90s and happy to still live here now.

Trawlers was a great fish and chip shop.

 

[Sigma]

The Lynton Tavern (my poor local! ) when it was The Crossbow, although I was banned from there rather quickly as I was underage.

The "outdoor" at The Trumpet (now the Radford Bank Inn of course) which was like a little off license. Also, the raft races they used to hold in the summer, which were great fun.

Spending Saturday afternoons in Brian Booth's record shop on the Wolverhamption Road, just along from where the takeaways are.

The Grapes when it had a video jukebox in there.

Going to the Colloseum (however they used to spell it) and Phase 2 as it was called then, which had TV screens all over the walls that only seemed to play Sabrina's "Boys, Boys, Boys" video on a loop. I remember the doorman (I can't remember his name, but he was pretty well known - either a Greek or Spanish guy) turning me and a mate away one night, so we went around the corner and swapped suit jackets (a requirement to get in back then) and went back and he let us in.

Getting served for the first time in a pub at The Sun Inn. Me and a mate had missed our bus, so we chanced our arm and tried to get served. We had the fake deep voices and bum fluff moustaches and everything. 64p for a pint of mild, lol. I can't believe I used to get drunk on mild. It was cheap though!

Props of course, which was my favourite place to go!

Going to the Co-Op to see Santa and trying desperately to convince my mum to buy me an electronic game called Earth Invaders for Christmas (which she did, bless her).

Standing in the town centre on a Saturday afternoon when all the bus stops used to be there and seeing an extremely drunk tramp take a newspaper out of a bin, roll it up like a giant cigarette and light it. He was trying to inhale the smoke, but coughing his lungs up while the newspaper turned into a little inferno in his hands.

Bootleggers, a short-lived business up on Astonfields Industrial Estate run by a pair of identical twins who sold dodgy booze. Me and a mate bought a crate of "RAF Anniversary Bitter" from there and when we got it back to my house, we noticed it was 3 months out of date.

Reading some of the posts in this thread really takes me back!

 

[staffordjas]

The Lynton Tavern (my poor local! ) when it was The Crossbow, although I was banned from there rather quickly as I was underage.

The "outdoor" at The Trumpet (now the Radford Bank Inn of course) which was like a little off license. Also, the raft races they used to hold in the summer, which were great fun.

I used to work in the Crossbow. Got sent home to change my new cardigan that I was wearing one night as ' Major Carey' didn't like it ! Do you remember the cocktail bar,especially for 'the elite customers' He got me to make my first ever Irish Coffee for one of the customers and nearly had a fit when I got the cream nicely floating on the top.....then I stirred it up!

I remember that little outdoor and the raft races at the Trumpet. I also remember going in there to buy my first drink of alcohol in a pub. I didn't know what to order and not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was underage,I wanted to act as though I knew what I was buying. I looked behind the bar,saw a bottle of 'Pale Ale' and asked for that. It was bloody horrible but I still drank it.

We used to walk to Ingestre Hall ,from Weeping Cross & back,to see Medicine Head etc playing there.

Anyone remember the big old derelict houses on Wildwood? One where the Co-op is now and one at the top of Radford Bank,by Weeping Cross junction. We used to play in them and the one on Weeping Cross was reported to have been used for Black Magic rituals and a dead chicken had been found inside. When we went in there were the black magic markings on the floor. Very Spooky

 

[Sigma]

Do you remember the cocktail bar,especially for 'the elite customers'

I do! Wasn't that room called "The Barrel" or something like that? It was about 85/86 when I first went in there. I think Carey might have gone by then. I got banned because the daughter of the landlord (which may well have still been Carey, but I don't think it was) knew me from school and knew that I was only 15 or 16.