Nostalgia - What are your memories of Stafford?

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Great photo. Any more from that era? Orspital, praps?

Had a look through the Handbook and no shots of the hospital (I'm assuming you mean the SGI here.) It tends to go with stately homes, churches and historical buildings and the like.
Best I can do is this pix dated from 1995 taken with one of those rather NAFF little Disc cameras Kodak used to do (very handy for carrying about though.) It was still a working hospital, and you can see those dreaded white swing doors on the ramp centre right. Got trundled up through them a couple of times after f****** up on a bike.
Just off to the left of this pix was the physio-therapy department (I think roughly where Currys is now) where evil harpies delighted in the sound of crackling bone joints of innocent bikers. :P

SGI5.jpg
 

RobUSA

Well-Known Forumite
It was at the time. First fast food outlet to rival the Wimpys in town.

Yes, I recall it opening. Those heady days of US sophistication reaching Stafford. I spent time in Poland in the mid 90s and being amused by how excited they were by Pizza Hut and McD's. But then, were we, as teenagers, any better?

Ironically I regret the tendency of the UK (and in that case Poland) to start looking like a cheap knock off of the USA.
 

Pooryorick

Well-Known Forumite
Had a look through the Handbook and no shots of the hospital (I'm assuming you mean the SGI here.) It tends to go with stately homes, churches and historical buildings and the like.
Best I can do is this pix dated from 1995 taken with one of those rather NAFF little Disc cameras Kodak used to do (very handy for carrying about though.) It was still a working hospital, and you can see those dreaded white swing doors on the ramp centre right. Got trundled up through them a couple of times after f****** up on a bike.
Just off to the left of this pix was the physio-therapy department (I think roughly where Currys is now) where evil harpies delighted in the sound of crackling bone joints of innocent bikers. :P

View attachment 9461

Four narrow lanes, and vehicles pulling out. Good job no traffic!

Any shots of the Wagon junction with Stone Rd,Tillington and Creswell Hall(s). Also what later became Brooklands School must have been prominent.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Sorry, only pix of that area I have were taken a couple of years ago on my last visit to Stafford. So not very nostalgic. I took the picture because I was astounded at the changes. This seems to happen to me every time I visit Stafford in recent years.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
I remember the good old days when you could go into town and shops would be open (except on a Wednesday, obviously). When you could go to the pub with your mates, sometimes as a group of more than six. When you could go to a restaurant without having to give all your personal details, including inside leg measurement. When, if you met someone you knew in town, you would be able to recognise them because their face wasn't covered (except that time I bumped into Simon, who for some reason was wearing a crash helmet, carrying a large bag and trying to make a hasty departure from NatWest in Market Square). When you could chat to your mates in the high street and not be looked at by others as if you were committing a horrific crime. Where you could walk into a shop and it didn't matter how many other people were in there. Where, if you got a frog in your throat, people didn't scatter as if you had bubonic plague.

Happy days, sadly no more.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Yes I loved going into the old library in the 70's - great days

The library in 1978. I spent a few hours in there doing OU work. Despite being on a busy junction, it always seemed a very quiet building.

View attachment 9475
I spent many an hour upstairs in the childrens section there in the 60's . Used to look forwards to the time I was grown up and could go into the downstairs adults section. Used to wait outside in the hallway waiting for my parents to choose their books, marvelling at all the woodwork and glass.

Each time I've walked past lately there's been workmen gutting it out.

My uncle Joey used to own the little pet shop by it (just out of shot by the brown car , next to the Odeon ) and remember getting my nans budgies from there.
He also owned a small sports shop over the road the other side of Lichfield Rd facing the old library,on that same junction by the lights. Got my 'must have a hockey stick to play in the Walton school team' hockey stick from there, which my parents couldn't really afford but actually splashed out on it by eeking the food money out for weeks. Then I was dropped from the team before I'd even played a game with it because the PE teacher didn't like me.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I spent many an hour upstairs in the childrens section there in the 60's . Used to look forwards to the time I was grown up and could go into the downstairs adults section. Used to wait outside in the hallway waiting for my parents to choose their books, marvelling at all the woodwork and glass.

Each time I've walked past lately there's been workmen gutting it out.

My uncle Joey used to own the little pet shop by it (just out of shot by the brown car , next to the Odeon ) and remember getting my nans budgies from there.
He also owned a small sports shop over the road the other side of Lichfield Rd facing the old library,on that same junction by the lights. Got my 'must have a hockey stick to play in the Walton school team' hockey stick from there, which my parents couldn't really afford but actually splashed out on it by eeking the food money out for weeks. Then I was dropped from the team before I'd even played a game with it because the PE teacher didn't like me.

I remember the pet shop well. And I'm pretty sure I got a new spring put in my old air rifle (still have it, a wall decoration now) in that sports shop or possibly it's predecessor as this was quite a while ago.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
I remember the pet shop well. And I'm pretty sure I got a new spring put in my old air rifle (still have it, a wall decoration now) in that sports shop or possibly it's predecessor as this was quite a while ago.
This was in the late 50's up to at least about 1968 (going by when I needed those un-needed hockey stick and boots ) that I remember going in for mum to have a chat ,and me to enjoy mooching around each time we walked into town. Don't know how long he had the shops before that , or after.
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
It was a few restaurants in a very short space of time wasn't it? There was a Chinese too.

I'm not sure if Navarna filled in the holes during their recent refurbishment, but they were still there last time I ate in.
 
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