Newport/Cannon Street area

Redwurzel said:
In the film you are seeing it just before the houses were to be pulled down - obviously its neglected at that time.

The idea then was to pull down houses that were 100 years old, some with no bathroom etc and move the people to a brand new house with bathroom, central heating etc on estates on the edge of th town near open spaces and woods etc - Hemlington, Coulby Newham etc.

Nowadays there is very little social housing being built to move to.
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Those new social houses are awful. We really need some radical shifts in housing policy in this country.
 
My parents lived in Cannon Street. I know its a bit of a cliche but I remember them telling me there was a strong sense of community in those days which is not as common now. Nobody would steal from you, because the neighbours were honest as the day is long, and you probably didn't have anything to steal anyway!

I walk through the town centre now and miss the buildings of old, they had character. The old characters of the town are long gone too. It is not the same town I remember in the 1960s and onwards. I know we cannot halt progression and times move on but I find myself being very nostalgic and sentimental more these days.

I think Philip Larkin put it beautifully in one of his poems:

'Going, Going'

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls the carved choirs,
There'll be books it will linger on,
In galleries but all that remains for us,
Will be concrete and tyres'
 
Redwurzel said:
In the film you are seeing it just before the houses were to be pulled down - obviously its neglected at that time.

The idea then was to pull down houses that were 100 years old, some with no bathroom etc and move the people to a brand new house with bathroom, central heating etc on estates on the edge of th town near open spaces and woods etc - Hemlington, Coulby Newham etc.

Nowadays there is very little social housing being built to move to.
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Yes, it was condemned at the time, wasn't it and only the very last residents were holding out. I think many families moved to Easterside at that time, as you say they were modern homes, with inside bathrooms etc and a long way from the damp and the pollution of the works that still existed close at hand. I think one criticism is whether the community was moved together in streets. It would have been a culture shock moving out to the suburbs. But the housing/environmental conditions must surely have been an improvement.
 
Mountain Climber said:
My parents lived in Cannon Street. I know its a bit of a cliche but I remember them telling me there was a strong sense of community in those days which is not as common now. Nobody would steal from you, because the neighbours were honest as the day is long, and you probably didn't have anything to steal anyway!

I walk through the town centre now and miss the buildings of old, they had character. The old characters of the town are long gone too. It is not the same town I remember in the 1960s and onwards. I know we cannot halt progression and times move on but I find myself being very nostalgic and sentimental more these days.

I think Philip Larkin put it beautifully in one of his poems:

'Going, Going'

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls the carved choirs,
There'll be books it will linger on,
In galleries but all that remains for us,
Will be concrete and tyres'
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Surely there will have been crime you just didn't have Facebook or text messages to tell you about it?
 
Wasn’t that long ago the gas tanks where pulled down. Bits of Gresham still look like that. 🙁
 
pierrequiroule said:
I was born into this in 1950 (just down from the Palmerston) and it was a lot less bleak than people might imagine. OK, going down to the bog in a freezing damp back yard was no fun, and having a few pans of hot water in a tin bath once a week was hardly relaxing, but you had nothing better to compare it with and no TV (or adverts) to constantly remind you how the better off were living. Everybody looked out for everybody else and you could still leave the house key hanging on a string. If anybody stole from their own they were dealt with by the community without recourse to the police. What I'm probably trying to say is that we might be all better off materially, but we've lost a hell of a lot in the process.

EDIT The Palmerston was on Newport Road directly opposite the Infirmary.

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Which corner is that? Is it where wilderness ways was?
 
Redwurzel said:
Nowadays there is very little social housing being built to move to.
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Unfortunately a political choice rather than an economic one.

It’s mad to think that houses which helped build the town by housing an expanding workforce in the mid-1800s were still standing in the early 70s. Bleak as it looks, you hear a lot of talk about the “spirit” of Cannon Street and I do not think that area has ever recovered from being demolished, carved up and split into two to build flyovers etc.
 
chickenrunner said:
It would be in the middle of Hartington Road/Newport Road junction nowadays. It's the building marked P.H. on the map across Newport Road from the Infirmary (as stated) and across the street from the County Hotel.
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That's right, there were two pubs on the corner and men would gamble on tossing the penny in the road between the two with lookouts posted in case the cops showed up. I was born in Petch Street just round the corner and it wasn't unusual to see men doing a runner.
 
George Orwell writes about the slum clearances and move to the new estates in The Road to Wigan Pier. Even then, writing as it happened, he could see the mistakes being made. People suddenly had three bedrooms, a garden, central heating and indoor loos, which they'd never experienced. But many told him they were unhappy. Everything they needed was around them in the slums. Now they had to travel miles to work, the pubs weren't the same, the shops and schools had gone. He couldn't believe anyone could have been happier in the hellish conditions he'd seen, but they were.
 
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In general, building decent quality social housing with more space and more sanitary conditions is not a mistake, obviously it needs decent transport links and some community facilities. People often don't like change, ask the children of those that moved out where they would rather live in. Possibly in 1938 when George Orwell was writing people were moved out without having their own transport, they had built a life around the pub, cinema, theatre and walking to these places, by 1972 it was more feasible to own a car. George Orwell died in middle age partly from living in poor crowded conditions which helped spread TB. I remember visiting the back to back houses in Birmingham and 90 people shared 3 WCs. The houses had no back to them, one back was another houses back and no sides, they were built in a square, with some facing out into a street while others faced into a courtyard, People were still living (and dying) in them till 1967.

Given a choice how many people on here would rather live Over the Border or in Nunthope?
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Surely there will have been crime you just didn't have Facebook or text messages to tell you about it?
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There was crime yes, but not on the same scale. There was an unwritten rule in the streets 'You don't steal from your own' and with the odd exception most followed that mantra. The police in those days were respected more and feared more as well. Children would behave if told to because their parents taught them to respect others, especially the elderly, and always the police.

Yes, there were exceptions but mostly people seemed more respectful of each other and law and order. The village I was brought up in had one police man and he was like the sheriff. He kept law and order on his own. A different era altogether. Never will we see the like again.
 
I think it's natural to see your own childhood days through a rose tinted filter.

There has always been crime, look at all the looting that happened after air-raids in WW2.

I don't buy the past was always better stuff.
 
Colgates_shaving_foam said:
I think it's natural to see your own childhood days through a rose tinted filter.

There has always been crime, look at all the looting that happened after air-raids in WW2.

I don't buy the past was always better stuff.
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I can't see anybody saying it was better. People like to talk in absolutes, but life isn't like that. Of course there are aspects that have improved, usually materially, but more important health, both of the person and the environment. It's the intangible things like 'community' that have not improved, but it is understandable why younger people who have not lived through it find it so hard to accept. I personally have no doubt about it.
 
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