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policemen in the 1950's


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Does anyone remember when policemen were on regular duty at the local dance halls on a Saturday night? I was regular Saturday night dancer at the Bell Hall on Orford Lane and can remember a couple of them....Eugene Rennet and Malcolm Halfpenny, I also remember Sergeant Smythe, there were others but their names escape me, maybe Harry Hayes will know more than I do. We used to dance to Eric Pepperell's band, I remember also that Jim Brennan used to teach ballroom dancing there.

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I served for 30 years and "did" the Bell Hall dance several times. Remember finding a ?5 note and I asked the MC - big Frank Oliver- to announce that I had found it.

He grabbed the note from me and announced that he had found it. He was sharper than me. As a PC you didn,t get it back if unclaimed. A civilian did.

 

Hughie Rennett and Malcom Halfpenny of course are long gone. Two fine fellows. Same generation was Jim Podmore, also deceased. George Bramhall - still with us. Jim; Hughie and myself lived for sport.

 

Big Geoff Dooley was a most amiable person. He had a sister in the Wigan Police. Martin Mitchell - also deceased - was a big handsome hunk - he always had girls round him at Market Gate police pillar.(Andy Smythe died just a few weeks ago).

 

Mary, Can,t bring you to mind, but you must fit in somewhere. Not sure even PC Halfpenny's wife knew his name was Malcolm - he was universally known as Ben.(Bob Edwards perhaps?)

Memories.

 

Happy days

 

[ 31.10.2007, 19:51: Message edited by: harry hayes ]

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Hello Harry,

 

What a mine of information you are!! I'd forgotten Jim Podmore but I do remember him and Martin Mitchell I can't believe that so many of them are no longer with us. Malcolm Halfpenny used to lodge in St. Mary Street and i used to speak to him in passing. I married Roy Edwards who sang with Eric Pepperell's band when Edna Savage was also singing. We used to have a great rapport with the policemen on the door, those were the days!! I do remember you Harry, did you used to live in the Orford area, I used to live in Marsh House Lane at the top of Battersby Lane, I'm a twin but you used to see so many girls at the dances that it isn't surprising that you don't remember me?

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Mary.

Lovely to hear from you. Happy days indeed. I lived in East avenue before my parents bought the eccentric Franky Lee,s house in Wilkinson street.

I,ve got twin sisters - possibly you can bring them to mind.

All went to Beamont; girls to the high school and myself to Boteler. I,m 75, sisters a few years younger.

Bet we both spent a fair while at the Queen,s cinema. Lovely memories of Orford. Did you ever warm your hands on the bakers wall in Orford avenue.?

What are they doing to your old area at the moment?

 

Very best wishes to your good-self. Happy days

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Hello Harry,

 

We didn't live that far away from each other back then but I can't remember your twin sisters. I attended Beamont Junior School and then went on to the Warrington High School for Girls in town, my twin sister went to Oakwood. I certainly did warm myself on the wall of the bakery and bought penny buns from there and trooped off to Orford park with friends to spend the day there, you wouldn't let your children do that now, would you? Saturday afternoons were spent at the Queens cinema the films were usually Westerns.

 

I'm trying to think who lived on the corner of Roome Street and Wilkinson Street there were two girls in the family, I've a feeling there surname was Delahay and a boy named John lived next door to them. My sister and I were friends with Dorothy Wisedale I don't know if you knew her. You've brought back loads of memories of living there, I left to live in Latchford when i got married and haven't walked around the area for many years but passed by in the car, it seems strange now not to see Rylands factory where my Dad worked all his life.

 

Love to hear if you have anymore memories of the area.

 

Regards

Mary

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Hello again Mary.

 

My sister remembers Dorothy Wisedale - about the same age. I seem to remember a Norman Wisedale.

She can place the name Delahay.

On your or your husbands music scene, I worked at Crosfield's with Les Beddoes and Eric pep's brother. In the police, Brian Rigby, son of Wilf and Joan (Plant).

That lovely sweet shop next to the Queens - 4 uncle joes for a penny and ther lasted the full two hours. Knowledons sweet shop almost opposite to the dairy adjoining Barton's paper shop.

Are you old enough to remember a kind of scrap yard in Battersby lane? I recall a very old

chap working from something like a pony and trap. That would be before you get to Millington,s hairdressers.

 

Loved Orford Park. The band-stand field and "Chinky bridge". The fountain by the sand-pits worked in my younger day. Walter Baker chased us off the park a thousand times, even if we were only scooting on our bikes.

From where you lived I wonder if you stood at the top of Orford avenue waiting to see which bus emerged first, the Bewsey or Latchford. Halfpenny to town when I was a boy.

 

Best wishes Happy days

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  • 2 months later...

Thanks Andrew. Used to spend many hours on Rylands rec, together with hundreds of other sports mad youngsters.

Maybe it's because I,m old, but I remember a gentler and more caring type of people being around at the time.

In many respects we are so much better off nowadays, but in gaining that, an awful lot has been lost.

 

Perhaps it was ever thus.

 

 

XXX Just as an afterthought. Was Norman a dancer? A long shot.

Thinking Appleton,s dancing school in Winmarleigh street, just a few houses from the YMCA.

 

Happy days

 

[ 14.01.2008, 23:46: Message edited by: harry hayes ]

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HI WELL THE COPPER YOU ARE ON ABOUT WAS CALLED BOBBY DOOLEY ,AND HIS SON WAS ALSO A POLICEMAN .IKNOW AS THEY WERE FRIENDS OF MY PARENTS WHO HAD AN OFF LICENCE ON BEWSEY ROAD. ALSO I WENT TO BELL HALL EACH WEEK .DO ANY OF YOU REMEMBER .JIMMY ADAMS AND RONNIE HUGHES THEY ALWAYS DRESSED THE SAME. OH IM VERONICA(RONNIE)KEELEY .I LIVE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL .

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Was Jimmy Adams known as Fanny Adams from Central avenue way(near orford Park) There were Keeley,s in norris street - one of them (Jack?) was left handed and handy with a bat.

Geoff Dooley was a most amiable giant and a lovely man - never knew him to get in a fight in thirty years - his size was sufficient warning.

 

This old chestnut is attributed to old Tommy Dooley (1930,s) but actually pre-dates even him. "Found a dead horse in Palmyra square, but couldn,t spell it, so he dragged it into Suez street".

 

Happy days

 

[ 15.01.2008, 11:48: Message edited by: harry hayes ]

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just a shot in the dark, but would any of you (since your talking about the correct area) know any of my mothers family

"Wakefields" from south avenue at the time

 

there was

 

Eadith

Annie

Beatie

Joyce

Jimmy

 

Parents were Batrice and Richard

 

my mums best freind was an O'connor (june) had a brother Ben ?

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Not me I,m afraid, and I used to live in East avenue. We went to Beamont school - somewhere round about South ave was the cutting off point and they used to go to Bewsey.

Wonder if anyone really old, remembers Salford Electric at the top end of West avenue. Think the post office took it over. Their sirens were daily time checks for the locals, morning, two at lunch-time; and one in the evening.

 

Happy days

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There was an Alice O'connor that lived halfway down North Avenue, no relation to me but I always called her Aunty Alice as you did in them days. I spent a lot of my childhood days in that area.

 

Many is the tale I have been told by me granny about Screaming Alice of Battersby Lane.

 

[ 23.01.2008, 20:01: Message edited by: Wingnut ]

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Wingnut....Thank you for the smile ...my mum has told me many a time about walking to get coal with her little brother/sister in the pram and it being so cold but that was her job..

I will have to ask my mum and dad who they know in this lot of names on this chat

My parents are Alan Nicholas from near Warrington hospital & paper mill before it got knocked down.

Hilda Wright from Grange Ave Latchford.

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