LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: The Craxford Family Genealogy Magazine

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Page 8. Letters to the Editor

CONTRIBUTORS:
Maureen Bird, UK
Harriette Jensen, California, US
Ian Mercer, Romford UK
Margaret Lodge, Canada
Pete Smith, Leicester UK
Jim Smith, Thornton, Leicester

RE: 358 FOSSE ROAD NORTH

Margaret Blackwell

I've just had a look at the web site and "358 Fosse" - you have done a bit of work on it since I last looked.

I too did a tour of the old sites in September 2004. This was for Mum and especially Dad - his short time memory was fading fast, yet his long term was still intact (normal for dementia) - and digital cameras are great for this. Son Matthew then made them all into a video to bring back memories of their life there. Dad's house still stands, but not Mum's. Their old church has gone too and their last house was for sale. Anyway they had a trip down memory lane but as you mentioned somehow there's a look of despair not just in our neighbourhoods but in Leicester in general. Nothing looked 'healthy'. Maybe it's our association with North America where sun and light abounds. Even here with winter it is nearly always sunny - freezing cold maybe (-20C is common) and deep in snow but sunny.

I always thought your house was 3-storey model and MUCH bigger than it looks. Mum even commented that she thought your house was 3 storeys. Did you have an attic? (No, but the ceiling over the hall and staircase was high - about twelve feet up, I guess - NF) You were the posh people on the hill especially with that lounge. And I remember the wood toilet bench upstairs; such a wide toilet that you could sit and read in if you wanted to. I also remember the very long dining room. Didn't know tables came that long either. I also remember one of my first kisses at your birthday parties (Postman's Knock!) and the many games that meant having the lights out!

I remember Ann Letts - she visited us in Canada in the early 70s when she lived in Toronto for a year - are you still in touch with her? she was my first visual of the 'mini' - Canada was a little late, or at least Ottawa was a bit conservative - and everyone would stop and stare at her legs!

You also mentioned a chocolate bar ('FRY'S five boys') that I didn't really recall. My friend here did (she's originally from Sheffield). In fact it was only yesterday when I'd bought her her favourite Fry's chocolate cream (we find those occasionally), that she mentioned this bar - small world to hear about it twice in two days. I couldn't find it on the web as you'd called it five five boys (Sorry, now corrected - NF). When I realised it's FRY's five boys I came across the following link
Lindsay Poulton; the face on the FRY'S Five Boys Chocolate Bar

Thanks for the memories. No wonder I still like Fox's. We can get Walkers crisps here in a few 'specialty' shops but not Fox's.

Margaret Lodge (nee Blackwell) Canada
Added November 21st 2005

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RE: "IPSE DIXIT" - A FAMILY SURVEY"

After reading the postings on the TNG list, I took a look at your site. Loved it! I especially loved the Ipse Dixit idea and the picture of the road sign. I have had cousins ask me what information I want from them and usually send them a group sheet form with the note to add anything they want people to know about them. However, most people are really intimidated by the freedom of that and your idea of a few pertinent questions is a good one.

My Hoisingtons seem to have had a number of things named after them here in America (they were Horsingtons in England)...mountains, lakes, roads, schools. I keep running into them while doing google searches. Hoisington is my grandmother's maiden name and I am doing a one-name study on it. It might be interesting to create a page for all of them.

Harriette Jensen, Oakland, California
March 31st 2006
email: hoisingtonweb@yahoo.com

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RE: GROWING UP ON FOSSE ROAD NORTH

I have greatly enjoyed your Fosse Road webpages and photos (and I got much of the quiz right too!). I am writing to ask if you might possibly have any image that includes the girls' orphanage/primary school near the old junction with King Dick's Rd - it was across the road from where you lived; the address was 7 Fosse Road Central.

My mum and her sister lived there in the 1920s. Aunt Dorothy is still alive and has asked me if I can try to find a photo of the house. It was in a big plot of land - you can see it easily in the little map on your website. Now the site is covered over by the edge of the dual carriageway and grass and tree margins next to the end of the red brick terraced house by the SW corner of the new King Dick's Road / Fosse Rd junction.

Dorothy has a vivid memory of people and names: there was a Doctor David Smith at the corner of Arundel St. opposite the orphanage: his wife not only smoked cigarettes in a long holder but rode a motorbike! Did the girls love her!! The girls would have walked in a crocodile every day past your house on their way to Mantle Road School. They went to the church right by your place, and also walked to the Cathedral, in Sunday Best of course - panama hats with white ribbons.

I have searched on line, also the Council and planning records, the Library and two days of poring over stuff in the county records office, and not a sign of a record of the place, let alone a picture. The trade directories show it was in existence for a surprisingly long period, having moved there from central Leicester in 1862, to at least 1938. I have a list of the Board of Governors from mum's jottings and from Dorothy, and I am contacting one of their descendants also. Miss Alice Plunkett was their matron: I have a photo of her at mum's wedding in 1936.

If you have any image of No 7, or can provide me with any slight lead towards further information, we would be really delighted.

Ian Mercer. Romford, Essex
January 23rd 2006

RE: 358 FOSSE ROAD NORTH, LEICESTER

Maureen Bird (nee Craxford), Associate Editor

A few lines to say that I've really enjoyed reading your latest article and all its reminiscences. Various thoughts came to my mind as I read your words.

Jelly for birthday parties you say. Lucky you say I! I have to tell you that in the war years, when I was a child, jellies were rationed or in short supply, I can't remember which and a family only had one or two per year. If, as a child, you had an invitation to a party, one or two mothers would send a jelly along, if they had one, so that there was enough. Hardly seems possible does it?

Our house in St. Helens was a modern semi, but like yours had a lounge (only used at Christmas) , a dining/living room, a kitchen (nowadays it would be called a breakfast room) and a scullery (now called a kitchen). The back door was in the scullery and outside this was a square piece of concrete which Mum used to pumice-stone every Monday after she'd done the washing, and I had to jump over it so's not to get it dirty!

In the kitchen we had a Triplex kitchen range exactly the same as your photo, and an airer. We called ours an airer, although some folk in other parts of the country called them 'maidens' or pulleys. I have several wonderful memories that relate to the kitchen range. Somewhere along the line, probably Christmas, I was given a tin of Cadbury's chocolate buttons. As a small child I remember they were absolute bliss. Heavens knows where they came from because they would have been a rare commodity. At the time they were in a purple tin in the shape of a milk churn and Mum used to keep it on the shelf on the top of the range where I couldn't reach!! I was only allowed a few each day. She used also to put potatoes in the ashes under the fire to bake. Wonderful baked potatoes which sometimes were burnt. Another thing she used to do, which I realise now is dangerous, but she used to carry a shovel full of hot coals from the kitchen to the dining/living room to make the fire in that room. Apparently this was to make the job of making a fire much quicker than doing it from scratch. Our range was black enamelled which Mum used to polish up regularly. A labour of love I feel.

Having read your piece about Brenda dashing off to her cold bedroom. I have wonderful childhood memories of colourful knitted and crocheted blankets that my grandmothers made with all the oddments of wool that they collected. On the really cold winter nights I remember being wrapped up in these wonderful blankets and put into bed, all snug and warm.

Seeing the picture of the Reckitts Blue Bag reminds me that when I was first married I used to "blue" all my table cloths, pillowslips and Colin's white shirts. In those days he used to wear detached collars and these and the double cuffs on the shirts, and the pillowslips and table cloths then used to be starched. Such memories.

It's fun going back to see your old home. A month or so ago I went back to see the house and area around where we used to live in Birmingham, (after we left St. Helens). Amazingly it really hadn't altered very much at all. It was a nice part of Birmingham all those years ago, and it's still quite nice now.

Well, that's enough reminiscing for now. I look forward to reading whatever comes next.

Maureen Bird (nee Craxford) September 10th 2005

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RE: GROWING UP ON FOSSE ROAD NORTH

I`m writing on behalf of my wife Val (nee Manship) who went to school with your sister Brenda. (Val doesn`t have too much interest in computers so I`ve been given the task of replying!) She doesn`t have many clear memories from long ago but appreciates all the names and date you have listed with the photo on Friends Reunited which certainly helps. Yes, the photo must be from Mantle Road if your dad says so. She also went to Ingle Street Junior at some stage before returning to Mantle Road for her Secondary years. .She can now recall quite a few of the names and faces on this photo including your sister. Brenda

Val used to live at 7 Battenberg Road just around the corner from Mantle Road School. She still keeps in regular touch with a couple of girls from her schooldays especially Sally Wesson. Does your sister remember Sally?

Interestingly, I thought that your name rang a bell from the distant past and viewing your excellent website I see that you were a neighbour in Fosse Road North of one of my girl-friends from long ago, the lovely Ann Letts. Needless to say at the time I was madly in love with Ann . Unfortunately (for me!) she was still madly in love with Dave Zanker who was a previous boyfriend who fell out with her. This meant our relationship was doomed to fail....which it did after around 6-9 months or so. I used to go to the same school as Dave (City Boys) and I met him at a reunion a few years ago and we had a good chuckle remembering those "anguished times !" He confessed that his feelings for poor old Ann were never as strong as she thought. The dilemma of teenage love!

I often wondered what happened to Ann as the only time I`ve ever seen her since then was in the late 1960s when I bumped into her at her place of work, the old Electricity Showrooms in town.

Many of my mates were from the Tudor Road /Newfoundpool area and so we spent most of our spare time on Fosse Park playing football and cricket (depending on the time of year). We also frequented the various local youth clubs (for the girls and music) including St Pauls and the Catholic St Peters, and as we got older, the Empire Hotel public house. I first knew Val during those times in the early 1960s, however we didn`t start courting (a lovely old fashioned phrase !) until much later, eventually getting married in 1968. We now have 1 girl, 2 boys and are still married.

Happy days from long ago.

Pete Smith, Groby, Leicester
October 1st 2005

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RE: THE APPRENTICE

I have often wondered if the old firm Caribonum still existed, So, imagine my surprise on asking Google when my old pal George (Craxford) appeared. We used to work out of the Princess Road office along with Ted Norman and Stan Clarke. Sadly he is no longer with us in the case of Ted - I am not sure about Stan. At 75 I am still working on Thornton Nurseries, but have lots of time off! Nita and I have a trip planned up the Amazon next year. All the best with your super site. I just felt I had to drop you a line to say 'Hello'.

Jim Smith. Thornton, Leicester
December 26th 2006

PLEASE CONTACT US

If you would like to comment on any of the articles we have published in the magazine or would like to add your own thoughts and reminiscences of any of the subjects please send them to me with a note to say that you are happy for your letter to appear on this page.Please contact us at AlanCrax@aol.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Newfloridian - Site Administrator
(Alan D. Craxford) January 1st 2007.

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© The Craxford Family Genealogy Magazine and individual copyright holders. Edited and maintained by
Alan D. Craxford 2005 - 8. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.