GROWING UP ON FOSSE ROAD NORTH, LEICESTER

By Alan D Craxford

THE ENVIRONS.

Click here for a detailed map of the Fosse Road area about 1955

If you have managed to get this deep into our site, I should by now need no introduction. This is the second of three articles written after a visit we made to my ancestral home in August 2005. The first (358: OUR FAMILY HOME) described my parent’s house. The third is a valedictory in honour of the main artery of our life in those times: King Richard's Road.

This article is a more general overview of the neighbourhood in which I grew up, went to school and made my first tentative steps in to adolescent if not full adult life. The time scale is roughly the decade between 1955 and 1964; a time when I moved from junior school through grammar school and ultimately left the region to go on to University. I did work for several years in Leicester in the early 1970s but after my parents left the city I had not been back for nearly twenty five years.

FOSSE ROAD NORTH

354 - 364 Fosse Road North

Perhaps before we start I should get you acquainted with the neighbourhood. The world of my pre-teens was quite small and well defined. We lived on Fosse Road North in the West End of Leicester at most about three miles from the city centre. Our house was in a terrace near the junction of Fosse Road North and Central, Glenfield Road, Kirby Road and King Richard’s Road. Although it is not apparent from the map, we were also at the top of a promontory geographically speaking so that there were quite steep gradients down the roads to the north, east and west.

Fosse Road Recreation Ground

In the earliest years of this decade, the focus of my perambulations was along Fosse Road North and was bounded by the railway bridge which carried a still-working goods line. We would sometimes detour off Stephenson Drive to watch the trucks shunted along the tracks by the old steam engines. There was a modest tree lined open area – the Fosse Road Recreation Ground (Fosse Park) – where the kids kicked footballs, rode bicycles and played on the swings and the dogs exercised! I still have a papery scar on my shin where I tore it on a rusty brake handle falling over a bike when playing as goalie!! The other side of the road was lined by a terrace of large Victorian dwellings. The only commercial properties of interest belonged to Dr Hallam (our family doctor and long time family friend) near the corner of Paget Road and a ladies hairdresser halfway down the hill, Owen Staples – whose son went to the same school as me.

At that time our parents boundaries seemed to be marked by the pubs they frequented. Their favourite in the 1950s was “The Empire” – on Fosse Road North, beyond Pool Road opposite the end of Battenberg Road where they would meet up with Ethel and Dan Tierney for a pint of Everards and a lager and lime a couple of times a week. Sweet shops, on the other hand, were the 'mile markers' for us kids. I can remember Shooters, strategically placed at the top of the Pool Road hill, selling all manner of flavoured ice lollies on hot summer afternoons.

The Empire Hotel; 1955 (1)	The Empire Hotel; 2005 (2)

FIRST SCHOOLS

Mantle Road Infants School (3)

I went to school in that direction: firstly to Mantle Road Infants (at the far end of Tudor Road) and then to Inglehurst Junior School (in Ingle Street) – at the top end of Pool Road. There’s a curiosity in this neighbourhood too. Newfoundpool – the estate of terraced housing built along Pool Road was designed by a local builder and worthy, one Mr Harrison. If you look carefully you will see that the initials of these side streets spell out his name.

Class 2, Mantle Road 1955 Click for full size and identities

‘Going to school’ is one of the most noticeable differences of those far off days of fifty years ago that affect children of all ages. No 4x4s in those days. I walked to school unaccompanied night and morning, summer and winter, rain and shine from about the age of 5. I was also the big brother monitor of my baby sister. On the way Brenda tagged along about two yards and two years behind me! We have an apocryphal family story of my mother and Eva standing on the corner of Bosworth Street one evening watching me progress slowly up the Fosse hill doing my own thing. About half way I became aware of their gaze and of Brenda’s absence in the same instant. I had forgotten to collect her for the journey home. I turned and ran – all the way back to Mantle Road to find Brenda happily playing on her own unconcerned in the classroom.

Fosse Road North Bridge (early 1950s) (1)

Junior School was where budding friendships were forged, rivalries were contested and the first inklings of academia were introduced. There was something educationally experimental being tried out in the year behind us called 'Free Association' but we sat in seried ranks of desks, learning our tables and writing out the alphabet in italic script. We were groomed to face the 11-plus examination (scourge of so many parents of the day) I have to say that I didn't find the little test much of a challenge. I vied with Nicholas Green for first place in the class throughout our four years - he usually triumphed. He ultimately went on to a rival grammar school - the Wyggeston.

Christopher Isherwood was also in my year. I made quite frequent trips to his house at the foot of Pool Road where an evening's entertainment would consist of listening to an episode of 'The Archers' at 6:45 followed by 'Sexton Blake' (or was it 'Dick Barton, Special Agent'?) at 7pm while reading that week's issue of 'The Eagle'. This was followed by a family game of Monopoly. I also remember that they had an interestingly decorated toilet - walls papered with old newspapers and then varnished (quite a novelty for 1957). I do remember some other names and have hazy recollection of childhood faces of those Ingle Street days. I wonder what happened to Richard Lakin, Steven Clark, Robert Kirk, Susan Burton and Jennifer Booth?

John Wayne (4)

Richard Todd (5)

Almost adjacent to the Empire was the Fosse Cinema. What a magnet the Saturday matinee club (tickets 6d a time) was for the local kids. We'd queue up for the weekly instalment of Flash Gorden and Tom and Jerry and sit through the exploits of John Wayne or Richard Todd - and then played at Cowboys and Indians or The Dambusters on the way home. It was also the scene of my first date - I took Judith Crane to see a movie - a musical! I have always liked the story of Uncle Tom's cabin and can still whistle a happy tune.

St Paul's Church Glenfield Road, 2005

GLENFIELD ROAD

Apart from St Paul's Church, which sat on the corner with Kirby Road, Glenfield Road did not concern us much in the early days. By the time I had moved to Ingle Street, I did occasionally come home "the other way" along Sandhurst Road and then back up the Glenfield Road hill. The establishment which attracted an audience of children in the afternoon was the Co-operative Dairy and Bottling Plant - a noisy place of wonderment watching the rows of bottles trundling along the production line being washed, sterilised, filled and then capped. If we were lucky we would be rewarded with a strip of aluminium foil that the caps were stamped from (I have no idea now what we did with it). If we were even luckier we would catch a fleeting glimpse of the magnificent horses that were stabled there being fed and groomed that in those days were still used to pull the carts. Somewhat later these streets were part of my paper delivery territory.

Austin A35 bonnet badge

During the mid 1960s Mother and Father's attention also strayed from 'The Empire' to the slightly nearer hostelry 'The Sir Charles Napier'. Father started to drive in the late 1950s (an Austin A35). We had no garage in those days and side street parking was not particularly secure, so he hired a variety of premises over the years. For some time, one of these was situated down a rough track on the edge of the Fosse Park opposite this public house. In the mid 1960s he moved to a medium sized car - a Cortina - for the first time. On his first day of ownership, he took it away to park for the night and was gone for more than an hour. When he came back he sheepishly had to acknowledge that he had misjudged the turning circle and had run into the door frame.

TO THE EAST

Ann Potter, right bridesmaid at Mum's wedding

The main road into the City centre was King Richard's Road - which is the subject of another article. However behind our house, and spread out between Fosse Road North and Tudor Road was an estate of streets of terraced housing. Many entered straight from the street into the front room - the rear was reached through a passageway which burrowed through the house. There were also alleyways which ran between the back-to-back terraces and in places courtyards opened up where another bank of housing could be found. Mum's lifelong friend and bridesmaid, Ann Potter, lived with her husband John in Tyrrell Street. Our aunt and uncle lived in Bosworth Street.

Noble Street had three corner shops within a "bottle of milk" distance ("Brenda, we've run out of milk. Pop over and get a pint,please"!!). Mrs Savage was the nearest - hers was a shop (not strictly on a corner) created out of the small front room of a house in the middle of a terrace where she lived with her husband Fred. Even after Ethel had retired and moved Mum kept up a friendship with her. The off licence (draft beer and wines, QC Cream, 6d back on the empties) stood on the corner of Noble Street and Flora Street. The somewhat larger grocery store (Radfords) was on the next corner down (Dannett Street). They prided themselves on a home delivery service.

... And, talking of home deliveries: the baker called every day, as did the milkman - first with a horse drawn cart (our first milkman had St Vitus Dance, a condition which caused him to walk with a curious hopping gait) and later with an electric milk float.

FOSSE ROAD CENTRAL AND BEYOND

The "Central" part of the Fosse was quite short and held little of interest. There was the Dental Surgery which was best avoided. Brenda also went regularly to Miss Warner, a very elderly lady and piano teacher, in Daneshill Road.

"Elvis Is Back"

Cliff with Cherry Wainer (6)

During the first half of the 60s decade the boundary of my world in this direction was some way along Fosse Road South which was where my sometime girlfriend Lesley lived. The families had met several years before on the annual holiday jaunt by train to the West Country (Weston-super-Mare on this occasion). Lesley lived with her mother in Upperton Road and was at the same school (a year or so senior) as Brenda. She liked all types of music and was a great Elvis and Sinatra fan. These two provided the music at a long remembered 'first proper' party (that involved having the music a bit louder than usual; the lights a bit lower than usual and the parents in the other room.) Other stars were not so memorable. Who remembers the 'Nashville Teens' these days?

I recall two particular dates that we had during this period. We went to see one of the first screenings of Elvis' film "G.I. Blues" in Leicester. We also went to a concert at the De Montfort Hall which featured the organist, Cherry Wainer, and a young entertainer and his group by the name of Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND OTHER THINGS

Alderman Newton's Boys School

I attended Alderman Newton's Boys School between 1957 and 1964. The family had had a long association with the school in the past. My great uncle, William Ball (he is pictured at my mother's wedding in the photograph above) was a schoolmaster and deputy head during the 1920s. My mother attended the Girls' School. The main school occupied a building which had been used by another school earlier in Peacock Lane next door to Leicester Cathedral and the old half-timbered Guildhall. Sometime later it expanded into the buildings vacated by the Girls' School when they moved to new premises at the top of Glenfield Road. The school operated a classic streaming syllabus where the more able students took O-level GCE subjects in four years rather than five. I was destined to take pure science subjects. I always found the Biology topics easy to comprehend guided by schoolmaster Harry Hayman. However Physics was something of a trial. At one school evening, my parents were greeted by Mr Morris, the Physics master's wry comment "Become a surgeon? If he doesn't pull his socks up he won't make second lieutenant in the St John's Ambulance"

The Green Wyvern birgee

The school colours were a distinctive green blazer with red trimmings. The History master, Bert Howard, was something of a celebrity having appeared for years as a panellist on the BBC radio "Round Britain Quiz" programme. He and his brother, Cecil, were instrumental in running the 'Green Wyvern Yacht Club' (7) along with the City of Leicester Boys School which provided educational and navigational holidays for scholars on the Norfolk Broads. I sailed twice in the early 1960s (on boats with such names as 'Vanessa', 'Nyanza', 'Harvest Moon'). I also played chess for the school and latterly ran the school chess club.

Away from school, I had a Saturday and holiday job (£1 a day) at the Co-op on High Street working in the basement. This involved working in the hardware, kitchen and decorating department (supervised by Les Smith, the floor manager). I recall helping with the setting up of a small car accessory section. I was also invited in for additional sessions when stock control time came around. The store at that time was one of the largest in Leicester. It has long since disappeared, it's place being taken by Rackhams in the new Shires Complex.

The Co-op; High Street 1960 (1)	Rackham's, The Shires, High Street 2005

TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN!

The decade, dawdling so slowly when I was in the thick of it, came and went. I moved on to University in Scotland in 1964. I did come back to work in Leicester for a couple of years in 1969 but even then things were changing - people had left, places were demolished. Things were never the same.As told above, another twenty five years was to pass before I returned again. Fosse Road (North, Central and South) is still there and so is the old homestead. The Fosse cinema suffered the indignity of service as a bingo hall before it disappeared. As reported elsewhere, St Paul's Church is now redundant and faces an uncertain fate (redevelopment? the wrecking ball?). Alderman Newton's Boys School followed the Girls out west in the 1970s and were then merged with a local comprehensive. There are a few shadowy faces (staff, old boys) peering ghost-like from the past on the pages of the FriendsReunited web site but its long history and once proud name could not save it from obliteration.

Ah yes!. Memories are made of this!!!

REFERENCES

(1) Photographs of the Fosse Road Bridge, The Empire (1955), High Street (1960): "Images of Leicester" - The Leicester Mercury; Breedon Books 1995
(2) Empire Hotel, Leicester (2005) www.pub-explorer.com
(3) Mantle Road Infants School: www.FriendsReunited.co.uk (login required)
(4) John Wayne. IMDb.com
(5) Richard Todd. "Inside Out"; bbc.co.uk
(6) Cliff Richard; Cherry Wainer "Oh Boy! Diary"
(7) The Green Wyvern Yacht Club

Added: September 27th 2005

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