|
My mum Sylvia Harris nee Bradshaw lived in a house between Bryan's Alley and Broughton Approach (4a Broughton Road) which was said to be haunted. The ghost was apparently of the poltergeist type and apparently things used to get thrown around and broken. She lived there with her sisters Connie and Ruby and her parents Sydney and Mary Bradshaw. They had moved to Broughton Road from Carnwarth Road during the 1930s. I believe my grandfather Sydney's brother Con Bradshaw and his family lived at number 4. On the other side of the alley used to be the 'hole in the wall' where Johnny Long had his greengrocers and my grandfather Sydney Bradshaw who was a cabinet maker also had his workshop. The house itself was in actual fact only a flat above what I can only describe as an enormous, enormous garage with big double doors and which went right back and could hold at least 6 cars Bradshaws lived in above house. Next to mum's 'old house' used to live Mrs Jagger who always seemed to be hanging out of her upstairs window talking to someone when I was a kid. Then there was a lady and her daughter who lived on the corner of the Approach and next to the Star cinema (can't remember her name) but her daughter had been brain damaged by measles and used to scrub the step what seemed like 20 times a day and had worn the concrete down to an inch or so. When Peter (Hawkins) and I first got married in 1969 we rented two rooms at number 11 off a relative of my mum's. Their names were Charlie & Eileen Luke and Charlie had a motorbike and sidecar which was his pride and joy and always covered up with a tarpaulin. We lived there until 1970. On the corner of Langford Road and Broughton Road was the bakers 'Green' something and then the off licence with the lady who always seemed so miserable but she used to have a big jar of arrowroot biscuits on the counter which I think used to cost 1d. Then there was a greengrocers, a grocer's and the sweet shop on the corner of Langford Rd and Gilstead Rd. Read more about Terrie and her sister Norma in the Pearscroft Road section of 'Where We Lived' and the Hawkins family under William Parnell House.
|
Where We Lived 
