On the Road Again!

I was looking on Google Maps to see where I lived as a small child. I was born December 23rd 1955 in St Thomas' Hospital in London. The hospital is directly opposite The Houses of Parliament. The River Thames between them. From there we moved into a room at my Great Aunt Nan's house nearby Elephant and Castle. Then we moved north. My mum was born and bred in Oldham. Hence the reason, if you read my output, I still support Oldham Athletic. Not before I was christened at St Lawrence Church in Morden, Surrey in February 1956. Our first home sounds pretty horrific by our modern standards in Throstle Walk in Chadderton. No electricity. Limited running water. Lit by gas. Outside toilet. We were later moved into a council house in Laburnham Avenue, also in Chadderton.  My brother was born there in 1960 and we moved south again in November 1965. But where was this Victorian hovel? I had to try and find maps of the area from the 50's or even earlier.  In the end I emailed the Archiv...

On The Ashes Tour we stopped off at one of the places from my early years of living in Chadderton in Lancashire. The trip was to take our Mum's ashes to their final resting place and on the way we visited a few places from her life and also from ours. My Dad used to work for Latics as the "pools promoter". Back in the days before lotteries and scratch cards, people had to make do with more cerebral pleasures like trying to guess from 49 football (soccer to my US friends) games each weekend which would end up in a draw (okay for you a tie). On the coupon you marked 10 games with a cross and if you managed 8 or more you could win. Some people won fortunes. Okay by today's standard it wasn't much, but by 1960 standards it was more than you could ever imagine.  Instead of scratch cards, they had tickets with the time in them. If a goal was scored that matched your ticket you would win a small prize. My Dad managed those fund raising activities  in his ...