SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

I personally grew up (age 0-9) in Armley before living in Wortley until I was 22 years old, then I moved to Moortown where I remain now at age 30.Memories of Armley include being the first year 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Armley Primary school (when it moved from the Clock School on Armley Road), playing on Armley Park (before the kid's park section was moved), searching for golf balls on Armley Park, walking down the canal, shopping on Armley Town Street (always finished with a cone of chips from Mr.Chippy) and lots of others.

Talk of 'years' 3,4 etc., sounds so modern - clearly feeling my years - nursery, infants, junior, primary and secondary where the titles in my time, starting at Crossgates, now just a flattened black blob marked out as a sports pitch on google earth.

chameleon wrote: Talk of 'years' 3,4 etc., sounds so modern - clearly feeling my years - nursery, infants, junior, primary and secondary where the titles in my time, starting at Crossgates, now just a flattened black blob marked out as a sports pitch on google earth. Haha, yes. I left high school in 1999 so I'm not as young as some on here probably are but old enough to find new school terms weird.They had abolished the idea of middle schools just as I finished year 6 of primary school so it was straight to high school for me, a shame really, I would have loved to have experienced a middle school.What school was it? My Dad comes from Crossgates and went to Foxwood high school many moons ago.

All of my schools have now been bulldozed. I went to Low Road Primary from 1960 - 62, then Coldcotes Junior, then Foxwood from 1966 - 72. The only part of my education not completely razed is Park Lane College (1972 - 74). Hunslet to age 7 was living in a back-to-back terrace in Belmont Mount (demolished). Then Oakwood Lane (still standing) from 1962 until I left for Oz in 1975. Too many memories to recount here, but nearly all of them good, and most of them great.    

Don't forget about this thread as schools are coming up:http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messag ... ighLight=1    

As a Morley lad I didnt consider myself from Leeds as I was born in Dewsbury like many of my friends who I grew up with in Morley. I can remember every green space we played on as youngsters getting built on over the years by an unstoppable wave of new housing developments. I think the only place that hasnt yet been built on is the woodlands between Morley and Gildersome (where the portal to the Gildersome Tunnel lies) and I think that escaped the developers plans as it was too steeply contoured and on the wrong side of the M621.

I too was brought up in Morley when it was an independent borough, but I was born here - in Morley Hall. I remember Morley as a mill town, and the various buzzers from the mills. The engine visible though huge arched windows at Greenwood & Walsh on Peel Street - all it's paintwork gleaming. I recall the town hall tower catching fire in 1961, when Albert Mills next door caught fire and it spread. I recall going to Morley Feast on the Dartmouth - junction of Victoria Road and Asquith Avenue. You could hear the music from the Town Hall if the wind was in the right direction. There was another feast ground on Middleton Road too. There always seemed to be more available girls at the feast than you normally saw about.Morley had two cinemas - the Picture House on Queen Street - now long gone, and the Pavilion at the junction of Town End and South Queen Street - the building's still there but it's been empty for years since the restaurant Puccinos closed down.I played Rugby for Morley (only the third team) and would say that I'm a proud Morlean - but not a looney like the Morley Borough Independents. There's no chance ever of an independent Morley so why don't they pack it in and make the best of being part of the 3rd largest city in the nation!

Hi Majorhoundii, I too remember the old feast ground at the bottom of Asquith Avenue, I went to Morley Victoria junior and infants school in the late 70s to mid 80s. We used to dance around the maypole on the grass opposite the school that used to be Morley Hole (or Morley 'Oil' as people up there said it! I can remember living in Springfield Lane when Springfield Mill was still a textile mill and every morning old coaches full of women from South Yorkshire towns like Barnsley / South Emsall etc used to arrive to work there. Yes the mill buzzers went off every dinnertime and evening to announce the end and start of shifts. I remember the Japa paper mill one was quite distinctive. My older sister was born at Morley Hall in the late 60s. I found this article the other day written by Morley born author Helen Fielding (of Bridget Jones Diary fame - I'm not a fan!) but she writes an interesting account of her experience of growing up in Morley and how she discovered it to be when she returned briefly in 1994. see:http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 11394.html

Born in Bramley, but only because the Maternity Home was there. It was called "The Willows", and the building is still there. although I don't know what it is now. It's on Broad Lane, almost opposite the junction with Town Street.Mum came from Farsley, which was home to me for very short while, then moved to Calverley. Family had strange housing arrangements in that our house in Chapel Street, Calverley, was owned by my maternal grandfather, who lived in a house in Farsley owned by his niece, who in turn lived in rented accommodation, although in her case that made some sense as she and her husband ran a business - he was a plumber, and she was in charge of a hardware shop in Farsley Town Street, and they lived over it. I had a mooch round there a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years. The premises are now a specialist chocolate shop. The old living premises seem to be unoccupied.Dad was demobbed in 1946, and his job as a newspaper compositor in Leicester awaited him, so we moved there until 1953. What a great city it was in those days. Moved back to Calverley after grandad was widowed and his tenants had given notice. We paid rent to him until his death in 1958 and Mum then inherited it. Calverley was Borough of Pudsey until 1974, when it finally became part of Leeds. I went to the Council School (now Calverley Parkside) - the other was the Church School. School tended to define friendships - altho' in those days I knew all the local kids by sight, I wasn't really friendly with the Church School lot, and sometimes got into fights with them - nothing personal, simply rivalries. The other defining factor was church. We were Methodists, so my circle tended to be those from same school/chapel. Things changed after I passed the old 11+ exam and went to Pudsey Grammar School. Some who had been friends at the Council School were less friendly once they started going to Wesley Street in Farsley, or Primrose Hill in Pudsey. Conversely, I became friends with ex-Church School kids who graduated to Pudsey Grammar, and some who went to Fulneck (fee-paying) School having failed the 11+. They caught the same bus.Calverley folk had divided loyalties between Leeds and Bradford. My family tended towards Leeds, and I worked there for some years after leaving school, and gravitated there for leisure activities. My first employer taught me to drive, and so I learned the Leeds geography on the odd occasions when I deputised for the firm's van driver. The 30cwt payload Morris Commercial seemed a huge beast to a 17/18 year old new driver. It also had sliding doors which could be (and were) left open. No seat belts in those days, but I managed not to fall out.When I was young, Calverley was a self-contained village with three large woollen mills (all now gone) which employed most local people. While I didn't know everyone by name, I knew them by sight, and they knew me. Self-policing was the norm, as things quickly got back to parents (although I still got away with a lot!). But during the 1950s things started to change with massive house building, and it rapidly became a dormitory village for Leeds and Bradford, with loads of "offcummeduns", most of whom I never got to know. I left for good in 1964, and eventually married a Bradford woman 43 years ago, hence my having lived in Bradford ever since. Since my parents died I have littler reason to go now, and I don't recognise anyone these days. But it still feels a bit like home:-)

One of the earliest memories I have is when we lived up at Leeds Girls High School in Headingley; my old man was the caretaker there for a while. I remember playing Scalextric with him in the front room, when my bother, two years younger, was still a baby. Must have made me at least 4, or perhaps younger. We used to go over to the on site bakery for fresh bread in the morning. After that we moved up to Lea Farm Grove, then down into the Vespers where me and my bro spent most of our childhood and teenage years, playing round the Abbey and in the woods making dens etc. We used to skate so we got around a bit; I remember getting into the old disused water works up Otley Road, before they built the housing estate on it. Lived in Burley and Meanwood since, and currently up in West Park, so I regularly walk past the old Water Works. Brings back memories. Good times.