Your Stories of Playing Out in Leeds

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Wed 15 May, 2013 2:07 pm

Interplay wrote: Thanks Phill_dvsn,I'm just adding these to the site now (not gone public yet) and wanting to know how you'd like to be listed?I can use your username etc from here or if you want to PM me your details I'll happily set up a user for you and go from there. Phill.d will do nicely I think

Steve Jones · Post by **Steve Jones** » Wed 15 May, 2013 2:31 pm

As I grew up in Manchester and Blackpool ,my memories don't really apply' but I was thinking about how we used to make dens beside the Rochdale Canal although none of us could swim (and wouldn't have stood much chance if we could considering the state of it).Our parents never worried about this!Nowadays ,I suppose we wouldn't be allowed within a mile of it!Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety?

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Wed 15 May, 2013 2:57 pm

Steve Jones wrote: Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? We even had them built for us Steve.The Seacroft Adventure playground (or simply the addy) has been mentioned on S.L before. It must have been council run or funded. It used to be situated on Kentmere Avenue herehttp://goo.gl/maps/hnbhuNothing remains of it, even the parade of shops next door long since gone. The addy comprised of a breeze block built hut, more like something temporary knocked up on a building site for the workers to use as a canteen. A compound fenced in that went to the top of the hill. The T.A built this huge climbing frame at the top of the hill with different levels, it was built out of telegraph poles and great planks of wood. It resembled something the army would train on. It must have been 20' high at least, a pulley slide was rigged at the top of it, and I think the only thing that stopped you at the bottom was a well timed jump into a sandpit. There was also an old rubber, and very slippy conveyor belt from a coal mine you slid on down the hill. A fella called Brian Coates was in charge, but apart from him, there was no other kind of supervision. I seem to think Brian would select one of the biggest kids, and their job was to run in the hut and let Brian know if there was any bother, or anyone got hurt outside. In the late 70's they got a few arcade machines in the hut, I recall Space Invaders and Galaxians. Of course the mothers loved this, being pestered for a handful of 10p pieces on a regular basis. We had a day trip to Brid once, if you promised to behave and be back at the coach for departure time, you were allowed off on your own with your mates. Good job really as I think only 2 adults went for a coach load of kids anyway. I think we'd all be under 10 at the time. We used to trail off for miles in those days, you always had to have a stick with you. Very versatile tool to have was a stick, from knocking apples off trees, testing depth of water, or any other annoying things boys could do with sticks

jim · Post by **jim** » Wed 15 May, 2013 3:29 pm

Steve Jones wrote: Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? "Farnley Forge" (actually the Fireclay Works by then) in the fifties. I recall a tunnel I dug into an old quarry face - which the workforce there collapsed (presumably for my own safety) and another den in one of the goods sheds with a metal plate roof over some packing cases. The nice warehouse man dropped the metal plate - whilst three of us were in it!My friends and I must have built two dozen varied dens in the Forge. It was the place that our mothers always forbade us to go, and when we got home greeted our filthy torn clothes with a sighed "You've been in that ***** forge again!"

Linky Oik · Post by **Linky Oik** » Wed 15 May, 2013 3:41 pm

Steve Jones wrote: Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? Yep! On the wasteground alongside Beckett Street (where all the old houses had been demolished). This area was a treasure trove of dangerous stuff for kids to play with and we built many dens but one particular den remains in the memory.In a depression amongst the old bricks and debris, we constructed a den with roof. The roof was almost certainly corrugated sheet asbestos! It was supported by vertical props buried in the ground. Walls were made from bricks and masonry held together with a crude mud mortar and painted white. Inside (our "living room"), several old car seats arranged around some old beer crates made for comfy chairs and tables. Adding to this homely tableau was the fireplace we built into the front wall. We found an old hearth, set this in the wall and connected it up to some old drainpipe which acted as a chimney. We even had a small sideboard with a nice fruitbowl on top.One day, whilst we were roasting spuds on the fire, a couple of policemen put their heads around the door. They had been attracted by the chimney smoke. Once they realised we were causing no harm they joined us for a blackened spud, then left us to it.Good job they didn't spot the fireworks in the sideboard that reckless 10-year-olds might get up to no good with.

stutterdog · Post by **stutterdog** » Wed 15 May, 2013 4:47 pm

jim wrote: Steve Jones wrote: Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? "Farnley Forge" (actually the Fireclay Works by then) in the fifties. I recall a tunnel I dug into an old quarry face - which the workforce there collapsed (presumably for my own safety) and another den in one of the goods sheds with a metal plate roof over some packing cases. The nice warehouse man dropped the metal plate - whilst three of us were in it!My friends and I must have built two dozen varied dens in the Forge. It was the place that our mothers always forbade us to go, and when we got home greeted our filthy torn clothes with a sighed "You've been in that ***** forge again!" Would that be the same quarry with the pond in the btm ,where there were newts ,frogs and toads in early Spring? And, just to the one end a long sloping tunnel lined with stone with a pump at the btm? If so I can remember playing there in about 1954 or thereabouts!

Interplay · Post by **Interplay** » Wed 15 May, 2013 5:43 pm

jim wrote: Steve Jones wrote: Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? "Farnley Forge" (actually the Fireclay Works by then) in the fifties. I recall a tunnel I dug into an old quarry face - which the workforce there collapsed (presumably for my own safety) and another den in one of the goods sheds with a metal plate roof over some packing cases. The nice warehouse man dropped the metal plate - whilst three of us were in it!My friends and I must have built two dozen varied dens in the Forge. It was the place that our mothers always forbade us to go, and when we got home greeted our filthy torn clothes with a sighed "You've been in that ***** forge again!" Is this the forge Jim?http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/346144Looks just like a tunnel I used to go down when I was younger we called "the pipe" in Garforth, where we'd climb right in and light candles to light the space inside. Was part of some kind of water/sewage system I think.

Interplay · Post by **Interplay** » Wed 15 May, 2013 5:55 pm

Steve Jones wrote: As I grew up in Manchester and Blackpool ,my memories don't really apply' but I was thinking about how we used to make dens beside the Rochdale Canal although none of us could swim (and wouldn't have stood much chance if we could considering the state of it).Our parents never worried about this!Nowadays ,I suppose we wouldn't be allowed within a mile of it!Anyone else make dens in hazardous areas in the days before Health & Safety? Stories from outside Leeds are still welcomed Steve, we're mainly focused on Leeds based stories but are welcoming all

jim · Post by **jim** » Wed 15 May, 2013 7:00 pm

Stutterdog, don't remember a tunnel (other than the one I dug!) in the particular small quarry I spoke of. At the NW corner of the Forge (ie the one nearest Old Farnley) there was a very overgrown quarry just north of the railway that had once served the furnace bank (or Roman Wall as it was known) and the quarry I refer to was just south of the same railway track, but lower down. The floor of it was directly adjacent to the then working area of the site. Several of the more or less abandoned parts of the forge area had ponds and bogs and a huge variety of flora and fauna, so that mention doesn't help me to pinpoint your particular memory site.Interplay, the picture you link to is of the channel leading from the main millpond at the SW corner of the Forge, adjacent to Whitehall Road. It is all still extant - or it was when Si, Glenny, and I paid it a visit on our way to our second (I think) wander round the Cockersdale mills "trail" that we reported on in a SL thread on that subject. The channel falls for some thirty yards or so to where it disappeared underground, and, I believe, fed the waterwheels that drove the machinery in the engineers buildings of the old Ironworks. The ground level to the north of the channel has been seriously altered by tens of feet of tipping during land reclamation and reformation in more recent years. However, at least three of the dens I recall from the fifties were in the small wood that surrounded the channel and extended from the mill pond to the buildings of the engineers facility.At one time I had custody of a large (about 24" x 36") plan of the entire Ironworks site identifying the functions of all the buildings. It was dated 1922, approximately the date of closure as an ironworks and reconstitution as the Fireclay Company. I decided the plan would be better in the hands of the local history group for the area, and passed it to them, but retained a duplicate in the form of a set of A4 copies.For those taking notes, I lived at the "farm" end of Cow Close Roadfrom 1949 -1956, and my mother taught for a while at Lower Wortley Infants. Anyone who can work out who I am from my site name and the above info is welcome to get in touch to exchange memories via the email address in my SL profile.

jonleeds · Post by **jonleeds** » Thu 16 May, 2013 10:21 pm

Here is a photo of me an my lil brother riding my Raleigh Chopper MKII probably in about 1983:Check out the trendy 'Marks and Sparks' tracksuit I'm wearing! I could fill a book with the stories about Raleigh Choppers I have. The one I'm riding in the photo was bought for me in 1982 by my mother who picked it up cheap from a secondhand shop in Morley Bottoms, I think it cost £25. Even though the Chopper had a long production run from 1968 to 1982 by 1982 they were becoming quite rare on the streets and all my friends were riding Raleigh Burner BMX bikes. I loved the Chopper though and by the time I started high school I was the only kid there who had one and it was quite a novelty. I can remember one occasion giving 4 of my friends a saddle on it back from our high school which was right at the top of Bruntcliffe Hill! Paying little heed to the warning notice on the saddle (see Phils photos) we managed to get the bike rolling and once we were in motion picked up quite a speed on the main road. However halfway down the hill one of our teachers who was driving home in his car drew alongside us and the look of horror on his face was classic! The next day in our schools morning assembly the whole incident was recounted in front of the whole school and a stern warning issued by our headmaster...- Them was the days!