My parents were married in 1953 and around the same time dad was appointed to a job as a clerk with Leicestershire County Council. They moved from living in Catford in South London with my mother’s family to a house in Una Avenue in Leicester where they lived with my dad’s grandmother, Lillian. Shortly after that my mother was pregnant and I was on the way.
I was born the following year and lived my first few months in that house.
As I understand it the domestic arrangements were less than perfect so Lillian’s sister, Aunty Mabel, stepped in with a loan for a deposit that allowed my parents to buy their first house. It wasn’t a great deal of money, I don’t know exactly how much, possibly around £100. My scrapbook records of dad’s employment reveal that his annual salary at that time was £240 a year just £4.60 a week! The house that they bought would sell now for about £150,000 so in 1954 it probably cost somewhere between £300-400.
They chose a house in Tyndale Street, quite close to the Leicester City Centre. Tyndale Street is in an area of the city called West End because it was outside of the western Braunstone Gate and on a previously marshy area west of the River Soar.
It was developed around about the 1900s when affordable housing was required to provide accommodation for the workers in the booming footwear and hosiery industries in the city. The land was acquired from a wealthy protestant landowner who had some residual say in the naming of the streets – Luther, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer and Tyndale, all sixteenth century Protestant martyrs. The area is predictably called the Martyrs and the Church of the Martyrs stands nearby.
William Tyndale, the man who first translate the Bible into English…
I can only find one other Tyndale Street and that is in McLean, Virginia, USA, a much more upmarket sort of place than Leicester West End. It is the most expensive place to live in Virginia and houses sell for millions of dollars.
Wiki puts it into some sort of perspective… “Mclean is an unincorporated community in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is the location of Hickory Hill, the former home of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy”.
So, back to reality. They lived there for two years. Mum worked evening shift at a biscuit factory. They took in a lodger to help pay the bills. People had to stand on their own two feet, in the 1950s, no constant whining about inequalities and unfairness in society. No Universal Credit and no free school meals. Mum and Dad couldn’t afford tattoos and takeaways paid for by the State/Taxpayer.
It was a very basic two bedroom terraced house with a front door that opened directly onto the street and with a small garden and back yard at the rear and typical of any Midlands artisan house of that period.
The house today is now well over a hundred years old but still has some of the original decorative features over the doors and windows, but the doors and windows are plastic, there is a satellite television dish and there is a refuse bin outside the front door.
Naturally I have no real memories of living in this house and we had gone by the time that I was two years old. Dad had been promoted at work, he was working in the Education Department, he had an increase in salary and they aspired to move up a notch or two on the property ladder.
Whilst living there I did have my very first bike…
What a cutie, on your little bike!
It could be in a museum somewhere now!
I love old pictures. Cute one of you.
I like this topic. Makes me think back to the houses I lived in as well. Thanks for the memories, Andrew.
Maybe you could do the same thing. It takes more research than I originally thought that it might!
I remember every one, but we didn\t take many pictures back then. I wish we had one of our very first house. 😮
Excellent post. Do you ever pass by the house just to see how it is?
Thanks Rick. No, never been past, I never go to Leicester these days. I have no family there any more. I used to go with my dad to watch football matches but I haven’t been to a game since he died in 2003.
My plan was to go and see all of these houses that we lived in and then I thought ‘hey, why bother, just Google them instead’.
I do need to go and see the Richard III visitor centre though some time soon.
My Mom still lives in the farmhouse that I grew up in so I visit it quite frequently. That is one cute kid on the bike. 🙂
Such a shame that we have to grow up!
How many houses have you lived in? I am up to 18 now!
I had to count that. Ten is the winning number. 🙂
Shame it wasn’t Catford where I (M) went to school. Would have been good to hear your memories!
I wrote a post about Catford some time ago – https://aipetcher.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/every-picture-tells-a-story-barmeston-road-catford-2/
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You look a bit of a speed demon there!
No safety helmets in those days.
Really enjoyed this. Gosh 18 houses!
Me – Five houses
I lived in two houses as a child, and when we married we rented a one bedroom flat for a year, we saved every penny of my salary for the deposit for our first house (must have been a small deposit).
We lived in our first house for six years and then Graham’s career took off in a bigger way, I’d saved again and we were able to move here to this house and small holding – 45 years ago on the 8th March.
After he died I thought I would have to move, it was too big for me, Joss was set to leave home and I couldn’t afford to run it. Victoria’s house was already up for sale as they wanted to move into to the village, so they bought into my house and I moved into one side of it, extended it and made it into a sort of independent two bedroom annex. It all fell into place as though it was meant to be.
Thanks for adding your memories Sue.
Got a bit carried away didn’t I? 😀
Not a bit!
18! That’s a lot, Andrew! Enjoyed your trip down Memory Lane. My first memories are of something very similar, on Scarborough St., in Hartlepool. Haven’t times changed? 🙂 🙂
Certainly have Jo. Thanks for adding this memory.
My younger daughter was at university in Leicester, but neither she nor we really took to it – maybe because the surrounding countryside is so flat? What we loved though was access to the vibrant food of south India. We still make a detour to Leicester, as an important pitstop in a journey southwards or northwards.
Did you go to Bradgate Park? North of the city is quite scenic also the south east on the way to Rutland.
Oh yes, it’s not without charms. I guess I didn’t get to know it well enough. But the food …
Love that photo of you on a bike and great that you have so many mementos from that time.
Thanks Sheree, I don’t still have the bike of course.
I would hope you have something a little larger
Raleigh c1995 and can’t bear to part with it. All steel and rather heavy.
I hate parting with any of our bikes but space is at a premium in an apartment.
I can actually see your features in the second photo. Not so much the third, and not much in the fourth, either.
Ha, Ha, I don’t look a great deal like William Tyndale I agree!
I was born inLeicester General
Well, well, a good chance that I was too I guess. I will ask my Mum, she will know.
7 weeks premature in 1942 – I’m lucky to be here.
You must be a fighter!
🙂
Just asked my Mum, she tells me that was born in Westgates Nursing Home. I don’t think it is there anymore. Probably gone in one of the many NHS reforms.
I think I can just edge you by having had 19 different homes. We’ve been in this one 28 years so some of the others were obviously short lived. You look a lot happier on your bike than you do with your great-grandmother!
She had whiskers I recall.
Moving house is great for decluttering.