Your Memories of the 1950s

I was brought up in Fairview Road. I lived there from 1952 to 1966. I was talking to my mother about the amount of shops etc there was in such a small road. At the bottom of fairview road there was The Cheltenham Plating company. My father worked there as a metal polisher. It was a black and white painted building and on the front was a bay window on the first floor and the owner Mrs Willis would sit in the window watching the world go by. A couple of doors up was a second hand shop which was owned and run by a Mr Tanner I believe and next to him was a cobblers mr Witcombe. Between these 2 shops was a alley which led to the turks head pub. Just up from mr Witcombs shoe shop was Mantons the green grocers and next to him was another pub, the Gloucester House. The building is still on the corner of fairview road and gloucester place. But its got alot of scaffolding holding it up now and theres a tree growing on the roof so it will not be there for much longer. On the other side of the road from the bottom there used to be a coffin shop then a second hand clothes shop run by Vera Phipps , neptunes parlour a fish and chip shop. then our house then roy marchants bus office then mr blizzards a butchers shop, then finally dobells pub, all this in a length of road about 100 mtrs long. Further up the road was Bences and a garage a couple of corner shops a motor bike business, another pub The Fairview Arms and the athletic grounds. A great place to live in the 50s.

In the late 50's I was a telegram boy in Cheltenham working out from the post office in the Promanade (now a bookstore)at the age of 15 you delivered by bycycle and at 16 you were tested and allowed, if you past the test, delivered by motor bike.The town was easier to get around then with no complicated one way sytems. If you had a delivery north of the town say Winchcombe you rode back into the centre of the town along the Evesham Road into Pitville Street where a policeman would be on point duty at the juction with the high Street. A right turn at the traffic point and you would turn into the Prom at Boots corner and into Post Office Lane.

I was born in Cheltenham in 1946. I remember Pilley bridge as a temporary footbridge because the original had been bombed in the war. It was later replaced with a brick built road bridge. My play area was Leckhampton hill and I spent many hours there. As a teenager I spent my leisure time during the summers at the Lido where a season ticket cost just 15 shillings in the late fifties-early sixties.

Cheltenham had many characters that seemed to enhance the Town. There was a Scotsman in full traditional dress who used to stand on the Promenade in front of the Neptune Fountain, and a lady who walked around the town, pushing a large pram containing poodle dogs, wearing a mink stole and diamond tiara, and a stern looking lady who rode around the streets on a sit-up-and-beg bicycle with a wicker basket on the handlebar containing a stout umbrella. She rode everywhere at considerable speed, emerging from junctions into the path of motorists who, if they dared honk their horn at her, would be caught up and their roof repeatedly hit by the umbrella as she swore loudly at them. Such characters make a town and sadly there don't seem as many nowadays.

Music really started in the 50s. You can’t beat Elvis.