Your Memories of the 1970s

The Springbok nightclub in Albion Street may be due for demolition, but I remember it when it was the Coliseum Cinema back in the early 1970s. My Mother used to work there as an usherette, during the school holidays, my Brother and I, would spend many happy hours there watching films and exploring the cinema. The staff room was in the basement and looked as if it hadn't been modernised since the 1950s. It was a very atmospheric building and evokes many happy memories.

I remember going swimming with school to the Alstone baths, it was old and terribly worn out when I swam there but I got my medals for swimming widths. Then my school, Arle Secondary, built it's own pool so we didn't have to go to Alstone anymore. Pitville then took over as the place to swim during the school holidays and on weekends and I remember the first time I jumped off the high diving platform, and how warm the baby pool was. We used to walk to town on Saturdays and I also remember the ABC on Saturday mornings, what great fun. I now live in Longview, WA USA and haven't been back to Cheltenham since 1991 when I came on vacation.

So many memories of my childhood growing up in Cheltenham. We used to go swimming at Pitville. Shopping on Saturdays along the High Street with my sister, Rani. We lived in Hester's Way, and back then, there were miles and miles of fields behind our houses which I used to go off exploring with all my friends. I remember celebrating the Queen's Jubilee in 1977 with street parties and getting a comemorative mug from my school, Hester's Way Primary School. I live in the US now, and sometimes it seems as if I lived that life a million years ago...

I remember waiting for Saturdays to come round every week for our trip to the ABC for the morning session of ABC minors. What great fun we all had!

I brought loads of the Star Wars figures. My children play with them now and they still love the films as much as I did then. I went to see the new films with them, which have brilliant effects but somehow the originals can't be beaten.

Does anybody remember whether the Reliant Robin had a reverse? I’m sure I remember they didn’t have a reverse and they just used to twirl round on the front wheel. I think it was just a motorbike engine in them.