I wasn’t really sure whether to call this blog the ‘Highbrooms Society‘, which sounds all very official, or the ‘Highbrooms Project’ which is probably closer to what it is, either way it is a portal to try and capture and present some of the rich history of the Highbrooms area of Tunbridge Wells, with information about the people who have lived and worked here over the last 100 years as well as those who reside here today.
Please let me know if you have something to contribute that you are willing to share, you can email me at: HighbroomsSociety@gmail.com or follow for future updates on twitter at @HighbroomsSoc
There is also a Facebook page under development…
I have tried to reference where photos and information have come from if not originals by me but please let me know if you see something that you have not been credited for and I will make sure you are added as the source.
Dan – November 2012
Highbrooms Society 
Hi! I’ve posted photos and blogs on High Brooms, and I get hits from Roots Chat, so I hope they can pick you up as well…
Hi Carolyn, I have seen your blog and am a member of the rootschat forum as well, it has been a great source of information to start this blog. I am intending to get out as and when and photograph more of the things around me that made Highbrooms special as a working class area of Tunbridge Wells, the original servants quarters if you like, but so much of its unique character that has not been changed over the last 100 years now seems under threat from the massive over-development of the area to make way for more commuter housing.
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What a facinating site…I lived in High Brooms almost from birth in 1958 until we moved to the other side of the town in March 1969…I still have fond memories of it and the schools I attended (St Lukes and High Brooms Boys ). For most of that time I lived with my parents in 11 Holmewood Road ( when born my parents lived at the bottom of Camden Road opposite the electricity works for a few months before moving in early 1959 to a flat (probably just a room) at the bottom of Woodlands Road. I believe we moved to Holmewood Road in late 1959 or early 1960.
I was a member of the St Mathews Cubs from 1965 until we moved in 1969.
The old brickworks quarry was one of our play areas ..used to get to it by going down that lane (the name escapes me now) and walking past the printers /car sprayers.
I left Tunbridge Wells in 1978..and only do occasional visits back as I have been residing in Yorkshire since 1987.
Cheers
Clive
Interested to read your message Clive. I was born in the same year as you, went to the same schools and was a member of the same cub pack for a short time (I recall leaving because I didn’t like going to the church services – ha ha). Maybe you remember me? I am guessing our paths will have diverted if you moved in 1969 across town? I have a class picture of Miss Stonestreet’s 1st year group in which you must surely appear. Please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to have a copy. I may even donate to this site if they are interested?
Hi Gary, I am always up for people contributing stuff to the site, this makes it a far more interesting view of High Brooms than I could possibly make it on my own! Feel free to send a photo and any details, names etc to HighbroomsSociety@gmail.com.
Thanks in advance
Dan
Hello Gary
Yes I do..tried to contact ‘you’ via LinkedIn a year or so ago..but came to the conclusion that it must have been a different GM !. Yes..we moved from Holmewood Road in early 1969 to the new estate at Showfields….I spent the remaining months commuting to High Brooms from Tunbridge Wells West station until July 1969. I remember a Mrs Stonestreet..and would love to see the photo….I don’t think my mum has ever mentioned a Silverdale Infants photo..maybe we never got one. I still have my St Mathews Cubs enrolment card from 1965..not sure if that would be of much interest to folks ..but it is in colour!. Also still got all my High Brooms School for Boys teacher reports somewhere. The teachers I remember offhand from High brooms were Mr King (HM), Mr Shorter, Mr Tench ( think that’s how it was spelt) and the chap that did gardening lessons..the garden being by those white buildings that were the canteen..can’t remember his name until I find my ‘stuff’.
Cheers
Clive
Hello again Clive,
Firstly my apologies for the lateness in replying to you. I had no idea that you’d responded to my message as I couldn’t find it on the site. By sheer fluke I found this thread this morning whilst browsing. If you email me at the following address i will send you a good quality scan of the HB Boys School class photo we talked of: gary@bangagong.co.uk
I’m typing this on my iPhone, which is a pain, so will write more later – especially about Mr Stapley!! Ha ha
Gary :-))
Just remembered ..the teacher wasn’t Tench (that was probably at Huntleys)…it was Stapley, or similar. Always throwing chalk board erasers around the class…and they were wooden blocks then with a bit of felt on them!.
Cheers
Clive
Just to add to my childhood memories of HB I must say that I was pretty astute at walking near the gutter and finding 3d and 1/2d coins whilst walking to school in the mid 60s!. From this I remember the shop that was on the same side as I lived, on Holmewood Road, just above the twittern that went through the terraced houses. At the top, on the same side at the junction with Woodlands road was another shop…and if that wasn’t enough to get my Black Jacks, Fruit Cocktails or Fireman’s Hoses there was the one on the corner of Powder Mill Lane and Yew Tree Road !.
Going back towards home there was the fish n chip shop, opposite the hall where I attended ‘Boys Club’ ( seem to think that was on Tuesday nights )..was 2d for a portion of chips from across the road afterwards, IIRC.
One thing I do remember and will never forget ,was that diagonally opposite that hall and on the corner of the road to HB Girls School there was a bakery/cake shop. On one day in about 1967 my mum sent me with a 10 shilling note to buy some cakes..when I got to the shop I read out the order only to find I had lost the money!.
After walking back to Holmewood Road and getting a severe telling off from mum and some clips around the ears, I had to walk all the way up to Southborough Police station, on my own, to report it and in tears too. Partly it was the threat of dad when he retuned home. I walked all the way back home, dreading what was to happen within a short time, but in the end he felt sorry for me so I never got the ‘belt’ that I was expecting!.
I can laugh about it nowadays, even with my elderly parents..not much fun then though.
Cheers
Clive
i remember my brother going to the small shop above the twittern and stealing some penny chews, he was caught and was banned from the shop. i remember in the mid sixties the owners had a stylish Early Ford Capri with the reverse raked rear windscreen ( similar to Ford Anglia
i also went to St Lukes school 1965 to 1968, i have some pictures i will post later of high brooms in late ’70’s, lived in high brooms from birth 1961 to 1982 when i left for Yorkshire Leeds Polytechnic,still come back to high brooms to see my parents every year.
walked to school from holmewood road to St augustines and later st gregorys it seemed like miles, then takes only 10 minutes or so
Hello Mark
It was a couple of old ladies that ran the shop above the twittern on Holmewood Road in the mid 1960s that I remember …a Mrs or Miss Seymour and her similar aged assistant helped out on occasions
I am assuming you mean the Ford Consul Capri , which was different from the later sleek sporty car of the same name ..which wasn’t around then of course…?. We moved in March 1969 to the Eridge Road area ..so what happened after that with the shop owners I have no idea, except that I know it was re-converted to a house by the early/mid 1970s.
I too moved to Yorkshire, in 1987, although I had left home in T Wells in 1978 and lived in east Kent from 78-87. I reside not far from Leeds too myself.
Whilst here…some more Holmewood Road memories from the mid 60s…right opposite us (No 11) there was a chap who used to go to work on his motor scooter…it was an every day ritual of laying the planks up the brick steps to the house, getting his scooter down then removing the planks…and doing the reverse each evening!. There was also the German family that lived a few doors down from him…always ran a Volkswagen Beetle ( blue is the colour I remember).
Up the top of the road, on the same side as us ( left hand side going up and directly opposite my grandparents on the right hand side) was a chap who worked for the council, his drain cleaner ,with ‘elephant trunk’ ,was quite often parked outside his house….think his surname was Gammage..or similar. Our next door neighbours to the north were an elderly brother and sister couple Clare or Claire and possibly ‘Jack’….my mum has a photo I took from our garden of him…black and white of course but it shows him going to empty the bed pan in the outside loo…which is what those terrace houses still mainly had then…needless to say that at the time I was told off for wasting film!.
Cheers
Clive
yes Clive your correct it was the Consul capri, What a good memory you have.
yes , the beetle owner was my dad he is of irish origin and my mum being German couldn’t drive. My dad always ran VW’s or Mercedes vans.
He once bought a Ford Zodiac, and was so unreliable he stuck with German marques
We lived at No. 4 🙂
back in the day the council semi’s on OUR side had immaculate gardens, i go back to see my aged parents now, and oh how things have changed, absolutely no pride in anything, the gardens overgrown/
During weekdays you’ll be lucky to park your car due to London commuters parking up at 7:00 am.
i went to St Lukes and thought nothing of going to the outside loo’s and waking home on my own aged 5. !! having to negotiate crossing 3 roads
you might have remembered my dad also had a motorcycle and side car combination, that he used to somehow park in the very small front garden, he made a piece of removeable fencing.
i can remember sitting in the sidecar going up sandhurst road around the Gas works i must have been 5 ( i was born in 1961)
You might have rememebered Peter Russell he worked at the brickworks and had a black labrador , never married and spent all his life up the pub, Longbow ( now apartments on Colebrook road or he High Brooms working man’;s club, he is still alive in his Mid 90’s but now infirmed
Aha Mark…we know, or knew, each other then….I’ve been to your parents house and you’ve been to mine…but around 50 years ago !. Just realised your house was just below the one with the chap with the scooter…Drury was his surname. I’ve always wondered what happened to the others of our age from back then..like the Mercers from the bottom of the road .and the Oakley’s next door below us.
Also I don’t actually remember seeing the Ford Consul Capri myself..but knew it couldn’t be the later type :-).
Cheers
Clive
hi Clive, i only wish my memory was clearer., so number 11 was in the terraces.
you may have known my brother Micheal he was born in 1957.
i’ll ask my dad if he remembers you and your parents next time i see him.
yes Stan Drury and his wife called ‘Tilly’ worked at the Pembury Hospital he was in charge of the boiler house.
his wife died some 15 years ago, and he was taken into a home, he must be dead now.
good to talk to you. i have some pics og holmwood road i’ll post them up when i find them
cheers
Mark
Clive, yes i can remember but i think you called for Michael as i think i was too young.
did you live below the twittern. I believe there was an irish family called Pat and Tommy next to the twittern. they had 2 boys, 1 was called Derek born about 1967
Mark
Pat and Tommy ‘Ryan’ ? . Only had Derek that I knew of ..probably about 5 years younger than me.
Cheers
Clive
Tom and Pat still live in Holmewood road 1 above bottom twittern, dereck lives in Harry’s old reside
i have pasted aload of pics in Highbrooms facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/357268464364177/579245805499774/?notif_t=like
Hello Mark
It was probably your brother Michael now that you mention it…never thought of that. He was a year older than me, which makes sense.. Yes we were below the twittern and right opposite Stan Drury’s house..and just diagonally opposite yours. Yes I knew the family you mention ( the house next to the middle twittern) and was friends with their eldest…surname escaping me…my mum will know. Do you remember that the very bottom house of the lower terrace ( next to the lower twittern) was derelict for a long long time. We used to play in it as kids. Not sure about the rest of the road but certainly ours was a private landlord. One set of my grandparents lived on the same side as you..the lower one of the last semi at the top of the road…but they have both been passed away for nearly 41 years. They had been there since those semis were built as far as I know…will check.
Cheers
Clive
i remember a old bloke single lived in that, i remember he had a very large growth on the side of his face as large as a golf ball, hidden by long side burns.Always wore a suit and worked in the brickyard also. He must have passed away. yes i can remember it being empty.
At the bottom of the road ( North Farm Road/holmewood road corner) lived an ambulance driver and had 2 kids boy and a girl. Peter was probably 3 years older than you. at 16 he had a mental breakdown and resided in Hellingly hospital for a number of years, he was real nice lad. i didn’t quite understand why he went away. The daughter Stella became a police woman and she would literally shop her parents. Parents are dead last 15 years.
My dead said you could have bought the terrace for £200 back in 1956.
My dad bought our house cash for £800 in 1956, dad saved the money from building Crawley New Town. The Semi is worth probably £190k now !
Dennis Mercer was one of them….when I started at Huntleys school in 1969 ..one of them was about to leave…and was a couple or so years older than me. I’ll have to get my brain in gear and work things out.
Yesterday I contacted my mum..who was born in Holmewood Road prior to WW2…she is doing me a sketch with the houses and who was living there from the time we ( I was only 2 ) moved from Woodlands Road into Holmewood Road in 1960. Someone may remember my grandparents from Holmewood Road…my grandfather worked at a paper stand at the Five Ways during the 60s..and he would meet the paper train from London at Tunbridge Wells Central at about 5am in the mornings. My grandmother during her last working years worked at Goulden ( not sure of spelling) and Currys..book/stationers I believe…in the High St.
Cheers
Clive
‘Dennis Mercer’- good memory Clive (Y)
Yes…Stapley at HB school. He gave my a good whacking with the slipper on one occasion so hard that I wet myself and had to go home to change. my mother wasn’t impressed…with me!.
It was probably only for something like talking in class….but I couldn’t sit down for nearly a week. The slipper, cane or wooden blackboard rubber ruled at HB school back then…no doubt as it did at many others. The secondary modern school of Huntleys..wasn’t much better either but that was the era/time of course.
Cheers
Clive
Here is a picture looking up the 1 in 8 hill taken in 1975
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Highbrooms Society wrote:
> Clive Standen commented: “Yes…Stapley at HB school. He gave my a > good whacking with the slipper on one occasion so hard that I wet myself > and had to go home to change. my mother wasn’t impressed…with me!. It was > probably only for something like talking in class….but I coul” >
a couple more pics one shows the Brickyards siding building not sure if it was a signal box in 1975, along North Farm Road i use to sit in that when i was 7 years and up,
the other is a panoramic view of High Brooms taken from Sandhurst park. Holmewood road is on the left the white semi detached is 1/2 of my house. St Mathews church is top right
hope this brings back some memories
ah corporal punishment, regularly got my calfs smacked in Junior school i had to stand on a stool in order to be administered, and at senior school St Gregory’s RC , got Laundry wooden spoon across bottom , the cane 6 of the best from Mr Ludden who became the MAYOR some years later, and slapped across the face by others, i think all for something petty.
this all stopped in 1987 and that’s when UK schools went downhill
mark
Fascinating to read about all this! I remember Mr Stapley well – he terrified me. Always cross and with a vicious temper if I remember rightly. Mind you, Mr King was also known for his corporal punishment if you were ‘naughty’. When break times were over and at the start o f the day at HBBS, you all had to file in round the tramlines that surrounded the central assembly hall (the classrooms were all off of this central hall). Those that had misbehaved were made to stand in the middle of the hall as a form of ritual humiliation. If you then got sent to the headmaster Mr King he would administer a thwack on the behind with his cricket bat – a small thing known as ‘The Stinger’. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting away with all that these days.
I have fond memories of Mr. King though – I remember him as a kind and fair man.
Then there was Miss Stonestreet – strict but very fair. Mr Shorter, who used to play classical music on his record player at the end of assemblies, Mr Stapley (the slipper slapper) and there was one other more elderly teacher there that used to run the school garden, but his name escapes me. Maynbe someone else can remember?
I have a photograph of Miss Stonestreet’s first year class with me and Clive in it. I would post on here but am not sure that the site is set up for that? I also have a picture of Mr King too.
Happy days!
Hello Gary
Evans ?.
Cheers
Clive
Yes that’s him! Balding guy with brown tweed suits from what I can recall.
School garden – Mr Evans perhaps
Ps heavy smoker whi I understand has pro football trials with Wolves before the war
I attended HB boys 1962 -65. Mr Evans was the gardening teacher, rather slow and pondrous as I recall!.. Not always the best days of your life though ha ha. Still living locally but have`nt things changed?
Hello Mark
I can’t see any photos…not sure why?.
I think you are referring to the PW (permanent way ) hut that was beside the brickworks siding. My ‘play’ area as well back then..although occasionally we would get shouted at by someone from the brick works entrance. It was separated from the railway by a fence though by the time I remember (mid 60s) as the siding served William Coreys oil terminal.
There hadn’t been a signal box at High Brooms since about the 1950s..the ground frame for the brick siding (the point levers of which was operated by the guard or shunter at the entrance to the siding ) was electrically released from Tonbridge power box ( commissioned in 1962) as from March 1962. ..but in the time between High Brooms signal box closing and Tonbridge power box opening the brick siding ground frame had been electrically released from Tunbridge wells Central Goods signalbox.
Cheers
Clive
It seems that i could not add so i will add this a facebook album
shortly!
Mark & Clive – I have just been speaking with my step-dad and he tells me that the old guy with the growth on his face was called Harry Hawkins. Harry was quite a character in his day and used to work at the gasworks either before or after he went to the brickworks.
Clive, the Oakleys that lived next door to you are relatives of mine. My aunty Frances lived there with her husband Frank. Prior to them at No.9 were the Williams family – they are my stepfather’s family, who later moved to Caley Road. You may also remember the Prebbles? They were my stepfather’s grandparents.
Blimey! What a small world eh?
I don’t remember much about that little shop you spoke of – though I do remember it being there. The main one I recall was the one at the very top of Homewood Rd on the corner. Run by a lovely lady called Paddy. That shop is still there – but it’s a pet shop now and has been for some years. I think it’s still trading.
Oh – and dad tells me that Harry Hawkins used to play the tea chest in a group at the High Brooms Hotel!! ha ha ha
the name comes back to me ‘Harry Hawkins’ small world indeed Gary/Clive
i have just requested joining the highbrooms facebook page and i will add the pics then
Hi really enjoyed your banter. I lived in Holmewood Road for 2 years 1956-1958 next door to the little shop Mrs Seymour and Miss Fry and Prebbles lived the other side of the shop. I remember Harry Hawkins really well, he was a real character looked like a spiv. My mum is Paddy who later ran the shop with my dad Bert Billson at the top of Holmewood Road, that was after our two stints of living in the High Brooms Club. My name was Sue.
Hi everyone
Good to see Mark here. I lived in the prefabs in Stewart Road and my mum was a friend of Mark’s mum – mum was Ukrainian and died in November 2012 – there was an obituary in the Courier.
I have lots of memories of High Brooms – lived in Stewart Road from 1955 to 1971 when mum moved to Brokes Way.
Also have some photos which I will send for posting.
I was known as Mike then but Tad now – my real name is Tadeusz.
hi mickey ( that’s what me and michael remenber you as.)
yes your mum was called plasha ( sorry if i misspelt it), i my mum who is still alive some photos of them in germany,
remember seeing your dad in the prefab
my mum was always saying Mickey’s clever he’s going to university, i looked up in awe
think you went to te=he TWTHS in st johns road?
she must have been a good age (y)
yes it would be good to see some more pics
.
Hi Mark
Good to make contact. How is your mum? I saw her a couple of years ago in Stewart Road and tried to say hello but she rushed off. I must be a bit frightening – 6’3″ and 15 stones. We hadn’t seen one another for many years.
Mum was 87 – the obituary is at
http://www.tunbridgewellspeople.co.uk/Victim-German-invasion-lived-town-60-years/story-17338979-detail/story.html
Yes I went to Loughborough University and now live in Gloucestershire.
I too have the photos of our mums in Germany.
I am sending pictures of High Brooms Boys School for posting – hopefully they will be online soon.
Let me know what you are doing. You can contact me on tadeuszstone@gmail.com
Best regards
Tad
Great write up there Tad, my mother has also told me of herown wartime stories.
she can’t remember them now
A few years ago I recorded mum’s memories so have them and her voice for posterity – I recommend it to everyone.
Tad
Unfortunately my mum has dementia and does not recognize people, still ambles out to the bookies somehow she can still work out the odds though.
Gloucester very nice, i live in North Lincolnshire and amble down to my parents twice a year on my motorbike. Things have changed a lot.
Hi I went to High Brooms Boys School in 1949 and the headmaster at that time was a Mr Barker and he had a blue sports car which we used to call Mr Barker & his blue jet. When I was 12 I left and went to Ridgewaye which was a new school that had just been built.
Hi.I went to High Brooms Infants School in 1945 teacher I remember was Miss Goddard went on to the Boys School where Mr Barker as you state was the Headmaster and Basil Snell was our class teacher, and likewise went to Ridgewaye, remember Charlie Peas the English Teacher and Mr Lightman Geography.People I went to both schools with Patrick Best, Dickie Sheppard amongst others,
I went to Ridgewaye mid to late 60s.. Charlie Pease was deputy head under C.J.Rogers, who is still going strong, living near Bewl Water. Charlie Pease died a couple of years ago.
Thanks for your reply,Didn’t realise there was a High Brooms Society…..Charlie Peas must have been a good age if he died just 2 years ago, thanks for the info.I have lost contact with the people I was at school with.I left Ridgeway when I was 15 and joined the Royal Navy.Thanks again
In my village in Gloucestershire we used the idea of the “Big Society” to invigorate the village, and called it Purton Big Society. We got some comments that it was political since the Conservatives came us with “The Big Society.” It really got people motivated but we changed the title to Purton Village Community to include more people. we have a website with lots of photos http://www.purtonvillage.co.uk.
I am a resident in Great Brooms road and am interested in history a historic photos of these brick workers houses. I will be starting with census results for our property, but would be interested in any photos of the area around the old junk yard, now a “halfway house and also find the wording of the old “name plate” showing As a ghost image between numbers 73-75 and 77 great brooms road
Regards
Steve
I don’t have any photographs, but the scrap metal yard was Tester’s. Up from Tester’s towards Colebrook Road, where the newer building is and opposite the brickyard houses was John Hicks coal yard. John Hicks was a very nice man. I sort of remember the Testers since my dad regularly took scrap metal there. When at school in High Brooms I remember there was blasting in the quarry on, I think, Thursday mornings and the quarry and brickworks were our playground!!!
Tad Stone
I also think the new houses in great brooms road was a girls school originaly? I would like to find anyone with photos from that perspective. I went to school at ridgewaye, but heard they great brooms road used to be used for showing the gypsy ponies, prior to the HBBC houses being built. The plaque now missing from our 3 house terrace looks like it may have had a name like “something cottages” I will provide a photo to show more clearly what I mean
Quite right. High Brooms had an infants school, part of the current school on the left, a boys school that I went to next to the infants school, and a girls school where the new houses are.
Tad
Tad,
So the girls school was down the end of great brooms road near the coal yard and scrap metal yard?
I feel a visit to the library in tun wells coming up. See if I can dig out any info
I get confused..because when I started on this list then it was in this format…then it went to Facebook…now I am receiving emails in the Blog format again!.
Anyway…Tad…go to Google Earth and hit the timeline button and you can explore High Brooms in aerial views from the 1960s and 1940s…one can zoom in too…but it has the limitations of the b&w photos of the time.
Hello Clive, i seem unable to find the archive pics on google earth, can you help me find these images thanks
Hello Mark
Go to Google Earth…..put High Brooms into the search bar ( top left…..it works for me without having to put Kent or England in it ))…when the page comes up ….then hit the button at the top ( 7th button in on mine it’s a small clock face) then just put your mouse or whatever on the top left of the picture and a slider bar will appear…then you can slide the slider back to circa 1960 and circa 1940. Then you can just zoom in as normal …and see reasonable close ups of the streets and houses ( just as using normally on modern images) …only thing is you can’t use the ‘Street View’ function…for obvious reasons. reasons being of course that Google couldn’t put a camera on a Unigate electric milk float in 1960 and John Brown’s dairy horse didn’t want it nailed to his head in 1940 ….( both local dairies to HB at those times)….:-) Hope this helps.
Cheers
Clive
My uncle who lived in High Brooms Road worked for John Brown´s dairies. Sadly he was killed on a mine sweeper in the war
Hello Barbara
Talking about John Brown’s Dairies ….weren’t these the same family that went on to run the Neville Bakery ..in the High St ( T Wells ) ..up until the 1960s ?.
I just about remember 1962…as I had to go into the Kent &Sussex hospital that summer when I got a piece of apple core stuck in one of my bronchial’s.
My mother remembers during the bad winter from Boxing Day on that the milkman with his small battery hand worked cart was doing coke runs from the gas works with sacks of the stuff up the roads like Cambrian and Holmewood…to help out…..I feel sure she said this was a John Brown’s milkman !
My only real memory of this bad winter was having to stand on the opposite side of the road , from no 11 where we lived. in the freezing snow and ice whilst the fire brigade came to remove all the metal guttering and the large long icicles that had started to bring the guttering down.
Cheers
Clive
Interesting to see brickworks and prefabs off north farm road
Hi Folks. I left HB with my brother Peter in 1969 and went to Ridgewaye. My teacher at HB was Mr Evans (Brer Rabbit fan).One of my chums i have on facebook : Paul Knoght. Trying to find Christopher Field aka Kitter. LOL
Hi Kevin
Guess what? I was reading this by chance – bored in lockdown. Well here I am – Christopher Field, known as Kit. Now living in Shropshire. Do get in touch!
E-mail is Kit.field13@gmail.com
Hello Kevin
I left HB in 1969..but went to Huntleys. I also remember Evans reading Brer Rabbit..when it was raining and we couldn’t go to the gardens…I think it was.
Clive Standen
Hi Clive. If you remember we use to nick magnifying glasses from Mr Evans ha ha.LOL
Talking of High Brooms boys school, does anyone remember Mr Napper, Ithink he taught class 3. I think he might have been ” damaged” during the war
No. What year would that be?
I started at the boy’s school in 1961 and he was there then, also Mr Turner, I think taught class 6. I left in 1966 to go to The Ridgewaye. I remember you living at the far end of Stewart Road, on the left by the twitten..
Absolutely right. Lived in Stewart Road then mum moved to Brokes Way in 1971. In my first year in 1958 we had Mrs Mutton, Miss Stonestreet, Mr Shorter, Mr Evans and Mr King. In the next year trainee teacher, Mr Bennett was my form teacher. Very happy days. I left in 1962 and went to the Tech. Ended up at Loughborough University where I played lots of rugby and cricket. Now live in Gloucestershire and am nearly retired. I’m in touch with Wink Tomkinson but no-one else from High Brooms. My mum died three years ago so don’t visit very often.
Colin Murrells are you any relation of Nigel or Steven Murrells the twins I went to school with, both highbrooms and ridgewaye.
Hello Anthony,yes they are my cousins, along with Audrey and Peter (who died several years ago) .They lived in Southview Road, The last time I saw Steve it was at the scene of a traffic accident in Camden Road,we were just shaking hands standing over a cyclist lying in the road,God knows what the Police thought as they arrived!!!
Hello Colin, nice to meet you(so to speak). I used to live in north farm cottages, follow the lane down from the brick works past the sewage works and there was eight little cottages we lived in number eight.Spent a lot of time with the twins wandering over the fields and woods(that are saddly not there anymore). You might know my younger brother Stuart McEwan he is in one of the school photos on the highbrooms school site.
Hello again Anthony, I’m afraid I don’t remember your brother but do remember the cottages. Forgot to mention the twins older brother Chris.. I went to High Brooms Boys from 1962-66, which was handy as I lived opposite, then to The Ridgewaye.
I was at school with Stuart. Last time I contacted him he was growing roses with David Austin’s daughter, Clare I think. How is he?
He is doing fine he lives in oswestry now like a mini farm with home grown veg and chickens, he also took up bee keeping.
Sounds great. Please give him my regards. Tad/Mike Stone
Hello
Is this blog still going ?.
I don’t do Facebook and haven’t been on here since 2015 !
Regards
Clive Standen ( lived 11 Holmewood Road from 1959 to March 1969 )
Hello Clive, I check the site for new items quite often and found nothing for ages. I don’t do Facebook either so maybe we’re missing all the fun! Colin Murrells , Powdermill lane from 1966.
The high brooms facebook page is getting busy ,the topics are varied including lost cats add
Hello Colin and All
I have a sketch that my mother drew up in the last three to four years ..of the names of the occupants and the houses they lived in , in Holmewood Road, from the 1950s until we left in 1969 ..not all are filled in though. Not doing Facebook since 2015 I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted i (wasn’t long on FB before it was too much for me ) .but if not maybe I could send it to someone and they could post it on this Society somewhere for me ?.
It’s nothing elaborate just a pencil sketch…but may be of interest to some.
Cheers
Clive ( in sunny West Yorkshire )