Many shops, pubs and even private houses used to display photographs
of local football teams.Some of these old pictures can still be seen in pubs,
for instance the Catchems on the outskirts of Swadlincote.
A landfill ('Public Amenities') now covers the site of 'Tilly Green's
Cottage' mentioned by Pat in the text below.
Pat Have you touched on Newhall football clubs?
Hilary No, it’s funny you should say that. You know as you go from the top of Parliament Street, up Four Lane Ends, there used to be a building with an arch, and there was a photograph for many years.
Pat My grandfather was on it, and that was probably the one. My grandfather was the trainer, and Ted Smith, who is the football historian in Burton; he quite often puts these in. I can remember that photograph. It was a sepia one as most of them were.
It wasn’t a paint shop?
Hilary That’s right, it was. Fellowes, that’s it.
Pat Most of the public houses had these photos too.
But I can remember that one, and my dad, he was a miner, we lived in Springfield Road. On a Sunday morning, we used to walk along the A50 as far as the Stanhope, down by the Stanhope, by the pottery, over the top of Newhall spinney, and down the field where it is now, and there was a little cottage there and it was called Tilly Green Cottage, Pot Lane, Newhall, And I went to school with a boy, and I can always remember the first day we went to secondary school, having to stand up and say who we were and where we came from. And Brian Milward who lived there said he was from Tilly Green Cottage, Pot Lane, of course the class was in hysterics, because it was such a comical name. We used to call there because Mr Milward, he was a miner too, then we used to walk up Pot Lane, cross over where you come out of the tip now, over to my grandfather’s brother’s, then down the back of New Street, the Memorial Hall, to where the blacksmith was. Have you touched on the blacksmith yet?
Hilary No. That was at the top of Oversetts Road, Dent’s. My grandfather used to work there
Pat Now that was fascinating for a child. I used to wonder what my dad had got rolled up; it was tools, to be sharpened. And we used to go there, and all the miners used to congregate there on a Sunday morning, to have their tools done, and as children we’d sit there and be fascinated by this fire. Then from there, my dad must have had two lots, he dropped one lot off, we used to continue down Oversetts Road and call and see my grandmother, and then the public house on the corner of John Street. We used to call there, but the children always used to go into the pub kitchen with the lady of the house. And they had an enormous parrot in a cage which fascinated us. My dad and grandpa used to have their drink and then we’d walk home a different way, we’d come John Street, Alma Road, Parliament Street, look at that photograph and then across and all through the fields to Springfield Road because all that was fields.
Hilary Did you ever get the chance to work the bellows at Dents’?
Pat I can’t remember.
Hilary Oh, I did, I used to adore going up there, the smell. I can remember that smell now. My grandfather, he was a farrier at the time.
Jeffrey Len, he was a farrier as well as a blacksmith, he’d travel the country doing racehorses right up until he died. I built his bungalow on the corner of this estate.
Click one of the following links for more information or to return to my Home Page:-
5,6 The Newhall Wakes / Works trips by train
7 More hardships of World War Two