Forum Replies Created
- Posts
The memories come flooding back. I had forgotten that the Elephant & Castle pub was actually on the rhs of Cannock Rd coming up the hill. Yes the Frank Ellis yo remember was certainly my Uncle Frank, long since deceased. Frank & Vera had only 1 child, John, who spent time in Africa & visited my brother Derek in Harare a few years ago. Your description of the terraces also brings back memories not all of the pleasant! I remember visiting Granny when she was on her death bed & thinking how dark and gloomy the house was & yes I remember the cellar which was accessed via a steep staircase. During the war you had either an Anderson shelter which we had which was buried in the garden (I remember helping dad dig the hole for ours) or a Morrison which you installed under a strong table inside the house. Granny had a Morrison & I had a terrible feeling of claustrophobia on the one ocassion I was in it.
Come to think of it there were terraces on both sides of the road at the top of Cannock Rd – I think one was Cannock Terrace and the other Culwell Terrace. Uncle Frank was an avid Wolves supporter and will never forget how he complained after a bad result that he felt he didn’t get his eighteen pence worth. He always stood in the “cowshed” end. What does ground entrance cost now?
Just love that picture Billy – exactly as it was in 1948. Yes it was under the bridge where we used to hang on & if you couldn’t get hold of the pole the other option was to ride hard behind in the bus’s slipstream, We knew it as Culwell Terrace. The house there was originally my Grandparents on my mother’s side and their name was Ellis. Grandad Ellis died before I was born and Grannie died during the war. She died the night Wolverhampton was hit by incendiaries most of which fell harmlessly in gardens. Remember going round collecting the flights off them the next day also there was a crashed german plane in Wednesfield as I remember it. The house passed on to my Uncle Frank & Aunt Vera. I am still in touch with their son John who now lives in the north of England. We did so much cycling as kids – it’s sad that today’s kids all get taken to school in cars.
The photos of trolley buses bring back memories of cycling behind them! I cycled to St Chads College from my home in Upper Villiers St from 1944 to 1948. Sometimes went through the city centre and sometimes via the Wednesfield canal towpath. When returning via the city (it was still a town then) we used to wait at the bottom of the Elephant and Castle hill where Cannock Rd joined Stafford St till a trolley bus came along then hitch a ride by holding onto the pole on the entry deck. Conductors would yell at us to let go but I only did when we reached the Elephant & Castle pub on the corner. My parents would have had a fit if they had known. Was taking a chance because I had an uncle who lived on Culwell Terrace adjacent to the pub. I understand these places are long since demolished to facilitate road construction.
