The Chip Shop
Anyone got any memories of trekking across the field from Kenton School at a lunchtime and using your dinner money to get some nourishing chips instead of the proper school dinner? I cannot remember what was there before the chippy and I am told it is STILL a chippy – but – on rare days I had enough for chicken and chips but most days it was a plain old mince pie and chips and a can of cheap pop (that’s soda for our Trans-Atlantic cousins).
I remember one time one of our bunch, and to this day I cannot explain why, picked up what seemed to be a dried dog poop from the field and ate it – NO it was not me!! I am sure it was some sort of sleight of hand whereby the dried poop was replaced somehow by a nice sweety – but it has stuck in my mind for the last 25 years or so…..! Of course now the kids are not allowed to trek across the field and I am sure they have some nut cutlets on offer at the school instead of chips…..
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monsieur mensforth says:
ReplyDeleteapparently I heard the kids are not allowed to go home /to the chippy at dinner time anymore-(can anyone confirm this please)-they have to stay at ecole. More, nor can they'treck across the field' to kenton bar chippy as it is now fenced of with a metal fence that is inpenetrable-I seem to recall we could get through via a hole in the fence, laboriously made via the 10cm bars up from the first block of flats on Ryal Walk...Not any more...
the chip shop was run by keith someone who was really posh that is to say he came from Leeches estate, where the houses were private...
ReplyDeleteI remember going over the green bridge once to that estate and they wouldnt let me cross because I didnt have a monocle(for the unsavoury peasants who came from the bottom end of the estate, a monocle is like half a pair of glasses worn on a string...)all the people from that estate wore monocles I recall... ;)
The houses were indeed private on the Leach estate but many were rented. (Ours was).
ReplyDeleteThe newer house might have not been better, but we didn't have to live next door to what my Dad affectionately called "Mrs. T".
My parents told me it was to be closer to Kenton school, but Eland Close Versus St. Buryan Crescent is probably a similar distance.
All the roads were called Saints in the Leach Estate.
The Chippy was originally a launderette, with Bendix machines and a swish dry cleaning machine as well. I can't remember what it was called but I think it opened second, after Goldfinch Wines and before North Kenton News.
ReplyDeleteI think there were originally five units, two of which weren't occupied for ages.
One of the fun things to do as a kid was to set off the alarm on the newsagent- it had tremblers on the windows. (The offy had metal foil round the windows instead and was immune to arseing it, although I do recall the Police coming to my house one night (when my mum & dad were out) to tell us someone had lobbed half a paving slab through the window. (They had only nicked half a dozen miniatures of whisky).
I was impressed when the boarding up company turned up- the van said "WADDS IS HERE!" on it.
Does anybody remember the sisters Suzanne and Kim Loughran, there mam was a manageress up at the offy so was Margaret Perez, she lived on Leeches.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI doth vaguely remember them(Suzanne & Kim), but more their brother Johnny Loughran...they lived up at West Denton and were not indigenous to Kenton Bar Estate...their mother was also called Margaret...as for this Margaret Perez I doth not remember her, but there is a comment somewhere on the blog re this post:
http://kentonbar.blogspot.com/2009/09/kenton-bar-football-team-1974-75.html
that the unknown kid in the photo(back row second from right) was her son...regards
G.O.M
I remember the Suzanne lady - very pneumatic as I recall..............
ReplyDeleteHer boobs were THE only reason I used to volunteer to go and buy the Chronicle for my dad and run any other errand that involved going into the newsagent hoping for a glimpse of her with a tight white tee-shirt on and a bra that must have been made from the strongest material known to science at the time - definitely a forerunner to carbon fibre.......
oooooh I could murder a chop suey roll right now
ReplyDelete