Dogs on Kenton Bar Estate
Avid readers,
back in those glorious days of halcyon youth most people kept a dog...but most people didn't bother to 'walk' their dog, they just 'let them out' when the dog wanted to go for a walk...so it was not uncommon to see dogs just wandering/lying about the estate...more, when we were kids everyone just'played out' in big gangs, usually linked to where you lived obviously, so the posh kids up the top end played lacrosse,polo,sword fighting and chess, the normals round the middle played footy, fox and hounds, duffs whilst the ghastly ruffians and bounder types down the bottom spent their time menacing,lurking and vandalising...Incidently as a matter of uninterest these fell creatures were not often out and about during the day...they preferred the darkness of night... If by chance they were out before sunset they lurked about in the alleys down there in the shadows...they liked not the light. However I digress: what would happen is that your 'dog' who had been 'let out' by your M or P(mam or dad) would see you maurauding about the estate with its beady little dog eyes and would decide to join you, so soon there would be a great pack of dogs with laughing dog faces running about the estate with each pack of kids...Now this became a bloody nuisance if say you started playing a game of football, as the bloody dogs would chase the bloody ball!
Sometimes, however the dogs would just form a pack and roam about by themselves, often up on the Kenton School fields...I remember one dog called 'Roy' who lived on Reestones Place was particularly apt at sniffing out golf balls from the hedges that ran right up the length of Kenton school field-we used to take him up there, hold a golf ball to his shnout and say'Fetch Roy!'-the hound was off and running like a shot, sniffing out and fetching loads of lost golf balls from the entire length of the hedge to his master(Micky Cookson)
(lots of people used the fields to play golf-an entire course was designed complete with 'flags'(rags on sticks)...
anyone else remember any other dogs from the estate?
back in those glorious days of halcyon youth most people kept a dog...but most people didn't bother to 'walk' their dog, they just 'let them out' when the dog wanted to go for a walk...so it was not uncommon to see dogs just wandering/lying about the estate...more, when we were kids everyone just'played out' in big gangs, usually linked to where you lived obviously, so the posh kids up the top end played lacrosse,polo,sword fighting and chess, the normals round the middle played footy, fox and hounds, duffs whilst the ghastly ruffians and bounder types down the bottom spent their time menacing,lurking and vandalising...Incidently as a matter of uninterest these fell creatures were not often out and about during the day...they preferred the darkness of night... If by chance they were out before sunset they lurked about in the alleys down there in the shadows...they liked not the light. However I digress: what would happen is that your 'dog' who had been 'let out' by your M or P(mam or dad) would see you maurauding about the estate with its beady little dog eyes and would decide to join you, so soon there would be a great pack of dogs with laughing dog faces running about the estate with each pack of kids...Now this became a bloody nuisance if say you started playing a game of football, as the bloody dogs would chase the bloody ball!
Sometimes, however the dogs would just form a pack and roam about by themselves, often up on the Kenton School fields...I remember one dog called 'Roy' who lived on Reestones Place was particularly apt at sniffing out golf balls from the hedges that ran right up the length of Kenton school field-we used to take him up there, hold a golf ball to his shnout and say'Fetch Roy!'-the hound was off and running like a shot, sniffing out and fetching loads of lost golf balls from the entire length of the hedge to his master(Micky Cookson)
(lots of people used the fields to play golf-an entire course was designed complete with 'flags'(rags on sticks)...
anyone else remember any other dogs from the estate?
if you think about it, it was good to be a dog back then on Kenton Bar Estate, because the estate was designed so that the roads circumnavigated the estate(Hazeldene Avenue) so that there were no roads to be crossed on it really...these dogs who were let out to roam probably had little chance of being knocked down,unlike say dogs on Blakelaw or North Kenton, where I presume the dogs were just let out also...I therefore conclude that the mortality rate of dogs knocked down on Kenton Bar was lower than that of nearby estates...WOOF! WOOF!
ReplyDeleteI saw a dead cat on Hazeldene Avenue once.
ReplyDeleteI saw 3 or 4 dead cows' heads at the bottom of Hazeldene Ave, but Ive already told you bout that...
ReplyDeleteHa Ha - Roy was a black labrador - I remember seeing him shagging another dog on the school field - trouble is that other dog was a boy dog too......fascinating to watch for a 14 year old.
ReplyDeletethere was a dog called Jeper along Studdon Walk bungalows...great dane maybe...
ReplyDeleteJeper(RIP) was indeed a great dane like Shmichael off Corrie(RIP) that lived along Studdon Walk bungalows...his owners had 3 kids with unusual names for those times:Dylan, Vannessa and Domonic...I wonder why he was called Jeper?...
ReplyDelete