Angela Grant was born in Mapperley and went to Carlton Cavendish School. At the age of fifteen she moved to Newmarket in Suffolk to be a stable-girl working with horses. She shares some memories with us.
I was born in 1945 and lived on Kenrick Road. There were very few cars then. We even used to go ‘car spotting’ on Porchester Road.
Our vegetables were delivered by a horse named Horace, on his wagon.
I was Angela Grant back then. Some will remember me as ”Angela Grant’s got ants in her pants’.
All the kids used to love going to the Majestic Cinema every Saturday afternoon. We would see all the crazy films like Flash Gordon and the Crazy Gang. My favourite was the cowboy films which gave me my love of fast horses. My love of horses led me into becoming a stable girl at Newmarket in 1960. I have lead many winners at races. I live in Andover now but still have family in Nottingham.
Royal Memory From 1952👑
I was very happy in the post-war days. Six of us lived with grandma and she looked after me like a mother. I caught her crying one day and when I asked her why, she said the King had died.
A year later there was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. All the grown-ups sat round a tiny TV in a neighbour’s house, while we kids played and skipped in and out.
The neighbours who had the TV were Mr and Mrs Measures. There must have been at least twenty adults round this tiny television with a magnifying screen.
I went to Porchester Junior School and we had an Open Day. I was part of a dance group that wore blue crepe-paper bonnets and we danced to the song ‘Bluebells of Scotland’. Such a great occasions back then.”
Rare Photographs
Not many people had a camera in those days but here are some photographs.
Me and my sister Valerie outside 33 Kenrick Road and four of us on that lovely big ‘Rec’ on Valley Road.
My grandma and grandad Foss lived at Kenrick Road until 1965. My mother, me and my sister were then offered a flat at 36 Valley Road. Very happy days back then, so quiet and just a great life.
Hero Dad
My dad helped to build three collieries at Gedling, Calverton and Cotgrave. At Cotgrave, my dad regularly saw the ladies standing at the bus stop in the rain with their pushchairs, so he built them a shelter in his lunch hour and erected it for them. It eventually blew down in the gales of 1988.