SHOW ME A PICTURE AND I'LL TELL YOU A STORY

Now it may be the closeness I had with my parents and grandparents as a child that gave me this fondness for looking back at my life in Wolverhampton (Woffledom) . For it was through their environment I.E. (the centre of town) and their active life there, I came to touch the lives of so many people from all walks of life.

Now the other day I had an interesting comment on another post from Mrs June Head (Nee Dwight). June said "I lived at 27 Nursery St (1958-1976) - Doreen (Howe) was our neighbour (I remember her as Cooke) This site stirred up some great memories for me- wonderful!".

Well, the fact that June remembered my aunt Doreen brought to my recollection a photograph I had recieved from another lady who used to live in Nursery Street. Carol Baugh gave me this lovely photo of little girl standing in a back garden adjacient to my Grandfathers house overlooking a North Street of the 1960’s.

(Is this little girl you June? )

Now up until today I had never made contact with this little girl and she may not even recollect having the her photo taken; but anyway June this is for you, and I am so glad you got in touch because as you can see this is not just my story its yours, as well as many other Wufflers (Wulfrunians) scattered far afield now, but whose family tree once grew in and around St Peter’s Church, and our roots as well as theirs are still entangled beneath that old town we once knew.


When I look at any picture; such as this one of this charming little girl, my eyes seek out every little detail for information. I focus on the group of local shops, that take up the background built around seventy years prior to this shot. What stories and what memories do they conjure up for people of different ages that once frequented them? Maybe you have similar photographs dipicting another personal stories, perhaps from other localities like Blakenhall, Horseley Fields, Brickkiln Croft etc...

For my part my this story would start during the War. Mr Thomas’s grocers was on the corner of Dawson Street, it's the first one with the blind in the picture. We only used the shop occasionally as we were registered, for groceries with Kidsons, higher up North Street.

Next door the other blind covered the window of Mrs Williams’s greengrocers. Her son was Jack Williams, who married Mr and Mrs Adey’s daughter May from across the road at the Colonel Vernon. Unfortunatley when Jack retired and was living on his own, he lost his life in a house fire at his home in Bright Street in 1974.

As you can probably see from his sign, J.T.Leach had the butchers shop. Mr leach bought the shop just before the War, and as you can see was still there in the 1960’s. The previous owner was a Mr Spicer I believe, who met with a fatal road accident after his retirement when he was knocked down and killed near the Fox at Shipley.

The ladies hairdresser’s was in my day a cycle agents and repair business the owner a Mr Trespass. The shop next door that is covered with adverts, was Piggotts Newsagents; probably the busiest shop in the block. Betty Piggott, their daughter later married a chap called Barratt and they were the proprietors on its demise.

Finally the last shop in the block was always known as Pagets, a small confectionary business. Mrs Pagets daughter was called Anne, and married former Wolves player Mickey Lill after he left the Wolves in the 1960s. She went with him to live in South Africa were he died in 2004.