Don Cole was a teacher at Queen's Road primary school when me and our lass were there in the 1950s

Decent teachers were at a premium in working class districts in those days but he was one of the best.

Blue beard - had a five o'clock shadow by about half past nine!

Yes its around the corner though (entrance is facing where the old school used to be) - try it, you can just walk straight in and browse, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Public libraries are the best social institution ever.

Never met the bloke but last I heard he still lived in Cookridge

Does it open weekends?

I’m up for a new experience – and you say there’s less p[sizei[/sizessy old ladies too?

All day Saturday

rlwhat a great pic, could almost be a smiths album coverrl

I went to that school in the late 70's/early 80's when it was known as Royal Park Middle School.

We had a Mr Cole as Deputy Head. I wonder if it's the same bloke? He had an accent from somewhere in the north east, IIRC. He left the same day as my year, and the headmeaster (Mr Thornton, artist of Alfie Apple fame).

Yep. I think we're talking about the same feller.

I pass the old place most days now and it's a crying shame to see the state it's in. Same goes for the Royal Park - I've had many a lemonade with a straw and a packet of crisps with a blue twist at the back there when it had a disused bowling green for family use.

I remember the back-to-back streets of Burley on a washing day (Monday) when the women would string lines out across the street to hang their washing out - a bin wagon driver could be strung from a lamp post for wanting to drive down a street when the washing was out

Some of the streets had the lines fastened at bedroom window height on pulleys so that you could pull the line back and forth when hanging the clothes out, ingenius, I should try it in Cookridge.

I went to the infants annexe downt he bottom of Queens Road but left in 64 when we moved to the much posher Cookridge CP - I spent about ten minutes inside Queens Rd school one day and it scared the life out of me.

And,

When I was at Kitson College they seconded Blenheim School forgods knows what reason after it had closed as a proper school, I took an exam in the upstairs assembly hall there one day and half way through a huge (about six foot square) lump of plaster fell off the ceiling and just missed the lecturers desk at the front, the exam was abandoned


I'm still the only person to have scord just one mark in an ONC exam at Kitson College (I put my name on the paper and walked out), I'm very proud of that fact and use it as a motivational tool for my two Further Education studying offspring now.

Most of the pulleys (and some of the lines) are still there.

My house (up until a couple of years ago) in the Harolds still had the (now dis-used) pulley on the wall.

Growing up in the area, one of the saddest things for me now is how many corner shops have closed down. As well as the Thornville Mini Market, there were two other sweet shop/general shop type ones along Thornville Road. Going up Royal Park Hill there used to be Glentons, another shop about halfway up, and one right at the top of the hill. All gone now.

Same here when we lived in The Lumleys in Burley, every street end had a shop of some description with Kirkstall Rd for your mams "big" shop on a Saturday - a big shop being just as much as you could carry home in the days before a car.

One of our mates lived on the Arleys until recently, iirc you could still see it there too.