| Places I miss from Southampton's past 20:41 - Nov 1 with 6482 views | grumpy |
The Dell before seating.
The Top Rank
The Pier
The Ice Rink
The High Street before the Shopping Malls
The Lido
The Central Baths as it was when it was first built.
The Flour Mill Building
Henrys record shop
Edwin Jones
The Bus Stations
The Checkpoint Cafe
So much Character gone. |  | | |  |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 17:20 - Nov 3 with 1267 views | LondonSaint76 |
Thanks for posting this. Just sat my Mother down in front of a desktop PC with a large screen and played it to her. She absolutely loved it and remembered several of the pre-war / wartime images. She is 99 now and lived in Southampton from 1924 to 1963 when we moved up to the London area as my Dad got a really good job with BOAC at Heathrow. She saw the Queen Mary's maiden voyage departure from Southampton, I have got that on an old Pathe Newsreel with the massive crowd gathered to waive off the brand new QM. This video really triggered memories for her, especially the Blitz, she said November and December of 1940 were the worst months. A change in the normal routine, quite by chance, saved her life and both my Grandparents as the shelter they would have been in took a direct hit, nobody in there survived. She said it used to kick off at about six in the evening and they'd drop a mixture of standard bombs and incendiaries - in some respects the incendiary bombs were worse as they started huge fires that destroyed far more buildings than a standard bomb would as once the fire caught hold it could destroy multiple buildings. Mum sat and talked to my daughter for over an hour - all memories triggered by that video. There's a 35 year age gap between the generations so it is the first time my daughter has heard first-hand accounts of what they went through as Mum rarely talks abbot the dark days of WW2 but this video just triggered so many memories from a few visual reminders of what life used to be like. Thanks again for posting it, there are links to other Southampton related vids from that era at the end of this one so we will sit down with her over the weekend and watch them as well. |  |
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 17:24 - Nov 3 with 1263 views | grumpy |
I hope the sports centre will revive, there is talk of it. [Post edited 3 Nov 2023 17:26]
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 19:48 - Nov 3 with 1199 views | LondonSaint76 |
The Bird Aviary located in the corner of the park near Above Bar Street, it had all sorts of exotic birds in there and when they really got going the squawking was deafening! There were a couple of parrots, from memory, that you could give coins to through the bars and they would fly off with the coins in their beaks. The keepers used to gather the old 1d pennies and halfpennies up regularly and donate them to charity.
The Polygon Hotel, and if you will permit it, the Lyndhurst Park Hotel on the Ashurst / Woodlands edge of Lyndhurst. Fond memories of evening meals and family wedding receptions at that place. Magnificent in its heyday, so sad to see how it went so far downhill before it closed, now just another housing development by all accounts....
The silver public drinking fountains that were dotted around in the City Centre. On a hot summer Saturday a small queue could form to get a refreshing spurt of water.
The big funfair on Southampton Common, it had a brilliant bumper car circuit and a catering truck that sold the best milk shakes ever in a multitude of fruit flavours. Their lemon milk shake was like liquid lemon sorbet. The lime ones and the peach ones were just as good
Whilst on the subject of the Common, who remembers the smoking chimps in the Southampton Zoological Gardens?! The zoo opened a couple of years before we moved up to the London area but we were back down most weekends to visit my grandparents and for games and the zoo was a favourite place to visit when I was back down for the weekend especially outside the footy season. I have distinct memories of a chimp (called Ben , I think) that would take a lit cigarette from a visitor and then sit there and smoke it! Seem to remember in the early days a large alligator donated by a zoo in New York that came over on the QE1.
Bottles of Or-Lem squash sold from a mobile grocer's van that used to stop in Newlands Avenue every Saturday morning.
St James chippy in St James Road, Shirley. Family owned for decades, always painted dark green and inside it had varnished wood panelled walls - many years of chip fat in the atmosphere gave the wood a patina akin to a Wetherspoons pub carpet! If you leaned on it you stuck to it! Fish & chips magnificent, portions huge! Happy days...
The PA system at The Dell circa late 60's / early 70's - an example: Number, number, number, 7, 7, 7, Terry, Terry, Terry, Paine, Paine, Paine...
The Bovril dispensed by the Tea Bar on the West Stand terraces - dispensed to you in a single plastic cup, no double cupping, no fancy cup holder with handles, it was so hot you needed a welder’s mitten to hold it! And wagon wheels the size of, well, wagon wheels! Not the pathetic excuses that pass for them these days.
Queueing at the turnstiles before they opened to get into big games before someone had the bright idea to make them all ticket!
Players that owned a Ford Capri or an MGB GT (Ted MacDougall) not a Ferrari or a Bentley Continental... | |
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 20:38 - Nov 3 with 1165 views | Southamptonfan |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 17:20 - Nov 3 by LondonSaint76 |
Thanks for posting this. Just sat my Mother down in front of a desktop PC with a large screen and played it to her. She absolutely loved it and remembered several of the pre-war / wartime images. She is 99 now and lived in Southampton from 1924 to 1963 when we moved up to the London area as my Dad got a really good job with BOAC at Heathrow. She saw the Queen Mary's maiden voyage departure from Southampton, I have got that on an old Pathe Newsreel with the massive crowd gathered to waive off the brand new QM. This video really triggered memories for her, especially the Blitz, she said November and December of 1940 were the worst months. A change in the normal routine, quite by chance, saved her life and both my Grandparents as the shelter they would have been in took a direct hit, nobody in there survived. She said it used to kick off at about six in the evening and they'd drop a mixture of standard bombs and incendiaries - in some respects the incendiary bombs were worse as they started huge fires that destroyed far more buildings than a standard bomb would as once the fire caught hold it could destroy multiple buildings. Mum sat and talked to my daughter for over an hour - all memories triggered by that video. There's a 35 year age gap between the generations so it is the first time my daughter has heard first-hand accounts of what they went through as Mum rarely talks abbot the dark days of WW2 but this video just triggered so many memories from a few visual reminders of what life used to be like. Thanks again for posting it, there are links to other Southampton related vids from that era at the end of this one so we will sit down with her over the weekend and watch them as well. |
You're more than welcome. So glad this video triggered so many fond memories for your mum. I wish I appreciated History as a subject at school, more than I did because it's a wonderful subject. I really wish I studied it to a high level, looking back. As you say, it brings generations together. It's fascinating how things have changed. 99 is an incredible age, and your mum must be so interesting to talk to with all her experiences and memories going back so many years. Glad the clip was so powerful and useful. |  |
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 09:44 - Nov 8 with 938 views | SaintNick |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 17:20 - Nov 3 by LondonSaint76 |
Thanks for posting this. Just sat my Mother down in front of a desktop PC with a large screen and played it to her. She absolutely loved it and remembered several of the pre-war / wartime images. She is 99 now and lived in Southampton from 1924 to 1963 when we moved up to the London area as my Dad got a really good job with BOAC at Heathrow. She saw the Queen Mary's maiden voyage departure from Southampton, I have got that on an old Pathe Newsreel with the massive crowd gathered to waive off the brand new QM. This video really triggered memories for her, especially the Blitz, she said November and December of 1940 were the worst months. A change in the normal routine, quite by chance, saved her life and both my Grandparents as the shelter they would have been in took a direct hit, nobody in there survived. She said it used to kick off at about six in the evening and they'd drop a mixture of standard bombs and incendiaries - in some respects the incendiary bombs were worse as they started huge fires that destroyed far more buildings than a standard bomb would as once the fire caught hold it could destroy multiple buildings. Mum sat and talked to my daughter for over an hour - all memories triggered by that video. There's a 35 year age gap between the generations so it is the first time my daughter has heard first-hand accounts of what they went through as Mum rarely talks abbot the dark days of WW2 but this video just triggered so many memories from a few visual reminders of what life used to be like. Thanks again for posting it, there are links to other Southampton related vids from that era at the end of this one so we will sit down with her over the weekend and watch them as well. |
I have a picture of my grandfather and father stood on the dockside watching the Queen Mary leave, I think the year was 1936, they moved down here in 1929 and then returned to Liverpool during the second world war.
I go running through the sports centre sometimes and although it does need a bit of a spruce up it is still a magnificent facility that few cities our size have in the middle of it. |  |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 10:51 - Nov 8 with 895 views | grumpy |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 09:44 - Nov 8 by SaintNick |
I have a picture of my grandfather and father stood on the dockside watching the Queen Mary leave, I think the year was 1936, they moved down here in 1929 and then returned to Liverpool during the second world war.
I go running through the sports centre sometimes and although it does need a bit of a spruce up it is still a magnificent facility that few cities our size have in the middle of it. |
Nick,you have ran past me at the Sports Centre.
I know you from the pictures,I'm the one walking a crazy black and white Jack Russell.  | | | |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 13:30 - Nov 8 with 846 views | SaintNick |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 10:51 - Nov 8 by grumpy |
Nick,you have ran past me at the Sports Centre.
I know you from the pictures,I'm the one walking a crazy black and white Jack Russell. |
Ill try and remember to look next time, just stop me and say hello | |
| Satisfying The Bloodlust Of The Masses In Peacetime |
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| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 14:19 - Nov 8 with 823 views | grumpy |
| Places I miss from Southampton's past on 13:30 - Nov 8 by SaintNick |
Ill try and remember to look next time, just stop me and say hello |
Will do. I’m not really the miserable old git you probably think I am. 😀 | | | |
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