What’s happening in Grimey?

I’m more confused now than I was before lol.
You had to live there I expect to get it but I’m sure someone will have lived there but didn’t know they were from red city or white city lol.

 

That was in the Village Mr Shed.

Towards the end of its life it was also known as Beirut. All now gone and all private housing I think. I understand young Mr McMillan’s Daughter lives there.

I don’t even charge for these fascinating facts you know.

 

Good explanation dalestyke, very simply the Red City was along Brierley Road and was built of red brick. White City was up towards the cemetery and is predominantly prefab type white rendered housing. I lived on Cemetery Road for a few years, so was a white city lad, and before that on Brighton Street in the village.
I well remember standing outside the welfare listening to the Grimethorpe Colliery Band practising, tramping all over the surrounding countryside, square diamond woods, the monkey tree, we roamed miles a day, including going to pudding hill in Red City territory and being chased by the local gang right back through the park to the main road.
Happy days
It's much better these days you know...we have the internet to keep us happy

 

In Bolton on Dearne the pre-fabs were called "Cement City" or "Concrete Canyon".....

 

i knew it as concrete canyon, we lived on ings lane just off it, red brick but wasn’t called red city or anything though as far as I know!

 

We lived on the Ringway estate next to Highgate Lane/Thurnscoe Rd opposite the cemetery. There used to be gang fights between some of the lads on our estate and Concrete Canyon. Carr Head Lane was the frontier..........

 

Daft Thing is, in years soon to come, many of these folk would work at the same pit and become workmates

 

know it well moved to Crofton drive later on

 

Ha ha. Thank you Mr Lord. I think you need to have lived in Grimey to understand such complexity.

Lovely to hear your reminiscing. We too used to listen to the Band practicing in the Stute. I think the attraction may have come more from the opportunity to slide down the ‘Batman pole’ that held up the metal staircase. We lived up on Taylor Crescent. So childhood was spent playing football and cricket on the road (you could fine tune yr football skills playing with a tennis ball with goals only as big as the front gate - Christ knows how Odejoyo would have gone on trying to score a goal in nets that size!) and as you’ll know we had fields, woods and the coal tips behind us. Great for kids, not so great when you got to your teens.

As I type this I can see the scar on my knee from falling off my Tracker bike (couldn’t afford the more upmarket Chopper) going down Dr Crann’s hill (now Red Rum) was when I was 10 years old. If I hadn’t had that injury “you could have played for Brentford” as my Teacher used to say!!! No Sir I want to play for Leeds - forgive me I was only 10, and knew no better.

Lived on Brighton Street you say. Christ that must have been an experience. When I lived on Brierley Rd opposite the Old Club, we used to spend a fair bit of time playing around the Dyke. I understand on Brighton Street you used the Dyke as your bath before going to ‘Verve’s ’ for some spice. Younger readers won’t understand!

 

It was named the poorest village in Britain in 2004. Tara Fitzgerald loved the place apparantly

A good read

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/03/grimethorpe-hit-rock-bottom-then-bounced-back

 

it’s been through some rough times no doubt about it. The Strike knocked the stuffing out of the place and the pit closure knocked the spirit. Not unlike many other pit villages I suppose.

Now I’m not one to name drop (as you know) but I was once attending the post premier of Calendar Girls at the Grosvener (as you do). I’d had a few beers (as the do) and wondered up to the bar to get another. I was stood there waiting and by the side of me was Stephen Tomkinson. I said to him “you’re Stephen Tomkinson!” He turned to me and said “yes I know.”.

Once we’d established those facts we got chatting. Talked about the Dales and where he was from - Stockton and the he asked me where I was from originally. “Barnsley” I said. “Oh, ***** football team” he said “but which part of Barnsley?”. When I told him Grimethorpe, he looked at me and shouted to the bar man “ I want to pay for this lad’s drinks for the rest of the night.” That may seem to my fellow BBS’ as a very generous gesture but I should point out it was a free bar.

Anyway, the point of this long diatribe was that ST waxed lyrical about Grimey and it’s people. He got quite emotional when talking about filming there and said how much the making of Brassed Off Had affected him and many of the cast. Not least Pete Postlethwaite. Consequently a number of them had remained in contact with the village over the years.

I know I’d had a couple but we sat (slumped) down near the bar and spent a good long session talking about what had happened to places like Barnsley and the mining communities Lovely, lovely bloke.

 

I'd have stopped talking to him the minute he said ***** football club!!

 

I'd forgotten the dyke! I swear I remember a supermarket trolley in it in 1966, when there weren't any supermarkets within 10 miles (if they even existed then!) When we couldn't partake of our monthly bathe in the dyke due to the tyres, dead dogs and trollies, we
used the family tin bath and we were so posh we didn't have to share it with the neighbours!

This is me being proud head of the family in the backyard, with said tin bath on the wall behind me.

It's an old black and white photo I have had colourised (a free online service which takes minutes and adds colour to any B&W photo)