In 1947 my parents moved to Burlington House in Knottingley which was situated in Aire Street at the end of the Flatts going down Chapel Street. This was due to the fact that there was no work in Bridlington after the war. I was aged two at the time and my family consisted of my father, Frederick Henry, mother Hilda, brothers Alec, Michael, Derek, my sister Dorothy and myself.

Burlington House was built in about 1850 and had sixteen rooms and once belonged to a Hannah Rhodes. It was empty when my parents bought it. At the very top of the building were three attics, one of which had a full-sized snooker table where my friends Roger, Ian and myself practised. We had to move out around 1958/59 due to a compulsory purchase order for the redevelopment of Aire Street, if that’s what you can call it. When the contractor came to knock down the building, he found out it was not easy for the concrete ball at the end of the chain broke when it hit against the thick walls. He was not a happy man, I can tell you. He then decided to go above the door but even this proved to be difficult.

The photograph of Burlington House was taken during the redevelopment, by which time, as you can see, the houses at the end of the property had already been demolished. You can see the yard to the left of the building. Notice the old BBC TV aerial.

We had a confectioners shop and delivered bread and cakes to what was known as 'out in the sticks', being the villages of Beal, Kellington, Eggborough and Whitley Bridge. Deliveries were made by the van as well as a three-wheeled bike with a box on the front. We also catered for weddings and Christmas parties such as Bagley’s Christmas party, this would have been in the mid-1950s. The Town Hall would buzz as the band played and everyone danced. We would serve drinks, sandwiches, cakes, and raffle tickets, and when it had finished I had to carry the leftovers home around one arm. Good job there was no school the next morning. Christmas was a busy time for us. I remember my father used to make his own pork pies and the room would be full of them. We would be told, “Keep your hands off, and the same applies in the next room”, which was always full of cakes.

The Flatts held quite a bit of activity in those days. On Bonfire Night fires were lit and there were fireworks, banger’s, mushy peas, baked and roast potatoes, and toffee apples with everyone sitting around enjoying themselves. You could smell the smoke for several days after the fires had gone out.

Every year the local workingmen’s clubs would have a day at the seaside and twenty to twenty-five coaches would gather on the Flatts and then set off in line – a fine sight to see.

On one occasion the Flatts aided an escaped prisoner to get away, for a while anyway. It was just like something out of a Keystone Cops film with the police running everywhere. The prisoner ran down Aire Street onto the Flatts and swam across to the other side of the river followed by the police in hot pursuit. One policeman thought “I’ll get him”, but before swimming across he took his boots off so when he got to the other side for obvious reasons he was unable to take chase because he had left his boots behind. But yes, the prisoner was eventually re-captured.

I also remember the oblong posters for the Palace Cinema that we displayed in the shop window. I wish I still had some of them today. They advertised Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott and even Ronald Regan. When the film Dracula was shown anybody who went to see the film was insured for £1,000, just in case they died of fright! But by today’s standards it was all very tame stuff.

I attended Chapel Street School and Weeland Road, and then went to Ropewalk until I left at the age of fifteen in 1960. I remember leaving on the Wednesday and starting work on the following Monday at Synthetic Chemicals. I did not like it very much and soon left to work in the Bakery Industry for several years. I was following in my father and brother’s footsteps. Of course, even baking has changed and one thing that can be said of G.T. Smiths was they were a whole lot better than the bread and cakes that we get now from the new supermarkets.

My parents also had a café which was at the far end of the building and at Christmas they would give the postmen a breakfast. When either Tucker’s or Tuby’s came with the fair, the boss would pay for all his men to have breakfast. One year a stallholder came in for breakfast and tried to get it for free but it didn’t work. He was not only told to leave but also got kicked off the site and told never to return. The fair was always a big occasion, if Tucker’s was in Knottingley, Tuby’s would be in Hull and the following year vice-versa. This was so that no one had the monopoly. We also supplied electricity to caravans and needless to say we got free rides.

I can remember one time my mother sent me to Tom Taylor the butcher for some meat and a fair lady was being served. She asked for best steak for her dog and I thought World War Three was about to start, for Tom took all her meat off the counter and told her never to come into his shop again for suggesting that his meat was only fit for the dog. He was just about as angry as Tom could be.

By the time I reached the age of eleven, I did part-time work delivering milk for Mrs Miller at Manor Farm behind St. Botolph’s Church. This was every morning except Sunday including school holidays. When we went back to load up for the second delivery we would have breakfast and I can tell you what a breakfast it was. We would have two fried eggs, fatty bacon, sausage, beans, fried bread, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread buttered like doorsteps and toast, followed by a nice pot of tea and at this point I would like to thank Elsie for those wonderful breakfasts!

After the meal we would deliver the remainder of the milk. Now on the first part of the run I would sit in the front of the van but on the second half I would sit in the back with my legs dangling out, my feet only inches from the road. This was not too bad except in winter it was freezing and more often than not my feet would be wet through and frozen. Of course this did not stop Mrs Miller from chatting, and boy she could chatter. Her talking to customers got so bad sometimes that either Elsie or me would have to go and fetch her so that we could carry on delivering milk otherwise the round would have taken twice as long. She would have been the ideal candidate to chatter for Yorkshire.

Another good chapter in my life was my teenage years. I went to the Methodist Church and Youth Club along with two very good mates, Roger and Ian. I remain friends with Roger to this day, but sadly Ian is no longer with us. We had a great time in those days. On Saturday afternoons we would play snooker and then go to Ian’s house to watch wrestling and sample some of his dad’s home made wine. His father would make scallops in batter. Hmmmmm! I can taste them now. I forgot to mention that Ian and I would call at Morris’ the butcher on Weeland Road for a warm pork pie where the jelly and juice from the meat ran down your chin.

Our Youth Club entered the Pontefract Youth Festival and one year we did a slapstick comedy to Lonnie Donnegan’s song, 'The Battle of New Orleans', which meant that Roger, Ian, Malcolm and me had to dress up in long johns and hats. We felt how we looked. How was that you may ask? The answer to which is censored. We had buckets of water and pies and I had to hit Ian with a pie but he ducked and I caught Malcolm instead. The remainder of the pie splattered all over the new stage curtains and the audience front row. We did this routine in the church hall but on this occasion I hit Malcolm so hard I nearly knocked him out. He told me later that he saw stars for the rest of the performance. On each occasion we brought the house down and I am happy to say we all had a good laugh over it.

The youth club encouraged us to put plays on in the church hall. We also visited other youth clubs doing various activities and had occasional outings to the Dales and the seaside. Sadly those days no longer exist thanks to modern technology, computer games, mobile phones and ipods. Again I ask myself would I be doing this article without the computer? We had a trio of which I was a part. Roger played guitar and Ian and I sung. Just think, if we had called ourselves The Bachelors, who knows…

Remember Rock and Roll was here and here to stay with people like Cliff and The Shadows, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Roy Orbison, Adam Faith, Dion, and of course Elvis just to mention a few. Then on television there was Six Five Special, Oh Boy!, Juke Box Jury, Boy Meets Girl, Thank Your Lucky Stars. The music still lives on and I still go and see some of these great stars, the list is endless.

Some time later I went into Grandidge’s furniture store in Pontefract and the assistant who served me asked if I was one of the four lads in The Battle of New Orleans sketch. I of course said yes and he shook me by the hand and said both he and his wife were in stitches and said how wonderful it was that young people could put on a show as good as that from surrounding youth clubs. Of course, it was not all down to us, other people were involved and without them it would never have happened. It was people like Malcolm who devised the Battle of New Orleans and made it worthwhile. I was glad to be in that era, they were great times. Of course we had our ups and downs with the older members of the church who thought “What on earth is the world coming to?” It must be a generation thing for I say the same to my children or should I say my grown up children. I do not remember saying that I was bored like they do today when all we really had was a Dansette record player that I shared with my sister Dorothy that we'd bought for fifteen pounds from the DER shop in Aire Street. One could stack eight LP’s or 45’s and then drive our parents mad with Apache. At least the music was better in those days, but then, wasn’t everything?

Roy Stone