My new home

trafalgar1805's memory of 5th April 1938 - 11th February 1955

In I think it was April 1938 my father and mother joined the queue on New York Road out side Quarry Hill Flats to view the new flats.
They where so impresed they put there names down strait away.
We lived on Halton Hill at the time and my father would cycle to work every day all the way to Woodhouse Moor so to move to Quarry hill was a bonus to him.
By the 26 Sept 1938 we had moved into Wright House because we where voluntary tenants our rent was sixteen shillings and one penny a week quite a sum in those days when I come to think of it he could have bought a house for that kind on money.
I have still got my mothers rent and conditions of tenancy form A weeks rent would be paid upfront and after that the rent had to be paid every Monday.
A deposit of ten shillings had to be paid before you could take possesion of the premises.
No animals
No washing to be hung on the balconies.
No lodgers only members of ones own family.
And many more restrictions but in those days most of the people played by the rules.
Before the war during it and just after up to the early fifties QHF was a wonderfull place to live the gardens where kept neat the streets where clean the playgrounds where looked after people took a pride in there homes and where proud to live there.
Through the war there was a camaraderie that does not exist today we where all in the same boat so people looked out for each other.
When the sirens whent did not matter what time of the night it was my father and mother would take myself and my two brothers down to the air raid shelter in the freezing cold in pyjamas with a wool blanket round us
the shelters where cold no heating bare forms to sit on duck boards on the floor always a couple of inches of water down there oil lamps hung from the roof kids of today dont know there born.
When the bomb fell on Victoria House it was so close we as kids thought we where a gonner.
But next morning we where out there looking for shrapnel even though all the widows in the flat where blown out.
The post war years where just as bad food shortages got worse they even rationed bread.
I started work when I was 14 years old in 1944 rate of pay 14 shillings for a 48 hour week whats that in todays money 70P mind you a packet of Woodbines was only twopence half penny and you could go on Saturday sfternoon to the Regent picture house down the pasage for a penny what we called the penny rush.
I missed out my school years they where spent with my two brothers at the Leeds Parish Church School the headmaster Mr Taylor he was a Tatar and knew how to use the cane.
I did my national service in the Royal Signals in 1948 even when I came out in 1950 the flats where still a good place to live.
Ileft the flats for good in 1955 but my mother stlil lived there well into the sixties.
I have many happy memories of the flats and it was only in there latter years they got a bad name.
I was proud to be a Quarry Hiller and many of my friends of that era would say the same.
Poeple that know me will know the name of Jonesy I was the middle one.

More memories from trafalgar1805

This memory was added 5th February 2008

Keywords: Leeds BBC Leeds Quarry Hill Flats Halton Hill Victoria House Wright House

Add a related memory

More memories from: