Newquay Avenue, 1955

Image: © Sutton family album Taken: Unknown

For a view of the street where I lived as a child taken 55 years after this one, see Image Much is the same (the houses themselves, and their Bulwell stone garden walls), but much has changed. The wooden gates, windows and front doors (all various species of mid green in the mid fifties) have all been replaced, and thanks to the Clean Air Act, the end of steam on the nearby railway and the closure of Radford Colliery (which was behind the poplar trees visible between and above the houses on Lynmouth Crescent) the pebble-dash on the upper storeys now stays bright white and not the smoky grey it was then. The lad on the bike is me, proudly riding my first (second-hand) two-wheeled bike past our house (offstage left). Mum’s writing on the back of the tiny Brownie print dates it July 1955 and notes that I am six – so it’s before my birthday at the end of the month. The bike was maroon – but only I can see this black-and-white snap in colour....

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