Peak District
Antique Centre
Antiques, Shopping and Commercial pages
  Calling all ex residents of Leek worldwide! I am currently working with Leek Library staff to encourage people to share their memories of Leek during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Did you live in Leek then. Can you recall the shops, schools, mills, youth clubs, dances, personalities, streets, houses or anything else. Where did you go to school, work, live and where did you socialise. We hope to publish these memories eventually. So come on all you Leekites, send us your memories. Did you dance at the Town Hall, do you remember the Blue Room, were you a mod or a rocker? I can remember shopping at Vanity Fair in West Street in the mid 60s. I particularly remember buying a navy lace dress with white collar and cuffs, buttoned down the front and slightly flared. I must have looked like a pantomine boy, but I thought I was the bees knees. As I worked at Slimma, in the wages office, I could buy clothes at a reduced price. One rather startling outfit was a lilac and purple, paisley, trouser suit with corduroy epaulettes. It came complete with a paisley, peaked cap with a deep purple corduroy beck. It caused a few raised eyebrows in the Swan! I danced at the Town Hall, went to the Folk Club in The George, watched a group practising in the Blue Ball, saw "Grease" twice in one week, at the Grand Cinema in High Street. What did you do? Cathryn
Walton Please reply to the above email address or to leek.library@staffordshire.gov.uk
An experienced
genealogist and local historian is now available to
answer your questions. Specialist knowledge of Leek
and the Staffordshire Moorlands. Unless
someone has a better idea? I have added a few
hidden characters before and after the actual email
addresses, this is to help prevent SPAM.
Subject: My History of Leek Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 I lived in leek most of my life, and didn’t like it much. As the town started to change and become more and more modern it didn't feel like it did when I was a small boy. But times change and places become updated, that was until recently when I visited Leek and started to look above the shops and at the buildings for what they really are. What a beautiful sight, I can't wait to visit again! If anyone starts to feel down by the look of Leek, just walk up Derby Street on a Sunday evening and look up, it is truly breathtaking. Best wishes to the people of Leek Shaun Brown (nick name Sid) zxzslongshanks@yahoo.co.ukxzx Subject: Wm. Hill & Co. Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 Can anyone tell me anything about my grandfather's business? He was called Ernest Hill, his brother Ben, and his sister May who lived at Waterhouses, Staffs. Their father was William, the owner and I believe founder, of a silk mill in Leek in the mid nineteenth century. I think the business was bought by Courtaulds in about 1958. Many thanks Charles Shirtcliffe zxzcharles.shirtcliffe@btopenworld.comxzx Subject: Leek Forum Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 Dear Sir, I would like to invite the residents and ex residents of the Leek and Moorlands area to a new public discussion forum I have developed. It has sections that most people in time will find very interesting from local Leek news to sports or activity groups, meetings or photos of days gone-by to well everything connected with Leek really, its your forum and waiting for you to start developing into a community discussion area. Join us at - leek.forumakers.com/index.htm John Barratt Subject: Local Artist - Harry Plant 1896-1963 Date: Sun, 27 April 2008 Having lived in the UK for my first 26 years
until I emigrated to Australia in 1968, I only
recently discovered that I have family connections
to Leek. I now know, through extensive research,
that my long lost grandfather was an accomplished
local artist born in the town in 1886. Many thanks, Derek Plante. zxzderek.plante@hotmail.comxzx Subject: Job White Textiles Date: Fri, 18 April 2008 Does anybody have information on John Steven White who worked for the above and was related to the owners in the early 60's, we have been given information on the business but John was a friend of my wife and we would like to know what happened to him. Roy Burrell zxzreburrell@hotmail.comzxz Subject: Patricia White Date: Thur, 17 April 2008 Hi everybody, I hope you all are well and having nice times, I am looking for Patricia White who used to live in Grove Street in Leek, If anyone knows her or her whereabouts could they please get in touch with me, any help greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help, Best Regards, J.K.Jawad. xzxjawad_jk2000@yahoo.comzxz Subject: Information about Leek Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 Hello, I am e-mailing from a very sunny Australia
hoping to find some history of the street I was
born in as we left Leek in 1948 when I was 5, and
my memories are a little hazy. I was able to visit
for the first time as an adult in 1999, when I
found the street and the school I attended, Alsop
street was as I remembered apart from the cobbles,
the school had caught fire a while before but there
was still a photo taken of me outside. Thank you. Maureen Waters. zxzauntym@live.com.auxzx Subject: Leek Battery Date: Thurs, 10 Jan 2008 Back in 2001 a gentleman by the name of John Kerr enquired about information relating to the Leek Battery from the Great war, I have some literature he may be interested in if he contacts me. Pete Goodfellowxcxcplg2272@hotmail.comvcvc
I was a GI during WWII who spent an autumn in your lovely little village before being shipped off to France. A few months, when set before the background of all the years that have gone by, would truly appear insignificant .And yet, the memory of the hospitality shown to us at that time, has not been lost. I wish all the residents of Leek a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Tony Oropollo,M.D xxatomd@att.netxx Subject: Are these houses still standing Date: Tues, 27 Nov 2007 Hello, My family research has revealed that Thomas
SHALLCROSS born in Leek in 1819,was a long time
resident at 26 St Edward St, Leek (previously
Spout). He was listed as a shopkeeper, Grocer, and
Provision Dealer on various census images, and on
Kelly's 1896 Directory, he is listed as a
shopkeeper, of 26 St Edward St, Leek Many thanks Helen from Brisbane zxzpghg@optusnet.com.auxzx Subject: Emily Rowley Date: Tues, 4 Dec. 2007 Hi, I’m trying to find out anything about a
girl who lived in Leek, her name is Emily Rowley,
although I don’t know if she has married and
changed her name. Thank you all This is my e-mail vexjmseptiem@inmelaex.comvex José Manuel Septiem Giner For those with memories of Rudyard Lake why not visit. http://www.youtube.com which is a short video of Rudyard Lake Johhny Barratt Subject: Please help..... Date: Mon, 1 Oct. 2007 My father was a soldier in the 2nd world war. I
would like to know in what regiment he was. He
lived in Longsdon (little Longsdon farm I think)
and after the war he lived in Leek. He had a son
named Barry who died in 1948. Great site, Jim
Bishopzxzx.jim.bishop@versatel.nl.zxzx Jim Bishop Subject: Chinese See-Saw in Pickwood Rec. Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 Having left Leek many years ago to join the RAF, I'm now trying to put down my life on paper with photographs where relevant (It might even get published one day). I lived on the Ashbourne Road from 1945 until 1961. In my younger years I spent many hours playing on the Pickwood Recreation ground and building the bonfire when Guy Fawkes night approached. There were swings, a roundabout, quite a large slide and a chinese see-saw. This was a large plank of wood supported at each end by swinging arms connected to steel supports. Children could stand at each end and 'work' the see-saw quite high. I think that there were three handles fixed to the wood so that other children could sit on it and hold on. My sister who still lives in Grove Street tells me that all of this equipment has now gone - probably Health & Safety rules came into it somewhere. Does anyone have any photographs of this see-saw that they could email to me please? Maurice Saltxzxzx.maurice@metronet.co.uk.xzx Subject: Lost Treasures programme Date: Mon, 24 Sept. 2007 The Lost Treasures programme on the History Channel, Mark Olly visited a Yew Glade and a recently excavated well to the west of Leek. Could anyone throw any light as to the location of these interesting places as I have had several requests asking for more details. Editor, Leekonline. Subject: Mountside Boys School Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 I was born in Leek at No.2 Court 10, on the Ashbourne Road on 25th July 1945. I attended St. Lukes Primary School and after failing the 11+, I went on to the Mountside Boys School on the Springfield Road between the years 1956 and 1960. When I left school in 1960, I went to work at the London Mill owned by Brough, Nicholson & Hall in the Spinning Department. After a few months working there for the grand sum of £3 per week before tax, I left to join the RAF in January 1961 to train as an Aircraft Electrician at RAF ST Athan in South Wales. My first posting was to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire where I met and married my wife Patricia in 1964. I served for 28 years at various stations around the world and finished my service at RAF Sealand in Flintshire in 1988. We bought a house in Hawarden, North Wales where we still live. I was involved in an accident with a lady driver who didn't see me on my Yamaha Thundercat motorcycle when I was going to visit my mother in King Street Leek, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. This lady driver pulled out from a side road directly in front of me on the main road. I was doing 60mph and had nowhere to go except into her front wing. I was thrown over the cars bonnet and bounced for 60 yards along the road breaking most of the bones in my body. While I was in hospital, my mother died and it was several weeks before the doctors would let me be told. I now am disabled and have a severe memory problem. I have decided to write a book about my life so far, but I cannot remember the House names that were used in the Mountside Boys Secondary Modern School on the Springfield Road between 1956 and 1960. I think there was Chaucer, Shakespeare and a Mansfield house, but the house that I was in I cannot remember. Can anyone help me out please? Many thanks Maurice Saltxzxzx.maurice@metronet.co.uk.xzx
Subject: Jabez Mellor Date: Thur, 6 Sept 2007 I am trying to find information about a Jabez
Mellor. He lived in the Heathylee district of Leek
and appeared in the 1901 census as being 13 years
old. He married and had a son, Alan Wright Mellor
who moved down to the Fareham area of
Hampshire. John Baynhamxzx.john@baynham1303.freeserve.co.uk.xzx
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