Raymond E. Aldous has used our Storymaker program to tell us about the old days in the city when as a seven year old he had a coal round - he soon became the best paid lad in the street!
The year was 1955, we lived at number 11 Argyle Street - just off King Street in Norwich; there were just the four of us, my mum, dad and brother.
Dad worked in the foundry at Lawrence and Scots as a shot blaster, my mum worked at Caley’s Chocolates, my brother and I both went to Horns Lane Infants and Junior Schools. The Horns Lane Junior School can still be seen today; the buildings are much the same now as when I was there at school.
We had a two-up two-down terraced council house with the only bathroom which was over the top of a passage way leading to our back yards of our row of houses. We lived on the brow of a steep hill which was the only entrance to our street from Kings Street by road. The other access was by steps leading from Compass Street, which ran from Mariners Lane.
On top of the hill was the corner shop owned by a Mr Duffield, who sold just about everything from cigarettes to vegetables. At the bottom of the hill on the corner with King Street was another shop owned by a Mr Steward, he sold much the same but he did sell the best homemade penny ice lollies I have ever tasted in my life.
Opposite Argyle Street was the Ferry Boat Inn, which is still there to this very day. It was a popular drinking place for the many American servicemen still stationed in Norfolk after the war ended in 1945. Although the brewer's that King Street was famous for have long since gone.
There was Bullards, Steward and Pattersons, Lacons, Youngs and a Watney man. Also the public houses which ran from Carrrow Bridge up to the Corn Exchange, which is now Anglia TV. The story went in those days that if you drank a half pint of beer in every pub from Carrow Bridge you would be stone drunk by the time you reached the Corn Exchange.
Back in 1955 I was just seven years of age when I started my coal round. We had 15 houses in our row and every Saturday I would collect coal for seven of them. I had an old barrow that my dad made for me from a few scraps of wood crates and a set of old pram wheels.
I set off at about 10.00am with the money from my first customer to buy 100 weight of coal from Moy’s coal yard, which was just down the hill from Argyle Street. Then I would push the coal plus the barrow back up the hill, tip it into the coal bunker and then go on to my next customer.
I did this seven times every Saturday until I was eleven years old. I made 15 shillings a week which was a good deal of money back in 1955, in fact I was the highest paid boy in the street - getting far more than those that had a paper round.
As I got used to the round and Moy’s workers got used to me, I was even allowed to shovel my own coal into the scales and bag it as most of the men were busy unloading the many coal coasters that docked there.
King Street runs along side the River Wensum and Norwich was a very busy port for coastal shipping in 1955. Ships could be seen discharging their cargos at Reed’s Flour Mills and across the other side was Boulton and Paul’s, the big steelworks which has now been turned into the Riverside Retail Park.
Moy’s coal yard can still be seen today; the big concrete block on which the crane used to stand is still there - also the building still remains in which I had to pay for the coal. I often cross the Novi Sadd Bridge, which spans the Wensum and take a few minutes just to stand and think of those very early days.
As I look down on Moy’s coal yard a smile comes to my face as the thought comes to my mind that kids today would not do what I did back in 1955 to earn their pocket money.
Raymond used our Storymaker programme to input his memories.
Pictures kindly supplied and copyright of the Plunketts. You can visit their excellent website of photographs of old Norwich at www.the-plunketts.freeserve.co.uk
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