I lived in Whitelea Road from 1957 to 1969, when I moved to Wick Street after my granddad died. Whitelea used to be one big playground, with interesting alleys, a huge school to mess about in, a couple of green patches at the top, the main road at the bottom and grains to use as goals for football!
In the summer holidays we'd chop stinging nettles down in the back alley, and sell earth to the neighbours at 6d a bag! One year we built a railway out of wood along the alley, but never figured out what to run on it! On summer evenings half the street would be out playing drain football or other across the street games, easy then with hardly any cars about.
We used to try to get around the entire school perimeter on the little surrounding wall with the proviso we didn't put our feet on the ground - impossible now as this has all been swept away.
We even had our very own bully, Keith Hopkins. He even tried it on with me once but I clobbered him and left his bike covered in blood! He became a good friend after that and even got me out of a tricky situation in my band years much later.
And at the bottom we had the legendary Richard Slaughter who brought a touch of high culture to the street with his ballet and, more importantly, garden fairs. These would include strange games where you'd win his toys as prizes (his dad would be round later in the evening to ask for them back!) and even knife throwing with Richard as the assistant and Keith Hopkins as the thrower. They went better than expected!
And we had the accompanying 60s style music from the MacDonald brothers, one of whom went on to make it as a minor pop star.
As we got older we ventured further afield and the whole of Wick, and eventually Littlehampton (and the world!) became available!
Remember, this blog welcomes extra information and especially pictures and these can be added to this post. Simply email info and/or pics to me at leysiner@aol.com
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