Photos from Plymouth's Past

Here are some lovely photos kindly lent to me by Gary Fawbert. The photos were taken by Gary's late grandfather who was a keen photographer and developed most of his own films. All photos seem to have been taken in about 1937.
The first photo shows a rare shot of the Gaumont Theatre in Union Street. The Gaumomt Palace was opened in 1931 and, much later, became the New Odeon. The building, although empty, still stands today. Showing at the Gaumont at the time the photo was taken was 'Melody For Two' and 'Jungle Princess'. There are several pushbikes and a child can be seen passing the cinema pushing a doll's pram. The Union Street arch can be seen in the background together with a strange contraption attached to a motor bike.

The second photo shows the bandstand on Plymouth Hoe. The bandstand was very popular but was dismantled in the Second World War so that its metal could be used to help the war effort. The photo shows many people, some with prams, gathered to watch the next concert. The third photo shows a ship passing by Mount Batten. The RAF station would have still been there at the time and one of its officers would have been TE Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia).

They're a great set of photos and I hope to include more in a future blog.

The Odeon, New George Street

Here's a lovely old postcard showing Plymouth and the newly-built New George Street. On the left is the Odeon which, along with the Western Morning News building, was one of the few buildings to survive the heavy bombing during the Second World War. The Odeon was later demolished and replaced with the Littlewoods building which, in later years, became TJ Hughes and, today, now stands empty.
To the left of the Odeon is Nuttalls which was a well-known shop in Plymouth for many years after.
It all looks very new and clean and although there are many pedestrians, it looks very empty. It's certainly changed over the years!

Tamar Bridge 50th Anniversary Fireworks

Many people would have missed the fireworks on the Tamar Bridge last night when it celebrated its 50th anniversary. More people seem to have known about it on the Saltash side than people in Plymouth. The display started at 8pm with fireworks being fired from a boat on the Tamar before the main fireworks were set off on the bridge. Luckily, I could watch it from my house and it was definately one of the best firework displays I've ever seen.
Looking on YouTube, many people seemed to have filmed it so, if you missed it, here it is again!

This film was uploaded by Tony Hackley and there are many more videos of the fireworks on the site.

Plymouth Monopoly

The new Plymouth Monopoly is launched today and features many historical sites around Plymouth.
I took a lot of the photos that are featured on the lid and board and there's a few shots of where I live, Saltash Passage (it even has it's own square!). There's also photos of Smeaton's Tower, Plymouth Argyle, The Merchant's House, the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, the Barbican, Saltram, the Citadel etc.
It's certainly a very colourful board and I'm sure lots of people will buy it for Christmas. For people with sharp eyes, my little Westie appears on the lid somewhere. See if you can spot her (no, she's not one of the counters!).
Other photos on the lid and board were taken by Ken Taylor and James Wells. Many of Ken's photos are on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/yadrad.

Palace Theatre Programme from 1951

Kevin Glynn recently kindly sent me a very interesting old programme from the Palace Theatre. Kevin runs his own business, 'Glynn Services' which deals with house clearances and waste removals.

The programme dates from September 1951 and the main show that week came from the Combined Amateur Dramatic Societies of Plymouth who performed a production of 'If I Were King'. The programme contains all the signatures of everyone who took part in the production but all are now long forgotten.

The following week's shows are advertised and include 'three world famous musicals' which were 'Chu Chin Chow', 'Lilac Domino' and 'Merrie England'. 

The programme also features many interesting local adverts which included one for the Greyhound Inn at Millbay which was advertised as the 'Little House with the Big Reputation', one for Pamela N. Le Grice (dressmaking at its very best) and one for George's Laundry whose slogan was 'For Good Work'. There's also an advert for a trade that definitely seems a thing of the past, 'The Doll's Hospital'. They specialised in wigs, eyes and restringing and were located at Ebrington Street. Other adverts include a very 1950s style one for Plymouth Breweries. On the back is an advert for the Radio Times in the days when there was only one channel but you could still find something more interesting to watch than you can nowadays!

It's a great little programme and I'm very appreciative to Kevin for sending it to me.

The Saltash Ferry Festival

It's almost 50 years since the ferry between Saltash Passage and Saltash ceased. To celebrate this, ferry trips will run again for one day only on Sunday 23rd October 2011. The landlord of the Ferry House Inn has been preparing the old waiting room on the Saltash Passage side with old photos and memorabilia to celebrate the event. On the Saltash side, members of the Ashtorre Rock Centre have been collecting photos, memorabilia and memories. There will be food stalls and a circus skills workshop on Waterside Green and the ferry will run throughout the day running from the slipway at Saltash following its original route across to Saltash Passage before docking at the pontoon at the Tamar River Sailing Club.

Other events during the day will include a car and bike rally, circus events, musical entertainment a film show and a 'Spectacular Musical Finale'.

At Saltash Passage, there will be music and entertainment, a photographic exhibition and a prize awarded for the best dressed 50's or 60's outfit. Bernie Stewart (Mood Swings) will be playing at 20:30 at the Ferry House Inn.

Sounds like a great day. See it while you can. I'm sure that many of us won't be around for the next celebration in 50 years time!

New books

I have four new history books out this month which I hope you will find interesting. The first is, 'Images of Plymouth : Stonehouse' (Driftwood Coast Publishing) which features a history of Stonehouse together with many old photos from the early 1900s. I've tried to include as much as I can within its pages and some of the things covered include prehistory, the Romans, Stonehouse Bridge, Transport, Union Street, the Palace Theatre, Durnford Street etc. It also features people with a connection to the area like Vice Admiral Hardy, Robert Falcon Scott, Harry Houdini, Charles Darwin and even Benny Hill.

Talking of Harry Houdini, my second book features his appearances around the UK in the early 1900s and is called 'Houdini : the British Tours' (Driftwood Coast Publishing). It features the recorded appearances of Houdini in Britain between 1900 and 1920 and tells of his amazing stunts, his leaps in chains from bridges, his challenges, his imitators and his rivals etc. It features many photos together with newspaper reports of the day which help to bring the stories of Houdini's many tours of Britain alive. Regular readers of this blog will know that Houdini appeared in Plymouth and there's an interesting section about this within the book.

The third book is, 'Plymouth at War Through Time' (Amberley Publishing). You may have read some of my other Through Time books. This one features old photos from the Second World War together with colour photos of the same area today. I love the look of these books and think that the idea works really well.

The fourth book is 'A 1970s Childhood' (History Press) which tells what it was like growing up in the 1970s. It features the fashions, the music, the tv, sweets, the strikes, school and much more.

All books are available from Waterstones, Smiths and all  the normal outlets and also online at Amazon, Tesco, Foyles etc.

I hope that you'll enjoy them very much. There are also more books to come from Amberley but I'll write about them later.