Club Trips and Outings

Days out to the seaside have always been a great joy to us in Maltby - being situated almost directly in the centre of the country west /east then it is an obvious choice. Years ago it was the only time many in Maltby saw the sea.

There are many happy - and sometimes not so - memories of Club Trips, from the Stute, Caledonian, Catholics, Slip, Brooklands and British Legion.
Everyone loved them, some so much that now they drive coaches themselves, taking people on trips !

Club trips were the highlight of the summer. Sometimes they lasted over 2 days and children and adults had separate buses. Dinner and tea were booked in restaurants - fish and chips of course. In Cleethorpes this was at the restaurant near the train station.

Children were given reels of free tickets to use on the rides on the fairground.

Destinations were Cleethorpes, Skegness and Bridlington and it didn't really matter about the weather. Memories of sunshine and torrential rain are all good ones.

The children whose parents didn't go to clubs, tagged along with friends and everyone was happy.

Andrew Kitching was always on the last coach - which carried the tools. Don't know if he was ever asked to help use them. Being from Tickhill, he went on trips with Grandad Jeffcoates and cousins, Tim and Simon. George Beech was always on the coach with Tommy Mcgoldrick.
Jeffcoates did "door to door" with Algie Meese.

Scratchy new clothes, a tag tied to a button and a packed lunch getting warm and soggy in the overhead luggage rack are memories for Chris White.

Grandma, Aunt Minnie and Aunty Olive



Robert Swan has a photo of himself with his ticket in his lapel getting off the Legion trip bus from Mablethorpe. The buses were single deckers from Doncaster at that time and the seats were as hard as nails. You got a 10 bob note, a sarnie, crisps and pop. What more could you need  - great days !

Stute trips for Hilda and her family and friends. Five shillings, pop and crisps and a dinner thrown in. Apparently Mablethorpe stopped taking Maltbyites and said that they were all little hooligans !  Sure that must just be rumour.

Brian remembers once going on the bus with the Catholic Club... the kids nicked his pop and crisps. Don't think he'll be on it this year !

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Maltby Hall Infant School

The six acre site of Maltby Hall School was bought from  Maltby Urban District Council in 1929.

It cost £6000 to build 4 classrooms each designed for 50 pupils. The Advertiser report at the time said that a special feature was a "sun room" with an open and wide glazed veranda on three sides serving as a solarium".

1929

2013

Every child let off a balloon on the last day 

Memories of Maltby Hall Infants Facebook Page

Maltby Hall Infants

Maltby Common

Maltby Common & Nature Reserve 

Maltby Common  Local Nature Reserve stretches from Outgang Lane to Dike Hagg and was

was designated in 2000. It is in the southeastern corner of Maltby and was established in agreement with the Sandbeck Estates and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust  in 1972.

 

The area contains Maltby Low Common, notified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by the Nature Conservancy Council - before Natural England - in 1970 under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949) , the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 and revised in 1987 to include Pieces Bank.

Maltby Low Common supports a multitude of grassland 'communities'  with a diversity of flora not known anywhere else in South Yorkshire.  The site is owned by the Sandbeck Estate.

Access is from Outgang Lane in Maltby, opposite the entrance to Maltby Colliery and from Stoney Well Lane off Tickhill Road.

   

Gary Graveling of Maltby describes Maltby Common as a "beautiful haven, despite the motor bikes" He remembers being told by Mr Vaughan, Maltby Manor Headmaster, about rare orchids on the common whose whereabouts were secret due to their rarity. "Vaughny" was ex-RAF and lived in Stainton for many years. He was a big influence during his formative years, along with Mr Shenton, also of Maltby Manor School.

Not sure that I would describe the commons as beautiful, but I suppose they are if you ignore the some of the surroundings (Railway line and White City Estate, Maltby Colliery ) and concentrate on the commons themselves and the woodlands and farm land of Sandbeck.

Unfortunately, rubbish gets dumped and bikers churn up the ground but as we know that happens in more places than Maltby.

Wild garlic, wood anenomes, gorse, daffodils and bluebells are just some of the plants that can be found there.
There are lots of birds, insects and in warmer weather large bees.
If you come across orchids, try not to crush them underfoot. They struggle to survive as it is.

                                               

Maltby Brick Company

Maltby Brick Works

                                                  

                                        Maltby Brick from the air around 1991

It's now over twenty years since the Maltby Metallic Brick Co. was closed down which was the last brickworks in the Rotherham area.
Brick firms at the time also made tiles and sanitary ware - pipes, soil stacks and traps.






There's a long tradition of Marley Brick works being known as Maltby Metallic Brick - so called because the bricks were so hard that they "rang" when you tapped them together.

           

The works were next to where the new Maltby Police Station is now    ("new" as opposed to the old one on High St) 

The rail track offices are situated there now, on the right hand side of Rotherham Rd, just before Hellaby Bridge (which is gone now) Many remember playing there as children.

In October 1993 the works was bought by Tarmac. 

A number of houses on Rotherham Road are made with Maltby Metallic Bricks. They were harder than concrete, red on the outside and blue on the inside when broken, like engineering bricks. 

A lot better and a lot less porous than the London bricks that were used later.

Jane Higgins (nee Walmsley) remembers her dad Rip Walmsley, working there for 45 years, along with his brother John and were the longest serving workers.  Grandad, Jack Walmsley was foreman.  When they first started there, all setting was done by hand and thousands of bricks a day had to be stacked by hand and pushed into the kilns. 

School children visited the brick works often and with Roche Abbey combined they did some excellent  follow up work. 

Brian Chapman worked there for 14 years until it was closed, with Ibstock being the last owners and remembers the Walmsley family well and John as being "a great gent". As do Michael Keevan and 
Barrie Wilson Storey  who worked alongside his father, Bob.  Other Maltby families who worked there over the years were Trickets, Stubbs, Adams and Walkers.

Joyce Turner worked in the canteen providing good meals for the workers.

Pete and Barbara Walker worked as cleaners and Pete still came back to help when he retired.
Brian Chapman tells this story :
I was having a shower and Babs shouted - Anyone in ? I said yes, me, having a shower. She said, don't worry, I've got six lads and seen it all before - and started cleaning around me.

Sounds about right for Maltby people.
Good memories.

Beginning with Fish and Chips

What better way to begin posts on here than with Fish and Chips !

This is Cragg Fisheries, on Rotherham Road, Maltby. Where the bungalow is now, and near to the spray tan shop and the dentist, near the top of Milton Street is how we describe it's position.

 Over the years it's changed hands many times before being pulled down for Jebson's to build their bungalow. It seems to have had it's hey days in the 1970's and 80's - at least according to those who remember. Seeing this photo reminded some of us that it was ever there.

Mrs Taylor ran the shop about 70 years ago, and the Pugh's when you could get chips and mushy peas for 6 pence.

Mrs Law and her daughter Diane ran the shop  in the  70's.

It was also owned by the Berry family around this time, Tom their son being a class mate of many.

Many remember working there and especially with a little lady with white hair (who may or may not have been Mrs Laws.)

The Fuller's were another family who ran this chippy.

Anyone living on Rolleston Avenue and Milton St were very handy for the Craggs Fisheries, and chippy teas on a Friday night were "quality". 

Young ones from the area used to hang about around the shop, getting moved on regularly, especially when "Skull"  was there with his unhygenic habits !

It used to be the only chippy that had free tomato sauce on the counter for your chips ensuring happy and healthy dinner breaks from the Comp School. It was a great chippy and you could go down for school dinner and be back in time for a game of footy on the tennis courts.

If you had to go from Cliff Hills to get fish and chips for mam and dad, you had to run back fast, before they got cold, but it was well worth it.

Many free bubblegums could be had from the machine on the wall outside, using the round end of a chip fork. Apparently, cardboard coins pinched from school worked a treat too for this. 

The culprits apologise to the owners of the shop at the time - even if's about 30 years too late.

 Several pints of Stones's at the Swan, then to the Crags chip-shop for supper before going home also made for happy days. As did fish and chips on the way home to Gaitskell Close from the Brooklands Club. All remembered as great times and lovely memories.

Pugh's also had a chip shop just off Addison Rd (Laburnum Parade) which was sold in the early 90's and has since been Zac's Fish Bar.

 (I seem to be the only one who has noticed - or is interested - that the name on the picture has double G in it, something that I get pulled up about when writing about The Crags ! )

"Rivals" of Craggs Fisheries at this time were Winstanley's, Barber's and Manor Fisheries.

... and if anyone wonders what happened to those gates, they are still in Jebson's shed. 

Remembering Maltby - Chapters List (at last !)

At last have got around to posting the Chapter headings intended for the book. 

At the moment it doesn't particularly matter what order they are in, but if anyone wants to make a suggestion for anything, then please do so. It's our book and putting it together, together (!?) would be good.

CONTENTS

The People and the Place - Origins, Changes and Developments 

Schools - Crags, Manor, Hall, Redwood, St Mary's, Grammar (Comp, Academy)

Churches - St Bartholomew's, Ascension, St Bede, St Mary's

Shops and Markets - Past & Present

Pubs and Clubs  

Pastimes, Groups, Games & Teams

Transport - Trams, Trains, Buses, Cars & Bikes

The Colliery 

Roche Abbey 

Sandbeck, Crags & Countryside

The Future  -  Hopes and Ideas

I will now try to collect all the information from the Remembering Maltby Facebook page and put it into the chapters. I have a feeling that this is not going to be as easy as it sounds...

However, please comment as and when you wish to and add any bits you think might have been missed.

Please keep posts on here to comments - ie. memories and facts, rather than having a conversation, so that things don't get muddled up again.  Conversations can be continued on the FB pages of course.

(You can also comment about this blog on  the FB pages, but not the other way round - if you see what I mean ! )

Hope that makes sense, and look forward to comments and suggestions.

Then and Now Photos

Maltby Then and Now (2012)

( 2012 photos by Wayne Bennett )