St Leonard's Rd.

Alice McCreesh outside the Victoria Park cafe.

Alice McCann came over to Leicester in 1957. Her boyfriend, Gerry McCreesh, was already over here working on the building with his two brothers.Alice and Gerry were both from South Armagh. Alice was 17 ½ and Gerry was 25. Although there was a bit of an age gap Gerry was a neighbour and the families knew each other well. 

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As they were not yet married Alice first shared a house with Donegal people in Leicester. She had gone to the Tourist Information office looking for accommodation and they’d given her a list to choose from. One advert said “Irish preferred” so that made up her mind! The house was on St. Peter’s Rd and she shared a room with 2 Donegal girls and shared a bed with one of them. While she was living here she worked first at Woolworths and then at John Bull. 

“You could look in the Leicester Mercury and have your pick of the jobs.”

Gerry was living on Lower Hastings St and they went home to Armagh to get married in 1959.

Gerry McCreesh working on Newmarket St near The Craddock.

After they were married they lived together in a top floor flat on Saxby St: it had a living room, bed room, kitchen and bathroom and they paid £2 a week. Their eldest child, Caroline, was born while they were living here. Alice remembers dances at St Peters where they had great bands. However they didn’t have dances on a Sunday night like they did at home and this made her very homesick.

Alice and Caroline at De Montfort Hall Gardens

For a while in the 1960s, Alice worked with Etta Grady selling tea towels, mist clothes soaps etc on behalf of the blind and disabled. The work was door to door, 6-9 in the evenings: they were paid £3 a week but had to, at least, sell that amount of stuff. After that they were on commission. 

“We would call to the council houses at the weekend, when they had money, and the private ones in the week.”

St Leonard's Rd

 Alice and Gerry later moved to St. Leonards Rd. Their 3 children Caroline, Collette and Barry went to St. Thomas Moore school and then to English Martyrs.

Caroline McCreesh (left) and her friend making their Holy Communion at St. Thomas Moore's school.

Barry McCreesh (left) and his friend making their Holy Communion at St. Thomas Moore's school.

 As Leicester got bigger new shops began to pop up. Alice especially remembers Brierly's on Belgrave Gate which was the first of the "pile 'em high" type shops that we are so used to now.

For more pictures of Alice see Victoria Park

 If you'd like to tell your own family's story contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:

The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.

Wharf St.

Previous posts told of the streets around Belgrave Rd: Garden, Orchard, Royal East and Wilton and the story of a family's life in that area. 

Wharf St 1966

Wilton St was not far from Wharf St, a bustling street full of shops and a cinema. However, for my friend and her siblings, as young children in the 30s, it was a no-go area: a slum area that their mother hated them going near. 

Around that area she remembers these shops:

Worthngton’s grocer’s:  they had several stores across Leicester.

Hillaird’s butchers: ham and pork, hocks and udders.

Manin’s: like an early M+S.

Palfreman’s: a pawn shop.

There were pubs on every corner but she especially remembers The Bolturner’s, Belgrave Rd and The Boot and Shoe club, Wharf St.

Wharf St /Eldon St corner 1966

Her Aunty  would take her down to the Clock Tower: this was an exciting place full of bright lights and shops. Thomas Cooke had a big, lit-up sign over the shop which went around the corner,  giving out the latest news

There was a tram garage inside the Haymarket, with tramlines running into the centre of town from Belgrave Gate, 

Leah's was on the corner of Humberstone Gate and Charles St (later C&A and then Primark).

The Bell Hotel was on the same side of Humberstone Gate nearer the Clock Tower and Lewis’ was on the opposite side.

She also remembers the Town Waites band playing trumpets up and down Belgrave Gate. A conversation on Rootschat.com asks

“Has anyone knowledge of the names etc. of the male musicians who were members of of the Leicester Town Waits band at the turn of the century 1800's x 1900's? I understand that the band was local authority organised and funded. One of their activities was to, for a fee, turn out during the evening at Christmas time and play carols outside of the fee-payers premises.”

Modern photos of Wharf St as is exisits today show some fabulous detail if only we remember to look up.

Did you or your family live around Wharf St? What was life like for you?

Thanks to Colin Hyde for the modern day photos: East Midlands Oral History Archive

Thanks to Dennis Calow at Vanished Leicester for the old photos.

Vanished Leicester is part of a fantastic resource, My Leicestershire , which is part of The East Midlands Oral History archive

If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:
The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.

Garden St

A lovely lady has shared her family's story with me....

Her grandfather came over to Leicester for work in the 1870s. He found it working at 

The Royal Opera House, which opened on Thursday, September 6, 1877, where he was quite an expert at ornate plasterwork. She remembers going here years later with her own mother: the Opera House would have seasons for musical comedies, pantos and plays as well. operas. He married his wife of Irish descent, quite likely in Ireland, before they came over.

Her maternal grandmother, had lived in Liverpool and Bradford before she came to Leicester where she was in service aged 16. Family history has it that she worked in factories in Bradford as young as 6 years old. The family had emigrated from Tipperary.

Garden St as it is today, with remnants of how if would have been.

My story teller’s parents had a grocer’s shop on the corner of Royal East St and Abbey St. and lived nearby in Garden St: her father had probably been born here. He owned the shop from whern he had left the British Army previous to WW1, where he went to India for about 3 yrs, He and his first wife had a very good business which she kept going when he was recalled for service at the outbreak of WW1: he was a stretcher bearer in France. He came to home to take over the business again when he was discharged in 1919. His wife died two years later and he was a widower till he married in 1925. He met his Irish wife at a St Patrick’s Church dance where they were fellow parishioners.

St. Patrick's school, Royal East St.

They retained the business until the terrible times of the 20s and 30s when both England and America were in recession and the whole financial structure was crumbling.

He was a good business man with a soft heart, letting customers run up unpaid slates until he too succumbed to bankruptcy. Sadly, he had to sell the shop but the buyers only paid half of what it was worth.

The family lived above the grocer’s shop and the maternal grandmother lived at No 11 Wilton St, off Belgrave Rd with an unmarried daughter. My friend’s mother went to stay there for a while in 1928 to have her first baby, so that  her mother and sister could look after her.

The family were forced to move out when the shop went bankrupt and moved in to the grandmother’s house, at no. 11 for a while. Her brother and sister were born here. Then no. 6 became vacant and they moved over there as a family. (Unfortunately we don't have any photos of Wilton St).

The father did, however, pull himself out of the Depression era by investing in a horse and dray. He built up a round on the new estates that were springing up on the outskirts of Leicester, delivering fresh fish and vegetables and eventually expanding to employ 2 men with a horse and dray each. These men ranged out through the villages as far as Coalville while he carried on with the original round, plus buying a pony and trap for personal use. 

My friend tells me

“When I could drag myself out of bed, I would go with my father to the wholesale fish markets plus the wholesale fruit and vegetable market which at the time (1930s) was in Yeoman St. We would get there would be there for 5.00 am and Dad would be bright as a button, whistling and singing in the magic of the market at that time of the morning. The market was alive with rough humour, and bargaining shouts filled the echoing hall, cigarette smoke misting the high rafters creating an eerie magic. Dad was well known and always secured the freshest fish, fruit and vegetables. The early morning excitement would be followed by a cup of milky tea in the central cafe in the middle of the hall, watching the final transactions. By 8.00 am. the hall would be silent and deserted except for a few cleaners sweeping up the discarded remains of vegetables.”

The Salmon, Butts Close Lane.

We also spent a lovely evening together recently driving round the Leicester streets mentioned above and where thrilled to find The Salmon pub on Butts Close Lane, off Church Gate. My friend remembers her father using the yard of this pub to water his horses on his rounds!

Thanks to Colin Hyde for the photos: East Midlands Oral History Archive

If you'd like to be involved contact us on 0116 276 9186 or pop in to:
The Emerald Centre, Gipsy Lane, Leicester. LE5 OTB

We're now also on Twitter: follow me on  @irishleicester

Click here to view a map of The Irish in Leicester.