It's 2007, so I've decided to update my site.
Please call back regularly to see new pages.
Over the next year this site will grow into a mixture of local history
and a view of my private life and experiences.
Aspects of modern day living, in a once immensely industrial city, will be reviewed.
Time changes all things around us and Stoke-on-Trent has been affected by it greatly over the last sixty years or so.
Once a landmark throughout the world for it's ability to produce high quality porcelain and pottery, the area was a smog ridden metropolis of bottle kilns and collieries. The health of the now elderly is poor in many cases
because of this, others succumbed to sulphur filled fumes many years ago. Asthma and lung disease still predominate within many families, causing anguish and concern, also in many cases premature death.
Today much has changed, the collieries and mine workings have all but gone. The pottery industry has declined to a shadow of it's former self and the people of this fine city have had to be flexible and adaptable. Retraining
and learning new skills has become commonplace. The newest employers are distribution depots and call centres.
Once a stronghold of Methodism and Christian beliefs, the area has diversified since the 1940's with the influx of many races and cultures. After the war many Polish people stayed.
The collieries were some of the best producers of coal in Britain, so many men sought work here. The North East and South Wales gave the greatest influx of men, as they were skilled in this work. They settled here with their
families, never to return to their homelands.
Later, large numbers of Asians populated certain areas. They brought with them their culture and their food. The Asian curries now being more popular on a Friday night than the delicacy of a Fish & Chip supper of yesteryear.
The population has increased rapidly and once green fields are now covered with houses. My own home is one such property.
My private life and experiences will start with my immediate family, 80% of which live in Stoke-on-Trent, or just over the border in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
A collection of memories and photographs will be arranged in a way that they should be both interesting and entertaining.
There will be references to times long past, history within living memory and of course the modern day. Constantly this cosmopolitan, diverse collection of towns is evolving. At times it clutches to the past with great passion, at others it bulldozes that history as though it can be replaced, which of course it can't.
Regardless of all this, Stoke-on-Trent, a collection of towns, villages and hamlets, mixtures of cultures and creeds, is a lovely city to live in. Friday and Saturday evenings start with an influx of the younger generations into the "City Centre". This is the town of Hanley, not as many people believe, the town of Stoke. This is one of the great anomalies of having a city that is a conurbation. Over many years the "city centre" has become Hanley.
It is for the younger ( and in some cases the older!) generation and has become the centre of the city for them, as it has everything they crave, need or maybe wish for! Nightclubs that give diverse play
lists, huge arrays of drinks, fabulously loud music and of course masses of girls for the boys. Not to say loads of boys for the girls. Then in the early hours of the morning they emerge into the twilight, mesmerised by the enticements of richly adorned doner kebabs , fish and chips, curry and aromatic rice, the list is endless.
In the daylight, Hanley awakens. Now it is a different "city centre" for it is here that the main shopping centre is. It is home to many top name stores that have been there many years, but now the centre
piece is the Potteries Centre. This is a modern, multi-storey shopping centre, so sadly typical of many throughout the country, maybe the world.
The kindness of the people is on a par with any in the world
So, being a true "Potter", I'm hoping that you can get an insight into my life and that of many others in the City of Stoke-on-Trent.
