Our friend John T. was in McKenzie's Auto Repairers in Kirkley Street off Dowson Road, in their waiting room John saw an A4 paper scanned copy of a postcard of Hyde with a view of the paddling pool at Hyde Park, which we'd recently featured. John asked Mark McKenzie if he could borrow it to copy and send to us. It is a great post card and thank you John for thinking of the blog.
Whilst he was talking, Mark related a story about the bottom left picture of the postcard that shows a view of The Lake at Pole Bank Hall. He said that a neighbour of his was taken to Pole Bank by his mother in the 1960's with a small red plastic battery operated boat. He launched the boat at on side of the lake and as it neared the far bank it sank! Last year whilst visiting his mother who was a resident in Pole Bank Nursing Home, he noted that the lake had been emptied and dredged and he wandered down with memories of the sad event over 40 years ago and lo and behold there was the red plastic boat on top of the pile of dredged mud and silt! Amazing. What a great story this is,John... I, too spent my happy times here as I know others from our group have. I saw the amount of silt which was removed last year... I read somewhere it was twice as much as was expected to be dredged out.
6 comments:
Any pictures such as these are welcome... I am sure many will have memories of both the paddling pool from the park and the beautiful pond from Pole Bank Hall. Both places well connected to the Ashton's Of Hyde... and to the cotton trade as well.
The said boat was my husbands and much to his mother's disgust she is not in Pole Bank Nursing yet!!!! It was the day of his grandmas funeral and as we were waiting for the hearse to arrive he decided to go and have a look and lo and behold there was his boat - it is now in our conservatory taking pride place complete with 40 year old mud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anon.. thank you for putting us right on this... how about a picture of said boat.... I will include it here. What would be great would be a pictures of the little boy who lost it and the 'man' who found it... Thank you for putting the story right.
I will see what I can do - not sure if the "man" will want his pic on here though :-)
Hey, maybe there's something in that mud - they should sell it as face-packs & make a fortune ;>D
Hi Tom and Nancy. What a wonderful story this is……losing a boat 40 years ago then finding it like that. What a spin out that must be. Made me quite nostalgic actually. Thanks to all involved for sharing the story with us and please anon…..a photo of the boat would be awesome. You owe it to us nostalgic Hydonians in far flung places!!
Pole Bank used to be a regular walk for us as kids after a Sunday lunch at my Grans place…..that would have been around the time that the boat was sinking….used to love the lake area, but there used to be geese or swans that were extremely territorial and used to scare us on a regular basis. We used to feed the ducks some bread but then the geese / swans would muscle in for a feed and all hell would be let loose. The only thing missing would have been the Benny Hill music as my brother Ian and I scurried off into the yonder being chased by irate waterfowl! Happy days. I also recall the weeping willows there, they looked beautiful in spring, a vivid yellow colour.
Best wishes to all Hydonians from a rather warm and muggy Perth, Western Australia, and Tom and Nancy, your blog keeps on getting better and better. I also enjoy Dave’s photos and comments….keep up the awesome work guys.
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