Trams
I nearly forgot. It was the old trams wasn’t it?
Those old trams, they used to trundle up and down Rodbourne Road. Course, you young ‘uns, you wouldn’t remember the trams, they were like damned great battle ships they were.
Anyhow, they used to start from the bottom here, Bruce Street, they used to go from here, Westcott Place, Centre, and then one lot would branch off and go to Old Town and t’other lot would go out to Gorse Hill as far as Kembrey Street.
Gorse Hill to Kembrey Street and the Old Town Square on the Old Town Trams. I think it was, in fact I know it was, it was a penny from Bruce Street to Westcott Place, and three ha’penny to Centre.
Well, we never used to go much farther than the Centre so I don’t know how much it was beyond that.
But you should have seen it on the working day when the workmen was coming home, course there was twelve or fourteen thousand men in those days, I’m going back a long time of course, I don’t say they all came out that entrance up here but a lot of them did. The trams used to be lined up outside the entrance like, you know, and I think they was supposed to take 25 up top (open top of course), 25 down below. By the time they finished there was about 150 on each tram.
And the old conductor he used to collect those fares in time for them to come back to work – you’ve never seen anything like it. They scrabbled on everywhere, all on the sides, all on the back, anywhere they could scrabble on to.
Oh, that was the good old days.
I think it was 1927 or 1928 when they eventually done away with the trams. Done a bit of good though, gave some of the out of work lads a bit of a job digging up the tramlines. I don’t quite remember it but….
