Childhood memories of Lily Road and surrounding area

by Peter Thomas

I grew up on Lily Road in Yardley, It use to be two way traffic on there but now it is a one way system. In the 1970’s there were not that many cars around and I remember playing in the road games such as football and tennis. There was a corner shop on Harvey Road and the Swan centre had a more personal touch to it and it felt that everyone knew everyone else. My mom use to work in the in the market and my dad use to work at the Tivolli centre and we had a posh Indian restaurant. Most of the things are no longer there. in 1977 when the silver jubilee was on we had the street closed off and we held a street party which was great fun. All the neighbours participated in this. My old house still looks exactly the same and some of the old neighbours are still there, but there have been some changes including the extension on Yardley School. I also feel the area is not as clean as it use to be. There use to be a gully on the road which led to a orchard but this was brought up about 15 years ago and a sheltered housing development was put in. This is quite sad as it took away my scrumping facilities.

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