Memory Lane

Helen Fountain, reminiscence officer for Oxford City Council, organized two fantastic ‘Memory Lane’ sessions bringing together people with connections to St Ebbe’s to look at photographs and share their memories.

Many interesting stories and reminiscences were shared. One of the photographs in Helen’s presentation showed the childhood home of two participants, Janice and Diane Stewart, who were born in St Ebbe’s, but re-housed at Harefields after the slum clearances. 

Here they share their memories of the transition from St Ebbe’s to a new home in the suburbs.

Janice:      “My Uncle worked [at the gas works]. We lived by the gas works. We were born in St Ebbes and we lived there until 1965. We were the last two houses standing in Bridport Street before they were condemned. We moved to North Oxford, to Harefields, near Cutteslowe. We moved there in ‘65 to a brand new house.

Gas holders at Oxford Gasworks, 1963

Photograph copyright Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxford County Council

My mother didn’t want to go to Blackbird Leys. She wanted to stay. Nothing against it, but she didn’t want to go to that area because a lot of people had gone. They offered us a place in St Ebbes in Preachers Lane but the community had gone. And she wanted to move away. Years later on they offered my mother and father to move back, but she said you could never re-create what had been. It was such a community. You never locked your doors, everybody helped each other and it was wonderful.”

Diane:      “We got a bathroom for the first time.”

Janice:      “I was seventeen when we’d moved, and we’d never had a bathroom and our toilet was in the garden and we had a tin bath in the kitchen.”

Janice:      “When we moved in it was ‘who’s going to have a bath first?’ It was such a luxury.”

Helen:       “Why didn’t they just put bathrooms in?”

Janice:      “Well, my father approached them, my dad did. They wouldn’t hear of it. And the four houses which were joined together where we lived were built in 1888, and the thing that happened, my sister went through the floorboards in the front room. And my dad was absolutely livid, and he got barred from the council. Her leg was bruised and scraped… so that’s when they decided to move.”

Bridport Street and the Gasworks   

Photograph copyright Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxford County Council

Janice:      “That’s our house. That’s Bridport Street. And you see where the board is over the arch. That was the…”

Diane:      “There were two houses that had already been boarded. But the house on the right of that, that was ours.”

Janice:      “That’s our house, the only house standing.”

Diane:      “We were the last four houses standing in St Ebbes. Well they demolished [St Ebbes] around us.”

Janice:      “We were just those. It was just us and Miss Kemp.”

Friars Wharf with old gas holder.  

Photograph copyright Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxford County Council

A picture of Friars Wharf is shown by Helen.

“That’s the town houses, that’s the ones they offered us. Ours was still standing when those were built. We didn’t want to stay.”