Mrs Hinchcliffe's Memories of Old Arbury, Chesterton and Vicarage Terrace Part 10: The Monkey Walk, Bilious Attacks, 'The Beaky' of Gwydir Street, The Charleston and High in the Sky over Arbury...
Mrs Grace Hinchcliffe (1910-1998) was Andy's grandmother and shared many memories for the Arbury Archive in the 1980s. This is the tenth part of her recollections, spanning the mid-1920s to mid-1930s. The photograph above shows her, the young Grace Brett, in 1928. Mrs Hinchcliffe remembered a Sunday afternoon ritual much enjoyed by local youngsters in the 1920s: 'The Monkey Walk! On nice Sunday afternoons, in the spring or summer, we'd put on our best dresses or suits and walk round and round Sidney Street, Petty Cury, Market Hill and Market Street - girls in one direction, boys in the other. We'd go in twos or threes and it was all very innocent and fun. We weren't really hoping to find our Mr or Miss Right - we were just being young peacocks!' Mrs Hinchcliffe's cousin, Mrs Muriel Wiles, described a similar ritual at the bandstand on Christ's Pieces [ here ]. Back to Mrs Hinchcliffe's recollections: 'It was exciting being young. There were lots ...