The fourth part of Mrs Grace Hinchcliffe's memories, contributed to the Arbury Archive in the mid-to-late 1980s. Mrs Hinchcliffe (1910-1998) was Andy's grandmother. She had a marvellous memory and her recollections of Old Arbury and Chesterton life - and her maternal grandparents' home in Vicarage Terrace - always held Andy spell-bound. 'I remember going over to Arbury one day, and it was just starting to rain when I set out from Milton Road. Just spitting. When I got to Manor Farm, I went to see Grandma and I was sitting in her big old kitchen and she was making a pie and I was watching her, cutting up the meat and rolling out the pastry, and the old wind started blowing outside and the rain was coming down real fast and pattering on the window and the window frames were rattling... old sash windows they were... and it was really gloomy in there, but cosy.  'I was chattering away to Grandma and she was chattering away to me and it was lovely. I was thinking the oth...

The Manor Schools (boys' and girls') as they originally were in 1960. Andy takes us back to his first impressions of the Manor School in 1977... My cousin Sharon (not her real name - she insists on anonymity) and her mate - another Sharon (not her real name either, but her name was the same as my cousin's), used to walk to school together and my mother insisted I went with them on my first day at Manor. I was disgusted. Cousin Sharon was more like a big sister to me than a cousin, and although I thought the world of her, we got on each other's nerves like nobody's business. And cousin Sharon's friend, Sharon, was one of those blonde headed girls who was always flicking her hair around like she was in a Silvakrin advert. And they talked about incomprehensible and disgusting things - like who was the best looking, David Soul or Paul Michael Glazer. I mean, YUCK! I walked several paces behind them, and scowled. They didn't like me being there either and kept f...

The second part of Mr Cardinal's memories finds the harvest beginning on the Arbury fields... 'The Arbury' By Gordon Cardinal Part Two As my brother Bert was the eldest, he started to help my father on the milk round before me. That would be before he went to school in the morning (6am start), Saturdays and Sundays, and school holidays (our schools were then first to Milton Road Juniors then on to Chesterton Senior School in Gilbert Road). The early round was for customers who liked their milk on the doorstep before they got up - mostly half pints. When that round was finished, Father would load up the milk float and set off on the main round. The 'extra' items carried in those days would be eggs and cardboard pots of cream at weekends. As I got older, so it became my turn to help as well, but my interests were always elsewhere! Sometimes I would go and help Grandfather Cardinal, who lived in Victoria Road. I would go with him to his 'allotment', which was a...

After the publication of Arbury Is Where We Live! in 1981, Sallie Purkis wrote in History Today (1983): 'The establishment of an Arbury archive has scarcely begun'. Several local people were working to address the issue. Mr Gordon Cardinal wrote to the Cambridge Weekly News in 1982, inspired by the book and a feature on Arbury Road - part of the paper's local history series. The Arbury Archive contacted Mr Cardinal, who was a very helpful gentleman, and he happily agreed to write about his memories of Arbury life in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s for us. Mr Cardinal died in the 1990s. He was very keen to deposit his memories somewhere so that they may benefit future generations, and his enthusiasm and fondness for Arbury shone through on each page of his manuscript. Now, for the first time, via the miracle of the World Wide Web, we would like to share extracts from his work, which he called The Arbury .  The memories begin about ten years after the ending of the Arbury Story ...

The old homestead - Cunningham Close on South Arbury. This was my childhood home and it was here as a little 'un that I learned the concept of left and right. I stood on that corner and memorised the fact that we lived on the left and the other side was the right. Even now, when my poor addled old brain is required to work out right from left, I still spontaneously summon up a mental image of Cunningham Close. It might be nice to be able to write that I attended one of the Arbury primary schools, but I didn't, despite living in Cunningham Close on South Arbury. When I started school, I lived in Stretten Avenue - then considered as 'New Chesterton' by its inhabitants and, indeed, the home of the New Chesterton Window Cleaning Company - but residing in 'Castle Ward', electorally.  My mother had attended Milton Road School, as had my grandmother, and so I was sent there. When we moved to Cunningham Close, I expected to be moved to Arbury School on South Arbury or t...