The Story So Far... Andy has been driving Debs and her wheelchair all over the original Arbury Estate ('Stop, chauffeur, in need of fish n' chips!' she said at one point), looking at the area, remembering the past, and having a good day of it. Starting in North Arbury at Arbury Town Park, the pair have visited the Arbury Community Centre in Campkin Road, the old Manor School site, North Cambridge Academy, Nicholson Way and Walker Court. Then it was over to South Arbury for Arbury Court and the Carlton Terrace shops and Carlton Arms in Carlton Way.  Sadly, they were too tired to get up to the North Arbury Chapel and Arbury Kebab van in Cameron Road, and the site of the legendary Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nuns Way playing field. They're now finishing off with a look at Carlton Way... Now, READ ON! The 1950s council-built houses in Carlton Way always say 'Arbury' to us, even when we see similar in Cherry Hinton. . . The Arbury Primary School made its debut...

Two of my South Arbury childhood joys - the hump and the hills. The hump, where we kicked up dust and rode our Chopper bikes, is sadly no more. Something I always tried to avoid on rainy Sundays way back then was listening to the Osmonds with cousin Sharon. Cousin Sharon had an old record player - a 1960s portable which had belonged to her mother - and she loved listening to records in her bedroom in Rutland Close. I have strong memories of her rain spattered window and the view of the Kingsway and lead grey sky beyond. Sharon was so overflowing with enthusiasm for Donny Osmond I felt quite unwell. This fixation was followed by another with the Bay City Rollers, then David Soul, and then John Travolta. None of them appealed to me.  We always listened to the charts at teatime on the radio. I think that only the Top 20 was broadcast then, but the pop scene was well established by the early 1970s. We even bought a magazine of current chart songs lyrics. I think this was published beca...

A couple of us Arbury Bloggers were strolling up Rutland Close in South Arbury the other day, when I was suddenly overcome with laughter.  And this was odd as we'd been discussing mental health issues and NHS waiting lists in the wake of the covid lockdowns. Somber indeed.  But, just seeing those familiar houses, caused my mind to suddenly produce an image of a bizarre vintage dolly saying, in neurotic tones and a heavy American accent, 'I'm falling apart - hur hur!'  This is the thing about walking around Arbury for me - memories lurk at every corner and over every roofline.  The bizarre remembered doll was called a Mattel Talk-Up Doll, released in the early 1970s. A young relative of mine, who lived in Rutland Close, had one of these - and the rest of us were amazed, amused and bemused by it.  Returning home, I found some wonderful footage of the doll on YouTube. So, you can experience it for yourself. It's very much a 'thing of its time' - but it's ...

Featuring short anecdotes of life in North and South Arbury. When he was a child in the 1890s, my great grandfather, at the Manor Farm on Arbury Road, believed that babies were found underneath a gooseberry bush.  Of course, being a thoroughly modern twentieth century child, I knew that wasn't true. My sister was born at my aunt's house in Rutland Close, South Arbury, in 1972. I, aged seven, was anxiously scanning the night sky from the back bedroom window at the time - waiting for The Stork to fly in over the Kingsway Flats.

Photo captioned 'South Arbury homes' from the 'Cambridge Evening News', 1972 - Kingsway Flats, Carlton Way. In more recent years, great kebabs have been sold here. In 1972, I'd never even heard of one! We lived in Cunningham Close on South Arbury, and it surprises a lot of people to hear that, although it was the early 1970s, some people were buying their council houses. Before the 1980s, council houses were sold - it depended on individual councils. In the '80s it simply became a right for all. We didn't buy ours - only a few people in the road were doing that. Quite a lot of people, when they bought their house, would put on a new front door - hard wood, latticed, with a few panes of bullseye glass for a Victorian look perhaps, and might put up a Victorian style lamp by their door. It wasn't that people were desperate to be 'retro' as we call it nowadays - but Victorian style looked 'nice' and 'posh'. Anyway, every decade has i...