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- anacortesdamp - 18-Oct-2010
Dan:
Would that be Doctor Cank, by any chance? He was our GP when I was a little lad.
Frank
- Black Five - 18-Oct-2010
I remember my Dad mentioning the builder Ben Cank, and I think he built Dad's bungalow in Brownedge Road, Bamber Bridge, in the late 1920s. It seems unlikely that the same Cank was also Frank's GP. Dan's mention of the jollop applied to hair after cutting reminds me of the first time I had a professional haircut, in contrast to previously having had it cut for free by one of Dad's work friends. I was probably about 9 at the time. After coming out of the barber's in Tardy Gate I touched the top of my head and it felt very strange, much like a stiff block of shredded wheat. I suppose he applied some sort of setting lotion to consolidate the "quiff".
- filmoss - 18-Oct-2010
Did you know that Arthur Scargill was the only person who could handle 3 Shredded wheat ! He used to eat 2 and put the other one on his head !! [8D]
- Colin Damp - 25-Jan-2011
Two strands - Fred Brace and Dr Cank.
I had my hair cut by Fred in the 60s. I didn't know about his military service, but believe he had once played saxophone in a dance band. At any rate, he would hum the sax part to whatever was playing on the Light Programme as he snipped. I learnt a lot about harmony and part-singing that way.
Dr Cank I don't remember. But I can recall my dad saying he used to have a surgery in our old house (No 7 Church Road) at one time. Apparently he would walk into the waiting room (our entrance hall) and greet waiting patients with the words "So which of you lazy buggers just want sick notes, then" and put them to the top of the list to be swiftly dispatched before he concentrated on the genuinely sick.
I seem to remember being told that he worked part of the time at PRI, but had to give that and maybe his surgery too because he was had up for drunk driving.
Ironically, of course, after we moved out of No 7 around 1961 the house became a doctor's surgery again as we sold it to Drs Raven, McDowell and Hall.
- noel - 25-Jan-2011
My mother pointed out Dr Cank once at PRI, an overweight scruffy chap who later she told me he'd been dismissed from the hospital for being drunk on duty. Another doctor with a drink problem was Dr O'Donald or was it O'Donnell, I was never sure, surgery on Hough Lane at the time near the church. He got banned from driving and my dad ended up driving him to his outpatients for a while.
- anacortesdamp - 26-Jan-2011
It was O'Donnell, Noel. I think he lived in that big house on the corner of Quin St and had his surgery there. The house was demolished and a bank built on the site sometime in the late 60s.
Frank
- noel - 26-Jan-2011
Thankyou Frank. I remember him as a tall thin featured man. For some reason he insisted on playing top of the pop music on a reel to reel tape recorder that were just becoming the fashion ( I think, though I was quite young at the time, maybe 6 or 7)
- anacortesdamp - 27-Jan-2011
I didn't know him that well. Maybe Eileen's family were his patients, before my integration into that family. Later, they were patients of an Indian or Pakistani doctor (Dr. Rao) whose surgery was somewhere near the Hough Lane off-licence shop.
Until I was about 6, we were patients of Dr. Cank. He looked after my unfortunate encounter with a broken beer bottle on St. Annes beach in about 1946, but he had retired (or something) about the time Colin was born, and we were re-assigned to Dr. Raven. He had his surgery in that cul-de-sac off Sandy Lane opposite Balcarres Place (whose name escapes me at the moment) and I think he lived in the big house adjoining. He subsequently joined forces with Dr. John Hall, initially at that location, and then they bought our old house at No.7 Church Road and added a third doctor. We moved to Hargreaves Avenue and then Eileen and I were married and moved to the Midlands.
Raven and Hall converted downstairs of Number 7 into examining rooms and reception (in the main entry hall)and the receptionist and her family lived on the upper floor of the house after it was converted into a self-contained flat.
When the house was first built, downstairs and upstairs rooms had to be the same footprint, as there weren't the structural beams available that later allowed different wall configurations on the two levels. It was my Dad's grandmother's house, but I don't know if they were the first owners. As a result, there was this gargantuan entry hall, probably 12 feet square, which was no use for anything except hanging your coat up. I think my Dad was more interested in getting his grandmother's house than in the practicalities of living there. Overall, though, it worked out quite well and we lived there from 1950 until about 1959 or 60.
My cousin and I were into model airplanes and had a workshop in the cellar of the house. We did some very foolish things, like running model engines down there with no ventilation and mixing fuel for the engines with Amyl Nitrate as an additive. How we got Mr. Baker (the Towngate Chemist) to sell us that stuff, I'll never know!
This is another illustration of how separate the Towngate and Hough Lane parts of town were. Those of us around the Cross rarely ventured as far as Hough Lane, even though, in our case, our ironmonger's shop was closer to Hough Lane than the Cross. As far as I was concerned, the area around the Cross was the "Town Centre". It's amusing to find that the regeneration scheme considers Hough Lane to be the center (thank-you, Tesco).
Frank
- Jerryt - 27-Jan-2011
Hiya Frank and all on the Forum - Happy New Year!
The street that Dr Cank had his surgery in (and lived in) was Pembroke Place - I lived just across the road at 46 Sandy Lane and used to play with his daughter, Elisabeth - there was a younger son too; I dont remember a mother. We caught sparrows in their large garden with a box tipped on a stick with a string to us behind a bush and bread bait under the box. Also I recall Elisabeth secretly showing me a loose stair tread in their house and in the cavity under it there were dozens of (empty) pill bottles - why, I've no idea, but it seemed like treasure trove to us 6 or 7 year olds!
Jerry Threlfall
- Karen - 27-Jan-2011
I went to school with Elizabth, we travelled on the
bus together, along with Mary Carrol ... Dr Carrol's daughter.