I was born in 1977 and lived first of all down on Broadfields and I think I was probably about three or four when we moved up to Rowan Close and I went to school at St. Wildfred's Calverton and then went up to Colonel Frank Seeley Secondary School.
I'd say that my main memories from my time in Calverton all kind of centre around time spent at the riding school.
I started riding there when I was nine and that was due to my godmother taking me for a horse riding lesson, actually up at Trent Valley but I was so keen that I wanted to start riding so my parents arranged for me to have a riding lesson and I used to go I think it was every, maybe, every Sunday morning.
Is that at St Clement's?
Yes, so St Clement's Lodge riding school so just up the lane from Main Street opposite the Admiral Rodney Pub is where it was, next to the main park. I used to go once a week from a riding lesson and eventually I think I was about 18 when I stopped … my time there but during that time I graduated from, just riding basically, spending the majority of my childhood there.
Because I would be there as much as possible helping, with the horses and ponies, taking them up and down to the field on Main Street where we used to go - we'd have a walk up there all the way up to the top of Main Street and then we'd have a little ride around there and then come back. But I used to take the ponies up there when they were turned out in the fields after the sort of days in the riding school and also we used to have fields up on just on the left at Bonner Hill so we used to take them back to the field and climb all the way to the top of Bonner Hill and then turned them out for the night up there and then go back sort of the following day but yeah lots and lots of happy memories of many many many hours spent at the riding school with the horses and ponies.
So who actually owned the riding school?
So it was owned by Mr and Mrs Burroughs and they had a son Nicholas Burroughs and then a daughter Virginia Burroughs and it was Julie who was sort of the one of the instructors there who later married Nicholas Burroughs and I believe they're still sort of together today.
We used to go out for days and some holidays we'd go to the seaside, all the helpers would go and feel like a day out sometimes as well there were lots and lots of us up there and we'd walk to the chippy at lunch time get some chips and go back and go up to the news agents- I forget what it was called now- one at the bottom of George's Lane, I can't remember what it was called but yeah we'd get a one-pound mix and basically a hundred small sweets in a bag and yeah enjoy those sort of in the afternoon. We'd eat lots of pot noodles and yeah just we'd have water fights on the yard when it was really hot.
And yeah just lots and lots of fun times … yeah it was good times there was yeah I enjoyed my childhood.