Thank you!



I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who responded to last week’s blog and for those who got in touch via the radio show I host on Mansfield 103.2.

  Having decided that my book would be set in Mansfield and Nottinghamshire in general and being set between 1951 and 1988, I needed to make sure that the places I was writing about existed then or had been popular haunts back in the day.

I can’t thank people enough for helping me date the Ladybrook estate in Mansfield, between us we managed to narrow it down to be being around from the late 1930’s. One of my listeners even got the deeds to his house out to check exactly when his house was built, because he knew that it was one of the first on the estate.
  It’s safe to say that Stanley Thomas will at some point in my book be terrorising the residents of Ladybrook, because as we know he’s a very bad man!

  Other places that will feature will be Mansfield General Hospital, which I remember as a really creepy place, my only trip there as a child was with my sister Lucy when she shoved a press-stud up her nose and refused to let my Mum get it out. I remember her screams filling the A&E waiting room as a pair of mental tongues were put up her nose to remove it!
  The hospital was built in 1887 and in 1950 a new block was built, so I’m pretty sure some of the people who got on the wrong side of Stanley would have wound up there. The hospital eventually closed in 1992, so Henry would have visited during his lifetime too.

  Lots of people suggested pubs, with one of the most popular being “The Black Boy” on the market place in Mansfield, which had a fearful reputation back in the day.

The Granada Cinema played host to bands such as the Beatles, Cliff Richard, Helen Shapiro and Tommy Steele during the 60’s and although Stanley would have been long gone by then, I think Henry and Maisy would have put on their dancing shoes and headed there for a night out.

Other people mentioned the Lidos that were in Clipstone and Pleasley, Sherwood Forest (plenty of places for Stanley to dispose of bodies there!) and of course Mansfield’s long-gone industries, Mansfield Brewery (I’m sure Stanley and Henry would agree that not much matches Mansfield)



Mansfield Shoe Co and of course the many pits that once surrounded our mining town, now of course there are just some of the headstocks left as a memory of industry that provided employment for many local families. I think Bentick Pit will get a mention because it’s where my Grandpa worked.

My Grandpa (on the right) 

One of the Pitheads you'll find around Mansfield


Once again, a massive thank you to everyone who helped out!

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