LETTER: 92-year-old shares memories of Bitterne Park, Southampton

I do not live in Southampton, but I was born there. I lived there until 2013, then moved to Kent.

My son gave me the Echo in which the topic on the heritage page was all about Bitterne Park, its buildings, its bridges and the old clock tower.

I well remember the clock tower when it was in the town and the removal of it, to its present site. I was about nine years old and I well remember the shops.

There was a cake shop, veg, newspaper and on the corner was the chemist.

Mr Riddle would make up prescriptions.

Echo (Image: Echo)

I used to be asked by my granny to go to Mr Riddle’s and get the cough mixture.

I know that prescription off by heart, even to this day.

It cost three pence and it always made us better.

The shop had leaded windows to the top of the rounded bays - all colours.

We lived in Ashtree Road and I first went to Dundee Road School where my teacher was Miss Humphreys.

Later I went to Bitterne Park School. My uncle was one of the first to go there and he left the next day aged 14.

The present Cobden Bridge was opened in the late 1920s.

Echo (Image: Echo)

I well remember sitting in my pushchair, my mother pushed me from home to the St Denys part of the bridge and there was a crowd there and a white satin ribbon stretched across the whole of the road. A gentleman with scissors cut the ribbon and pronounced the bridge open.

I was three and the memory is so clear.

To me, your heritage page was so very interesting. My granny told me it [the Daily Echo] used to be 1 penny and she read it from front to back.

She also told me that when the tide was down, she walked across on the stones to St Denys by the old rowing club. That must have been roughly in the 1860s.

From MAY JUNE STRONG of Kent.

• To share your memories of growing up in the city, or about anything you see on these pages, email iancrump@dailyecho.co.uk – we’d love to hear from you!