NOSTALGIA: Starter for 10... when did these two appear in Portsmouth, and where?
In this Edwardian photograph we are looking west along Marmion Road, Southsea, from Victoria Road South.
To the immediate left is Lennox Road North which led to Clarendon Road.
At this time Marmion Road had its western junction with Palmerston Road. That part of Palmerston Road is now called Grove Road South.
The pub in the distance belonging to Portsmouth brewer Long’s is the Kings Arms.
The shop with the curved glass leading into Lennox Road North is up for let.
The unmistakable spire of St Jude’s Church dominates the scene.
Just behind the camera and out of shot was St Jude’s Church hall where the Judian Boys’ Club held sway.
My late father used to run the successful Judian Boys football team in the late 1940s after he arrived home after five years in Egypt serving with the dockyard.
In the modern view much has changed.
Lennox Road North has been cut short and is now an entrance to a car park.
The shop with the curved window has been demolished and a comparatively new building stands in its place.
Waitrose now dominates on the left.
The former Kings Arms is now called The Marmion.
I had a devil of a job comparing these two scenes accurately.
However, if you look up to the right hand side there is a cornice under the guttering with a bay window beneath and either side of it.
As you can see, the left hand bay window remains while the other has been replaced by a flat window.
• I was talking to my pal Pete Cross, the veteran DJ on Angel Radio, Havant, about Laurel and Hardy appearing in Portsmouth.
‘Ah yes,’ I said, ‘1948 at the Kings Theatre.’
‘No, no,’ said Pete, ‘ four years after that date, 1952 and 1954 at the Theatre Royal.’ To prove it he sent me a poster from the time showing the duo really did appear at the Royal, then in Commercial Road but now in Guildhall Walk.
As Ollie was born in 1892 and Stanley in 1890 they would have been in their early sixties when they appeared.