Thirty-four days after I was born on the third of January 1952 at Falloden Nursing Home in Chapel Allerton, I became an Elizabethan. Since that day, apart from five years of study, I have lived and worked all my life less than 2 miles from the site of Falloden. To say that Chapel A has changed somewhat in the reign of Elizabeth is indeed an understatement.

I was the youngest of three children and my parents’ relationship was very much a product of the times they lived in. My mother’s father worked at Barnbow and unfortunately, like many of his colleagues, he died in 1917 as a result of a chest infection caused by working with the poisonous chemicals. Her mother died from kidney failure as a result of a bad fall in icy conditions in the early twenties. By now, however, her eldest sister had married a recently returned soldier and moved into a nearly new bungalow on Stainbeck Lane and she was invited to come and live with them in Chapel Allerton.

Meanwhile, my father’s family were colliers from Durham but unfortunately my grandfather suffered serious brain damage as result of a mining accident. The family situation was made worse by the Great Depression, so the decision was made to join my father’s eldest brother in Leeds who had just obtained a job working for the newly formed Magnet Joinery. As a result, my father ended up living in Norfolk Gardens five minutes from Stainbeck Lane.

Visits to the Nags Head, Regent and the Parochial Hall Saturday night dances inevitably brought father and mother together, but their growing relationship was interrupted by the events of 1939. Father immediately volunteered and spent the next six years seeing action in North Africa, Sicily, and Monte Cassino. Meanwhile, meanwhile, had been hand selected to move to London to work for Lord Beaverbrook at the Ministry of Aircraft Productions based at Mill Bank, reputedly the most bombed target in London and spent most of the Blitz sleeping under the kitchen table. 

Shortly after being demobbed, father and mother were finally able to marry, and my two sisters soon arrived on the scene followed by myself a little later. By this time, we were living in the Pastures next to the park in the centre of a suburb that was definitely more Chapel Allerton than Chapel A. It was in every way middle of the road, neither on the edge or in the centre, neither rich or poor, simply nowt nor summat. It was the sort of place that simply shut down at closing time and never really bothered opening at all on Sundays. Great excitement was caused by the bank holiday half-hour drinking extension. Alwoodley or Moortown was the place to be.

My early years consisted of endless freedom to roam around the park and Gledhow Valley Woods playing cowboys and Indians which graduated into more sophisticated English and Germans as my friends and I grew older. The period up to Bonfire Night was marked by standing nightly patrols to prevent raids from rival bonfire builders. This was followed by the sledging season, particularly during the winter of ’63 when my eleven plus had to be delayed because the outside school toilets were frozen solid. By now I had become a proud member of the Bad Lads Gang (a homage to Just William’s Outlaws) together with the Grub Club when we pooled our money to buy yesterday’s penny buns from Verona Creameries on the way to our weekly visit to the library. This was as exciting as it got because Chapel A had not yet begun to stir.

As I entered my teenage years, however, things began to happen and, as I became a father of four, things were definitely beginning to stir. Casa Mia opened along with Hendys estate agent who became famous for his wonderful descriptions (the living room is depressingly small and has no features). This appealed to the young graduate professionals tired of the Headingley mayhem and so in the reign of Elizabeth Chapel Allerton became Chapel A. Call me old fashioned if you like but unlike many young people today, I do like to party so rock on Leeds and rock on Chapel A.