Colourised – Waltham High Street by Doncaster Rotophoto c1920.

An original, unposted postcard by The Doncaster Rotophoto Co., Ltd. This company was only in business from sometime after WW1 until 1923. The ’88’ in the postcard code signifies the place and the ’25’ the individual photo.

We are indebted to Alan Fletcher for his comments on this photograph which make it come alive:

Albeit 50 years later, it is much the same as when I was a boy. At the front of the photograph is the point where Buck Beck goes under the High Street. It was later culverted when they built the new Kings Head. The double gates on the left was the tradesman’s entrance to the vicarage. Then came the Church Hall where we congregated weekly for a church youth club type of thing. The King’s Messengers, collecting pennies for Water Aid in Africa sticks in my mind. Then followed the cottages, the Hutsons and Lancasters lived there then. Next was the Kings Head, the white building, then the Post Office, followed by a wool and sewing accessories shop which Barbara Merryweather’s mum managed. Then Pete Spencer’s garage which was behind Martin Thornaley’s shop. Then Adams groceries and beer-off. Then another couple of cottages before Tasker’s Butchers. The first cottage on the right was a Fish & Chip shop, later to become Corden’s Florists for many years. It was in this terrace row of cottages that I was born 68 years ago. My father told that they were to be demolished, thus our move to 49 Fairway. Mrs Vance had a electrical/cycle shop in the penny school now a deli/cafe, I believe. Beyond which in the old bakery was Eddie Belk’s Ironmongers and finally the Fire Station.