The second photograph, taken in 1960, shows the view from the Trent Bridge looking down Bridge Rd. As the two pictures below show,the view has altered considerably. The far section of Bridge Rd. has been replaced by a dual carriageway (Thorndike Way) and the large house on the left of the junction is now a petrol station.

Kate says:
My father is the boy in the foreground centre of the photo aged nine years he is looking towards the man in uniform whose back is to us. We also have a copy of the photo in my mothers possessions.

Christine informs me that "the large house on Bridge Road which is now a petrol station, was the house and workshop of my late grandfather, J A Donson. He set up a joinery and undertakers business there in Victorian times, which was eventually continued by one of his sons, George Bernard Donson. Sons being non- existent in the following generation, when my Uncle Bernard retired, the property was sold for its present use. I believe the undertaking business still exists under the same name, continued at an address in Lea.

My grandfather, [who I never saw], is probably one of the people in the photograph of the "freeing" of the bridge. He owned a lot of shares in the old toll bridge system, which the government of the day had to buy, in order to make the bridge free for all wishing to use it."

And Richard writes:

Here is one of my earliest memories, it concerns my grandmother Mason's home, also demolished as one of the worst slums in town! She lived on Bridge Hill in a one up-one down, I remember there was to my youthful amazement no running water in the property, only a stand pipe in the front yard common to the "row"-of houses-(hovels?). Grandma was a lovely serene looking and rather chubby lady who wore a long black bombazine dress, with her hair in a "bun", Victorian we might now say. How did she and Granddad raise three boys and one girl in such circumstances? Her downstairs room, the only one I saw I remember as a neat and clean room. I don't remember much else, but I loved an ink pot in the shape of a French soldier's helmet-of WW1 doubtless a souvenir of my Dads, and a glass ornament in the shape of a "walking stick" on the wall, full of tiny coloured beads in alternating coloured bands, I coveted those items!

The latter is in the home of my only surviving relative that I know, my Dad's sister's daughter, cousin Mavourneen, now in her 90's living in Letchworth. I did not know until she recently told me that Grandma's home was also without a toilet, no not even outside! A fair way across the yard to a neighbour's house-good God!