Issue No. 34 August 2014 (£1.50)
Zam Buk and the Cycle Road Connection (1 page)
Zam Buk was a herbal embrocation which soothed cuts, sores, bruises, chilblains, and insect bites while claims were also made that it had beneficial effects on all manner of additional ailments. It was only in the 1990s that Zam Buk ceased to feature on this country's pharmacy shelves. The Zam Buk Company had originally been set up to produce the ointment and its initial manufacture in this country commenced in 1903 at Leeds. The product sold well and manufacturing units were soon established in various parts of the British Empire including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Zam Buk became a household name in each of those countries. In the early years the company went in for nation-wide advertising campaigns in Britain which aimed to push the merits of their product. Adverts were placed in regional newspapers including those on sale in Nottingham. They frequently used personal testimonies to help sell their product. Looking through the local newspapers around the time of the First World War we came across a testimony extolling the healing powers of Zam Buk submitted by a Lenton resident. The person in question was Miss Louie Sissy/Sissie Dorothy Guest who lived with her parents at 84 Cycle Road. Our article reveals what else we learnt about this particular individual.
The Men Behind Zam Buk (1 page)
The Zam Buk Company had been established by Charles Edward Fulford and Ernest Albert Gilbert. Our article reveals a little more about these two individuals along with information about one of their other medicinal products known as 'Bile Beans'.
Miss Guest: A Personal Recollection (1 page)
No.46 Cycle Road was Jim Gamble's family home from the time of his birth in 1944 up to his marriage in 1968. Miss Guest continued to live at No.84 Cycle Road until the late 1950s and was quite a well-known 'character' among the many children living and playing on the street. Jim provides readers with a little of his own family history while also adding his own recollections of the person they knew as 'Sally' Guest.
The Spree Family: The Inside Story (3 pages)
In June 2013 a resident in Spain purchased an electronic copy of Lenton Times No.32, the issue containing the article on John Henry Spree, the Nottingham picture postcard publisher. We later received an email from the purchaser, one Alan Victor Spree, who told us he was the photographer's great grandson. Alan congratulated us on our efforts and gave us some additional information on the Spree family including the disappointing news that the family archive of John Henry Spree's many photographs was lost forever in the mid-1990s. This article, provided by Alan Spree, tells us more about his great grandfather, who was known to one and all as Jack Spree, plus other members of the Spree family who continued to live on the Wollaton Park housing estate until 1959.
Nottingham at War: 1914-1919 & Lenton: A Suburb's Sacrifice (1 page)
In the 1990s the Society established a project to learn more about the Lenton men and women who died as a result of the First World War. This has finally resulted in a publication. Nottingham at War: 1914-1919 & Lenton: A Suburb's Sacrifice was published in association with Leen Editions in August 2014. The first half of the book has been written by Peter Foster and amounts to some 160 pages which offer readers a year by year account of how the war impacted on the city. The second portion of the book, prepared by Stephen Zaleski, focuses on the Lenton Dead and occupies just over 100 pages. Not only does it feature profiles on almost everyone listed on the Lenton War Memorial it also details some ninety individuals whose names could have been included on the memorial but were left off.
So that readers can get a feel of what to expect if they purchase a copy of the book we have reproduced in the magazine three extracts from the book. They make up the next three articles listed here:
Nottingham 1914 & The Prelude to War (6 pages)
We reproduce the first half of Peter Foster's 1914 chapter which explains what was happening in Nottingham in the months leading up to the war. We also continue the story into the early days of war mobilisation. Accompanying the article are some of the illustrations used in the book, many of them adverts drawn from the Nottingham newspapers of the period.
A Suburb's Sacrifice: The Lenton War Memorial (2 pages)
This is a short section of the book which looks at the official unveiling of the Lenton War Memorial in May 1920; the project which started two years earlier to honour Lenton's dead; and the key role played by Albert Ball senior in its inception.
Lenton War Dead Profiles (1½ pages)
We include five sample profiles constructed for men listed on the Lenton War Memorial.
How to get your Own Copy of the Book (½ page)
This details the various ways readers can obtain a copy of the book. Those details are also available on this website if you click here.
Lenton's Almshouses: No.1 The John & Eliza Jelley Homes (6 pages)
The John and Eliza Jelley Homes, situated on Derby Road in Lenton were erected over the period 1923-26. John Jelley had died in 1914 and in his will required his executives to establish a trust which would build and maintain a set of almshouses bearing the name of his wife, Eliza and himself. There were various delays which meant it was some ten years before they could commission the buildings. Our article looks at what has happened to the homes in succeeding decades bringing the story up to the present day.
However the main portion of the article looks at the Jelleys themselves. By the end of his life John Jelley was a much-respected man. He had been a town councillor and was later to become an alderman and a justice of the peace while his professional career as a builder in Nottingham had brought him considerable wealth. None of this might have been predicted by anyone who had witnessed his early years growing up in Sneinton.
The Parish Church - On the Roof (1 page)
Holy Trinity Church, Lenton has dry rot in its roof. This was first spotted in early 2013 when a fungal fruiting structure appeared on a beam in the chancel ceiling. A scaffolding tower erected inside the church enabled expert scrutiny to confirm the problem along with the distressing realisation that infection had also spread to the wooden beams in the nave. The solution is to re-slate the church roof and repair stonework and guttering. It is clear that major funds are needed to remedy the situation. This article explains how you can help. While lenton Parish Church does need financial contributions to help it access external funding it also sees this as a major opportunity to re-engage with the history of the building and where it sits at the heart of the community.
The Willoughby Street Flats: Plumbing the Heights (2 pages)
Once he left Radford Boulevard School in 1958, Alan Carlyle, a Radford lad, became an apprentice plumber based at the Nottingham Co-op's Building Department on Abbey Street, Old Lenton. In 1966, at the age of twenty three, Alan got a job working on the new tower blocks under construction in New Lenton. Those same tower blocks are currently undergoing demolition so it seemed an ideal moment to get Alan to tell us a little about their construction and his experiences of working on them.
Society Snips (1½ pages)
Lenton Times - Issue 34 - Downloadable PDF Version
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