THE pictures from the St Michael’s Lane Coronation party sparked a great deal of interest and not a few very nostalgic memories for many people who were part of that ‘family’.

Particularly so for Betty-Jayne Scadding who kindly loaned us these pictures.

In one of the pictures shown, her mum Yvonne Stoodley is holding daughter Mary, dressed as John Bull and on the left is Betty-Jayne, dressed as Bo-Peep, aged four, and sister Sally who was Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

On the picture with more party-goers is again Betty’s mum holding the baby. There is a Mrs Hoskins, with Carole on the right and a Mrs Tattershall with black beret.

Mrs Tattershall always had three little girls come to stay – Margaret Winters, Susan Winters but I don’t remember the third girl.

I don’t know if they were nieces but they always came holiday times.

“Behind Mrs Tattershall is Vera Stoodley and her husband John Sutherland.

“They got married in the January and I am pretty sure they are our bridesmaids’ dresses.

“I just think it is lovely because we were Rope Walks but all the families were so caring of one another.

“And we have all got happy memories of all of it.

“It was so funny opening the paper and seeing me in there.

“It was the heart of Bridport.

“I got married in ’65 and I had my son Mark in ’66 – I think the cottages came down in ’67.

“I always remember pushing him down there in the pram to pick up some bricks from our cottage.

“But when I saw the bulldozers for the Hope and Anchor that was it.

“They knocked them all down and the beautiful Drill Hall for the car park.

“They wouldn’t get away with it now, they would all be listed.

“Out cottage was next to the coal yard and I used to go through Hussey’s every morning to catch the bus to go to Colfox.”

She always got a cake going to school and one coming home.

“On a Friday I used to run through there and run in the back of Frosts and see if I could get there before the first Bridport News came off the press because they printed there.”

She remembers the pub of course, the Star garage in what is now the supermarket in West Street Husseys, Frosts and Snooks were all there then. Roberts’ bakehouse which is now Oxfam and the decorating shop used to be a big garage and the hearse used to go in there.

“Everybody got put in council houses and got split up but we are all still friends.

“It is like old family. There was a school down there and there was a little side door.

“Mrs Grinter used to clean the school and I used to go in there before school while she was cleaning so it was nothing to me during the morning when I started school to go out the side door and go home and see my nan and my mum.

“The headmaster used to come and say ‘can I have Betty-Jayne back?’ In the end they locked the door.”

The other photograph is a day out from the Hope and Anchor with many of the Ackerman family and pretty much the whole of St Michael’s Lane, says Mrs Scadding.

Someone else who was pleased to see the photos was Caroline Sharp – the granddaughter of the man marching with the band.

She said: “The picture of the band with the man walking with them with the small drum is apparently my granddad.

“We think it was the Salvation Army band because he was in the Salvation Army.

“I never knew him as he passed away before I could remember.

“My mum told me when she saw the picture.”

Neither Caroline or her mum Sheila Manley live in Bridport any more but her mum still visits each week to see family and saw the Looking Back feature.

She had a brother, Michael Northover, and they lived at West Bay Road.

Grandad’s name was Northover but she doesn’t know his first name.