With all due respect to any of you who lived there, but I just fail to understand why so much attention is paid to Hilden and why they would write a book about the place escapes me.?? I often rode my Post Office bike down Bridge Street and Mill street during the war and to me they were no different than Young Street or Longstone street or any other street in Lisburn.

I know Barbour's Mill was located there which provided employment for a lot of people but so did Stewarts Mill off Antrim Place and the Island Mill off Canal Street and we never hear about the communities who lived around these mills. Just wondering ?? Mauri

hello mauri in all due respect to your article hilden what was so special. you have answered your query by your own statement I rode a bike down through hilden and never noticed anything special about it. perhaps if you had gotten of your bike and took the time to speak and get to know the people you rode past you wouldn't have been so presumptious to make such a statement. this was a tight knit mixed community the like of which simply does not exist today. having read some of your past contributions to the forums I can only thank god for you and john wayne for saving the world.

Mauri,
I think you are trying to compare apples with pears when comparing Hilden with the Longstone or Canal Street.
Hilden was a mill village, built to serve the needs of the mill, ie, to provide a plentiful supply of employees to the mill. The Low Road was exactly the same as most of the houses there before the post war building boom were, in fact, mill houses.
I think the reason why it attracts so much comment on here is simply because people who lived in the area are by – and – large the main contributors to the forum(apart from your good self).
Given the situation at home with regards to religion the fact that the school was a mixed religion school, the only one of its kind, possibly in the whole of NI, and certainly the only one in the Lisburn area, is something to cherish and be proud of – I certainly am.
My views on the book will appear in due course on the relevant subject.
I enjoy reading your postings of your various travels and travails and whilst I may never reply, I can still enjoy them.

Mauri,
I grew up on Spruce St.
and I have been wondering the same thing.
I don't know where the school is(was).
I knew where the bus stop was and the station,
going to work five days a week.
It has befuddled me for a long time.
I know Stewarts, Pump Lane.

unbleivable that someone living in Spruce Street ( those houses were also built by Barbour and the street was named after their factory in USA, similar to Grand Street)does not know where Hilden school was. It was less than one mile away.
donald

gosh a genuine mystery on the forum at long last. itll rank up there with underground lakes and little blind trout. (an in joke only dedicated forumers will get) Carolina it is totally inconceivable that you did not know where hilden school was. quite a lot of your neighbours children would have went there. I am completely intrigued. when did you live in spruce street?

Mauri,


The Low Road & Hilden was indeed a very special place, (once upon a time).

A mixed community too that lived their different lives without rancour because they all were born & reared together & fortunately or unfortunately knew all about each other from day one. SO don't talk or act out of place or you will be reminded of .......? Keeps people in their place in other words.

We were a place apart from you left Castle St & turned off to the side road at Millbrook you were entering an entirely different Lisburn area. Most of the residents were employees of the Mill for generations, either Mill or Office workers or other jobs for the Mill owners. We were like Upstairs Downstairs, all for one & one for all.

Everyone knew everyone fro birth to death, much was said & done separately but in the confines of each community & no outside interference was tolerated. We had our differences but in the long run we were a family.

Hardly anyone left for other places or jobs as this family atmosphere was the norm. I don't think other areas had the same security of jobs or houses as the Low Rd or Hilden so it was a very special place.

Pat

"Whew". Folks I am convinced that Hilden is a special place in your lives I guess I have been away too long to notice the difference.

However Eamonlowecase has nobody ever told you that sarcasam is the lowest form of wit?? I have never professed to have saved the world but don't compare me with John Wayne, my twenty years service in three Navies and an Air Force are real his is Holywood fiction. How many years and what service did you serve in? and to use a good old
American phrase. "Kiss my Ass" and "Have a good Day" Mauri

wit and a sense of humour is what I do have mauri. while you were out saving the world I stayed at home and sold nylons and cigarettes on the black market and kept all the lonely wives happy. it was a dirty job but somebody had to do it. p s congratulations you have singlehandedly revived the forum.

Mauri, yesterday morning I attempted to reply to your query on what made Hilden and the Low Road special. After a short time my PC froze. In the end I had to take it to the shop and have it looked at. It's OK now, as you can see. (dropping it at 5 am yesterday morning will not have helped). Pat has ore or less answered your question and I totally agree with her. Hilden and the Low Road were very special. Our whole lives were spent there; apart from going to the pictures, we didn't need to go outside our little homeland. We had everything there that a child or grown up would want. AND, as Pat says, we all knew one another. You wouldn't have walked anywhere without someone stopping you or speaking to you. You knew you could always rely on help if anything happened, whether coming from school or even as an adult. Generation after generation lived, worked and died there. It was the best place in the whole world at that time. Mauri, I wish someone from another area of the town would come on. I would be very interested to find out how others enjoyed themselves in their youth. SO, how about you, Mauri. Can you give us a bit of chat about the Longstone?

Carolina, I cannot believe that you didn't know of Hilden School. Are you sure it was Spruce St in Lisburn that you lived? Did you not know or play with anyone who attended Hilden School. I am sure that there were children from Spruce Street who attended Hilden. You must have lived a very sheltered life.

got..y'all..

Eamonlowercase ( lonely wife comforter )
Not nice of you to insulate ( sorry insult) our friend and contributor . His reply "kiss my ass"! was very American, we would say in Hilden norniron " stick your nose up my fawn costume"! but then we never forgot where we came from = Hilden. Of course there were exceptions,I still think about those who left Lisburn to work in London and after about 14 days returned with such a Cockney accent we could not understand them.
donald

Eamonlowercase
Another point I would like to make clear is that John Wayne was a sheperd, not a cowboy as most people think, It was reported that once when he and a number of others were camping out in the prairie when they were attacked by an Indian tribe, he shouted to his fellow campers " Come,lets get the flock out of here"!
donald

Donald, well, well, well! Sigh, sigh, sigh! In a land full of bullets and enmity, some people including some exiles, always astonish me in finding fault and making fun of or being sarcastic about people who have lost their Ulster accents! It is so very boring. A person can have the accent they want or find they have after years away. Why should keeping an accent be something to be so very proud of??????? It is a form of snobbery, not to lose your accent, but to gripe about anyone who has!!!!!!!!

Liz

Liz
I learned here in Bavaria an accent and dialect is part of a person´s heritage and tradition , something to be proud of and not ashamed. I remember my gran and other elderly people in and around Hilden trying to disguise their accent, it sounded horrible thinking back.My geat uncle Ned never tried to speak with an English accent ( to quote Alexander Irvine in his book " My lady of the chimney corner" called it " Ape the foe" . I once wrote here that one rainy evening walking down the line when some English visitors passed him. He remarked " it´s a coorse one ". One vistor asked his companion " What did he say"?
donald

Ach sure I don't care how anybody talks, as long as they don't mind how I talk!

Folks, For those who are interested after 71 years from leaving Lisburn I am told I still have a Northern Ireland accent, however if I were to use Irish expressions most of which I have forgotten people would probably say "Whats that again" some people loose their accents more so than others, I had an uncle who served in the RAF for nearly 40 years and he had a distinct English accent while a couple of his brothers who immigrated to Australia in the late 1920s still had traces of their Northern Ireland accents in the mid 60s. Anyway as Liz more or less says who the hell cares I know I don't. Mauri

Ann, I really can't tell you a whole lot about the Longstone,I was only 15 when I left it to go in the Royal Navy, and in the succeding years for the first year I was at the boy's training school in England I was home every four months or so,then on my first ship I was away for a year and one half stationed in South Africa.

My early childhood was spent in Warren Park Avenue then we moved around to the Longstone just before the war. The war years deprived kids of my generation in my view of a normal life especially after the dirty thirties when there was so much unemployment,and untill employment really improved in the war years with aircraft factories in Long kesh , Megaberry and Old Hillsborough Road etc.

The only social life that I remember in the Longstone was the old time dancing in the little hall beside Topping's Pub and some kind of community meetings they had in the "Free School",talking about schools the Free to the best of my knowledge was the oldest Elementry School in Lisburn and area being opened in the 1860s.

When I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in 1950,it was nearly nine years before I saw Lisburn again and then only on a fleeting visit from the USA for the funeral of my Grandmother who had brought me up. So Ann while I could talk about some of the people I knew on the Longstone there wouldn't really be much interesting to relate at least not in my opinion. It was nice talking to Pat's husband Joe when they were over here, while he's not from the Longstone,Brookvale drive is pretty close and he knew some people that I knew. Have a Great weekend. Mauri

Ann, finally back on line.
Still "digging" out from hurricane Mathew.
We had the worst direct hit..lots of damage.
Yes I lived on Spruce St..near Tom McCabe, we lived in the circle. By the way
they were council houses NOT mill houses.
Of course I knew where Hilden school was(is), just thought
I would get a "rise" out of y'all.
Sorry I got so many upset.
Voted for Trump...now what?
Carolina Irish.

i've been here 43 years and still have my accent any remarks, i just say i've never found a better one. but when in norn iron i've had people say tom you're using words i haven't heard in years

Tom
Yir the quare geg!
donald

Carolina great to hear from you. You really did wind us up 're Hilden School. Sorry to hear about the hurricane. At least we don't have to deal with extreme weather here. It had been mild until today. Now the cold weather has arrived. Despite my telling him a few weeks ago not to cut the dead flowers off the hydrangeas, Dominic was let loose yesterday with clippers. K When I looked out the hydrangeas were minus their flowerheads. I nearly eat him and was cross all day. He's a demon with clippers
Should have been a barber. So you voted for Trump. Over here he comes across as a fool although with all his money he can't be. However he's not popular in this country and personally I don't look forward to him being President. I can hardly believe that those two were the best that America could come up with, but Hilary would have been my choice and anyone I've spoken to has agreed with me.

Mauri, thanks for that.

Tom the weather today would cut ya.

I always thought that Hilden School was special as it was an interdenominational School one of the first in Ireland or N Ireland. The book is mostly about the school and some about the area. Lisburn Tech was interdenominational as well and that didn't do any harm. When you know people of the opposite faith it helps a lot. Ann and Donald would agree. By the way I lived in the County Down !
Carolina Irish shame on you don't you remember the area you lived in a part of your childhood.

Margaret . go back and read ALL of the posts.
I am really SORRY that I tried to have a little
"fun".
When I lived in Lisburn most folks had that "fun".
Ask Mauri..and stand back!!
CI.

Hello Ann,
You are astute in your thinking.
I have to disagree with you about Hillary..
(probably Mauri will get upset..again.)
She is so corrupt, for so long, THAT is why the
hinterland..oops wrong country, sorry Mauri voted for change.
This country is totally Sick of Hill and Billary and their "likes". OBAMA. (OH..the muslim brotherhood)
How do you go from "broke, stealing from the White House,to millionaire ?
Canada,thats the answer...
Mauri, do you have a spare room..
Caroline..a

it's going to be an interesting year. not only hilary got the flick, but maybe france and germany will follow, and brexit is now a favourite in lots of countries. so, interesting?
that's according to the few newspaper reporters who had forseen the usa turnaround

Margaret, have you been in M&S lately? I see you are from the Co Down. SO, come on and tell us what you got up to as a wee girl, where you played, and what you did on rainy days. (we had the EMB Hall). Regarding the Tech., I think I said in other posts that coming from a small, homely school as the Convent was, I felt lost in the Tech. Changing classrooms for different subjects, a bell ringing after 40 mins to let you know the lesson was over and the strictness didn't suit me at all. Then there were the boys, which was a new experience for any of us who had attended an all-girls school. I rebelled and didn't do my best by any means. I passed my Junior despite this but I didn't like the Tech. I mitched a week off one time and another girl and I spent our dinner money on getting the bus into Belfast. I'm sure our school uniforms gave us away if anyone had been interested.. However, I loved shorthand, French, typing and English. Miss Skelly was an excellent shorthand/typing teacher and took no nonsense, as I found out quite quickly. Miss Beck was a great French teacher and I loved the language and did well in this subject. However, Miss Boomer I regret to say was not a great English teacher. I had a natural gift for this subject otherwise I may not have done as well as I did. Mr Devlin was strict too but a great teacher otherwise I never would have passed in Book-Keeping as I hated it. Commerce, geography and maths I couldn't have cared less about but managed to scrape through these too. SEE YOU IN MARKS. Well, you will probably see me first.!!! ]

Ann
I just had to reply, because i remember doing that mitching of. I was attending Wallace High. Would go to Finaghy station, and take the train into Belfast,after hiding my bag under the platform. Almost Christmas, Worked for 2 weeks, then mum knew, she gave me a note for school, WOW! relief.Then i learned it would have been better to let the school punish me.My parents were uncompromising but finally as Christmas came I had my Birthday present, and Christmas was wonderful.