Image ID: 09723

Olive Newstead outside her Shop, Eldon Street, Newark, 1950s

Eldon Street
Newark on Trent
England

Olive Newstead is pictured outside her shop at 2 Eldon Street in the 1950s. Olive was a single lady and had one sister, Florence, who married and went to live in America, but came over to visit; Olive called her Fanny. She may have had other brothers and sisters, but this was unknown for certain. There was a Walter Newstead, cousin or nephew, who worked in the basket factory in Newark and she also had two cousins, Maggie and Edie who also lived in Newark on Farndon Road. Olive also had a lifelong friend Gertie who married and went to live in Canada, and who also came over to visit her. It is possible her parents brought the shop for her. The shop was a small general store selling groceries, paraffin etc,. On one side of the shop was a malt kiln, and on the other was a yard of small houses. There was a tap in the yard from which water used to be fetched. At the back of Olive's house was adjoined a large outhouse where Olive did her washing in a dolly tub and used a 'ponch' in the washtub. She then put the clothes through a large old mangle with wooden rollers. Her toilet was down the other end of the yard, and she had to keep a paraffin stove alight there in the bad winter weather. Olive would have known all the people in Eldon Street, and could remember a man who kept a Penny-farthing bicycle which he sometimes rode up the street. After one of her friends moved away from the street and another friend died, Olive suffered from depression and had to go into hospital where she eventually died.

Date: 1950

Organisation Reference: NCCE003725

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