In the summer of 1912 a young teacher, Frank Underwood, was appointed to a post in the new Bennerley County School for Boys. For the next three years Frank corresponded with a Miss B Stevens in his native Leicestershire, sending her more than 80 postcards of Ilkeston and district. This selection, with the messages he wrote on them, gives a fascinating snapshot of Ilkeston before the Great War.
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A companion volume to A Town on Two Wheels. In the final two decades of the nineteenth century the bicycling community was served by a surprising number of inventors, retailers, repairers and manufacturers in Ilkeston.
Deals on Wheels offers a complete Who Was Who of everyone involved in the local trade in the 1880s and 1890s.
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— Cycling in Ilkeston 1880 - 1900 - At the start of the period covered by this book cycling was a pastime for well-off young men with a taste for speed, and bicycle clubs were a focal point of male social life. As the equipment became cheaper, bicycling activities became available to all. A Town on Two Wheels describes how this cycling revolution played out in Ilkeston and covers:
See also Deals on Wheels, the companion volume.
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A local author relives her memories of an Ilkeston childhood between the wars. After schooling at Gladstone Infants, Chaucer Street Junior and Hallcroft Central, she started work at 14 in a hosiery factory. During the War she worked at the Dale Plant of Stanton Ironworks producing 500-pound bombs, and later trained as a nurse. In later life she qualified as a teacher.
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