Beechwood Close,
Halifax
I WELL remember Fred Akroyd and his fish-and-chip shop at the bottom of Ramsden Street, Wheatley. I never believed what people said he did with his wooden leg.
His wife served the fish and chips in the previous day's newspapers – no hygiene in those days.
I was only a young girl but I remember him selling ice-cream from his horse and cart in the Bracewell estate.
My own father, George Eastwood, would be very well known in the pubs, the Wheatley Wells, Ovenden Way, and the Rams-den Street Club, which was very unfortunate for my mother and me, as that is where he took all his money.
He would probably be equally known as a cobbler, halfway up Ramsden Street. He was self-taught and he was said to be very good at his job. He once made me a pair of shoes when I was a schoolgirl. He was a very clever man but drink was his downfall.
He had a ventriloquist's doll named Jimmy. He thought he could entertain with it but I was doubtful about it.
Can anyone remember going to the spring at Wheatley Wells, taking empty bottles and a pail to fill with the lovely spring water when we had a drought? We had lovely hot summers in those days.
Does anyone rem-ember a man with the nickname Jimmy Rhubarb who had a field of rhubarb on Whitehill Road at Illingworth?
Joyce Markham

Whitehill Green,
Illingworth,
Halifax
I READ your story about the one-legged fish and chip shop owner. We used to go in the shop as I lived just off the top of Ramsden Street in Denfield Avenue.
I remember the man with the wooden leg; it was shaped like a leg off some furniture.
I don't remember his name, but it's definitely the same man. I wonder if anyone else remembers him.
(Mrs) Pauline Deadman

• Share your memories with other Courier readers. Write to Nostalgia, Evening Courier, PO Box 19, King Cross Street, Halifax, HX1 2SF, phone 01422 260208 or e-mail david.hanson@halifaxcourier.co.uk