Up the 'Colliery' round the corner from 'Johnny the Barbers' and behind Carters' Royal Hotel was an open area called 'The Square'. At intervals during the year the 'shows' used to descend on the square and then for several nights the evenings were 'lit up' by the fairy lights of various shows and round-a-bouts and the blare of those vividly decorated organs echoed over the village.

Many of the young village 'braves' got good hidings from the boxers who ran boxing booths at these shows. For some time after visits of these booths, certain members of the village community sported 'two lovely black eyes. Their competitive spirits had been raised by the prospect of 2 or 3 pounds rewards if they lasted 3 rounds in the ring against the young boxers attached to the booth - most probably their fighting spirit had been fortified at Carters 'Royal'.

When Trimdon Station was a thriving business each Monday evening a cattle train arrived and usually 2 or 3 trucks were detached before the train moved on to Wingate and other stations.

 

Butchers from the Trimdon villages met the train and drove their cattle through the village to the slaughter houses, behind their butcher shops. Needless to say the young boys of the village acted as enthusiastic drovers in helping the butchers. Excitement did sometimes occur when one or more of the bullocks behaved in a rather unco-operative way and decided on their own route to diverse parts of the village, scattering and frightening inhabitants in the pro-cess with their unpremeditated visits to back streets, meadows, cornfields etc.

Travelling theatre sometimes pitched a tent in the square and acted melodramas - 'Murder in the Barn' etc. These were called '1d. gaffs. Stanley Holloway played Little Willie in East Lyne with his father's travelling theatre.

Magic lantern shows were given in the Temperance Hall for 2d entry.

Allen Temple married Cicely Brown and they went to live in Lincolnshire. He was brought up in Station Road in his father's shop where his father had his tailor-ing business. The shop is still there, our only old fashioned corner shop, run by Mr. Wm. Kirkbride.