Janner!!! PLYMUFF voted best City to live!

[fizzerbird]

We do? Never heard this in nearly 40 years lol

Nor me...I thought Janners was just for Plymouth not wider Devon?

 

[newme]

Nor me...I thought Janners was just for Plymouth not wider Devon?

Never heard it for anywhere. Spent years from Cornwall going to Plymouth for dance academy. All we got called was various homophobic abuse for wearing UV stuff up union street then nicenessness inside til 6am kick out when the scientologists were about while we worked out where the hell the after party or train was. And often who we were

 

[Gramsci]

I grew up in Plymouth and was born in Devonport. Never once heard Janner being used while i was living there.

I was born in the Barbican and grew up in Plymouth. I dont remember hearing it either. ( 60s/ 70s)

 

[Skim]

Born and bred, left in 1992, heard it all the time!

 

[Gramsci]

I have only been to Plymouth once - couple of days about a year ago for a work related course, and have a friend who has ended up there and he seems reasonably content.

it seems fairly inoffensive, was bigger than i thought it was (and so were the traffic jams)

didn't really see much of the city centre in daylight, think they had started chopping trees down then, and a city centre based on big department stores is in need of a new purpose - i stayed at one ex department store (co-op?) that had now become a premier inn.

good article about the post-war rebuilding / planning here.

hope they don't just demolish the 1950s stuff like they seem to be trying to do in coventry

Thanks for the article. Also read this one:

A Plan for Plymouth: ‘our first great welfare-state city’

The Plymouth Blitz, concentrated in seven devastating German air raids over March and April 1941, left Plymouth reportedly the most heavily damaged city in the country and destroyed its medieval ce…

municipaldreams.wordpress.com

Reading excerpts from the Plan for Plymouth and it now comes across as from a different planet politically. The plan was developed was first envisaged at the height of the war.

The bombing of Plymouth was important memory . I knew people who told me about it. The fires could be seen from miles away.

During the war and well into the 60s early 70s the Naval Dockyard was the major employer. When I was at primary school a lot of my class mate assumed they would follow their fathers and get apprenticeship in Dockyard. Which was high status job.

The rebuilding of Plymouth took for granted that post war it would remain a small but important City.

I agree with the article that the City Centre did work as a democratic space. It had Dingles ( never went to it) but also the Coop. Which everyone belonged to.

It had a post war built covered market of concrete. And many shops for ordinary people. A Joe Lyons etc. It was clean , modern and busy when I lived there. The grid pattern. wide streets with plenty of space made it feel airy and light.

The architecture was not "brutalist" No concrete walkways and tower blocks.

My other memory of Plymouth was the social and wealth divisions. Which the post war welfare state reduced but did not eliminate.

The City was divided by class. And still is. It looks poorer now than when I grew up there. Loss of a lot of jobs in Dockyard. Which were very good well paid jobs hit Plymouth badly after I left.

The Barbican , where I was born, was in hindsight poor. A bit of old Plymouth not bombed. The fisherman lived alongside the small post war alternative society of antique dealers/ artists. Still used the wash house at end of road in Barbican as most houses had only the tin bath.

There was whole areas of Plymouth which were not developed and slightly decaying. It was an interesting mixture of rough and ready working class/bohemian culture rubbing along with the socialist bright new world. And I dont mean that sarcastically. Reading excerpts from the 1940s plan and I think it should be read by those Blairites and Starmer who go on about returning Labour to its roots. The vision for Plymouth developed in the war and the emphasis on community / a new vision should be compulsory reading for Starmer and his ilk. The ideas behind the plan would be laughed at now.

 

[Mungy]

I've been living in Plymouth for 5 years now. It's a wonderful city. You can often find me in Leadworks, a local CIC in Stonehouse, behind the bar serving customers or on a stage somewhere reading my poetry at people. According to Plymouth Live I'm one of the 50 coolest people in Plymouth