NOSTALGIA: Where sheep may gently gaze: collie halts flock for picture

THEN: Herding sheep along Goldsmith Avenue, Fratton. Picture: Robert James

My friend Robert James has let me look through his postcards of Edwardian Portsmouth and in the next few days I shall publish then and now street scenes which I know you enjoy.

The first, in a scene more suited to the downs than Portsmouth, shows a collie herding sheep to the slaughterhouse along Goldsmith Avenue south of the railway cutting. The dog has halted them for the photographer.

Of all the pictures I have published, this is one of my favourites. It’s basic but sums up how things were when a dog could herd a flock of sheep along what is now a busy road.

NOW: The same section of Goldsmith Avenue where the collie herded his sheep. Mollies Railway Hotel has long gone

I wanted a wider, panoramic view than the original but because of builders’ hoardings where they are building flats in Goldsmith Avenue, this was the farthest I could stand back.

In my ‘now’ picture, although just a brick wal, this is the exact location where the dog stopped his flock.

The railway flats have been modernised and the original open balconies enclosed.

There’s also the Railway Hotel where many 1960s’ bands performed before finding fame.

For those who know Mollie Powell, landlady of the Duke of Devonshire in Albert Road, Southsea, you might remember when she ran The Railway.