HERE'S a challenge for you. Jean Skilling has been in touch from Chatham in Kent to ask if anyone remembers the York Mushroom Farm - and if so, where it was...

The business, owned by demolition contractor George Forte, operated in the late 1940s and early 1950s in or near York, she believes.

"My late father Ronald Cross was Manager of York Mushrooms c1949-51," Mrs Skilling writes. "Dad told me that there was a boom in mushroom growing after World War 2.

"At the time there was a surplus of ex-military accommodation which provided suitable dark, damp conditions. I understand that York Mushrooms was on a disused army or air force base."

Mrs Skilling sent us the two photographs on these pages of the mushroom farm. They show an overgrown site with rows of rather dilapidated wooden huts. But she doesn't know whereabouts in (or near) York the farm was.

York Press:

York Mushroom Farm

"I was born at 21 Thomas Street in 1950," Mrs Skilling writes. "I believe this was one of two bungalows built by Mr Forte and was on the corner of Alexandra Street. My parents moved south in 1951 and never went back.

"My assumption was that the Mushroom Farm was in or near Thomas Street, however when we visited the area a few years ago my husband pointed out that Thomas Street is in an area of Victorian terraced houses and there is not a chimney in sight in the photos. It has since been confirmed that there was no mushroom farm in that area.

"Despite looking through indexes, directories and maps in the York city library I can find no mention of York Mushrooms. Nor did I find adverts in the newspapers around the time of my birth. Perhaps it was not in the city of York at all but somewhere in the surrounding area?

"It's a very long time ago but I am hoping that one of your readers will recall the firm, recognise the collection of huts or could point me in the direction of a society who might know."

Anyone who does remember the business can contact Mrs Skilling at jean.skilling@blueyonder.co.uk. But we'd love to hear from you too, of course...

Editor's note: Since this piece was written, the mystery has been solved. Reader Roy Thorpe called to say that he grew up in the Thomas Street area just off James Street, and the mushroom farm was indeed on the old brickyard behind Thomas Street. 

He and his friends used to regularly break in there to lark about, he says. Mr Forte, he recalls, was 'too tight-fisted' to hire anybody to guard the site properly, so the boys could get in whenever they wanted. This, presumably, was before Jean's dad was appointed in 1949.

Roy, who is now 83 and living in West Lilling, went on to be a top international athlete. He won silver in the Commonwealth Games Race Walk in New Zealand in 1974, and won nearly 500 Race Walk championships, cups and medals at national and international level all told before retiring in 1978.

York Press:

Roy Thorpe picturef with his Commonwealth Games silver medal in the 1990s