In the Shadow of Brown Wardle

In the shadow of Brown Wardle By Beryl Howarth Winter scene showing Whitworth with Brown Wardle in the background 1 This has been written for my lovely grandchildren Charlotte and Jenna who were born into a very differ- ent age to the one in which I was a child. It started off as a short account of life in the 1930s and 1940s but as the old saying goes like "Topsy, It Just Growed". I hope they can understand the way life was then. Charlotte is the thoughtful one and Jenna I am afraid could be a chip off the old block. BH 2. CONTENTS Aerial Map of Whitworth ....................................................... 4 Chapter 1 - Feeling the Pinch ................................................ 5 Chapter 2 - Grandad's ............................................................ 9 Chapter 3 - Cuddie's and Cleggs ............................................. 13 Chapter 4 - The Pea Women ................................................... 16 Chapter 5 - Gambling Fever .................................................... 21 Chapter 6 - Lloyd Street School............................................... 22 Beryl Howarth Chapter 7 - Johnny Clogger's .................................................. 29 Chapter 8 - Wash Day ............................................................. 31 © Beryl Howarth 2004 - Revised 2007 Chapter 9 - Sam ....................................................................... 34 First published on this website February 2007. Applications for reproduction should be made to Beryl Howarth - contact details Chapter 10 - Mills, Motorbikes and Babies ........................... 38 on the host website The fine photographs on the title page and pages 8,9,11,20,26 Chapter 11 - Journey’s End .................................................... 44 and 41 are drawn from the Beautiful Britain website (www.beau- tifulbritain.co.uk.) by kind permission. The aerial photograph on page 4 by courtesy of Google Earth Latest Pictures ........................................................................ 46 2006 The people and events recorded in this book are as they are recalled by the author many years later. Any errors or inaccura- cies are regretted. 3. WHITWORTH - an aerial view 2006 4. Chapter One - FEELING THE PINCH hey`ve done it" somebody yelled, "they've We, the Halstead family, lived in the fourth house Tbloody well done it". "Done what" shouted from the bottom in the modernised houses next door another disembodied voice from an upstairs win- to the Clegg family. We were father, mother, broth- dow? "Declared war" came back the first voice as er Gerald and myself Beryl, father and mother were heads popped out of windows and doors, the voice Dora and Samuel. We had moved there from the went on. "Chamberlain has just announced it on the fish and chip shop on the main road. Next door to wireless" the second voice chipped in "so much for us on the uphill side was the Clegg family, there peace in our time then". were six of them, mum, dad, Harold, Cyril, Doreen We kids looked up from playing peggy, hop- and Phyllis, on the downhill side were an elderly scotch or marbles, but soon lost interest and went couple from Belgium, Mr and Mrs Bishop and back to play, it didn`t concern us, peggy was more daughter Alice. exciting at this moment. As we clouted a piece of It was September the third Nineteen Thirty Nine wood cut from the end of a cricket stump and then and peggy was more exciting than war to the kids tapered at the end with a knife. When you tapped playing in the village where we were born. The vil- the tapered bit with a bat it flew up in the air and lage sprawled untidily among the Pennines, equi- The Fish and Chip shop in 2007 you belted it as hard as you could up the street, the distant from Manchester, Oldham and Ashton- winner was the one who hit it furthest. Under-Lyne in the south and Accrington, Burnley Our street ran down from the only main road in and Blackburn to the north. the village, it was compacted dirt not having been Whitworth was a cotton village nestling comfort- cobbled and on one side was a terrace of back to ably under the benign shadow of Brown Wardle back houses while the other side had a terrace of with Middle Hill and Hades Hill stretching further modernised buildings which had originally been up the valley. Most of the inhabitants worked in one back to back dwellings but had been knocked or other of the many mills dotted around the village. through and had bathrooms added. The next street The large black square buildings which housed the beyond the back to back houses had another terrace huge machines that were part of our daily lives were of houses backing on to them and across the street turning out cotton cloth for the clothing and bed- from them was a factory. Originally the three streets ding industries. All of the mills had tall chimneys had been called North Street, Middle Street and belching black smoke up into the grey skies and South Street but now the fronts of the modernised most of the trees growing in the valley were black houses were re-named School Terrace and the back and stunted from the years of grime that had been doors were still in Middle Street laid on them from the chimneys. In the early morn- School Terrace 2007- the school was to the left of the picture ings you didn`t hear the dawn chorus around here, 5. I don`t know when it was decreed that all lights could not afford anyhow. The candles were lit and which shone on the streets should be extinguished placed at strategic positions around the room so that but this is what happened as a consequence of the my brother and myself could do schoolwork and war. Not one chink of light was to show, every one afterwards read our comics - Dandy and Beano with legitimate business out after dark carried a were in vogue at the time and we were brought up torch which had to be shaded so that it did not offer on "Desperate Dan and my namesake "Beryl The A picture of me at 2 years a target for enemy aircraft. Peril". old All vehicles had to have their headlights covered My brother Gerald was twenty months older than with a grill and every house had to have blackout me and we fought like cat and dog over just about curtains or blinds at the windows, wardens patrolled everything. So lighting the candles became a con- the streets to enforce the regulations. No more test between the two of us who could light the most street lamps and the brightly lit shops were in dark- and get the biggest pool of light, to read our comic. ness. The candles cast huge shadows on the walls and if the rattle of the iron shod When it was announced in September that we you looked up from your book you could see a giant clogs clattering down the cobbled streets as the mill were at war with Germany I was six years old but silhouette of yourself hunched over the table. We workers headed for their daily grind blotted out any when my father enlisted for service in the army I could also produce great shadow pictures with our birds that might have the temerity to brave the thick was seven having had a birthday in the meantime. hands. The other side of the coin was the eerie sooty breeze blowing down the valley. Dad was one of the first people in our village to join frightening feeling if you were left on your own for My dad was a striker in the quarry for my up. Why? Who knows. I don`t think my mother any reason, like the time my mum was in bed with grandad; who was a blacksmith making tools for knew although my grandfather might have had quarrymen. The quarry was in a place called some idea.. Whitewell Bottom near Rawtenstall and my father Our family had been going downhill steadily, rode his bicycle there daily. How my grandfather financially, for a number of years my dad’s wage - got there I do not know but presume it was by bus like most other people`s at that time - was just or tram as there were few private cars around in the enough to keep body and soul together. But after he nineteen thirties. I remember running up the street left we began to learn what real poverty felt like. to meet my dad on the dark winter evenings so that First to go was the electricity because the bill had I could be taken up on to his bike to ride the last few not been paid. We did our school work and reading yards home. Even though it was coming on to win- by candle light and my mother did most of the ter and darkness came early all the shops were lit cooking on an open coal fire. At first it was quite up, the lights spilling out across the pavements exciting the nightly ritual of collecting the candles, competing with the street lamps to dispel the shad- lighting them and dribbling a little hot wax on to the ows, then, along came the war and total darkness saucer and standing a candle in the wax before it quickly followed!! could set; far cheaper than candle sticks, which we Gerald and me 6. bronchitis and as I sat downstairs reading I also lis- sound as they went. An old soot blackened kettle sat newspaper in the grate, small pieces of coal and cin- tened to the laboured breathing coming from the on the trivet at the opposite side of the fire and if we ders placed on top and finally a match was put to upstairs room where my mother was sleeping.

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