To my sorrow, I seem to know fewer people in Mellor today than I did when I was young. This is partly due, I suppose, to the greater mobility of the population; often advancement of the bread-winner means a move to another part of the country before his (or her!) family has made many friends in the district. It is mainly due, however, to the personal mobility afforded by the motor car. When we walked about the village, we met people; we raised our caps (if our mothers nudged us); we stopped and chatted. Now we rush about in our little tin boxes; our neighbours come and go; we are strangers to each other.
But Mellor today has fewer social divisions. The ‘top end’ of the village was, in my younger days, where the poorer families lived, most of them working on nearby farms or in local industry. I cannot help but smile at the prices which their houses fetch today – some of them once nothing more than hovels for which the weekly rent was half-a crown (12½ p)!
The middle and lower parts of the village housed the commuters (now, there’s a word we never used!) who travelled to Manchester every morning from Marple station on the 8.18, returning home on the 5.23 or the 6 o’clock from London Road station (now Piccadilly). They did not talk of going to work; they went ‘to the office’ or ‘to Town’. Even this section of society was divided into an upper crust of directors and managers, who played golf and lacrosse and travelled first class, and the larger group of clerks who played football and crowded into the third class compartments. (There was, by a strange anomaly, no second class on the railways; that had disappeared long before my day, only to return many years later as the logical alternative to first class. Now it has been renamed ‘standard’ class, so that no-one is made to feel inferior.)
Earlier morning trains were run at cheap “Workmen’s fares” for the artisans who were employed in the great engineering shops of Mather & Platt, the boiler makers Daniel Adamson, and the locomotive works of Beyer-Peacock.
There was, of course, some overlapping of these social groups; there were occasions when white- and blue-collared workers mixed freely with no sense of division, but for the most part we kept to our own stratum of society, and were content.
Looking back, I suppose that my family were at the lower edge of the upper group. My father (an accountant) never owned a car or belonged to the golf club, and my mother was not seen at the fashionable whist drives. But we were able to afford a jobbing gardener and a woman who came to help with the weekly wash. Although my early years coincided with the General Strike of 1926 and the slump of the ’thirties, I have no recollection of any severe financial restraints. And when, in 1934, I went to the County Secondary (later Grammar) School in New Mills, the Means Test demanded that my father should pay £3-10s (£3.50) per term towards my fees, despite my having won a County Minor Scholarship.
There were four of us at home: Father, Mother, my sister May – almost two years my senior – and I. Perhaps I should say that there were five, for I must not overlook Timmy the cat. Timmy (or to give him his full name, Timothy Titus, after two consecutive books in the New Testament) wasn’t even our cat; he was Mrs Jowett’s. He adopted us when he was a kitten, and every morning he came across the road to ‘Beaumont’, returning to the Manor House at night. Mother fed him, and May and I played with him. We dressed him in dolls’ clothes and wheeled him about in a pram; when he was asleep we built a tunnel with toy bricks over his tail and then teased him to see if he could wag it. Timmy seemed to enjoy it, for he kept coming back for more, and it was a sad day when he was run over on the journey between the two houses. He was laid to rest in Mrs Jowett’s garden alongside a menagerie of deceased cats, dogs and birds.
Until I was eight, my father’s parents lived at Rainhill, midway between Manchester and Liverpool. Grandfather Heath was a colliery agent, and his boast was that he had never been down a coal-mine! He and my grandmother lived in a big house with two servants – Mr & Mrs Fogg – who were the gardener and housekeeper respectively. We went to Rainhill every Christmas, and we must have gone in the summer, too, judging from a photograph of May and I on the lawn.
Christmas at Rainhill was a splendid affair. Besides the great tree and the presents and the food, there were the contents of the toy cupboard – my father’s stone building blocks and a tinplate train set; an old biscuit tin full of odds and ends, including a gyroscope. But at the turn of the stair there hung a portrait of my great-great-grandfather, fixing me with a forbidding look. I used to salute him as I went past – he was a household god of whom I went in great fear!
When Grandmother and Grandfather Heath returned to Mellor in 1932, we used to go for tea every Sunday. Now there were new delights: boiled sweets in a tin in the sideboard; honey and brown bread, and tinned pears in red jelly. But as I grew older I began to find this regular event a monotony; my grandparents appeared strait-laced and old-fashioned, and I was glad when the custom ended and we had tea at home.
Mother’s parents lived close at hand at ‘Slackwood’. Grandfather Chapman was a diabetic with failing eyesight, but he continued to work in Manchester and tend his garden.
Mother’s younger sister Annie (I called her ‘Nannie’ when I was little, and I later called her ‘Nan’ throughout her life – she always seemed too young to be called ‘Aunt’!) lived with her parents until her marriage when I was ten. She was a schoolteacher, and would help me with my reading whenever we called at my grandparents’ house. I still have the Stories of King Arthur which she gave me on my fifth birthday.
Grandmother Chapman could also provide fascinating things for a child. There was a footstool for a seat, and a round brass stand which made a splendid steering-wheel for my imaginary car; there was a cellar with a frog which came hopping out as you went down the steep stone stair. There was an old rag doll, and a box full of shells gathered on seaside holidays long ago. And an American organ, which could be pedalled and fingered to make the most awful noise.
My Uncle Jack (Mother’s brother) lived between ‘Slackwood’ and ‘Beaumont’. He and Aunt Florence had two children – Marjorie and John – both younger than May and I. Here at their house ‘Lindisfarne’ was another garden of delights, for Marjorie and John had a swing and a sand-pit, to which our garden never aspired.
In the upper reaches of the village lived Great-Aunt Maud, Grandmother Chapman’s youngest sister, with her husband Frank Saxon. Poor Aunt Maud! I’m afraid that Uncle Frank gave her a very hard life. As a boy, I regarded him as a joke – he travelled up and down to Manchester with a little attaché case; he spoke about “’Change” as though he was a stockbroker; but in reality he was a ne’er-do-well who never had a proper job.
I had one other great-aunt – the only relative of my father in Mellor apart from his parents. She was Aunt Lizzie, Grandmother Heath’s sister, who lived with her husband Lewis Thompson and their daughter Gertie (how amusing those names sound today!) at ‘Thornbury’, between ‘Slackwood’ and ‘Lindisfarne’.
This then was my immediate family. We met frequently, for most of us were at Chapel on Sunday, and we came together for birthday parties. The biggest family reunion, however, was at New Year.
The grandparents always entertained us at Yuletide – the Heaths on Christmas Day, and the Chapmans on Boxing Day – but New Year’s Day was the occasion when Mother entertained the whole family. The day started with a mid-day meal – a second Christmas dinner of turkey and plum pudding. Then an afternoon of party games, mostly of the kind that could be played whilst sitting round the fire, but with a few more boisterous ones for the younger generation. Next, there were presents for everyone from the Christmas tree.
Mother, meanwhile, had been busy again, and the dining table, extended for the day to its full extent, and with the kitchen table forming a further extension, now groaned with cold meats and salads, trifles and fruit, cakes and mince pies. It was my cousin John who, when asked whether he would have trifle or fruit salad, replied “I’ll have trifle twice first, please”, thus instituting one of those family sayings which is still repeated whenever we sit down together. (My sister, however, is convinced that it was I who expressed such greed, not John!)
So our family was always, to use Dodie Smith’s words, a ‘Dear Octopus’. Its tentacles bound us all together; it was the centre of our social sphere; it provided a chain of houses in Mellor where we were always welcome.
As I start to describe our friends, I must give pride of place to the lady who has already appeared in these chronicles – Mrs Jowett. A widow, she lived at the Manor House with her two sons, her sister Mabel, Timmy the cat (when he wasn’t at ‘Beaumont’), another cat called Tinker Bell, and Jacko the parrot.
Effie Jean Jowett was a motherly soul, ample of bosom and always slightly dishevelled. Mr Jowett had apparently lived in style – Mother remembered dinner parties at which oysters were served; the Jowett’s younger son Jack (then only a boy) complained that he had difficulty in chewing his! After her husband’s death, Mrs Jowett’s circumstances were somewhat reduced, but she drew rents from most of the cottages in the village, and ground rents from householders like my father (and later on, from me).
Mrs Jowett liked to remember the days when her husband’s position brought respect. Asking me to do some shopping, she would say “And tell them it’s for me, dear”, as though the magic of her name would ensure the goods were of the highest quality. She was also somewhat pedantic in her speech, and would call “It’s only I!” whenever she opened the door of ‘Beaumont’ (for we did not knock at the doors of friends). But she showed great kindness to our family, and we remember her eccentricities with love and affection.
The Manor House was a long low rambling place, full of souvenirs and treasures which today would be an antique dealer’s heaven. Fans of swords supported enormous dish-covers on the walls; an ostrich egg stood in a silver cup atop a Jacobean dresser; there was a glass-topped display table which fascinated me because it contained, amongst the spoons and brooches, a cardboard model of a Midland Railway single-driver locomotive.
Down a few steps from the drawing-room was the billiards-room, complete with a full-size table and those sporting cartoons which were all the rage in 1910. A staircase led up from this room to the playroom, where the Jowett boys’ toys were still kept. (The ‘boys’ were quite grown up when I came on the scene, and were soon both married.) That playroom was Paradise to me, and though Mother restricted the number of occasions when I was allowed to visit it, Mrs Jowett never turned me away. Here were hundreds of lead soldiers, an enormous ocean liner complete in every detail, a big gun, an overhead railway, a rocking horse, books galore. And here was a bass drum, clearly marked ‘1st Mellor B.P. Scouts’ around its rim, but bearing on its skin – above a sketch of an early wireless set – the legend “The Oscillators’ Dance Band”!
Mrs Jowett’s unmarried sister was always known as ‘Auntie’ Mabel. She was the poor relation, acting as housekeeper, and doing menial jobs without complaining. She was a devout Anglican, but very superstitious, and when she found herself the thirteenth person at one of Mother’s New Year Parties (for Mrs Jowett and Auntie Mabel counted as family at New Year) she refused to sit down with the rest of us, and had to be provided with a separate table.
Jacko was the only talking parrot I have ever known. He could mimic all the members of the household, and his favourite trick was to call “Mabel!” in Mrs Jowett’s voice when Auntie was dusting the bedrooms. Down would come Mabel in a great hurry, to find that her sister had apparently become absent-minded, and was unable to remember calling her. Jacko, meanwhile, would be quietly extracting a peanut from its shell.
Mrs Jowett, her sister and her two sons have all gone to their rest. The family graves are in Mellor churchyard, within a little rail which marks the site of the old schoolhouse. It is said that this plot of land, being occupied by a building, was not consecrated with the rest of the churchyard, and so was unhallowed ground when the school was demolished. After its subsequent consecration, the Jowett family reserved it as their final resting-place.
I suppose that, after Mrs Jowett, our closest friends were the Sigleys. For one thing, they lived next door to Dene Cottage when we were there, and they later moved into a new house (‘Norette’) a few doors above ‘Beaumont’. Mr and Mrs Sigley were, like my parents, active members of the Methodist Church, and they, too, had two children. Betty was six years my senior, and she kept a motherly eye on me in my earliest years. As the difference in our ages became less important, we became great friends. When she married during the War, and the best-man-elect could not get leave from the Army, I was called on at short notice to fill his place. Betty and her husband stayed on in Mellor in the old family home for many years, but now both of them have passed away. Betty’s younger sister Margaret was the same age as my sister, and they remained friends until Margaret’s death in 2002.
Between our house and ‘Norette’ were more girl friends. Next door but one to us was a wooden bungalow imported from India; it stood on little cast-iron feet so that there was a space underneath, presumably to stop the snakes from getting in. Time wrought havoc with the structure, and it was in poor shape when I was a regular visitor. For here lived Thelma Jowett, niece of the Lady of the Manor, and just one week older than I. (I never discovered if her distinguished aunt also played the midwife at Thelma’s arrival into the world!) Thelma had a ‘Fairy’ cycle that I longed to ride; I could do sums which Thelma found difficult. Between us we did very well; I learned to ride a bike, and Thelma’s arithmetic improved enormously! Thelma’s elder sister Margaret gave me my first piano lessons, but when she married I transferred to Nancy Harris, who lived lower down the village.
Between this wooden bungalow and ‘Norette’ lived the Owens at ‘Hafod’ – a very Welsh family; their wire-haired terrier had the unlikely name of ‘Ffron’! Their younger daughter Doris was the same age as Betty Sigley, but both of these older girls would join in our games of rounders (which could be played in perfect safety in the road) or cricket on someone’s lawn.
But although all our near neighbours had only daughters, I had some male companions, too. At 1 Gibb Lane lived Frank Starkie, a month my junior, and a close friend throughout our days at Mellor School. His house had a cellar which was ideal for shows with a ‘magic lantern’ (the forerunner of the slide projector) lit by an oil lamp which Uncle Frank had given me. Like me, Frank had a clockwork train which we used to run all over the kitchen floor, sometimes pooling our track and rolling stock to make an even bigger layout.
Frank also owned a tricycle which (since I did not own a two- or three-wheeled vehicle) I loved to ride, occasionally being allowed to pedal it home at the end of the day, returning it next morning. One cannot imagine a modern nine-year old being allowed to travel alone for half a mile down the main road on a trike with no brakes! But I would probably not have met another vehicle on my journey.
When Frank and I were old enough for secondary education, his family moved to Didsbury, and we lost touch with each other.
Bernard Hall, the local butcher, also had a son of my age. The family were Catholics, so Derek and I went to different primary schools. We first met in the Cubs, and stayed together in the Scouts. We did, however, go to the same Grammar School, often cycling together over the steep hill into New Mills. Derek introduced me to the mysteries of his father’s slaughter house, but one sheep’s death was enough for me!
When I was five, I wanted Santa Claus to bring me a pedal car. On our annual visit to the big department stores in Manchester, I spotted the one I wanted – pneumatic tyres, klaxon horn, electric lights, the lot! I sat in it and refused to be parted from it without a great deal of screaming and shedding of tears. On Christmas Day, I was disgusted to find by my bed the cheapest of Lines Brothers’ products – a simple wooden chassis with a rudimentary bonnet and a seat. But I came to love that car, which bore me and my friends (often simultaneously) on endless journeys around the house and even up and down Longhurst Lane.
Now Derek Hall had a father who was handy with a hammer and saw. His pedal car, which was similar to mine, was converted into a van bearing the neatly painted words ‘H & B Hall, Butchers, Mellor’. How I envied Derek! But later, when St Mary’s Parish Hall was about to be built, the van body was removed and the car became a model of the hall, to be pedalled in a fancy-dress parade to raise funds. I was secretly very glad that the van was no more!
A little lower down the road than ‘Beaumont’, and on the opposite side, lived the Attwoods, who had two sons – Kenneth, a year my senior, and Norman, a year my junior. Their house was an interesting design, since Kenneth’s bedroom opened on to a balcony, thus setting the scene for a variety of situations. They also had a garage, but no car, so a large covered space was available for various projects, including the manufacture of ‘bogies’ made from four pram wheels and a plank of wood. Many an ingenious braking system has been devised, constructed and tested in Attwood’s garage.
The Attwood’s long garden sloped away from the house, getting steeper towards the hedge at the bottom. Just outside the hedge grew a tall oak tree, in the branches of which we built a tree house. The ascent was by a rickety ladder which once broke under my weight, pitching me over the hedge and down the bank below.
The garden was uncultivated at the lower end, and since it consisted of a bank of firm clay, we were able to tunnel into it to build an underground den from which we emerged each day in a damp and dirty state. The workings eventually collapsed, fortunately when they were unoccupied, and Mr Attwood wisely ordered that the project must be abandoned.
Two more young people came to Mellor in the late thirties, when their parents bought ‘Rawcliffe’, the imposing house almost opposite ‘Beaumont’. They were Kate and John Parker, a year younger than May and I respectively, and we quickly became great friends. Kate, however, was at boarding school, and John soon became a boarder himself, so we met only in the holidays.
We saw more of each other in later life, when Kate ran the village Cub pack and I was the Scoutmaster. John was best man at my wedding, and later married my sister, thus bringing our two families even closer together. May and John had their house ‘Almora’ built in Mellor, a short distance above ‘Beaumont’. John died suddenly at home in September 1999.
Day school and Sunday School provided a wider circle of friends and acquaintances who, whilst they did not become my playmates in the evenings or at weekends, were my companions in the playground or on our journeys to and fro. Many have left the district for places unknown; a few others remain, like myself, in the village of our birth.