Me grandad were in the Artillery based in Liverpool, shooting FokkersThe Fokker Scourge was a period of German air superiority in World War I, from July 1915 to early 1916 down. He also worked at Sagar Dicks and he walked from here over the tops to Sowerby, down to Luddenden Foot and back every night.
Me mum and dad met when he were a Warrant Officer in the barracks because he had been a Prisoner of War and me mum worked at The Jubilee Cafe, Sowerby Bridge.
Mum lived at Wood End when she was born in 1924, and her mum and dad took over the Bluebells Inn in the late 1920s. They had it for most of the 1930s.
Bill Pearce Interview
Reading time: 11 min(s)
Me parents were renting a room from me grandparents when I was born in 1947. It’s demolished now. There were no electricity, just a gas light with a mantle in the main room.
When we moved out in the 1950s there were me, me two brothers and me mum and dad – five of us in one room. Me dad made a biscuit tin into a gas ring for cooking on.
We moved into Water Houses, Cottonstones in 1958. We were there until 1964.
When me mum got the key for one of the first council houses in Sowerby she felt like a queen. There was a toilet upstairs and a garden back and front. Council houses even came with a cooker in those days.
[At Water Houses ] Me mum used to make her own wine. She kept it in the cellar: there were dandelion wine and rhubarb wine. One night we were all sat there watching TV and me dad doing his paperwork. There were a few loud bangs. He went down the cellar and the tops were coming off the wine bottles. He said, ‘It’s like a war zone down here’.
Grandad and Uncle Terry came to our house at Christmas [one year] and they drank a lot of that wine. Then they went to The Alma. Grandad had a ferret called Jimmy so on the way back they decided to go ferretingA traditional sport where trained ferrets are used to flush rabbits out of underground warrens so they can be caught on the tops.
Me grandad were singing ‘Living Doll’. He said ‘I know every blade of grass in these fields’ and [as he said that] he fell over. His son Terry said ‘You missed that one then.’
Uncle Freddie had a motorcycle combination. He were in the RAF and he used to keep jets flying but he couldn’t do much for his motor bike. It were always breaking down. We would get a 10 minute warning he were coming. You could hear the motor bike when he was over the quarry.
When they got to our house they had had a little routine. He’d take off his helmet wi’ the peak on’t, fold his gauntlets and his scarf and put them down very precisely. Then he’d go round and open the side car and Auntie Thelma would get out like the Queen of Sheba. He’d let us sit on his bike. It were a novelty.
There weren’t many [vehicles] in those days. Even in Sowerby there were only two – me dad’s milk van and Councillor Austin Benbow’s. He was on the Sowerby Bridge Urban District Council before it went to West Riding.
Me dad were a milkman. He worked for a man called Arthur Crossfield who bought Daisy Lea Farm and Raw Farm on the way to Boulderclough. [As well as the milk run] me dad would do the school run.
He took the kids with difficulties to Quarry House and if the Friendly band were playing on a Saturday he’d take their instruments to Sowerby New Road School.
All the schools got their meals cooked at Sowerby New Road and me dad would deliver them to Mill Bank and Norland. They were in those aluminium trays.
Then on Friday there were a shop called Drivers. He delivered their orders on a Friday afternoon. I used to wonder why he’s always asleep in’t evening. Then I realised he were so busy feeding our lot.
There’s a tarmac track [to Water Houses now] and mains water which we didn’t have then so the van was parked on the road. Any shopping had to be carried over four fields.
Then he had to empty toilets over the land. [Our toilet] were a bit posh – it had two holes – a little hole and a bigger hole, so me mum could go with a child. But obviously it weren’t ideal.
Me dad’s milk round were Mill Bank, Beechwood, Triangle and Sowerby and that was how I got to know a lot of people. Friday morning and Saturday we’d do our collection.
Opposite the Bluebells Inn there were a posh house [Damside] and they would pay their milk three-monthly. They always used to question the bill – ‘Are you sure we had cream that day?’ but me dad had a little black book.
I remember at Christmas I were quite impressed. He [the owner of Damside] came out wi’ a big tin of Quality Street and 50 cigarettes and £10 for a Christmas tip. I were lucky ‘cause me dad would take me on the milk round and drop me off at school at quarter to nine. I’d done three hours by then. I got good at mental arithmetic.
At side of Water Houses there were a field and we used to play football. Me and my friend Phil got thirsty and we went in and John were playing his 78s. I flopped down on the sofa and I heard this crack. He said ‘You’ve broken one of me records’ and I said ‘I didn’t know they were there.’ He actually picked up another couple and smashed them over me head. I said you should have read the label ‘Don’t be cruel’. Anyway he were banished to his room after that. You know teenagers they want to blast you with their noise. We were just the same then.
Pat’s Pantry were just up the road from The Alma. Mrs Horace Dewhurst lived in the farm opposite Pat’s Pantry in the 1960s. In Pat’s Pantry you didn’t get a cup of tea. You got a pint pot. It wasn’t posh. It had ‘Pat’s Pantry’ on the roof.
We’d walk across the field owned by Herbert Radcliffe. Kite were his nickname. It were his wife Pat who ran the tea shop. If he caught you in his fields he’d shout ‘What you pissing doing in my in me pissing fields.’ He’d snort ‘cause he used snuff. Every other word had pissing in it!
We weren’t doing anything but we’d [go over the fields to] go to The Alma because they sold toffee bars. Bennie Riley ran The Alma. He flayed us. The pub were dark and the living quarters were at the back.
We’d go over for toffee bars and he would open the door and growl ‘What do you want?’ He frightened us to death did Bennie. His partner Mavis – she were lovely. They didn’t stick to pub hours.
We’d play down in the river and in the ‘spoon and basin’. Uncle Freddy tickled for troutTrout tickling is the art of rubbing the underbelly of a trout with fingers. If done properly, the trout will go into a trance after a minute or so, and can then easily be retrieved in the stream. He’d put them in the well and had them for his breakfast next day. That were before electricity.
There were lots of midges. There were a white house on the way to Cottonstones [Cottonstones Gyll] and somebody called Peckett lived there. It had a ring in’t wall where they tied the horses.
Me sister Loraine took Jim to school and Jim liked to put his feet in the ring and sit on the wall. He thought it were a horse.
There weren’t a lot [of organisations] then. The older ones would go to the YMCA and the Jubilee Cafe but we used to hang around by the phone box.
So they got this youth club going but it weren’t well attended. There were only about eight of us. We’d one Dansette record playerAn iconic mid-century suitcase-style turntable manufactured in London by J & A Margolin Ltd between 1952 and 1969 and six singles. One of them were Shane Fenton ‘I’m a moody guy’. He went on to become Alvin Stardust. I saw him on TV. He used to pull his collar up, like Elvis. I used to love standing there doing Shane Fenton.
At Cottonstones I have two aunties in unmarked graves. Infant death wasn’t uncommon.
There were a big scandal in our family. Me half-brother John got taken to court.
At top o’t hill there were a girl called Becky who fancied my older brother. Well he weren’t interested so she said he’d pushed her down some steps. Next thing we knew ‘18 year old Soyland youth in court for assault.’
He didn’t get a fine or anything. They knew there was somat’ wrong but me mother said it brought shame on’t family.
I’d write a lot of poems. I wish I had written a poem about Mill Bank. All mine were all stupid Yorkshire dialect.
Me dad said ‘Can you write a poem about anything?’ and I said ‘Yes’ so me dad asked me to write a poem about turnips.
I love to look at turnip so big and rough and round
They look reyt good wi’ their leaves in’t air and their bottom stuck in’t ground
I can eat them till the cows come home. They fill me wi’ such greed
I wish they were all English, but a turnip is a Swede.