From the 1940s, Mary lived at Beggartons, 12 Nathan Lane and under Bank View.
Interview date:
Mary met with Ruth Beazley to give an interview in 2025.
Me mum had five children and we were all in care. I was taken away when I was seven until I was 14. We were near each other but in different children’s homes and we weren’t allowed to see each other.
The home was a big house. We all slept in one big room, and we all had jobs to do. It was very strict. If you didn’t eat your tea you had to have it for dinner the next day. I haven’t got a love of food at all because of that. We were ‘looked after’ in the home, but we were happy coming back to our mum.
As a young child I played out all the time. On Nathan’s Folly there was a field and people would hang their washing out and there wer’ a donkey and peacocks there. We didn’t live in each other’s houses, but we played together outside all the time.
When we returned to live with me mum we had to get to know each other again. Bad things happened to me, but in spite of that I have a strong sense of security here in Mill Bank. We never had much money but they were really happy times.
In 12 Nathan Lane there were a lot of rooms we couldn’t use and there wer’ a well inside. It’s outside now: they must have diverted the water.
There were a bedroom and a landing that was used as a bedroom and another one that led outside [on the upper level]. It weren’t a big thing to move into different houses. They were all rented and people moved regularly. Then I moved up to under Bank View.
I was 14 when I returned to live in Mill Bank. At 15 I was out to work, at 17 I got pregnant and at 18 I got married. Me mum’s brother and Auntie Susan lived at one end and we were in the middle of a row of cottages.
When we got together again my mum was working at Brierley’s Mill at Bolton Brow, so I ran the house.
When I was 15 I got a job at Astins where they made jeans and then I got a job as an usherette at the Essoldo Cinema. I’d start work at half past seven in the morning and finish at 10 o’clock at night.
When I met Derek he would give me a lift home on his bike. Derek worked at French polisher at Siddle and Hilton’s in Sowerby Bridge. Derek and I got married at Cottonstones and I had Graham and then Craig.
Derek used to spray people’s cars in the Mill Bank Farm barn. Mrs Walker lived there and she had lots of children. She never had a midwife. She just delivered them herself, although with the last one she was quite ill and they said ‘If you have any more it will be a crime. You must go to hospital’.
There were other neighbours, the Dowses and the Crabtrees who all had four boys and they all played together with our boys. They spent a lot of time at the ‘spoon and basin’ and I would shout for them over the wall. They could hear me in the woods.
There were a lot of deliveries: a pop man would come round and deliver pop, a bread man and an ice cream man used to come up Nathan Lane. Graham helped to deliver milk and papers.
We would get two plain and two current cakes delivered and there was a fish shop at Berry’s Corner. We’d go every Friday and get fish bits and chips. We couldn’t afford a whole fish.
Then there was the Post Office and there was the shop at the top of our steps and the Co-op. You just gave them your number and they’d give you ‘tick’. When you got your family allowance on Tuesday you’d go and ‘pay up’. The same at the Bank View shop. You paid what you owed and if you didn’t you were ‘banned’. You could still go to the shop but you couldn’t get anything on tick. We were very poor.
When the coalmanA man whose job was to deliver coal to people’s houses came a neighbour would give us a bucket of coal. That’s what we did in those days; we shared things. We used to have jumble sales at the schoolhouse. Everybody would go early [for bargains].
On the steps there lived a lady with a monkey. We could see it from our window. The boys teased it and got it really excited and we were afraid of it. It was a Polish family.
I sewed buttonholes in Ryburn Knitwear and I also worked for the Halls [at Damside] as well. I’d look after the children and they would ask me about my boys because they didn’t play out like ours. I got very attached to the Hall’s children and we’ve kept in touch with the family.
There weren’t many cars. We had a bike and two or three second-hand Robin Reliants and then two or three new ones. We could get all four boys in the back.
On their birthdays we’d pick them up from school and we all went to Harry Ramsden’sSince 1928, Harry Ramsden’s has been the home of world famous fish and chips for tea [at Guisley].
Every year we went on holiday to Great Yarmouth in the three-wheeler with a trailer for our luggage.
I remember Eric Ellis’s bubble cars [at Lumb House]. There were no parking problems then. I think we parked down Nathan Lane. Derek Greenwood’s son had a scooter. Every night, Graham and Craig used to wait at top o’t road for Derek coming home, and he’d give them a ride on his scooter [downhill].
