On the eve of the 1960's our Jim sat his 11 plus, as did Barbara next door. Barbara passed hers and went up to Grange Grammar School. Not so our Jim! He failed his, and got sent to Buttershaw Secondary School, where he was put in an 'average' stream. He did well up at the big school though. He came top in almost everything in his first year, and thereafter rose through three streams, until he was eventually in the top stream in the school, (which, by then, had gone 'Comprehensive'). He eventually was to become Deputy Head Boy, and did not leave school until he was eighteen!
The prefabs were now getting very damp. They were only intended, when they were built, to last for a short period of time, but invariably they were rented out for far longer than they should have been. (They were originally meant to be temporary homes!) In the end, however, the corporation finally decided to demolish them. So we were all going to be uprooted and separated.
They were building some new houses nearby and Gladys and I tried to get one, but no such luck! We were told in no uncertain terms that we would be put where they said! Gladys was eventually given a house down Woodside Estate, and thereafter we gradually drifted away from them. A woman I worked with told me about a house which her friend was moving from, on the main road at Buttershaw. I decided to go after it. This time I was lucky. No-one else had been after it, and so, after a bit of arguing, the council said I could have it.
So it was that we left our little prefab and came to live at 144, Farfield Avenue, Buttershaw. We brought our Sheba and our Ginger with us. The following week our Jim and I went on a holiday to Bridlington with auntie Molly (Frank's eldest sister). We left Frank to look after the animals. When we finally got back we heard that our Ginger had run away. Our Jim was very upset, and we went back to the prefabs to look for him. By now, the demolition of the prefabs was well under way, and we searched among the ruins and foundations for our Ginger, but to no avail. We never saw him again. I would have liked to have known where he ended up. I still think that Frank had left him out at nights and not bothered about him. Men tend to be like that with cats.
Our Jim was now eleven, and had just started at Buttershaw Secondary School. I was now working at Bulmer and Lumb's at Wibsey (Work was slack at Bottomley's and we all had to finish for a time). I can't say that I liked it very much at Bulmers. I was still working evenings, but I was in the drawing, winding four rovers. We were running some stuff called 'Spangle'. It was like white cones of stretch elastic run into the wool. If you took your eyes off it for a moment, the cones would run on their own, or else the wool would. Often you had yards to pull back! It was very exhausting work! They certainly got their money's worth out of us at Bulmers. After a few weeks I was asked to go on reducers - much bigger boxes. It entailed a lot of heavy lifting and stretching. I stuck it for some time, and then got so run down and tired that I eventually had to give it up. I blamed that job for many problems I was to have later with my health. I was happy to leave there and go back to Bottomley's.
I must say in all fairness though, that the wages at Bulmer's were better. But you certainly earned them! You never had a moment to breathe! It's funny, but when my husband was a young lad up at Denholme Clough he used to go schoolmates with Billy (later 'Sir William') Bulmer!
By now we were all settled in the new house. My dad would come to visit us at the weekends. Apparently him and Daisy weren't hitting it off too well and he was glad to get out for a bit! Our Bill was now divorced again, and back in the Army. Our Jim was doing OK at school and was appearing in all the school plays. One of his friends, John Duttine, went on to greater things. He went to drama college and eventually became a famous actor. Their drama teacher, Janet Beard, was a great help and inspiration to so many of the 'estate kids' at Buttershaw. She had a child by one of the other teachers and was forced to leave the school (the more conservative minded of the staff there had long been seeking an excuse). Buttershaw lost a memorable teacher, whose memory has long outlasted the school where she worked. She influenced our Jim a lot, and much of his adult creativity stemmed from those days with the 'Theatre Club', the 'Shakespeare Group' and the 'Barnstormers'.
My dad had now suddenly acquired an allotment in Girlington, down in Illingworth's Fields. He got some geese and Jim had two white rabbits there (Needless to say, poor old dad had to feed them!). Dad and Daisy were still falling out. Daisy's girl, Betty, was now married with two children - a boy and a girl. In the end Daisy and Billy left dad on his own. They did a mean thing though - they took all the pots and pans and bedding while he was at work! It was a good thing that our Bill came home on leave and got him replacements. Dad wasn't too well these days. He found he had diabetes and had to go to the clinic every week.
By now our Bill had just about finished with the army, and was hoping to get a job back in 'Civvy Street'. He had married a german girl called Erika, but it didn't work out. While he was away in the army she met someone else, and that was that! Poor Bill, he never seemed to have much luck in his choice of women! Our Bill finished his time in the army and came back home to live with dad. He got a job at the A.I.S. Cleaning Co., and seemed much happier than he had been for a long time. He bought himself a succession of cars, the best remembered being a Riley Elf, and he took dad all over the place on trips out. He would call for us sometimes, and I would take our Jim down to Unstone.
Down in Unstone Grandma Dann had now passed on. She had lived well into her eighties. We were always made very welcome down there with mum's brothers Jim and Joe and their families. We would also drive through to Darton to see our Celia and Joyce. We would talk about the old days when we were all kids.
Frank never cared much for visiting relatives. He was more at home at 'The Club'. He still had a steady job at the steelworks and we were a contented little family. Grandad had, in the abscence of Daisy, acquired himself another lady friend! He had met her at the pictures! She finally came to live with him as his 'housekeeper'! Her name was Sarah and she was deaf as a post! It was hopeless trying to hold a conversation with her! Dad's brother Nathan, at York, had now married for the third time! It seems that all the Hirst men are the same regarding women! They don't know what they want! Grandad Hirst had two wives, my dad had two, uncle Nathan had three. (Not to mention my brother Bill!)
My sister Edie and her family were still living in Bradford. After their return from Canada they had settled in Girlington. Their girl, Kathleen, was growing up into a fine lass. She had been a lovely baby, and once won a beautiful babies contest. We didn't know then that she would have to go through two major spinal operations. I used to take her to the children's hospital for her exercises, but they didn't do much good. In the end, they had to resort to surgery. Our Edie worked during the day in the canteen at Holden's Mill. I am pleased to say that the operations worked and our Kathleen grew up into a bonny young woman!
As I have said, we gradually lost touch with prefab neighbour Gladys, when she moved to Woodside. By now Barbara had a baby brother called Barry. Alan, Gladys' hubby, had an accident at work which resulted in the loss of his thumb and a finger in a combing machine. He got compensation, with which they bought a new house at Shelf. Thereafter, we almost completely lost touch with each other. I went to see her there once or twice, but it was never the same. Then she got a job on Shelf and was out all day, so that was that!
Grandma Jarratt was not so well these days. She too was diabetic, and had to go to the clinic. She had to take a lot of weight off. One day I was sitting talking to her and I happened to ask her how she managed with her old age pension. She informed me that she didn't get a pension! Well, she was sixty six, she should have recieved it the year before! I went down to Ryan Street offices and sorted it out for her. She got her pension and the arrears she was owed. She took our Jim off to Great Yarmouth for a week with the proceeds! It's a wonder to me why she never got it sorted out before. It was the first time she had had any money of her own for years! I think she liked her little bit of independence! When she got too poorly to go out shopping the lasses took over the finances and she had to pay them her keep money out of it! So the pension didn't go very far. She had struggled for years 'making do'. It seemed so unfair. Frank's mum and I had our differences, but I can see now so many things. She didn't have an easy life.
Our Kathleen was now at Lister Lane Special School. She went there because she lost so much schooling as a result of being repeatedly in hospital. She did well, however, and soon caught up. She became a dental receptionist and married, and later a florist. I am sad to say that she never comes to see me, and I have never even met her hubby. When she was fourteen our Jim (who was sixteen) took her out once or twice. Her father decided that they were getting rather 'too friendly' for cousins. To me it was a load of rot, and not worth all the trouble it caused. I loved our Edie and Kathleen very much, and it has been a great sadness to me down the years.
It was now 1965 and our Jim was taking his 'O' Levels. Dad was still not too well with the diabetes. Sarah was now getting hopeless, not only stone deaf but a bit 'slack set up' as well! It was a shame..... dad had to do everything for her. She finally ended up in hospital and dad couldn't go to see her, he was too ill himself. Our Bill had remarried yet again - this time a widow from Thornton, Helen Wall, so dad was now on his own once more. She had children from her first marriage, Richard, Brian, Ian and Carol. Two of them were attending Whetley Lane School, and they would call at dad's at lunchtime. That kept him occupied!
Bill's new wife, Helen, was very good. She baked for dad every week. Our Bill would still take us to Unstone, Darton and York in the car. At Unstone, they now lived in a council house like us, at 120 Loundes Road. The old cottage where we once had such happy times had been since 'modernised'. It was a real pity that uncle Jim didn't buy it when he had the chance. Grandma had paid the rent there for over forty years, and had never owned a brick!
My own health was not too good these days. I went to the doctor who told me that I would have to go into hospital for an operation on my breast. (They had found a lump). I blamed it all on the heavy lifting I had had to do at Bulmer's. This operation turned out to be the first of four! I had to stay in the hospital for six weeks, my blood pressure was so high! Dad came to see me at the hospital, and he wasn't at all well. I played pop with him! He had trudged up the stairs instead of using the lift.
I came out of the hospital just after Christmas, and shortly afterwards was ordered to report to the Chemotherapy Unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary. I didn't know it then, but I would have a course of treatment for breast cancer. At first I went in for three sessions a week, then I had to spend 'Thursday til Saturday' on a 'drip'. I felt awful. I was sick and all my hair fell out! I had to wear a wig for quite some time. When my hair did grow back, it was very dark and glossy, so in a way the hair loss had done some good! I finished up with a better head of hair than I had when I had started! (I now have very long hair)
I had only been out of hospital a few days when our Bill came to tell me that dad was dead. It seems that the children had come down to Blythe Avenue for their dinners and had found themselves locked out of the house. They had fetched our Bill from work, and he got inside and found dad on the floor. He had been dead for some time. The doctors said it was a massive heart attack. They couldn't have saved him. I was so upset and poorly from hospital that I couldn't go to the funeral. It was awful, Even now, years later, I still miss him.
Our Jim had been in all the school plays at Buttershaw, and I hoped he would go into 'the theatre', but no, he liked music best, and eventually got involved with bands of all types - folk, pop, country and western. Jim stayed on at school until he was eighteen. He got various GCEs and finally went to teacher training college in Liverpool. He went there for three years, but decided against teaching kids. He found out he didn't have the patience to do that kind of job. I still think he would have made a good actor! He wrote verses and songs and went on later to write books, but he did not enjoy much success.
Our big boxer dog, Sheba was now getting very old. It would take her all her time to toddle onto the field. We had had happy times with her, walking down the woods and up the moors! She loved every minute of it. Like many boxers, she had, however, one major failing ... she would constantly break wind and stink us out of the house! We loved her though, for all that, and she lived to the age of fourteen, which was good for a boxer. I shall never forget the day the vet took her, It just broke my heart. I still cry now, as I write this. We put her picture on the wall, and I said "no more dogs". (Now there are pictures of two more dogs on the wall! So much for resolutions!)
By now our Bill had gotten a little boy of his own, our Christopher. I am his grandmother as well as his aunt. He was a bonny child, with a shock of curly hair. Dad just lived long enough to see him as a toddler. Our Bill would pick me up in his car and we would go shopping in town and visiting friends and relations. He was now quite settled with Helen at Thornton. Their house was full of pets. They had four dogs and six cats (besides the fish and the budgies!) I never knew how they managed to feed them all! Our Bill was now working in Bowling Park, as a gardener, while Helen was working at a firm making candlewick bedspreads.
It was now 1971. Our Jim had returned from college and, after mooching around for a while at home, had taken a job as a sales clerk with Post Office Telephones. He worked there for about three years, but it wasn't for him. He couldn't stick being cooped up in an office and being the 'general dogsbody' for clerical 'officers' with delusions of grandeur! In the end he packed it in and went on the dole. He was to be unemployed for five years! It displeased us, but it didn't bother him ..... he could do all the music and acting he liked! (He even did a couple of TV appearances during this time!)
For some time after our Sheba died I never wanted another dog, but, as I will now relate, I finished up adopting one! My neighbours next door were 'Irish' in every way! One day they got this lovely little pup and called it 'Frisky'. It was great while it was a cute little pup, but as it grew up the novelty wore off, and they began to care less and less about what happened to it. (Typical of many families around Buttershaw!) The poor dog was shunted out in the early morning, and left out all day until dark. He would follow me to the Co-op every day - I couldn't get rid of him! He would even be waiting for me on the Library doorstep in Shelf when I came out! I liked the little dog, but he had so many bad faults, like fighting, nipping and chasing cars! Frank disliked the dog and would not let me take him in. One day he misjudged things and was clipped by a passing car, which simply drove off and left the dog to it. The poor little dog simply ran around on three legs, with the fractured back limb hanging limply! In the end the leg healed up itself, but he kept putting it up for the rest of his life.
That slowed him down chasing cars, and perhaps it was a good thing! He was afraid of nothing, this wiry little runt of a dog! He would tackle dogs twice his size! One day he took on a Great Dane, and on another occasion a Bull Terrier got him by the nose and shook him around like a rat! I had an awful time getting it off him! For some time afterwards his face was all swollen up, and he looked more like a Boxer than a terrier!
All the people round about were terrified of him! A public snicket ran down the side of our house, and he would parade on top of the walls on 'guard duty'. Woe betide anyone he took a dislike to! The coalman and the milkman he hated! (I do know, though, that they had both kicked him when he was a pup). He was like the proverbial elephant .... he never forgot!
One summer his owners next door decided to go to Ireland on holiday. They decided that they would have Frisky put down. I thereupon decided, that whatever anyone else might say, I was going to take him to live with us. He was then about four or five years old. I went round, brought his basket back home and put it in the kitchen, by the cooker. You might not believe this, but that dog never went back. I would go around and use their phone sometimes. I would say to him "come on Frisk, round to your old home". But no, he wouldn't go. He never left me till the day he died.
I loved Frisky, but he did cause me lots of trouble. One incident I must mention- I was up in the yard getting some coal in, and I overheard these voices. It was the local yobbo and his mate. He was about six feet tall and weighed around fourteen stone. I heard him say, "I'm not going down that snicket, that **** ing dog is on the wall! He got me the last time I went down!" His mate told him not to be daft, but he wouldn't come down the snicket, he walked around the block instead! (Then our Frisk would wait for him at the other side!) One day he came home with a hen in his mouth, and I had no idea where it had come from! He certainly was a 'dog and a half'!' He was only little, but he 'made his mark' on life, and is still remembered in the area.
I'm sure now that if I'd had him from the beginning he would have made a far better dog. When he passed from our lives the house seemed empty. We never had a dull moment with him! My son missed him a lot. He used to take him hiking with him, they went all over. The little dog, who'd always been on the estate, couldn't believe it when he discovered woods, moors and green fields. Our Jim would get the lead, say "ta tas" and the little dog would go berserk, whining and yelping with joy! Jim took him all the way round the newly opened Calderdale Way. It was a new life for Frisky; if the first half of his life had been hard, the second half made up for it thricefold. In the end, his kidneys failed, but at least he died amongst those he loved.
Once again I said "no more dogs". It was too upsetting, losing them. My son painted a lovely water colour of our Frisky, and it took its place on the wall, next to the picture of our Sheba.
I worked in the drawing at the mill until I was nearly fifty. It was now getting very heavy work, and I would come home tired out. I noticed one day that I had a small lump in my left breast. My husband, Frank, insisted that I see the doctor about it, who in turn sent me to hospital for a check. The result was, as I have already described, three operations and chemotherapy. My days in the mill were over.
By now the old narrow country lane in front of our house had gone, and had been replaced by a new main road. The first winter after the tarmac was laid, it was deadly! In icy conditions cars would skid down the slope of unfinished tarmac and end up in the ditch! One Saturday night it was so slippery with black ice that it was like a skating rink! Six cars, a motor scooter and a van all skidded off. Our Jim slipped on it as he was walking home from Low Moor, where he had been practising with a group. He grazed his knee and had to scramble out of the path of an approaching 'bus ! More entertaining antics followed..... a police car came to the scene of the accidents. The policeman got out, looked confidently around, and promptly fell on his backside! His mate got out to help him and immediately repeated the same performance! At eleven o' clock we watched the 'saturday night drunks' coming up from the Furnace Inn and the Club. (They frequently kept us awake by singing, fighting and fornicating on our snicket in the small hours of the morning!) It was hilarious! As soon as they stepped onto the icy tarmac, they went slithering and sliding in all directions! It took one drunken woman ten minutes to get across the road! It was the best entertainment we had had for years!
I had a good friend living next door around this time. Mrs Mokes and her husband Will were approaching seventy when they came to live there. Her name was Maude, but I always called her 'Gran Mokes'. Will was a little man with a shock of white hair, and he had the brightest blue eyes I ever saw. They remained our good neighbours till they died, first Will, and eventually Maude, (who by then had moved into the old folks home.)
It was now 1979. Our Jim had tired of the dole, and found himself a job as a Countryside Warden. It was only a temporary job, but he loved it. He was now courting a girl he had known at school, Trish. She had been married then divorced, and lived at 43 Fleece Street with her two year old son by her first marriage. She was a nice lass, and things looked promising for them. I had long ago abandoned any hope of my son settling down. He was now thirty, and still living at home. He had had one or two girlfriends, but none of them had lasted more than a few weeks, and occasionnally he had brought home some right weirdos! Trish semed right for him from the word go!
Around this time our Jim came home with yet another pup! A Jack Russell bitch, whom I called 'Peggy'. Various names had been ventured, but I insisted on 'Peggy' because the little pup reminded me of the old 'Peggy' of my youth. Jim had been working on a drystone wall at Oxenhope, and had called in at a farm near Cullingworth to see these pups. The farmer's wife said that the pup had climbed up onto her neck, and she had called it 'Everest' as a result! Seven years later, she was still climbing on my neck! Peggy was so tiny as a pup, she would have fit snugly into a pint pot!
I have not mentioned it before, but I also had a parrakeet called 'Jimbo'. He was given to me by Ivy, a friend. He had originally been one of a pair, but the hen bird had escaped. Ivy couldn't handle him, and he had bit her badly. When she went on her holidays she asked me to look after him, and in the end we finished up keeping him. He proved to be a good pet. He was a lovely little bird and his repertoire was 'hello' and 'mama'. Like many parrots he has enjoyed remarkable longevity. When we got him our Sheba was still alive. Since then he has seen the passing of both our Frisky and our Peggy (1995).
Xmas 1981 our Jim finally left home to go live with Trish at Fleece Street. Our Jim was now working as a YOPs Supervisor in Judy Woods, supervising a team of youngsters on forestry work. Frank did not agree with our Jim living 'over the brush', but it was not long before they got married. Soon after they left Fleece Street, and went to live in a cottage at Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge. In January the following year, my first grandchild, Jaimie Louise, was born. (I had never thought to be a grandmother!) Everything looked rosy for them, but in 1983 our Jim was made redundant, and was not able to find work. Shortly after Jaimie, Trish became pregnant again, (this time not by choice!) and I acquired another granddaughter - Laura Elizabeth.
copyright © Annie.E.Jarratt 2002
I had only been out of hospital a few days when our Bill came to tell me that dad was dead. It seems that the children had come down to Blythe Avenue for their dinners and had found themselves locked out of the house. They had fetched our Bill from work, and he got inside and found dad on the floor. He had been dead for some time. The doctors said it was a massive heart attack. They couldn't have saved him. I was so upset and poorly from hospital that I couldn't go to the funeral. It was awful, Even now, years later, I still miss him.
Our Jim had been in all the school plays at Buttershaw, and I hoped he would go into 'the theatre', but no, he liked music best, and eventually got involved with bands of all types - folk, pop, country and western. Jim stayed on at school until he was eighteen. He got various GCEs and finally went to teacher training college in Liverpool. He went there for three years, but decided against teaching kids. He found out he didn't have the patience to do that kind of job. I still think he would have made a good actor! He wrote verses and songs and went on later to write books, but he did not enjoy much success.
Our big boxer dog, Sheba was now getting very old. It would take her all her time to toddle onto the field. We had had happy times with her, walking down the woods and up the moors! She loved every minute of it. Like many boxers, she had, however, one major failing ... she would constantly break wind and stink us out of the house! We loved her though, for all that, and she lived to the age of fourteen, which was good for a boxer. I shall never forget the day the vet took her, It just broke my heart. I still cry now, as I write this. We put her picture on the wall, and I said "no more dogs". (Now there are pictures of two more dogs on the wall! So much for resolutions!)
By now our Bill had gotten a little boy of his own, our Christopher. I am his grandmother as well as his aunt. He was a bonny child, with a shock of curly hair. Dad just lived long enough to see him as a toddler. Our Bill would pick me up in his car and we would go shopping in town and visiting friends and relations. He was now quite settled with Helen at Thornton. Their house was full of pets. They had four dogs and six cats (besides the fish and the budgies!) I never knew how they managed to feed them all! Our Bill was now working in Bowling Park, as a gardener, while Helen was working at a firm making candlewick bedspreads.
It was now 1971. Our Jim had returned from college and, after mooching around for a while at home, had taken a job as a sales clerk with Post Office Telephones. He worked there for about three years, but it wasn't for him. He couldn't stick being cooped up in an office and being the 'general dogsbody' for clerical 'officers' with delusions of grandeur! In the end he packed it in and went on the dole. He was to be unemployed for five years! It displeased us, but it didn't bother him ..... he could do all the music and acting he liked! (He even did a couple of TV appearances during this time!)
For some time after our Sheba died I never wanted another dog, but, as I will now relate, I finished up adopting one! My neighbours next door were 'Irish' in every way! One day they got this lovely little pup and called it 'Frisky'. It was great while it was a cute little pup, but as it grew up the novelty wore off, and they began to care less and less about what happened to it. (Typical of many families around Buttershaw!) The poor dog was shunted out in the early morning, and left out all day until dark. He would follow me to the Co-op every day - I couldn't get rid of him! He would even be waiting for me on the Library doorstep in Shelf when I came out! I liked the little dog, but he had so many bad faults, like fighting, nipping and chasing cars! Frank disliked the dog and would not let me take him in. One day he misjudged things and was clipped by a passing car, which simply drove off and left the dog to it. The poor little dog simply ran around on three legs, with the fractured back limb hanging limply! In the end the leg healed up itself, but he kept putting it up for the rest of his life.
That slowed him down chasing cars, and perhaps it was a good thing! He was afraid of nothing, this wiry little runt of a dog! He would tackle dogs twice his size! One day he took on a Great Dane, and on another occasion a Bull Terrier got him by the nose and shook him around like a rat! I had an awful time getting it off him! For some time afterwards his face was all swollen up, and he looked more like a Boxer than a terrier!
All the people round about were terrified of him! A public snicket ran down the side of our house, and he would parade on top of the walls on 'guard duty'. Woe betide anyone he took a dislike to! The coalman and the milkman he hated! (I do know, though, that they had both kicked him when he was a pup). He was like the proverbial elephant .... he never forgot!
One summer his owners next door decided to go to Ireland on holiday. They decided that they would have Frisky put down. I thereupon decided, that whatever anyone else might say, I was going to take him to live with us. He was then about four or five years old. I went round, brought his basket back home and put it in the kitchen, by the cooker. You might not believe this, but that dog never went back. I would go around and use their phone sometimes. I would say to him "come on Frisk, round to your old home". But no, he wouldn't go. He never left me till the day he died.
I loved Frisky, but he did cause me lots of trouble. One incident I must mention- I was up in the yard getting some coal in, and I overheard these voices. It was the local yobbo and his mate. He was about six feet tall and weighed around fourteen stone. I heard him say, "I'm not going down that snicket, that **** ing dog is on the wall! He got me the last time I went down!" His mate told him not to be daft, but he wouldn't come down the snicket, he walked around the block instead! (Then our Frisk would wait for him at the other side!) One day he came home with a hen in his mouth, and I had no idea where it had come from! He certainly was a 'dog and a half'!' He was only little, but he 'made his mark' on life, and is still remembered in the area.
I'm sure now that if I'd had him from the beginning he would have made a far better dog. When he passed from our lives the house seemed empty. We never had a dull moment with him! My son missed him a lot. He used to take him hiking with him, they went all over. The little dog, who'd always been on the estate, couldn't believe it when he discovered woods, moors and green fields. Our Jim would get the lead, say "ta tas" and the little dog would go berserk, whining and yelping with joy! Jim took him all the way round the newly opened Calderdale Way. It was a new life for Frisky; if the first half of his life had been hard, the second half made up for it thricefold. In the end, his kidneys failed, but at least he died amongst those he loved.
Once again I said "no more dogs". It was too upsetting, losing them. My son painted a lovely water colour of our Frisky, and it took its place on the wall, next to the picture of our Sheba.
I worked in the drawing at the mill until I was nearly fifty. It was now getting very heavy work, and I would come home tired out. I noticed one day that I had a small lump in my left breast. My husband, Frank, insisted that I see the doctor about it, who in turn sent me to hospital for a check. The result was, as I have already described, three operations and chemotherapy. My days in the mill were over.
By now the old narrow country lane in front of our house had gone, and had been replaced by a new main road. The first winter after the tarmac was laid, it was deadly! In icy conditions cars would skid down the slope of unfinished tarmac and end up in the ditch! One Saturday night it was so slippery with black ice that it was like a skating rink! Six cars, a motor scooter and a van all skidded off. Our Jim slipped on it as he was walking home from Low Moor, where he had been practising with a group. He grazed his knee and had to scramble out of the path of an approaching 'bus ! More entertaining antics followed..... a police car came to the scene of the accidents. The policeman got out, looked confidently around, and promptly fell on his backside! His mate got out to help him and immediately repeated the same performance! At eleven o' clock we watched the 'saturday night drunks' coming up from the Furnace Inn and the Club. (They frequently kept us awake by singing, fighting and fornicating on our snicket in the small hours of the morning!) It was hilarious! As soon as they stepped onto the icy tarmac, they went slithering and sliding in all directions! It took one drunken woman ten minutes to get across the road! It was the best entertainment we had had for years!
I had a good friend living next door around this time. Mrs Mokes and her husband Will were approaching seventy when they came to live there. Her name was Maude, but I always called her 'Gran Mokes'. Will was a little man with a shock of white hair, and he had the brightest blue eyes I ever saw. They remained our good neighbours till they died, first Will, and eventually Maude, (who by then had moved into the old folks home.)
It was now 1979. Our Jim had tired of the dole, and found himself a job as a Countryside Warden. It was only a temporary job, but he loved it. He was now courting a girl he had known at school, Trish. She had been married then divorced, and lived at 43 Fleece Street with her two year old son by her first marriage. She was a nice lass, and things looked promising for them. I had long ago abandoned any hope of my son settling down. He was now thirty, and still living at home. He had had one or two girlfriends, but none of them had lasted more than a few weeks, and occasionnally he had brought home some right weirdos! Trish semed right for him from the word go!
Around this time our Jim came home with yet another pup! A Jack Russell bitch, whom I called 'Peggy'. Various names had been ventured, but I insisted on 'Peggy' because the little pup reminded me of the old 'Peggy' of my youth. Jim had been working on a drystone wall at Oxenhope, and had called in at a farm near Cullingworth to see these pups. The farmer's wife said that the pup had climbed up onto her neck, and she had called it 'Everest' as a result! Seven years later, she was still climbing on my neck! Peggy was so tiny as a pup, she would have fit snugly into a pint pot!
I have not mentioned it before, but I also had a parrakeet called 'Jimbo'. He was given to me by Ivy, a friend. He had originally been one of a pair, but the hen bird had escaped. Ivy couldn't handle him, and he had bit her badly. When she went on her holidays she asked me to look after him, and in the end we finished up keeping him. He proved to be a good pet. He was a lovely little bird and his repertoire was 'hello' and 'mama'. Like many parrots he has enjoyed remarkable longevity. When we got him our Sheba was still alive. Since then he has seen the passing of both our Frisky and our Peggy (1995).
Xmas 1981 our Jim finally left home to go live with Trish at Fleece Street. Our Jim was now working as a YOPs Supervisor in Judy Woods, supervising a team of youngsters on forestry work. Frank did not agree with our Jim living 'over the brush', but it was not long before they got married. Soon after they left Fleece Street, and went to live in a cottage at Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge. In January the following year, my first grandchild, Jaimie Louise, was born. (I had never thought to be a grandmother!) Everything looked rosy for them, but in 1983 our Jim was made redundant, and was not able to find work. Shortly after Jaimie, Trish became pregnant again, (this time not by choice!) and I acquired another granddaughter - Laura Elizabeth.
copyright © Annie.E.Jarratt 2002