Early learning

The school that my brother and I attended was situated in the village of Hollingworth . This village is situated on the hill side overlooking Hollingworth lake.  The lake, a man made reservoir situated in the valley above the small town of Littleborough. Being situated on the Lancahire Yorkdhire border it was at this time quite a busy town.There was a large marshalling yard for the railways, a terminal on the Leeds/Liverpool canal and the main route across the penines passed through. Added to which there was  at this time a large number of cotton mills,a chemical distillery and a large asbestos company. In effect I suppose it could be said that it was aboom town. Sadly that it cannot be said today.

The school ot Hollingworth was a one roomed affair. And had only one teacher, the teacher Miss Sykes, undertook the teaching of all subjects to the local children,  being responsible for the educatioin of a mixed age group from the age of four years until they moved on to the seccondary or grammer schools at the age of eleven. Unfortunately very few made it to a grammer school, I can only recall one doing so. Never the less it was a nice school and every one was extremely happy. Attached to the school was the local church, a corogated iron church, which had to share a vicar with the parish of Milnrow. As a result there were no church services every week. When services did take place, every one attended as it was considered a great occasion.  

John Michael  Backhouse
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Things They are a Changing.

Life in the  village was very different, we had been used to privacy, here we had none.People walked past our door at all times of the day an night. A journey to the toilet could be embarrassing as the local children were often hanging around  outside, taking advantage of one of only two street lights in the village. Added to which we were often accompanied by someone in the other cubicles, this did not bother my brother and I too much if it was one of the local girls, that we held a penchant for. The other things that disturbed us was the fact that although there were only two street lights, and were not very bright. They did however manage to throw enough light as to disturb our sleep. Remember we had been used to pitch darkness. These problems were  overridden by the fact that we now had running water, electricity, friends to play with and we were much nearer to school                                                                                                                                 

Rakewood village consisted of 5 blocks 3  houses grouped around a bend In  the river All being on the north bank , two blocks to the east serving a very small woollen factory and the other three to the west they had once served a small Cotton Mill which was situated between the two groups. Both these mills were in operation at this time. The Cotton Mill ceasing production in 1956 and the Wool Mill up until the early 90,s.