Logistics

http://www.bigextracash.com/aft/1dd302c1.htmlAs it is known these days was a major problem.There were no shops, pubs, transport, water, sanitation. electricity, telephones or near neighbours. The nearest shop being in the small hamlet of Rakewood, and this only opened on Wednedays. Being just a small wooden shed., with a telephone box by the side alog with the only street light around. As a result my mother had to fetch all that she could carry from Littleborough.  a distance of six miles. In the  bad winter of 1948 we were snowed in for six weeks. Food did manage to get through to us.eventually on horse back. There not being the all terrain vehicles and helicopters that they wound use today. We were fortunate that my mother was a bit of a hoarder, we survived on mainly potatoes and eggs, thaat is until we had to eat our chickens. It is not quite true to say that there were no deliveries, they  did take place. We would see from time to time the Postman, Telegraph boy and the Doctor. When we needed coal it would be delivered and once a month we would see the accumaltor man. He would  deliver, Parafin for our lighting ( we used storm lanterns, later to be replaced by pressurised parafin lamps and eventully calor gas cylinders. But more importantly he brought the accumalators. There were important  because they would provide power to the radio, so that we were able to listen to music, light entetainment and the news thus, keeping us informed as to what  was happening in the world. Our only other entetainment being reading and playing board games. These accumalators consisted of low voltage lead ccid batteries thy were made of very thick glass which made them almost unbreakable. When they were no longer of use to him. He woiuld let my brother and I have them as fish tanks, The poor little goldfis h would look like Moby Dick swimming around.

My Roots

I have always threatened to write a book about my experiences which are many and varied, so those of you who find it interesting, perhaps you will become regular readers and just maybe take a look at my website. So here go's.

Born in Hope Hospital, Salford England, June 12th 1942, six week premature. Subsequently I spent the first three months of my life in an incubator. The day that I was taken home from the unit a bomb landed on It. you could say that I had a charmed life. This was to become a bit of a pattern. On this theme we had to be evacuated to the moors between Lancashire and Yorkshire because of yet another bomb.

The area we went to was out on the moors some eight miles from the small town of Littleborough, poulation at this time being approximately 2000. The nearest hamlet, which we had to pass through in order to reach "Longden End", the name of the house we had moved was called Rakewood, population 28.

Longden End was a large house built of local stone. Formerly the managers house for the local water works. It is set on the banks of a small brook in a steep valley. nearest neighbours were two farm houses one and a half miles in either direction. A lovely but isolated spot. It was going to prove an ideal place for my brother Peter and I to be brought up. The problems and they were many, my mother being a single parrent mainly had to deal with.

The house had no water, lighting, gas, telephone, electricity or sanitation. There was no transport,shop, street lights and no proper road surface..She had to work, as in those days there was no welfare. In fact she was a remarkable woman. On reflection I do not know how she managed.