Moving on

We remained at Longden End until the age of ten when we moved down into the hamlet of Rakewood. Mother having managed to get a half of a terraced house. When I say half i mean that at one stage it had been an end of terrace, but some stage the front half had been made into a shop , with the back half being a two up and two down arrangement. unfortunately the shop section was now derelict as was a chapel  on the western side.The group of houses consisting of another two like ours, separated by a  centre house which actually stretched from front to back them having the luxury of a front and back door. The group had the rather resplendent name of "ANTIOCH" obviously having had ties with the chapel. at some stage. To my mother it was a great improvement, as she was much nearer to her work,  we  were nearer to school and her life was made easier by the fact that it was smaller,running water. ( mostly down the walls ) and electric light. My brother Peter and I hated it. Mainly because we had lost our playground.. Things would never be the same.Another plus was that we had no longer got the chores of fetching the water. berrying the toilet and ponching the washing . Another plus was that we were now near to our school friends end for the first time were able to meet them in the evening after school.   To get back to the toilet they wer in a block of three at the end of the terrace. Each toilet They consisted of a large a large wooden platform with a large hole in the centre, a hinged wooden lid was lowered across the hole to keep out the flies when not in use there being a large steel container to catch the effluent., this being collected weekly by the borough council. The three toilets were shared by "Antioch" and "Lower Abbots" residents, a similar terraced block set  higher up the hillside. A representative of each block would take it in turn to clean them

How the Weather Affected Conditions

The weather was of particular concern to us, having no heating. Being on the Lancashire/Yorkshire moors,and being  over 2000 foot above sea level.  We were often subjected to very heavy mists. This gave a very quiet and mysterious atmosphere, very rather like the set of a dracular movie..Rather attractive in it's own way.  It however had a down side as it left everything feeling very damp.The area was also subjected to very heavy rain fall. When this occurred the river became a raging torrent. Overflowing it's banks and began climbing up the garden towards the house. Fortunately It never did  reach the house. When these days did occurred it was sometimes difficult to attend school. Other problems encountered was when it snowed was due to,.being high up in the Pennines the area was  often subjected to very heavy snow fall. The winter of 1948 being of particular note.This winter was one of the  worst on record. The snow was very deep and the ice very thick, in fact the river was not flowing as it was a complete block of ice. The consequence of this was that we were unable to get to school and my mother was unable to get to work.As mentioned previously, Mother was a bit of a hoarder, therefore we had plenty of potatoes, eggs as we had some chickens, these we were able to kill and eat as the conditions  worsened.. Eventually they got through  to us on horse back.

Like all young boys we were capable of getting into mischief,.we were left very much to our own devices. Running from the house to the pumping station was an old railway track, which had been built to assist in the emptying some filter beds that  were on the otherside of the brook. Also at the back of the house was the  remnants of the original pump house. this had long gone. Leaving behind a one  hundred foot tall chimney.. My uncle had built for us a cart to run on the track, so that when Peter and I went to the pumping station each week to pay the rent for the house we could use the cart. He had fitted it with a sail so  that when the wind was blowing and it usually wa,s we could ride at least one way wind assisted. As a matter of interest the rent was 2/6d which equates to 12.5p in todays currency.,. Returning to the mischief, We set fire to the moors on a number of ocasions, having watched the farmers do it, We called it sqealing ,at one stage it burned for six weeks before the fire was brought under control, The filtter beds we had decided to make them into a swimming pool, this was done by divertinng the river, thus depriving Rochdale of  it's water supply. The chimney  that stood behind the house we decided to demolish. Having read how the steeple jacks do this by knocking bricks out of the base, supporting it with pit props and then lighting a fire to burn out the pit props and thus bringing the structure down, We did this, ours however did not come down, it remained standing for quite a few years afterwords.

Sunday, Day of Rest ( Chapter 5 My Story)

Sundays tended to be washing and ironing day, that is  providing the weather was fine. The copper was filled with water, which meant a couple of journeys to collect the water with the milk churn. A fire was built and lit underneath the copper, soap and the dirty washing put into it. When the water was  boiling , my brother and I took up our positions with the ponch agitating the washing as hard as we could. In  the mean time my mother had prepared the irons, ready to do the ironing. The ironing was usually done outside, as she had at her disposal two types of iron. The first being the flat iron, made of cast iron it wa placed on the fire until red hot. The iron was then slipped into a tin sleeve, so that the clothes did not get burnt, and this would be used as long as the iron remained hot. This required a number of irons in the fire in order to ensure that a smooth progress could be maintained. The second type of iron was the charcoal iron, this had a little fire grate inside the body of the iron, this was filled with charcoal which when fully lit would keep the sole plate of the iron hot. This iron was the reason for being outside as it had a tendancy to belch smoke and soot particles every where. Both these irons were eventually superceded by a calor gas fired iron. Other duties on a Sunday was the disposal of the toilet efluent. This entailed the carrying of the toilet tub to a spot some way from the house. the digging of a hole and burrying the contents. i assure you this was not our favorite task.Althogh Peter and i did find it worked well for us one sunday. We had visitors, a friend of my mothers from manchester. she had a particularly nauseating daughter who was dressed in a white frilly dress. We were told to go outside and play, which we did, choosing to play where we had buried the toilet. Needless to say she found it, her not being privy to it's where abouts,  the advantage that we had.
 

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.

Early Years

Early Years

We remained at Longden End from the ages of four until eleven virtually having our own little oasis, where nobody interfered and we were able to more or less, do what we liked.( quite frankly very few people new of our existence )  As previously mentioned, my mother had to work  in order to support us. This meant that apart from being left for long periods of time, whereby we could get up to all kinds of mischief,. we had to do our fair share of household chores. These included fetching water, we had a set of two milk churns mounted on wheels and once a day we would take these churns down to the brook and fill them with water.The toilet was a large bucket which was situated in  an outhouse underneath a wooden board, this board had a large hole in it. This acted as a seat for when we had to answer the call of nature. Well of course eventually the bucket became full and needed to be emptied. My brother Peter and I would then take the bucket to a point some way from the house. Dig a hole and tip the excreta  into it and bury it. Other duties were the lighting and maintenance of the house fires, and the weekly wash. The house had a large cast iron grate in which was situated to the right hand side of the  fire bars.an oven.and on the left hand side a water a water tank with a hot plate on top. This was our only source of heat, all cooking, boiling of water was undertaken here. I mentioned house fires the other fire was needed when doing the weekly wash. To the left of the fire grate was situated a large copper.this would be filled with water a fire would be lit underneath and the water boiled. The washing would be placed in to the copper  and a punch would be used to pummel the washing.. A Punch is likened to a three legged milking stool with a long handle attached . This would be used to agitate the water,like the action of a washing machine.    .