 |
As we meander along the stony lane with its quaint cottages, life seems to stand still apart from the sound of the cattle waiting to be milked and impatient for the heavy gates to be opened so they can cross the road to the milking shed beyond.
What a variety of people live in these cottages, no guessing who lives in the one with ‘Police Station’ over the door. Sergeant Flyn has been there more years than he likes to remember and so little crime to investigate too, apart from that night a man was found with his hand in the till at the Farmers Arms.
Some of the men work in the mills and bleach works in Rhodes and Middleton, but, often had to work short time, creating problems when a man has a wife and family to feed. Others work on the farms and some work for the Council, on the bins or the muck cart.
Old Joe is the clogger and as a lot of villagers wear clogs, he is the man to put new irons on, or if they are a bit past that, he says, “they need clogging”, and if agreed, he will make them look like new.
Village News 1924 – Epidemic in the Village
There’s an epidemic in the village – scarlet fever and diptheria – no one is safe, the school is to be closed and the brown ambulances with the red cross are backwards and forwards escorting children and adults alike to the Florence Nightingale Hospital at Bury. Six weeks is the shortest period they will be away and children won’t see their parents, only through glass, for all that time.
E-mail Simister in the 20’s and 30’s
All material on these pages is ©Edith Oughton 2006