Jan 16 minChristmas week My parents were very sociable. Every year, in the week before Christmas, Robinsons Brewery would deliver a barrel of their special mild...
Dec 31, 20216 minChristmas – final preparations!One of my favourite Christmas activities was going to the different fairs, fetes and sales which every local organisation seemed to have...
Dec 21, 20214 minChristmas - the build upTime travel is powered by the sense of smell. The scent of cloves instantly carries me back to Nana who is lifting the lid of a pale blue...
Jul 30, 20219 minHolidaysThe start of the school holidays had that special Friday evening feeling. Routine vanished and who knew what the next day might bring....
Jul 17, 20216 minMoving into Top Class - and the dreaded 11+Somehow, impossibly, my eldest grandson will be moving into his school's top class after the summer holidays. This sparked all the mixed...
Jun 27, 20216 minReal Trains‘If you fell in there you’d be dead in two minutes’ said a voice very close to my ear. Instinctively I pulled back although I wasn't in...
Jun 13, 20214 minBallet classesWhen I was seven I was taken to see a film of the Bolshoi Ballet’s production of Swan Lake starring Galina Ulanova. I was enchanted. I...
Jun 5, 20216 minWeddingsWhen my mother told me that my uncle Bert was getting married and that I was to be a bridesmaid, I was ecstatic. I was finally going to...
May 21, 20216 minPetsNot long after my appendix operation, it had been agreed, after much pestering, that I could have my own dog. There had been a few...
May 13, 20212 minLovely posting!Came across this lovely posting in a Facebook group 'Growing up in Cheadle Hulme' EATING IN THE UK IN THE FIFTIES Pasta had not been...
May 9, 20219 minThe new NHSI didn’t see much of the winter games at school when I was five. In January I was rushed into hospital in the middle of the night to have...
May 1, 20215 minMoneyMy parents had grown up in poverty during the worst years of the 1930s Great Depression. My mother was one of four children and as her...
Apr 24, 20218 minHouseworkBefore I started school there were some days when essential and time-consuming chores meant that my mother and I couldn’t visit the...
Apr 17, 20216 minCinemaEven in a small community like ours, there was a cinema within walking distance. Cheadle Hulme’s own cinema must once have been quite the...
Apr 11, 20217 minFurnitureOne of the most memorable features of ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ was the wardrobe portal itself. Its description reminded me...
Apr 2, 202110 minGrandmothers(My grandparents are wearing dark clothes) Both of my grandmothers lived in St. Helens, Lancashire. Marriage or possibly the need to go...
Mar 27, 20215 minEaster and WhitsunAt Easter each year Nana came to stay. Nana was a devout catholic who did her best to stop me from going to hell by taking me to church...
Mar 19, 20218 minJunior SchoolThis is my school photo aged seven. As you can see, school uniform wasn't strictly enforced. I am wearing one of the dresses my mother...
Mar 12, 20219 minWasteMy father was a dedicated newshound. He bought his daily paper and cigarettes on the way to work. On Saturday afternoons he picked up...