I was born in 1935 at home in Firgrove Avenue which is off Albert Royds Street, my maternal grandparents actually lived on the latter.

 

There were 10 houses in the Avenue and I had a few playmates.  Freddie, Dorothy, June, Peter, Muriel, Brian, Rita, Jimmy, another Peter and Bobby.  We used to be able to play in the road as there were not as many cars then.  I think one of the games was a form of rounders using the garden gates for bases.

 

I attended Halifax Road School from 4 to 11 years.  Miss Parker was the Headmistress who as I remember was firm but nice.  Another teachers Mrs. Courts had had to leave the Channel Islands when it was occupied by the Germans, they had to leave everything behind but I daresay they returned there after the war.

 

During the war we had an Anderson shelter in the back garden which we had to share with the house next door as their garden was not big enough. The Shelter was corrugated metal and a dank dark place but I think we spent a few nights in there.  Dad was in the Home Guard until he was sent working away, under the Essential Works Order, to Crewe as a bus driver after 2 years he came back to Rochdale and worked on the Rochdale buses driving the No.21 bus to Bury.

 

I went to St. Ann's Church and was confirmed there.  Mr Geoffrey Gower-Jones was the vicar who later went on the St. Stephens on the Cliff in Blackpool.  We had the 'Whit Friday walks' in May with a Rose Queen and attendants. I remember walking with them one year, and it was a long walk for a 6 year old. I had a banner string and a basket of flowers and it was bitter cold.  We went up Rochdale Road and turned round came back along St. Annes Road, up Mentmore Road, Firgrove Avenue up Albert Royds Street, over the railway bridge and down a dirt path which eventually came out near the Fox Public House on Milnrow road, then back to outside the Church.  In the afternoon it was the 'Whit Friday Field' (Lowfield) where there were games and cake and a drink.

 

There was annual 'Wakes week' when everything closed down so that we could go to Blackpool, Morecambe, Fleetwood & Southport. Sometimes by Yelloway Coaches and sometimes by train.

 

Those were the days, my mind, now I am 68, often goes back to those lazy, hazy crazy days of summer.

 

A later memory is of the Clover Mill fire in in about 1953. I worked across the road from there in the office of J H Isherwood (O&P) Ltd.  The day of the fire caused a lot of excitement.