My life began up Queensway, Darlington Rd. to be exact and that was seventy-one years ago. My earliest recollections are when I was about four years old. My oldest sister was a Girl Guide selling chocolate bars as a fund raising effort and on, I think, my third or fourth birthday she gave me a whole bar all to myself. I think that at that time this must have been the highlight of my whole life as I feel that this is my earliest memory. I was the youngest of five children; I had two brothers and two sisters. My father worked at Tweedales & Smalleys. He was a semi skilled machinist and my mother’s work was caring for us at home. 

Playing as a child in those early days was confined to our Garden and the Gardens of my pals, the street was a very important play area. The things that stand out are the general street scenes that to-days children don’t seem to enjoy any more. We had great times in those days and what a bunch of friends I had. There was Les, Geoff, Michael, Denis, Dave, Peter and Billy. Of course we all had nicknames but I have used their given names here, I’m sure these boys would all recognize themselves and would agree that those days were a lot of fun, unfortunately the days are now gone by but happy memories are ours forever. 

Mr. Roskell used to come around about two or three times a week he had a horse drawn cart from which he sold Green Groceries and I think fish. Mr. Roskell lived, I believe down in the Platting Lane area. Mr. Roberts was a regular vendor on our street. He sold meat; his was a very nice cart, painted Green. The sides were closed when he was driving and they would drop down to provide a cutting and serving surface when the ladies of the neighborhood were buying.

Dicken Green Farm was another location that had a small grocery store section in the farmhouse but I was not allowed to go there until I was about six years old as it meant crossing Queensway. The only motorized vehicles in those days were Coal Carts and the odd car that came up our street. The number one bus traveled from town to Castleton via Deeplish and Queensway. Whenever I was taken to town, usually on Wednesday afternoon, it was a great adventure. That is when My Mother would do her ‘buying in’ as she called it. 

My school days began at Charter Street School, which was the Lowerplace Infants School. I really liked the early days of school and I can remember most of my teacher’s names, Miss Ashworth, Miss Costello, Miss Oldfield and Miss Atkinson. Miss Howe was the Headmistress. To me Miss Howe was the ultimate ‘Lady’ she was a gem. 

The two shops at the bottom of Darlington Rd were built about 1938-39 It was great for us kids as it really brought some activity into our lives and meant more work for the local constabulary in the person of Sgt Aldridge (I think that was his name) who tried keeping us away from the premises during construction. Adults claimed it was dangerous. Remember, we were nine years old danger had no meaning to us. The shops turned out to be a Post Office/news agents/sweet shop. The one next door was to be a Grocer, these were owned by Mr. Golding and Mr. Walker respectively. I remember there was a Chewing Gum Machine on the wall outside Golding`s shop. Ha`penny each was the price of the chewing gum and every fourth one got an extra packet. It took about two hours for the handle to be marked so that we knew when the extra packet would be given. 

Those were great days for playing. Kirkholt was not there then so there were lots of fields to play in, just where the shops are located, between them and Lowther road a stream runs, I don't think it had a name other than ‘The Brook’ One evening, just after tea we were playing down in that brook, catching frogs. An airplane was passing overhead, a not very common occurrence in those days. Wow! The wing broke off the plane and it started to spiral down. We set off running in the direction of where it would fall. We ran over those fields as fast as we could, after about five minutes I had a dead, crushed frog in my hand, ugh! Finally the crashed plane landed in what is the vicinity of present day Hill Top Drive. Unfortunately the Pilot did not survive, I don’t know if there was anyone else in that plane. 

The brook started at a spring in the field behind Darlington Road. It meandered through the fields, just before it ran underneath Queensway. A Mr. Brown, who owned a very nice house about three hundred yards west of Darlington Rd. had cleverly incorporated it in his landscaping, a beautiful job. The lads knew how to improve the whole situation; we would build a dam upstream from Mr. Brown, when we let the dam go it was not the best situation for his plants to be in. This was enough to annoy Mr. Brown very much, Fortunately we could run faster than he could and Incidentally Mr. Brown was not referred to in such a formal manner, we new him as ‘Owd Brown’ 

The games we played in the street were what was probably the usual run of games for those days. Hide and Seek, Tigging Out, Kick The Can oh they were great fun. Another feature of those days and evenings too was the way we always would hang about round a lamppost. We would climb them, swing on the bar and swing around them on a rope; it was smashing. 

The fifth of November was a great occasion; our bonfire was always the best beyond doubt. We would start collecting wood for it about the end of September. That wood had to be guarded every day till bonfire day, the Darley Road gang were the ones who we had to guard against and occasionally we would raid their wood pile with mixed success. The ‘bommy’ itself was a wonderful affair as soon as it went dark one of the dads would light it and oh boy!! Usually we had managed to get an old skip or two from one or other of the mills and they would burn furiously. Parkin, treacle toffee and best of all potatoes roasted in the fire, plus a good helping of Black Peas oh I can taste them now. 

There were a couple of other ‘seasonal’ events worth, mentioning, Pace Egging and Christmas Caroling. The Easter Pace Egging was always enjoyed and the pennies we collected were well spent up at Hollingworth Lake on Good Friday afternoon. Our rendering of all the popular Christmas Carols was notably tuneless but never mind they were sung with enthusiasm.

Another great feature of play in those days was that any kid who was anybody had to have a ‘bogy’ this was just a plank with two sets of wheels salvaged from an old baby carriage. They were great, the front wheels were devised so that the whole thing was steerable, we would play endlessly on these things and as the area we lived in was somewhat hilly this made for some terrific fun on the down slopes. Winter fun was always the best when we had snow or frost, if it snowed out came our sledges and we had a couple of nice hills in the district so it was really enjoyable. Going down hill on a sledge, face down, lying on your belly and steering with your feet. Mothers got upset saying “it ruins your shoes” but it didn’t snow that often so we had to sledge when we did get snow. On Darlington Rd we took advantage of the slopes and made excellent slides until someone came and spread ashes on the slide so that horses would not slip on them.

When the war started it was just as our Summer Holidays were about to end but wonder of wonders, the Education Authorities had to make plans for how to organize school attendance.  School was suspended for quite some time. Ten-year-old boys thought Mr. Hitler was a great bloke. It was quite a few weeks before the school routines were established, those were really nice late summer days and I can remember endless play in warm September Sunshine.

With the start of the war life began to change, the Black-Out made a very big difference, it meant no street lamps for one thing and that of course resulted in our mothers being more persistent when they called us in for the night. It seemed to take quite a few weeks for the school attendance to get organized. First we had a half-day each week, with very few children per teacher which, I suppose was a safety measure in the event of an air raid. The next idea was to break the school up into sessions of morning duration and afternoon duration, this again made the number of children in school smaller at any given time. Perhaps the teachers were not too pleased about this I don’t know but we all thought it was great.

Eventually these problems were taken care of, I suppose the critical thing was the building of air raid shelters. Air raid shelters seemed to appear everywhere, they were necessary but boy, they were ugly.

Our play at this stage seemed to be all related to the war. We would sail bits of wood on the section of The Rochdale Canal that ran through our district. These were of course; ‘German Ships’ and we would toss stones in to bomb them. Most of our games now involved soldiers or airplanes our imagination was fired by the newspaper and magazines of that time. Another favorite of those days was a Submarine! To make a submarine was easy, we would get a piece of wood about a foot long; carve it into a cigar shape to roughly resemble a submarine. An empty thread spool was used as a Conning tower and a long nail was the Periscope. On each side we nailed a piece of tin that was bent and placed to represent “dive fins” and on its underside we would nail a weight. The weight was not sufficient to sink it but just short of that, it would just be floating. A long string attached to the front for towing and when you started walking forward the towed submarine would dive. These were a lot of fun.

We were also fascinated with “Throwing Arrows” These were great. I never see boys playing with these things these days I do remember having lots of fun with them. I will try to explain how to make them.

A simple stick is the beginning, about sixteen inches long and perhaps 3/8 of an inch diameter one end pointed and the other end is split down the center for a distance of about two inches, this is for the flights or tail feathers (which were in reality two pieces of card about half the size of a 2x3 note card) we used cigarette cards but unfortunately they are no more. These were inserted in the slit and the slit tied and glued just above them so that they remained in place. About two inches below the ‘flights’ a groove was carved around the stem of the arrow about a sixteenth deep and a sixteenth wide. This was for the string used to launch the arrow; the string is about two feet long and has a knot as close as possible to one end. Lay the knotted end in the groove bring the string around, over the knot and down to the point of the arrow meanwhile all the surplus length of the string is wrapped around the index finger of your right hand (unless of course you are left handed) Now grip the arrow between finger and thumb, an overhand throw with all your might and let the arrow go at the correct time and the string acts as a launcher or ‘extension’ of your arm and the arrow has a tremendous range. After a bit of practice it is great fun.

Rochdale was never the subject of concerted aerial attacks itself, just the odd stray bomb, probably jettisoned bombs fell on Rochdale. I remember one such incident quite well although the exact date escapes me, a bomb or a few bombs fell on a row of houses in Holborn St. which is in the district known as Sudden. About two or three houses were destroyed and one or two people, unfortunately were killed. Us boys would ride for miles on our bikes just to see such things as this.

A great war time hobby for kids was collecting Shrapnel. The intense air raids on Manchester meant that lots of aerial activity took place over Rochdale and therefore on the days after air raids you could occasionally find shrapnel presumably from anti-aircraft shells. These bits were greatly prized and were constantly “swapped and re- swapped” in school. Also the subject of much exaggeration such as “this one just missed my dad” or “this was still hot when I picked it up” some kids would have bags full of the stuff.

By this time I was about thirteen years old, I now had a job delivering newspapers. I worked for a man called Frank Borlace; he had a shop down Queensway at the end of the lane that led up to the Dicken Green Mill. I used to deliver papers in the morning and also in the evening after school. It was a great way to earn money but when I think back it was a lot of work for very little reward.

That was what growing up was like in The Rochdale of World War Two, they were happy days, and it was a lot of fun. I often wonder if boys of to day get as much pleasure out of life. I am now in my early seventies, retired and have lived in the United States for the past forty years. I feel very privileged to have these memories of my early years in Rochdale.