Growing Up In Spotland
Wycherley Road is off Ings Lane and was the road where I was brought up.
I can remember that the two closest shops were Thorns and Shintons, both on Rooley Moor Road. Rooley Moor Road starts at Spotland Bridge and cuts through what used to be Sam Heaps Mill. It then comes out at the top of Ings Lane near the Black Dog Pub and runs to the village of Lane Head. The houses past the Black Dog on Stonehill Drive and Mountain Ash were not built when I was growing up.
The other shops we used were Colemans, Barlows and Harry Broughton's; all three were at the bottom of Ings Lane. In those days most people worked at Sam Heaps or Turner Bros. Asbestos Company, though at lot of the women worked housewife shifts at other mills.
Caldershaw Lane was just a dirt track when I was young and lead out to the fields and a couple of farms. It also lead to Brookfield School, that was the school I went to in between Meanwood and Redbrook. I remember the Headmaster and Headmistress at Meanwood, Mr. Lees and Mrs. Wilson.
We used to play in the ‘Big Dell’ and the ‘Little Dell’ better down as Healey Dell. The ‘Little Dell’ was and still is on the left hand side of Rooley Moor Road past the Black Dog Pub and the ‘Big Dell’ is now a Nature Reserve. We also had a ‘Big Lodge’ and a ‘Little Lodge’ where we fished for stickle backs. Both these lodges belonged to Sam Heaps, but if we wanted to catch newts we had a secret place in the ‘Big Dell’ where we would go.
In the summer we would go the ‘Wam Dam’, which is situated just at the start of the moors past Land Head Village and in the summer it would be packed with people off the estate – bottles of pop and crisps were the order of the day and someone would also bring a transistor radio along, it was quite a day out! The dam has since dried up and is now overgrown.
Two miles further up the moor is ‘Ding Quarry’, where prisoners of war used to work the quarry. They used to come through the village in wagons.
The winters then seemed to last a lot longer and the roads were used for sledging, for what seemed like weeks. I remember we would make a slide on the footpath on Wycherley Road and ‘Winnie Dawson’ would come out and put ash on it; the ash being from the coal fires we all had in those days. Just a thought, the dustbin men don’t know how lucky they are now, people of my age will know what I mean!
We seemed to have Seasons for different things. When I was a child one week it would be kites and then it would be throwing arrows, how many people remember those? A few gardeners lost their canes in those days…sorry!
We all stole apples out of Brookfield Orchard and ended up with stomachache! Of course all part of growing up.
One thing I do remember, our mothers could always leave their doors open and not be worried about being burgled. In those days, if someone was murdered in the country it was front-page news, sadly life seems a lot cheaper now and what ‘Posh and Becks’ are up to seems more important.
I hated school and never enjoyed it, but looking back, it was good I just didn’t realise it at the time.
Redbrook School is now Rochdale Cricket Club and Brookfield School has gone and now (like most old schools) has houses built on it. Meanwood School is still going strong and to be honest is the one that I did enjoy the most, though my mother said I screamed the place down first day I went; I was only four. I don’t know why but people had a lot less in those days but seemed a whole lot happier.
I am still living on the same Estate fifty years on with my own family. On the whole Rochdale has changed a lot whether it’s for better who knows?
01/05/00