Cranage, the River Dane c1955

My primary school

What a lovely old photo! I was lucky enough to spend my primary school years, 1962 to 1968, at Lower Withington primary school as did my sister Cathy and my mum and uncle before us. Our headmistress lived in the house next door to the school and believe it or not she actually taught my mum and uncle also!

We all have many good memories of growing up in Lower Withington and all these years on it still feels like home when we go back even though we moved away in 1969.

The village has changed a bit over the years, what place hasn't; the school is now a large house and the grass in the front of the photo is now the Village Hall car park. In our day there was a hall but it was a low wooden building and we knew it as the
'Parish Room'; the church is still the same though, a green corrugated tin building but all the more special for not being replaced or closed.

Thursday  Market Bus Trips from Bradwall

In this picture one can see the town hall in the background and next to it now is Price City (2008), prior to that the Co-op. When I was a child this building used to be the Hungerford Cafe. I used to look forward to getting on the market bus at lunchtime with my mother and going to the Cafe for a glass of orange - this was then a real treat! The corn tradesmen used to stand outside the arches in front of the Town Hall to take orders for next week deliveries. It was the days when the Co-op van, the butcher's (Wakefield's), the bread man and the paraffin man, not to forget the Corona pop man, used to deliver to our homes and we as children could get the old threepence back on an empty bottle! There was Holland's shop where Burnell's is now. We had a Co-operative drapers and tailors in Bold Street with their offices upstairs where mum used to get her Co-op divvy! You could buy anything on the market then. Buses used to come from Hanley on Potters' Wakes and I remember people queuing up for the buses home and every other person seem to have four foam cushions tied up with string to take home to the Potteries. There was Melias and Hunter's on the High Street where one could buy all the groceries There was Dickinson & Lunts hardware on the High St. Woolworth's as well. Everyone I went to school with seemed to buy a lucky rabbit's foot from there,  they had metal tops so that when we wore them we had black marks on our skin! Ugh! Woolworth's was the place to shop, they had warm peanuts for sale that we used to love, sold in a bag that ended up full of grease - must not have been an healthy option. But then neither were Florrie's fish & chips. We remember buying some one night and cutting into the fish, it just oozed grease (I think it would have been lard in those days), but you could not fault her, she was a character in her own right!

The Square

I remember Florrie's chip shop, the chips were 6d a bag and were great. The sweet shop next door was called Timmins, and like you said, Mrs Farnsworth's shop was across the road where the betting shop is now. I used to walk through there to go to church school which is now St Mary's church hall.

Florries Chip Shop, The Square, Sandbach

Florries Chip Shop - what memories - greasy, white chips, but they were the best!  Florrie was always dressed in black - like a Victorian (which she probably was).  The shop was situated on the corner of the alley between the square and the back of the Black Bear pub. Next door (probably where the Italian restaurant is now - 2008) was a sweet shop where they would split 10 Woodbines and sell the secondary school kids one at a time and put it into a sherbert bag - can't remember the name though - I bet my sister would (Hazel Tilley).  Across the road, opposite the Saxon Crosses (where the Post Office used to be and now there's a betting shop) was Mrs Farnsworth's - three steps up to the shop I seem to remember, and it was very narrow. Wagon Wheels were very popular!