November 5th 1954

Year: 1954

November 5th 1954

I, at the tender age of fourteen, arrived in Croglin on November the 5th, 1954. It was 'Bonfire Night' and as strangers in the village I did not know a single soul. However the bonfire for the celebrations had been situated in the old quarry at the top end of the village and festivities commenced at about 7.pm so my eldest sister and I ventured forth to meet the locals. The weather was reasonable for November and the bonfire was dry so a good start was made. Soon the local lads realised that there were strangers in the camp and approached to enquire who we were and were we the folks who had moved into Quarry Cottage, after an affirmitive reply we were really made welcome and the celebration became a memorable one for me.

Charlie Dixon, Jim Metcalf, Joe Thirlwall, Sylvia Marshal, are some of the first people I met in the village and have I had a life-long friendship with them all, sadly one of the ones I have mentioned has passed away but is fondly rememered.

There were no buses to Croglin those days apart from the school bus that transported us, either to the Ierthing Valley or the Whitehouse Grammer School at Brampton, some eight miles away. All services apart from the goods we got from the local farmers was transported by vans which visited the village weekly, I remember one of the vans came from Lazenby Co-op and was driven by a great character called Ronnie, who had a great chat line for the ladies, only in the line of sales mind. I remember one old lady asking him how much oranges were and he replied 'Sixpence each Mrs Duers, but for you five for half a crown!' He was one of the lads who parachuted into Arnhem at the latter part of the war and spent what was left of it as a prisoner.

When I left school I spent a year with a farmer called Bert Pattinson, I lived in there and came down to Croglin at nights  by the pub corner and met other friends, one I have to mention is Hugh Holiday, who still lives in the village. Mostly walking back with Hugh as far as Raygarth Field then I would race up the road frightened that the Boggles would catch me! Fortunately they never did. I left Bert's a year later and went to another farm nearer Croglin called Davygill, owned and operated by Jimmy Ellwood and his wife Joan. I had two wonderful years there and sometimes wish I was still there. We used to share work in the busy farming times and threshing days come to mind as one of those busy days, Local contracters with mobile threshers would come to the farm and local farmers would send one or more of their workers to the farm whose threshing day it was, and hard work ensued from square one as the contractor was on so much a bag of oats threshed and so much a bale of straw baled. Then came a wonderful farmhouse lunch, bellybusting is perhaps a polite term to use, we would finish about four pm and then it was feeding calves, and milking the cows which ended about 6pm thereupon we had high tea which again was something to behold

In those days Croglin had an annual sports day which the Village Hall Committee ran and it was akin to Grasmere sports with fell race, Cumberland and Westmorland-style Wrestling with Peter Hunter, Desmond Ward and many others. Generally there was also a hound trial with a trail being laid by a local athletic lad laying a trail of aniseed which the foxhounds followed. then a grass track cycle race which should have been Olympic class had it still been in today. A local chap Frank Marshal was one of the top men in that field of sport.
The day was generally finished off with a dance in the village hall where an accordian band would play country dance music and new aquaintances would be made with the opposite sex.

We used to have long walks in the summer evenings up on to the local fells and sometimes a paper trail, which I was no good at because I suffered from Asthma. The village pub, the Robin Hood, was the local venue for farmers meeting for a chat and a 'bevvy' in the evenings.

I used to go on my holidays with the local cattle haulier, Stan Thirlwall, who I liked very much and although he did not say much, what he did say was worth listening to. The speed limit in those days was twenty miles per hour so it took one a long time to get anywhere and we used to go north as far as Oban and as far south as Crewe delivering sheep and cattle from Lazonby and sometimes Penrith auction marts.

My parents lived in Croglin until my father died, Mother eventually moved into an old people's home in Penrith where she died and they now are in the churchyard in Croglin. I left in 1957 and after a short say in northumberland I joined The Royal Air Force. I still love Croglin.

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RE: November 5th 1954

I live in the house now known as the Old Cottage, otherwise called the Old Post Office. We still have the phone box in the corner. It is now painted red and must be the best-kept phone box in Cumbria as it is hardly ever used. There is a plan to decommission it soon.

Hugh Holiday (Hughie) was the first person I met when we moved in 16 years ago. He had retired from farming then and still walks the street every night. A few years ago when they brough in Neighborhood Watch it seemed unnecessary here as everyone still looks out for each other. We have escaped the holiday-home blight which has emptied many a  fellside village.

The village bonfire is still an annual event and draws people in from a wider area than ever. The bonfire is more organised now than it used to be due to health and safety concerns. It is still on November 5th and we would love to see anyone who wants to come back!

There is an annual sports day and the village hall has a new lease of life as well, with events always being well supported.