West End

A Memory of Halifax.

I was born on a not very pleasant day in February 1954! We lived in the Dunkirk area of the West End below the factory/mill on Dunkirk Lane. We had "The Green" to play on, Warley Road, and then the "Top Park" further up when we were a little older. We all walked down to St. Marys Infant and Junior schools by St. Marys Catholic Church, my older sister and her friend making sure we went into school and then taking us home again.
I remember hearing men in their clogs walking to the carpet factories down by King Cross and my dad taking me to the hairdressers to have short back & sides, ugh, I hated it! It was on the junction of Warley Road and Burnley Road I think. There were many big factories near us, machine tool manufacturers, foundry's and there was a famous, in Halifax, rugby league player working in one of them and we used to wait to watch him go to work.
I remember my mum taking me shopping to the CO-OP on King Cross, buying food and sometimes other things and the cashier putting the money into an overhead container, pulling a string then it shot off into a hole then it came back with our change in it! Magic!!
I had a paper round going round Dunkirk and Plain Tree Nest Lane with all the big houses. At Christmas we would get a tip from the ordinary homes but the rich ones? Rarely.
I have lots of happy memories of my childhood in Halifax, I return every year or so to relive them but the last time I walked past our old family home it was not so pleasant looking so I will not return there again.

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