Plums And Custard For Tea.

A Memory of Little Hucklow.

I remember every fine Sunday afternoon dad and I would set off from White Cross Avenue, Tideswell to Little Hucklow to visit my auntie and uncle, Alwyn and Alice. We used to walk there and back, I would have been 4 years old then and when I got tired my dad would carry me. We walked on Castleton Lane, no tarmaced road, just a track with briar roses at each side. When we reached Little Hucklow dad would show me the big house where he was born. He would show me the trees surrounding it and tell me when he was a little boy he would snuggle down in bed listening to the wind howling through the branches on a stormy night; he said he used to feel safe. How I loved my dad... My Auntie Alice was a tiny lady with lovely jet black hair, we had plums and custard for tea.. they tasted heavenly. Rationing was on and everything was scarce. I loved Little Hucklow, so tiny with little cottages nestled in a valley. Everybody was related to me, my Granny Wragg was an Oldfield from Great Hucklow. A small Jenny Wren lady, I remember my dad saying she used to walk all the way to Tideswell, purchase a sack of flour, put it on her head and walk all the way back again. 'Salt of the earth', farmers and quarrymen. I remember "The Bulls Head Pub" - a pretty place.Lots of cousins, a very happy time.

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