Melton Ross

I remember the W.I. paying £50 for a WAAF billet, so they could have their own premises in which to have meetings. I carried the the water supply in buckets from my then home, Bigby Manor. John.

ELSHAM IN THE THIRTIES

During the thirties in Elsham, keeping healthy was very important. Yhe health service didnt exsist, all we had was orange juice and cod liver oil. Our cottage was very damp, one of my sisters died from pneumonia when she was
just 4 yrs old. Many old residents also died from pneumonia, it was known as the old mans friend.
The Elsham people were extremely poor. Everybody grew their own vegetables, that was the only way you could survive. All the men worked on the farms for just a few shillings a week, the cottages they lived in belonged to the farmers, and every May Day Thursday they had to cycle to Brigg, report to the Angel Hotel, and ask the farmer who owned their cottage if he would employ them for another year. Very often the farmer wouldn't, and they had to get out of the house, which was known as flitting.
The present residents of Elsham are very lucky people.
REX WHITEHEAD

V E Day

I was born in Elsham 1934. We lived in a thatched cottage, where the village hall stands now. My grandfather was the local joiner, wheelwright, preacher, and clerk to the parish council. My father had milk cows and chickens. In the wartime we had prisoners of war, Germans and Italians. Elsham Hall was occupied by the army. We all had a fantastic time on V E Day. Rex Whitehead

When I Was A Young Girl

I was born in a quaint village in Nottinghamshire called Huthwaite, we moved to a farmhouse in Wrawby when I was 7. My aunt and her family moved there with us. We had great times in the barns, sliding down the hay, watching the cows being milked and feeding the chickens. I remember a winding staircase leading to the bedrooms and half way up the stairs was a cellar, we were afraid of going past there for some reason. I hated moving from there and to a town. I still crave to live in a farmhouse again and hopefully will do one day. The farmhouse still stands, I see it when we pass it on days out, it stands next to the church in Wrawby, it brings back so many memories...

Manor House Convent School

The photograph of Bigby Street in the Collection prompted these memories as the building on the near left is the front of the School.
As a boarder at the Manor House Convent School there are many memories.  
The pleasure of listening to the bell ringing practice from the church opposite my dormatory window and wondering if any of the bells were founded at Taylor's in my home town of Loughborough.  
The Saturday or Sunday afternoon walks along the bank of the River Ancholme and the sweet smell of the Spring's Jam Factory as we passed.  
The games of hockey and tennis in the grounds behind the school.  At this time of the year the beds of snowdrops alongside the path to the hockey field.  
The production of Midsummer Night's Dream in the grounds of the School.
The building itself and its history, especially the front staircase that we were forbidden to use.  Our classroom when we were in the Sixth Form was at the front... Read more

19 Wrawby Street Brigg

Mine isn't a personal memory as such but the photograph of Wrawby Street shows on the right handside a fish and chip shop. This double fronted shop is now a travel agents and still has the old bay windows that I have seen on an earlier photograph where a sign proudly announced that it was a Tea Shop and the caption said that the owner was a Mrs Sharp. Mrs Sarah Jane Sharp, nee Garthwaite, was my great great grandmother and I have a post card addressed to my grandparents, Mary Ellen Chadwick and Lionel McMahon, who were visting there in 1907, the year before they were married. Lionel was born in 1881 at 2 Forrester Street, at that time the home of Mrs Sharp, his maternal grandmother, although his family home was Bolton in Lancashire. Sadly Lionel's mother died when he was three and I suspect Lionel was brought up by his grandmother until his father, from Ireland, remarried another fairly local girl, Bertha Anne Doughty from Barton upon... Read more

Holiday Bliss

Brigg holds so many memories for me. As a teenager I used to visit my grandparents, aunts and uncles and other family members in Brigg. I lived in a town in South Wales and Brigg was a small little community, completely different to what I was used too. We used to stay with grandparents in Mill Road/Lane, their back garden backed onto the river and on the opposite bank was the sugar cane factory. I fondly remember going to the horse fairs behind the hotel? in town, also there was a shop which used to sell the most delicious sausage rolls I've ever tasted. Due to family bereavements and the passage of time I have not kept in touch with family from that area, but the memories will never be erased from my memory.