Lifelong Newsomer

A Memory of Newsome.

My childhood was spent living in Cross Lane back in the days when it was rare to visit town, each community was virtually self sufficient with shops, at the bottom of cross lane, on the topside of the Baptist Chapel was Kilburns, bakers, where I had a Saturday job helping with deliveries of bread and cake orders, my pay was an armful of unsold buns and cakes from the shop, below the Chapel stood the hardware shop of Jimmy Lunn, with Symonds gents hairdressers opposite, and the Coop building, Irelands groceries [?], Kenneth Hall, butchers, Barnsdales sweets, a post office, the Primrose pub, Hamers fish and chips, another Coop, this time drapery, a small sweetshop that you had to go down a step to get in. Going further was the Woodman area with its same name pub, post office, chippy, sweet shop and green grocer. Travel right towards Stile Common we pass the small Cobblers shop & Liberal Club with the junior school in view up the hill, then arrive at Stile Common, Lounge Cinema, newsagents, hairdressers, another butchers. sweet shop and an undertakers with coffin in the window.
Working our way up toward the top of Cross Lane we pass the cricket field and Crimea pub, proprietors Sally and Ken. At the top a batch of shop to the left of those I recall were Mona Wright, haberdashery, and another chippy, a general store stood across the road. A footpath lead up the hill to Newsome Mills passing hen runs on the way.
As you can see withal the shops we needed in our vicinity it was rare to actually need to visit the town unless you wanted to see a different film or look at the Rolls Royces in Rippons windows
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