More Memories Of My Hometown

A Memory of Patricroft.

A person who read my previous account of my life in Patricroft asked me to elaborate on my story. Most of the important aspects of my early years were covered, but there are a few remaining stories that may interest the old timers who lived in Patricroft during 1941-1960 when I lived there. I now live on Long Island, New York.
The headmaster during the time I was at Patricroft CE School was Mr. Edgar Percy Dale, whom I introduced in my previous story. He was a short chubby person with oiled hair that was slicked back across his head. He always had his spectacles in a hard case and he used to pull them out whenever he was reading something. We children were required to attend morning assembly every day, and we used to stand in lines between the desks in the classrooms where assembly was held. Mr. Dale was the person in charge. He was usually brief (I think because he was busy) and after the Lords Prayer and a hymn we dispersed to our regular classes. However, there were times when the morning prayers were very long and Dale would deliver long sermons and keep on going for what must have been more than 30 mins. This is a long time when you are bored stiff. I think Dale was a religious person who enjoyed preaching and would do so whenever he had the time.
Dale was fond of English folk songs. He compiled a list of old songs in a small booklet that he had typed. Periodically, we would sing the songs while he accompanied us on the piano. When we were not singing loudly enough he would go from student to student and put his ear in front of our mouths to determine if we were singing or not. If he detected a rough voice, he would say Theres a grunter in the class, and they had better stop it. It's funny now, but we were all scared then.
Every Friday morning at about 10 AM, the BBC would broadcast a service on the radio and a classmate and I would retrieve the large heavy radio from a cupboard in Dales office. He hated noise and disturbance and we would gently knock on his door and tiptoe in to get the radio. We were scared to death that we would be too noisy and get yelled at. After the BBC broadcast, Dale would ask us ignorant kids various questions about religion. My brother told me that on one occasion he was talking about the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where the earliest civilizations arose. He detected one kid who was not paying attention and asked him what rivers he was talking about. The kid was in a panic because he hadnt been listening. A classmate who was sitting behind him decided to play a joke and whispered to him The Manchester Ship Canal. The poor boy said to Dale, "The Manchester Ship Canal, Sir". Everybody in the room burst out laughing but Dale was not amused and the kid got a beating.
At other times, when Dale wasn't busy, he would hold an impromptu religious instruction lesson and read from the bible for an hour at a time. He again would ask questions and when we didnt answer he would run over to a cupboard and pull out a bamboo cane, swish it in the air, and demand that we respond. We were all frightened. It was brutal. He would cane a child for any infraction, which I suppose was allowed at that time.
To raise money for the school, we kids would collect used jam jars. We would knock on doors and ask for them, and bring them back to the school. When we had collected hundreds of them, the school would contact a local jam factory to have them picked up. I suppose they washed them and reused them. I wonder how much money we earned for all our labour.
Once a week, our class would go to the public swimming pool on Cromwell Road. The boys went to one pool while the girls went to the other. One could also go there and pay for a hot bath. All the boys could swim except for me and one other boy. I later learned but the other boy never did. Our swimming instructor at that time would end the lesson by ordering the boys to take off their swim suits and swim nude for a while. We thought nothing of it at the time. Maybe the instructor was doing it for our mental health, but now I'm not so sure. After the swim we were all starving, so we went to the local sweet shop and bought a thick slice of yesterday's stale bread for a couple of pence.
About 10 years ago, I returned to my old school with my camera. There were some changes but, by and large, the place looked the same. As I was mingling with the kids in the school playground and taking photos, a teacher came over and asked if I needed help. I think she was checking to see if I was a paedophile. She was happy to learn that I was an old boy from 50 years ago. I regret that I didn't visit the headmaster for a little chat. We would both have learned a lot, I'm sure. Well, next time.
At Christmas, the children would attend a service in Christ Church. The vicar was Reverend England. His wife was quite a lady and she used to wear very colourful dresses and broad-brimmed hats, and heavy make-up. She looked a little like Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum but was much more flamboyant. We all look in awe as she swept by in her flowery silk dresses and cloak.
Liverpool Road., between Cannon Street and Nelson Street, was always busy when I was a boy. The housewives would be chatting together as they shopped, and all the stores were very busy since the women shopped daily. One busy shop was the fishmonger near Nelson Street, called Silcocks. They must have had about six staff and they were always full of people. There was a local bakery called Richardsons would baked all types of goods including delicious meat and potato pies and barm cakes. Another bakery was near Robert Street, called Hammonds. It was a dark, dirty, dingy place and the cakes were exposed to the flies that were always buzzing around. Tommy Cocker's fishmonger and green grocery shop was also in this area. There was also a butchers shop called Fletchers. Whole sides of beef and lamb were hung in the shop from the ceiling. If you wanted some meat the butcher would cut a piece off for you, and weigh it on the scales. Nothing was prepackaged in those days. Also, along Liverpool Road there was a hardware store called Tunnycliffs, a shoe shop called Hardmans, several sweet shops, and a general store called Motlers, among others.
I think the shops started to lose business when the old billiard hall in Eccles opened up as a Tesco supermarket. There the housewives could get food for much less than the local shops. Many of the small shops banded together as co-ops to buy food in bulk for themselves, but I don't think it was successful.
On the opposite corner to our laundry on Cannon Street was a small grocery shop originally owed by Stanley Holden who later sold it to the Sutton family. One afternoon, just before closing, one of my sisters was in the store when a lady came in and asked Mr. Sutton for a quarter pound of bacon. Sutton had just washed down the bacon slicer and refused to slice the bacon when he saw the woman had two loaded bags of groceries from Tesco. He told her that he wasn't going to start up the bacon machine again if she bought all her groceries elsewhere. So she left in a huff.
Right after the Second World War, food was still rationed. Each family had a ration book full of coupons. If you wanted to buy some sweets, you would pay for them and give the storekeeper some sweet coupons. This applied to many other foods as well. Sugar was especially scarce and the regular customers never had enough. We as Chinese ate rice, and we could never buy enough. Our family used very little sugar and the Sutton grocery store used to keep over a dozen bags of our sugar under the counter till we needed it. We used to ask our friends to buy as much rice as they were allowed and we would swap our sugar for their rice. I remember one time when the police came to our laundry to search for rice. They thought that many Chinese were buying rice on the black market. We never had that much rice at home and what we did have was not excessive.
I remember in the 1950s there was an antique store near Robert Street on Liverpool Road. We called it the junk shop. It was full of what I would call rubbish although, at my current age, I would love to rummage through the place to see what treasures were hidden there. It was owned by an old man call J. Peters who live on Cannon Street. I never saw anybody in his store and wondered how he supported himself. He was an educated man because he was once an alderman (?) in Eccles, and he was well respected in the community
Every year there was parade down Liverpool Road during Whit Week. There were bands and religious groups carrying large banners. I wonder if this is still done. Every Sunday morning the Boys' Brigade band would march out of the Drill Hall on Cromwell Road playing the one and only tune they knew. They would march down Milton Street and along Liverpool Road towards Eccles Cross. I never found out where they were going. Once in a while, the Salvation Army would stop in Cannon Street and play music and sing hymns. Then they would knock on all the doors to ask for support. I dont think anybody opened their door.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Patricroft and Eccles were peaceful, with little crime. I think the required National Service that young men got in the army gave them discipline and they returned to civilian life as mature and responsible adults. My relatives in the UK now say that the young kids are very belligerent and are often committing theft and getting into trouble. This is something that I find hard to believe about the UK, where respect for the law was always a part of the British mentality.
As I said before, Liverpool Road is now very quiet and depressing. You hardly see anybody walking on that stretch of road anymore. Eccles was supposed to have been revitalized in the 1960s with a new shopping centre near Eccles Cross. The project was not successful and stage two of the project was not started. Sadly, I think that Patricroft and Eccles will never again be the bustling place that I knew as a boy. Times have changed and that way of life will never return.