Stacksteads Boyhood.

A Memory of Stacksteads.

My family moved from Haslingden to Newchurch Road in 1950 opposite the Farhome Tavern. As an eight year old I attended Western Junior School until 1953 leaving to attend Blackthorn Secondary Modern until June 1957 when our family moved to Morecambe.
After school walking home in the Bacup direction I passed several shops and Stacksteads Station standing back on the right. The next main landmark was the "VALESCO" slipper factory before passing Holden's joinery/small hardware shop.
Barcrofts had an escalator going up the first-floor storage area. Abag of broken biscuits could sometimes be purchased for a penny. Mr. Barcroft senior was for a time my Sunday School teacher at Acre Mill Baptist.
My father worked part time in the afternoons (mornings he worked for Whitewell Dairies delivering in the Stacksteads area) in Gillibrands Chemist helping in the dispencary. Seem to remember a MR. & Mrs. Colborne running a grocery shop on the corner of Farhome Lane. On the opposite corner was Jim Law's butchers with Pickups? parcel delivery service housed in a garage on the street running pararrell to Newchurch Road.
Past the pub was a bakers shop, a newsagents/toyshop, Heywoods? family clothing and outfitters, Pickups joinery and cabinet makers. After a few terraced houses Mr. Rileys grocer/general provisions shop was situated which I visited every Friday night with my mother to carry home the shopping. One night Mr. Riley pushed across the counter a small grease proofed paper package whispering to her it was a private treat. On arrival home after unwrapping a small mars bar was contained which was not recognized by we three children. Immediately she cut it into five pieces which tasted exceedingly sweet (rationing was still in force) totalling different to the rare prize of a boiled sweet.
The next shop along was a chipshop which displayed a miniature lighthouse in the window. Seem to think a long terrace of houses opposite more modern semi? on the other side before coming to a garage and a road shooting down from Bacup Road--would that be Lee Mill? More or less opposite was a co-op shop (original) with the words Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society sculpted into the upper stone facia.
Round the back was Bennets lorry depot with hen-pens behind running up eventually onto the moor. Father kept one of these raising hens for egg production and geese for fattening for Christmas.
I am only a self taught two-fingered operator of this fandangled machine and would like to post more but I shall leave that for another. Suffice it to say I enjoyed my upbringing in Stacksteads despite sometimes getting into lumber on occaission. It helped mould me into a broad outlook on life which has helped me in vocations which have taken me to N. America and Western Europe. Specifically Eastern Europe wher I witnessed deprevation and poverty as the norm to many under the yoke of totallerism.