Talkin, Cumbria

November 5th 1954

I, at the tender age of fourteen, arrived in Croglin on November the 5th, 1954. It was 'Bonfire Night' and as strangers in the village I did not know a single soul. However the bonfire for the celebrations had been situated in the old quarry at the top end of the village and festivities commenced at about 7.pm so my eldest sister and I ventured forth to meet the locals. The weather was reasonable for November and the bonfire was dry so a good start was made. Soon the local lads realised that there were strangers in the camp and approached to enquire who we were and were we the folks who had moved into Quarry Cottage, after an affirmitive reply we were really made welcome and the celebration became a memorable one for me.

Charlie Dixon, Jim Metcalf, Joe Thirlwall, Sylvia Marshal, are some of the first people I met in the village and have I had a life-long friendship with them all, sadly one of the ones I have mentioned has passed away but is fondly rememered.

There were no buses to Croglin those days apart from the school bus that transported us, either to the Ierthing Valley or the Whitehouse Grammer School at Brampton, some eight miles away. All services apart from the goods we got from the local farmers was transported by vans which visited the village weekly, I remember one of the vans came from Lazenby Co-op and was driven by a great character called Ronnie, who had a great chat line for the ladies, only in the line of sales mind. I remember one old lady asking him how much oranges were and he replied 'Sixpence each Mrs Duers, but for you five for half a crown!' He was one of the lads who parachuted into Arnhem at the latter part of the war and spent what was left of it as a prisoner.

When I left school I spent a year with a farmer called Bert Pattinson, I lived in there and came down to Croglin at nights  by the pub corner and met other friends, one I have to mention is Hugh Holiday, who still lives in the village. Mostly walking back with Hugh as far as Raygarth Field then I would race up the road frightened that the Boggles would catch me! Fortunately they never did. I left Bert's a year later and went to another farm nearer Croglin called Davygill, owned and operated by Jimmy Ellwood and his wife Joan. I had two wonderful years there and sometimes wish I was still there. We used to share work in the busy farming times and threshing days come to mind as one of those busy days, Local contracters with mobile threshers would come to the farm and local farmers would send one or more of their workers to the farm whose threshing day it was, and hard work ensued from square one as the contractor was on so much a bag of oats threshed and so much a bale of straw baled. Then came a wonderful farmhouse lunch, bellybusting is perhaps a polite term to use, we would finish about four pm and then it was feeding calves, and milking the cows which ended about 6pm thereupon we had high tea which again was something to behold

In those days Croglin had an annual sports day which the Village Hall Committee ran and it was akin to Grasmere sports with fell race, Cumberland and Westmorland-style Wrestling with Peter Hunter, Desmond Ward and many others. Generally there was also a hound trial with a trail being laid by a local athletic lad laying a trail of aniseed which the foxhounds followed. then a grass track cycle race which should have been Olympic class had it still been in today. A local chap Frank Marshal was one of the top men in that field of sport.
The day was generally finished off with a dance in the village hall where an accordian band would play country dance music and new aquaintances would be made with the opposite sex.

We used to have long walks in the summer evenings up on to the local fells and sometimes a paper trail, which I was no good at because I suffered from Asthma. The village pub, the Robin Hood, was the local venue for farmers meeting for a chat and a 'bevvy' in the evenings.

I used to go on my holidays with the local cattle haulier, Stan Thirlwall, who I liked very much and although he did not say much, what he did say was worth listening to. The speed limit in those days was twenty miles per hour so it took one a long time to get anywhere and we used to go north as far as Oban and as far south as Crewe delivering sheep and cattle from Lazonby and sometimes Penrith auction marts.

My parents lived in Croglin until my father died, Mother eventually moved into an old people's home in Penrith where she died and they now are in the churchyard in Croglin. I left in 1957 and after a short say in northumberland I joined The Royal Air Force. I still love Croglin.

Croglin 1958

When my husband and I married in March 1958, he bought the cottage nearest the camera on the left; no electricity, no bathroom......it cost the  princely sum of £300!
The building at the end of the street is the pub, and behind the trees on the right is the church and graveyard.  The trees have been felled now.  
In the other photo showing an oddly painted phonebox, the building just behind it was the shop and post office combined.  Vans came round from the co-op every week, and Jimmy Cranston the butcher came round too; he made wonderful sausages and brawn, and killed pigs locally.  Until the law stopped home butchering. When I last went there in 1988, I saw a van with his name on it, so the business was still going.  Roberstons bakers from Carlisle used to deliver bread and cakes, and the Lakeland Laundry man was a regular too; no washing machines, no fridges.  I had a copper boiler in the back scullery - the chimney is visible on the corner of the roof;I had never done laundry like that, as we had a machine at home, and it was incredibly hard work!!
We left to live in Yorkshire in 1962, and I have only been back once, to my regret, but I am still in touch with the girl who lived over the road!

Pretty little Ainstable

I was brought up in the white cottage mid-left, by the roadside, by my grandparents.
The Crown Inn at the middle of the picture in the distance was run by Jim and Winnie Tuer, and I was friends with their daughter Ruth. The white cottage on the right was the shop, and later also became the post office.  The original one was in the white cottage to the left and was run by Mrs Rowlands until her death.
I think this photo was taken about 1955, as council houses were built about then in the field near the pub, and they are not in the picture. The village school was on the right past the pub, and when I attended, pupils were taught with the aid of a radio, by Mrs Glaister and later with Miss Jopson too, who taught the younger children.
At the side of my grandparents' cottage there was a tap, where some villagers had to collect their water in buckets as they had no water in their houses. The old well was still there, on the village green to the right. Until the water was piped in, everyone had to use that.
My grandparents had a lodger called Sidney Elijah Durrant, who died in the early 1960s aged over 90; he lost his wife and all four of his children during the 1918 flu epidemic.
The school has been a house for years, and the playground is a garden.  There is no pub now, no shop, no post office, but when when I lived there nearly 60 years ago, there was no electricity and no bathrooms, except the pub! No washer, fridge, telly, computer games, but we always found something to do and lovely walks to take, and there was no vandalism because the policeman lived down the road, and would give you a clip round the ear if you got up to mischief. I loved this place, but can't go back as the houses now are hugely overpriced, but I will never forget Ainstable.

Barclays and Taylors of Tarraby Farm

My mother Gladys Taylor (nee Barclay) and father James Taylor married and lived at Tarraby Farm, Carlisle in 1927. My mother's parents were Alexander and Isabella Barclay, who lived and worked on the the farm. My grandfather was originally from Nigg, Aberdeenshire, where he was headmaster of Cove Bay public school, till approx 1918. My father was from Great Strickland, his parents were James and Barbara (nee Gowling). My eldest brothers Maurice and James (Jim) were both born at Tarraby. If anyone has any more information on my family or of Tarraby Farm at that time, or photos, I would be grateful for any more info.