Growing Up In Tetchill

A Memory of Tetchill.

My family moved to Tetchil from Lancashire in 1956, the year after I was born. My Dad got a job as a meat Inspector at the abbattoir in Hordley. We lived in Val View until my parents purchased a cottage & some land at the 'top' of the village, 14 Ellesmere Road, now known as Long Acres.
I remember the village having two shops including a Post Office & a thriving garage, all now gone. Fred Davies from Frankton used to also bring his green van into Tetchill on a Saturday afternoon & sell provisions & more importantly sweets to those of us clutching our threepenny bit pocket money.
I remember going to the local farm, Winston, potato picking with my mum as did lots of other families around us.
There was also a beautiful school building, no longer used as a school but used as a Sunday School & venue for Youth clubs, Womens Institute & all sorts of village parties, this too has sadly been demolished to make way for more bungalows.
We used to get our drinking water from the village pump on the corner opposite our house, although we had running water it was not suitable for drinking until the early to mid 1960s.
There were buses to Oswestry and Shrewsbury a couple of times a week. We used to catch the bus to school in Ellesmere.
There were a lot of green fields within the village but these have now been built on as has the large allotment opposite our house that our neighbour, old Mr Edgerton, used to lovingly tend.
People coming down the canal on their narrow boats would moor up & come into the village to buy provisions.
We used to swim in the canal when the weather was warm in the summer & play cricket in a field by Val View called the Leg O Mutton. We would go to another field between Tetchill and Lee, next to Bluebell Wood and play rounders on summer evenings.
The boarders from Ellesmere College used to visit the village at the weekend to buy what they needed. At that time it was an all boys college & they were very distinctive in their brown jackets & black trousers with black & white ties. They came from all over the world to the college & they were not supposed to speak to us in the village but most of them were very friendly. There was a fire at the college in 1966 & many people including us children rushed to help save what we could.
Tetchill holds lots of very happy memories for me, everybody knew everybody in the village. My Dad, being well educated was often called on to help people fill out forms or assist with paperwork. He also had one of only a handful of cars at that time. How times have changed!