Tottington Generations.

A Memory of Tottington.

My Family of Shepherd's have lived in Tottington for four generations. My Great Grandfather was Joseph Shepherd, born in 1924 in Bury. He married Emily Bennett whose family lived at 16 Club Row, Tottington. Her father was Thomas a Labourer. Joseph and Emily lived at 25 Turton Road (A few doors up from the Dungeon Inn) all their married lives and I have been told that they were the first house on the street to have an indoor bathroom suite. This would have been the envy of many a neighbour. My Gt. Grandfather Joseph died there in 1975 and my widowed Grandmother Emily remained there until her death in 1981. I remember walking up the village to see my Grandmother on a Sunday morning after Sunday School, with my brother and sister. This would be about 1980 She would get out a large white purse filled with coppers which she would give us to count out and share. Pennies in hand, we would then take at high speed down the street and round the corner to the village Newsagents, which is now Cohen's Chemist, to purchase lots of one penny sweets or a sherbert dip. On returning to our Gt. Grandmother's we would then be asked to get the busicuit tin out which was kept in the then larder under the stairs, made from cold thick slabs of stone which were the larder shelves to keep foods cool and fresh. I also remember using the back yard lavatory which was made of painted brick and attached to the back kitchen. When you got in and closed the door you would sit on the lav with its wooden seat and peel the curling paint from the walls. Wiping was always a bit tricky as the toilet paper was like tracing paper or grease proof paper which had been ripped into squares and pierced and hung with string by a nail in the wall. Sometimes it would be newspaper squares hung there. We had many a chuckle with our Gran over this because we had never seen or used anything like it. We would laugh and joke about the local news being printed on our behinds and ask each other if we wanted to finish the crossword. We must of been about 10 or 11 years old and even to us the house was old fashioned. There was no central heating or double glazing, everything was wood and stone. The neighbouring ladies would clean their front steps and net curtains weekly making them whiter than white.