Cheadle Hulme 50 60 Years Ago

A Memory of Cheadle Hulme.

We moved to Cheadle Hulme from Barnton in 1957 when my dad bought Miss Young's bakery at 38 Station Road. In those days it was a lovely quiet village, not at all the bustling suburb of today. Our bakery was at the far end of the block in the picture, on the corner of Belfield Ave. The other side of Belfield to the shop was a church (I'm not sure what denomination it was) which was burnt down one evening when it was set alight by the caretaker's pyromaniac son. Next to the church were a couple of mansion-size private houses. The first was owned by an old lady we knew as Miss Oliver, I recall often seeing her taking her labradors for a walk, and the second house was owned by Hobsons who were the local coal merchants.
Opposite our shop and bakery was Davenports Farm, I used to love getting up early and going out with Mr Davenport or John his son on the milk cart because they'd occasionally let me hold the reins and drive the horse.....kids these days don't get a chance for an experience like that. I used to help out with other things on the farm as well, like mucking out the pigs, feeding the hens, and collecting the eggs....happy days.
Cheadle Hulme began its metamorphosis in the early 60's, one of the first changes involved the modernisation of the railway station, but sadly this came at a price. The driver of an excursion train taking some children from Stoke on an outing failed to take heed of the warnings and speed limits imposed for the reconstruction and, taking the corner too fast, left the rails and completely ploughed up platform 2. As our shop was only 100 yds away my mother was quickly on the scene and immediately took charge of the children, she contacted the church caretaker who opened up the church hall as a rescue centre, then she organised sandwiches and cakes from our shop and bullied (lol) the grocers into providing bottles of pop. One of the proudest moments of her life was receiving a letter personally signed by the then chief constable of Cheshire thanking her for her public-spiritedness, I still have that treasured letter.