Sunny 1950''s Sunday Mornings

A Memory of Clayton-Le-Moors.

I have many memories about the old St Mary's Church. Until I started thinking of them I realised that I have not got one involving a rainy day apart from when my Grandad was buried in the churchyard. He was laid to rest with his younger brother who died in the First World War and my late Grandmother. I still visit the grave from time to time.

Both I and my brother were baptised at the old St Mary's. I still have the photographs. They look like a snapshot from another world now.

I remember walking down a sunny Burnley Road from Enfield with Daddy dressed in his best camel coloured and belted gaberdine coat, as we made our way to the later morning Mass. I can still smell those warm and dry dusty summer days. My hat always seemed to be blowing off and he had to chase after it. "Carry it until we get to church" he'd say. Mum stayed at home with my baby brother to sort out Sunday dinner. (I think everything went on a low light about 9.30am!)

I can remember the birdsong and the hawthorn bushes full of blossom as we walked along the main road. We always stopped and looked over the canal bridge to "See what we can see". We always went in the back gate to church.There were wild roses and cow parsley growing along the shady hedgerow.

I once asked my Daddy why a lot of the men in the congregation smelt of cherries. As I grew older I realised that the smell was, in fact, Saturday night's beer!

The church ceiling was beautiful and I used to get told off for staring upwards rather than looking at the pulpit whilst Fr Bolton was preaching his sermon. A swift jerk on my hand and a look from by Dad ensured eyes down straight away. I also loved to turn and look at the upper level where the beautiful singing came from. Somehow, the voices never matched the faces of the people singing. Another jerk of my hand ensured eyes forward again.

There was a gravestone in the shape of a table not far away from the church, just at the entrance to the graveyard.  It had a large tearose bush growing alongside it. A boy told me to hurry past it or I had to eat Sunday dinner with the devil. It still gives me the shudders when I think about it.

The Dunkenhalgh family crypt was situated at the rear of the church. Walking past it was another scary experience for an imaginative child.

There was a bench just outside the door for when mainly, ladies of the congregation, fainted or became unwell. It seemed to me that it was every week that someone was helped outside by the men who passed around the offertory plates. Great excitement for a bored child. "Nothing to do with us, keep your eyes to the front" said Dad. Sometimes, when we were leaving, a lady was  still sitting there clutching a glass of what I thought was holy water!

Every week, after Mass, Dad and I visited the family grave. He stood in silent prayer whilst I fidgeted at his side on the lookout for children that I knew or else I picked daisies from the grass grave edging.

The only priest that I can remember at the old church was Fr Bolton. He was to me, a kindly man who once gave me a sweetie to suck after I fell down and grazed my knee. ("Not looking where you were going" he said)

After Mass, we walked home back up Burnley Road to our home 'On the Level' or the 'Top End' of Clayton. Waiting for us would be Sunday Dinner ("Eat the fat, it's good for you'), Two-way Family Favourites on the wireless and afterwards helping Dad with washing-up.

Sometimes, later in the day I was given some money to run down our back lane to get a block of ice-cream and some wafers. Sunday trading laws were very strict back then. I don't know what we were allowed to buy but it certainly wasn't ice-cream The nameless shopkeeper (on Whalley Road at the corner of Henry Street) wrapped the ice-cream in newspaper and told me to run home with it inside my coat and not to let anybody see. So, I became lawbreaker at a very early age!

In these later years I am amazed how small everything now looks. The graves are still there. The Dunkenhalgh family crypt stands in the middle of a grassed area where once stood the church. There is still birdsong and a peaceful place to stand and remember holding my lovely Dad's hand in church on those sunny Sundays.