Weston Coyney, Staffordshire

Recollections of a special village

I attended Sunday School in the 1960s at St Peter's School, Caverswall and my teacher was Mr Harp. He was a great inspiration to me as a budding historian and he sometimes took us to visit the castle and taught us much about the church. I remember being taken by Mrs Yates (the former Vicar's wife) as Brown Owl and Christine Tranter (Tawny Owl) to Caverswall Square and being taught, with other Brownies, to use the telephone box. We would attend church parades at St Peter's, often marching from the school grounds and presenting our standards. Christmas parties were at great hit, with Bert Poole in charge of the games and music. My friends Ruth and Jane Tranter had bicycles and it was still safe in those days to cycle round the village. St Peter's Church was a very important location in my childhood, however, the first time I went inside St Philomena's RC Church was on the Millennium Eve, when the 2 churches had a joint service, part of which took place in one church and part in the other. A yew tree was planted in the grounds of St Peter's to mark the Millennium. I was confirmed and married in St Peter's in 1986 and my sister Kathryn Boden was married there too, some years later. We have an old home movie of the wedding of Gilllian Inchley and Brian Proctor in 1962, showing the robed choir and Vicar Yates. I am so pleased that the bells have been restored recently at St Peter's. My house in Guernsey has framed notelets which were the result of artwork by the well known artist Tom Hinks, who lived in Caverswall and which raised funds for the building of the village community centre. My daughter Emma Boden-Heaume went to Caverswall School in 2001-2 and we were warmly welcomed back into the area by Mr Beardmore and Mary Hull. The Christmas carol service of 2001, in which we joined the choir, was a great highlight for us, after I had been seriously ill. Ann from Caverswall School and Wendy Scott have been a wonderful  support to my family. Mrs Thorley from the school, taught my daugher to play the piano. There was always a cheery smile and supportive comment from Paul in the Post Office along with Tery, Yvonne and Susan from church. Even though so many friends are no longer with us, Caverswall retains a very place in my memory and I hope that others will avail themselves of this opportunity to share something of their memories. I am sure they will be ones of a close, caring community. Long may the spirit continue.

A place in history! 1944 - 1963

I hope this memory of Normacot is the first of many to be placed by me and then hopefully by others.

I was born in 1944 in Lower Spring Road, (opposite Garbutts Toffee Factory), one of a family of 5 children ... Len, me! (Jeff), Dave, Rob and little sister Dorothy (Dotty). We had a very active young life, school at Uttoxeter Primary and then Queensberry Secondary Modern, nd played games (now hardly ever played by current generations) on the Alhambra Banks for hours with an army of friends no matter what the weather! We were a handful as I remember, and I'm sure that our neighbours will confirm that we were never nasty or bad, just young people enjoying safe, memorable and helpful young lives. We also formed a group that practised in the chapel at the top of Chaplin Road and had fans that followed the group over the Potteries for many years. I remember the majority of our friends as we grew up and formed our personalities and characters to take us into adulthood.... Mum and Dad, the kids have done good, honest!

We live in Spain now but when we come over to England we always drive through Normacot but sadly it is now, in my opinion, a shadow of its former thriving self. Enough for now, I hope my memories prompt others to post theirs and hopefully they will have memories of us ... good ones of course and I and my brothers and sister have loads more of people and places possibly to add in the future.

High Street Longton in the '40s and '50s

Barbara Johnson's memories brought back some of my own from the High Street days. Those rows of shops Barbara describes provided all the locals with everything they needed. I remember going over the road from the off-licence we ran for a meat and potato pie from 'aunt' Sarah's, going for haircuts at Billy Goodwin's barbers (right up till the middle '50s), fish and chips from MacLaughlin's (Graham Walkers grandparents), sweets and biscuits from Crooks', cooked meats, Aspros and rabbits from 'Rabbit Joes', Arkinstalls repaired watches and clocks, 'clogger' Quale for clogs, Ross' for fruit and veg., Harry Slater was the butcher, Nightingales would do all the tailoring needs, Sargeants was the furniture and pawn shop, Gothams for seeds, hardware, and almost everything else! The two pubs were the 'Sailor Boy' and the 'Royal Oak'. All these on both sides of around 100 yards of High Street. Our off-licence had once been a bakery and retail bread shop. The ovens were still in situ behind the house when we lived there. When Barbara Johnson's grandmother and great aunt gave up the post office it moved a few doors away to 161 and then after we gave up the the off-licence, in 1959, number 159 High Street ( by then Uttoxeter Road) became the post office. The building now appears unoccupied and derelict. The whole of that area is now plagued by destructive vandalism.
When the old post office had closed, after Barbara's elderly relatives had retired, we kids used the post office counters as a stage and put on entertainments - a girl from Beaumont Road sang ' I have heard a mavis singing', Ray Edwards played the piano and we put on short plays. Yes Barbara those were happy days.

BELCHER'S

Running parallel at the back of this church [St James] runs High street, where I was born as generations of my family were.

The two pot banks on the right represent a fraction of the "Belcher's"
that existed in Longton in the 30s/4os, they dominated everyone who lived amongst them with their endless stream of black smoke belching six days a week and covering all the buildings with soot and dirt. Night time brought short relief, until  the next firing.  Wash days were a nightmare, clothes went on to the line clean only to be covered later on with black spots that poured down relentlessly from the heavy smoky skies. White washing was unheard of in the Potteries until the eventual closure of the pot banks.

Perhaps on reflection in the late evenings when the kilns stood like silent sentries, silhuette outlines in the night skies, we should remember the generations of potters who worked endlessly in all this grime who gave us once an industry 2nd to none .........

Each photo is a lasting memory .............

A Longton Lass. Barbara.