Early Years
A Memory of Droylsden.
In truth, I do not remember anything before 1948 when at the age of five I started at Moorside Primary School. I was born in 1943 and brought up in a small rented house, number 26 in King Street, situated between Faifield Road and Ashton Hill Lane. My father John and mother Edith, three years later, presented me with a brother Ronald who still lives happily with his family within one mile of our birth place. I currently reside in a very small picturesque village in Somerset and when chatting about my background, "the old days", with my friends and neighbours they often think that they should feel sorry for me. They could not however be further from the truth, in fact even though there were some tough times during my youth I am proud of my heritage and would not change it for the world. In fact my strongest memory is that of belonging to an extended family which was King Street because if I was caught misbehaving, any of the neighbours would clout me round the ear and then tell Mum and Dad what they had done and why; but by the same rule, if I was in distress for some reason the same neighbours would take me in and look after me until my Mum or Dad could take over. This was accepted by all the local families and taught all the children to respect their elders, " whoever they were"... no bad thing. Overall my childhood memories and those of my youth are extremely happy ones; in fact I firmly believe that people of my generation lived through the greatest era that has ever been and I will expand on this claim as I describe my specific memories of those times, places and experiences in subsequent submissions.
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You mention St Mary,s Church and again you bring back many happy memories, we used to go to the dance their on Saturday nights frequently finishing the evenning with a good fight with the interlopers from Openshaw, all good fun really.
Reading what I have just written makes me sound like a bad lot, I don't think I was seen that way, "a bit wild perhaps" but never a Teddy Boy. During the season we used to go to Bellvue Speedway followed by an hour in the fairground finishing with a couple of hours in the Dance Hall. At the end of the evening we would walk home to Droylesden partaking of a portion of Fish and Chips on the way. What more could a Teenager want.
Gill
My friend and long-time correspondent, Colin B told me about your post. I'm glad he put me onto this site, I think it could be very interesting.
Hope to hear from you.
Gill
I feel sure that we will have some friends in common, both from Moorside School and from Droylsden in general, and it should be quite exciting to try to discover them.
When I etended Mooside the teacher I remember most was called Mrs Ryan, she was quite tall and had a hair lip but she was a great teacher. Her classroom was inside a prefab, sited behind the main school brick buildings, with a small garden outside in which we used to grow a few vegitables, all good fun.
I also have a few photographs somwhere and will endeavour to find them so that we can possible compare them with yours at some point.
Unfortunately as I get older I find that my memory for names is deteriorating so please forgive me If I have trouble puting names to the faces.
I now reside in a tiny village just south of Bristol, it has no streetlights, no shop, and no pub, but it lies at the foot of the Mendip hills between two lakes and is very picturesque.
If you try to find people who might remember me, try mentioning my nick name "Skid Young", even the teachers used to call me Skid in those days. My wife was called Linda Peacock and she lived originally in Duram St and later in Ashton Hill Lane, the last house on the right as you approach Ashton Old Rd. Linda was one year younger than me and went to Fairfield Rd Junior school and then to Manor Rd school. Unfortunately she passed away about six years ago but we were very happily married for many years.
I would be inerersted to know which bit of Droylsden you frequented in your younger days as a first step towards finding some friends in common.
Best regards Pete (Skid)
The youngest of 6 children and lived on moorside street, there were 5 girls 1 boy in family my dad worked on railway I remember
Playing in the fields and helping out at lomas,s farm on hoppit lane and shakey bridge which we got to it through a hedge at side of canal, I loved it there in summer school holidays we played out all day, I went to manor rd school , all girls, but left droylsden in
1963 after my dad died as the house belonged to railway, but I did enjoy my young days living there.
A lot of years ago, when Friends Reunited was in its early days, I joined and found a few peers from Fairfield High School (or would they be peer-esses?) it was nice to re-acquaint but after a few exchanges of e-mail, the contacts fizzled into nothingness again.
So then I tried my junior school - Moorside. After a few exploratory clicks, I found myself looking at myself, aged about seven. A class photograph posted there by Colin Benbow. Wow!
Since that day, Colin and I have been in constant contact. Making short remarks, sometimes, going on a bit quite a lot of the time. At one point, until life changed a bit for me, we were in daily contact, still discovering stuff from one another and finding that we had quite a lot in common. It's been delightful and very rewarding and it's very much a part of my life now, being in contact with Colin. And what I've not told you yet is that he was the very first boy I 'fell in love with', age six! I don't think think he'll mind me saying that. Of course he ddn't know I existed.
Our friendship by correspondence has existed for about sixteen years now. He a widower and myself a married lady. My husband doesn't mind at all; Colin is 12,000 miles away, in Tasmania! (Damn!)
I don't remember your wife's name but I do know where Durham Street in Droylsden is. My Mum used to go to a butcher's shop near there - Hundelby's was the name. Do you remember it! Colin used to lived up near there, too - but as I know he's been in touch with you, I'll let him tell you all about himself. I used to live t'other end of Droylsden, down Greenside Lane, off Springfield Road, my address was number 1 Abbey Road. I lived there until I got married in 1965.
I won't write any more now, we will have plenty of time to get into detail, hopefully. I am going to copy this and send it to Colin so that he's in the picture.
Here's to a long, interesting and happy correspondence! Glad to have found you.
Gill
I appologise for not responding to your very interesting contributions for a few months but I have been exteemly busy trying to move forward a very large project that I am trying to get industy in the UK to take seriously. Hopefully in the next few days I will be able to find a few minutes to pick up where we left off. It would be dissapointing for me to loose contact with such an interesting group.
Best regards Pete (Skid)
d dad my mum and dad was frank and sylvia rosling