My Village As A Child

A Memory of Grainthorpe.

I was born at Grainthorpe in 1945 at Chapel Hill Cottages to Jim and Ivy Holdsworth
Dad was a Geordie who came to the village in 1943 with the Royal Ulster Rifles. My mother was Ivy Loughton and was brought up by her grandparents Teddy and Margaret Hiscock. Chapel Hill Cottages were next to the main chapel in the village. We had no water in the cottage. Dad fetched it by oxes yoke everynight from a well in the field next to centre house. The cottage consisted of one living room, one double bedroom, a box room which had a single bed in and you couldn't shut the door and a kitchen which you were not able to swing a cat round. I went to Grainthorpe Primary school and was taught by Mrs Kettlewell whose husband ran the local post office. The village had a very close community. As well as the school there were two pubs, the Bricklayers Arms and the Black Horse. There were three chapels and the church and a fish and chip shop. I remember the fish shop well as every saturday orders for fish and chips were delivered to the bus stop to go to North Somercotes as they didn't have a fish shop. there was one other shop, it was Fosters on the main road thats where my Great Grandad got his ciggs from. We had delivery men come round each week like the butchers from North Somercotes a fish man from Grimsby and a bread man came twice a week orther than that you had to get what they had at the local shop. At school there were only two teachers one taught the infants and the other the juniors. From there we went to NorthSomercotes secondary near the warren. This time it was luxury as we went by bus good job we didn't have to walk. Mt leisure time was spent around my family like gardenig with my dad or going down to sea fishing with my great grandad catching buts or cockles. ( I still can't stand the smell of cockles) or walking down to the canal. My great grandparents had four sons and four daughters. My great grandfather was the local road sweeper and it was nothing fresh for him to get up in the middle of the night to check the conditions outside to see if it was frosty and then go out and grit the roads. They lived in a large house next to one of the chapels. One of my earliest memories is of the snow in 1947. It was deceided that we should go up to great grandmars to stay as coal was in short supply and l can remember being carried in my push chair and all I could see werewalls of now eitherside and no sky. Grainthorpe was my life until I married at the age of 28. Grainthorpe like everything else has changed dramaticlly from those days, I still visit now and then but its not the world I knew and like evrything time can't stand still can it.

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