Howdendyke As A Child In The 1950s

A Memory of Howdendyke.

My family moved into Howdendyke upon completion of the Airey Houses when I was two years old. We lived at 4, Ferry Road which was the main street into Howdendyke.
As I grew, reaching nursery school age and being allowed to venture out into the village I recall it as a friendly village where the adage that everyone knew everyone elses business was close to being correct. This created a tight knit community where children could play safely under the watchful eye of any adult and no-one would have been reluctant to interfere if misbehaviour was taking place.
Ferry Road started at "Lane Ends" where the road from Howden to the River Ouse passed by and ran down to the junction of North Street and the road past Ferry Farm to Scarrs Shipyard via the Bridge over the Dyke. North Street ran down to the river with a turning to the left, passing the Post Office and on into The Square. A continuation of the route along the river side joined with the Howden road and onwards to Skelton.
The village was mostly owned by the Andertons Chemical Works which had been the domain of George Herbert Anderton and it passed to his daughter and her husband the Pillings who lived in Kilpin Lodge, a magnificent large house set into the corner of the works site adjoining the junction of the river side road and the Howden road previously mentioned.
The works were a paternal employer and provided for the population of the village a number of facilities viz the Jubillee Hall, The Ouse Working Mens Club, The Village Shop, and until the mid 1950s supplied milk from Ferry Farm, delivering on a cart and ladling it out into householders own jugs. The farm was a mixture of grassland for the cattle and crops which were fertilised with the "Tillage" produced by the chemical works.
The grass areas of the farm were wonderful places for children to roam, we were all completely familiar with cows, playing in the fields around them and had no fear of them at all, unlike modern children. I witnessed a calf beiing born whilst at the farm one day. There were also two retired cart horses "Tom and Daisy" who grazed the same fields. We were also allowed to play on the straw bales and at various times of the year would "help" (mostly just get in the way) as local women picked peas, potatoes and other crops.
At the back of the Airey houses was a field which in the 1950s was partly divided by a line of trees and partial hedge and two ponds lay along this line. One was dry most times of the year but the other held water and was a wonderful place for fishing with a jam jar on a string. There was an overflow from this pond into the main dyke where again we would fish for sticklebacks.
There was also a village cricket field with a pavilion, again it belonged to Pillings as part of Ferry Farm and cows were grazed there unless a match was due, when the cows would be walked through the village to a different field. Keep your front gate closed if you don't want cow pats on the lawn!
One year a cow slipped into a dyke adjoining this field and a lot of the village men gathered with ropes to haul it out again.
Every year the "dykemen" would come along in thigh boot waders and dig a small amount of silt from the bottom of the dyke, shore up the sides if needed and scythe the banks. There was never any thought of using machinery to do this task and where culverts ran under roads or lanes they would stoop and clear this as well. We kids would watch as all this took place and shout into the culvert so it echoed.
When the Pillings died the paternal empoyer stance changed and big business bought into the company. The first step was a joining with Richardsons Fertiliser of York to become Anderton-Richardsons. At one time ICI had an interest.
A new business started up on the banks of the Ouse in the form of East Coast River Services, a wharf and warehouse operator. This gradually expanded, gaining trade from the Port of Goole as it had a price advantage. Sadly the expansion of the wharf saw the demolition of the magnificent Kilpin Lodge, the development of the farm land and the eventual demolition and clearance of most of the houses in the centre of the village. All that is left today (2010) are the ex council houses on Ferry Road and a very few of the old "works" houses now privately owned along the same stretch. Ferry Farm is demolished and Scarrs Shipyard gone having been replaced by a Glucose Refinery which closed down and is now boarded up bur surrounded by huge areas of stored timber.
The grass fields I used to play in are now under concrete and only memories remain.

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