Midhopestones Born And Bred

A Memory of Midhopestones.

The day I was born was 11th march 1974 and I'm a Midoper born and bred. We lived at the old cottages just at the entrance to the village at the side of the Dam. I have some lovely memories of the people which have passed on. I remember the pub being The Clubb Inn then and Robert (Bob) Genn owned and Jack and Pat Smith also ran the place. The village was really nice, no yuppies just proper village folk living a normal life. The main source of income around then was farming. The Roberts's and the Hollingworths, Clancys and my mother's side of the family originated from Midhope, I'm told they ran the local post office when they had one. Mrs Bramall was the post mistress and they all went to the school there too. I had to laugh, I remember Lucy Hattersley with her bottled rimmed glasses staring into my pram and frightening the life out of me with those glasses, as you can imagine to a 1/2 year old itwas a scary experience. I also remember the hunt came every year, and when it snowed, I think it was around 1979-1980 when we had severe snowy weather and we couldn't get out not even to get coal to put on the fire. We were blocked in. We lived in a simple house, no bathroom, in fact my dad only had one put in when I was around 12/13 years old. We had to go outside to use the toilet, we had a tin bath by the coal fire and no central heating and up until he left the house in 1998/9 he still didn't have central heating, but they were good times in the early times and people knew each other and helped each other too in times of need. But things have changed now and it's not the same. I'm 34 this year but still remember my roots. I still have a picture of our house and look at it from time to time and just smile.

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