Simpson's Barn

A Memory of Old Langho.

I was born and brought up here. It's changed so much now but I remember that the 'Black Bull' was never a popular pub for the locals as Old Langho mainly consisted of two estates, Brookside and Larkhill. These were staff houses for Brockhall Hospital, a sprawling self-contained Victorian 'mental' hospital. As a social club existed within the hospital grounds, most chose to drink there, so it always seemed empty. When we were around 15 years old the landlord would let my brother and I in for a blackcurrant and a game of snooker on the three-quarter size snooker table that was in there. I had my first 'real' pint in there too. To the right of the pub was a dirt track that led to a field, at the end of it was a derelict caravan surrounded by a small garden. An old man used to live there but nobody knew his name and he was seldom seen. The barn on the left was called Simpson's Barn. It was owned by the local farmer. We used to play in there as kids but God help us if old Mr Simpson caught us! A kind hardworking man with a weathered look, he was so fit and he'd chase us around for hours. One time we were mucking about in one of the outhouses when he appeared at the closed door, it was slatted and we could see him, he was looking round outside to see where we were. We all managed to quietly scramble out of a rooflight except for one lad, as he was the smallest he ended up last and couldn't manage to get out before the farmer was alerted. As Mr Simpson came into the outhouse the lad was half in and half out of the skylight. His rear end provided too much of a target for the farmer's stick and he promptly got it 'tanned' till he managed to wriggle free! To the right of the picture was a beautiful stone church with an ancient yew tree at the entrance. There was a building at the end of the graveyard that was used as a Sunday school. Across from that was the post office, the only shop for miles, it was affectionately known as 'Maggies' after its proprietor. She was in her 80s then. She took an age to get to the counter and at times we just used to help ourselves to what we wanted and leave the correct money by the till. We'd just shout to her what we'd had and leave. My parents said she used to charge whatever she wanted! My father would always complain at the price of his Whiskey Flake pipe 'baccy' but he had no choice but to send us there to buy it. Brockhall Hospital had a 'patients shop' that sold his specialist brand of pipe tobacco but the strict manageress always refused to serve us anything like that, stating we were under-age. She knew who it was for as the manageress was our grandmother! It was a fabulous place to be as a child and I have many fond memories.