My Birthplace

A Memory of Preesall.

I was born in the large house behind the van in June of 1932. At that time it was a private maternity home run by a Midwife called Nurse Bailey. My maternal grandparents lived in Plumtree Cottage, which is on the left of the photo opposite the big house. The house in the middle distance was the Post Office, Alan Clarkson being the Postmaster in those days.
When my parents were going out, I was sent to stay with my grandfather Jim Shepherd at Plumtree. He lived there with my Aunt Ada. Jim Shepherd had worked in the salt mine until he went blind, after which he could be seen most days with his stick, tapping his way to Harold Blackburn's cobblers shop for a gossip, or in summer down to the bowling green. The cottage had only electric light downstairs and no power sockets, there was one cold water tap over a "slopstone" in the kitchen and the WC was in the garden. Water was heated on a big cast iron range in the front room where people bathed in a tin bath. In the kitchen was a coal fired wash boiler and a big mangle. On washdays (always Monday whatever the weather) granddad chopped kindling sticks for the boiler fire and turned the mangle for Aunt Ada, despite his blindness. I would take a candle up to bed, which I shared with granddad and I remember the sound of clogs in the road as men went home from the pubs at 10pm. Granddad would say "hearken Johnny boy, t'pubs have let out".
The street off to the right in the photo is Mill Street where the Williamsons lived. They had a large family and I used to play with them on Preesall hill.
I have lived in Stalmine all my life and pass this way frequently. Despite the passing of many years, the scene still looks very much the same today.