My Grannys House

A Memory of Esh Winning.

My name is Matthew Mason and my granma Florence Breary, previously Mason, and Coxon before that, lived at 20 Ridding Road and some of the happiest and warmest memories I have were of the time I spent from my birth in 1961 to the time I left in 1966 for Edinburgh with my Mum and Dad and brother and sister. My Grandad was also Mattie Mason who died in the May of 1961 and his eldest son, my Dad was John Mason. He was some sort of plumber for a time in Esh and then went down the pit which inspired him to join the Royal Navy and was present at the nuclear tests of Christmas Island in the late fifties. My Dad's siblings were Florence, Anne, Robert and Laura. My uncle Robert I later learned caused something of a scandal in Esh when he got a girlfriend pregnant but my Granma wouldn't talk about this much. Does anyone have any memories of this as I may have a half cousin I have yet to meet? I have a memory of my first day at Waterhouses school and a headmaster who would come out into the playground with a cup of tea and stare over the wall into the field beyond. I often wonder what he was looking at? At the end of school I remember some dark slag heaps astride a rough path leading away from the school and I have a memory of me thinking I was being chased by a hugely exciteable lad a little older than me and scaring me to death as made my way back towards the top of Ridding Road. My earliest ever memory was outside my house at The Oaks but then we moved to 29 Newhouse Avenue and I found it near impossible to pass my Granma's house on the corner of Abercourt without going in, much to my mother's chagrin as her baking was magnificent and I frequently spoiled my tea. My elder brother, John became friends with a lad called Steven Storey and we both befriended Jim Henderson who later moved to Ridding Road, also. I remember going bilberrying and taking the lunatic dog, Fred the whippet, for a walk. Fred used to chase cars which I find amusing now but was surely life-threatening for the insane mutt, then. Beck jumping was a game we used to play along the old railway line and I have a vivid memory of trying to cross the Catholic Beck on a pipeline of some sort and falling in and claiming to have been bitten by a crab. Apologies, even then my imagination was crisp. I was also bitten by a dog on a subsequent visit and taken to a medical centre near the swings by my Dad and he knew the nurse who was called by the surname, Pigg, whom he went to school with. My Aunt Florence had to move to Calverton with her husband Jim Hope in Nottinghamshire when the pit shut in Esh.
I remember being warned not to go swimming with the other bigger boys in a beck at the top of Newhouse Avenue, presumably in the summer of 64 or 65 as it was dangerous and there was a story of a kid who nearly drowned or did? Maybe it's the imagination again gilding the lily? Someone clarify if possible. Anyway 1966 arrived, my Dad was out of the Navy and my Scots Grandfather made an offer to the family which was seized upon by my Mother and we left for Edinburgh. I have a particularly vivid and honest memory of my Granma at the gate as the family descended Ridding Road to get the bus at Raines and me screaming for my Granma. The love that was in that house was apparent and profound, something I found was not a natural Scottish trait. My Dad died very young at the age of 34 in February 1971 while at work. He did smoke and drink like a man that thought smoking and drinking were to be outlawed the next day and only at this age do I deeply miss him and all his joviality and exhuberance for life despite his frailties, that I'm told he had and that I inherited. He used to yodel in the bath, apparently! Brilliant! My Granma died in 2003 severing any familial connection I have with the village. I often feel an occasional desire to drive down and have a pint in The Staggs in the hope that someone might recognise the Mason grid and escort me politely down memory lane and hopefully tell me something I don't know about my family. It would be more than gratifying if anyone could respond and do just that, albeit sans pint. Eee..... Champion!