Farsley From1937 To 53

A Memory of Farsley.

Farsley was a great place to grow up, betwixt town and country. Mills, dams, becks, parks, stony roads, winter warmers out of clay, Meals ice cream and milk. Elmers the doctors.Frances Street School and Mr Nolan, Miss Lamb, Miss Walker, Miss Sheard, Mr Teddy Shepherd. Wesley Street, Mr Ingham, Mr Blackburn, Jimmy Walker? He loved to cane.

Sledging down the Big Dipper in Red Lane. Chumping and apple scrumping and blackberrying in Priesthorpe Road and Lane. Dipping for frogspawn near Bluebell Hill, near the fairy door. Sour Rhubarb treats.

We had our own private cricket field in a triangular field behind Westway and Alma Close near the beck which came from Woodhall hills and ran past the cricket field, down under Stony Royd, Land Stree, Pump Well, Water Lane, down to Bagley and Rodley and into the River Are. We swam in the canal near the Calverley swing bridge and in the pool at the bottom of the Quarry at Woodhall near Fagley Woods and the Golf Club.

We tried to count mill chimneys and never got the same number there were so many.

Nice to chat and remember Jeffreys bike shop, Thomas's newsagents, for whom I did 2 paper rounds and Drivers where I did a greengrocery delivery on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Baptist outings, their pantomimes, were not to be missed.

Most of all Porritts Dance Classes. Now I teach ballroom and Latin dancing myself.

Colin Knight

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