All Uphill

A Memory of Kidsgrove.

Our Dad used to take us for a walk up to Mow Cop Castle on a sunny Sunday. We would set off from Talke with our bottle of pop and a jam butty and walk along the canal for a while then through the lanes in Scholar Green past the Three Horseshoes then up the steepest hill to the Castle. We would sit inside the round window at the front and try to see our house in Talke on the other side of the valley. We could see so much on a clear day but never really understood what we were looking at - The welsh Mountains were part of the view and we were always trying to spot the beach in Rhyl, North Wales, (obviously impossible) and Jodrell Bank (where we thought the space men lived) was another part of the view. We would have our jam butty and pop on the grass behind the Castle and then moan all the way home because our legs ached.
If Mum came with us we had to go in the car - a red Austin 7, and take a picnic - more jam butties and pop, then we would walk part of the way back with Mum and look for nice flowers to pick. Dad always picked us up on Scholar Green level then took us for a "run out" to either Cheshire to see Jodrell Bank or to Trentham Gardens for an icecream.