Trafford park village

It was a village set amid the biggest layout of industry one is likely to encounter. I guess it was like a village because we were isolated from nearby towns by three to four miles in every direction. Each new face was noted because it was a strange one and we knew all the faces, and names to match them. Not many new faces appeared, except when somebody did a ‘moonlight flit’. That means that folk were there when you went to bed, but b y morning they had gone, never to be seen again. Afterwards, someone else would rent the house, and that was how we got new faces.
We did have a couple of fields, and about four or five hills; these we called “The Boggy Hills”, and well we might, as it was all peat and never exploited until years after I had grown up, when they were flattened and the fields built on until no green colour was left in our village (unless one counted the bowling-green.) But well remember those hills, and the great times we had camping; getting a few sticks for a fire, and frying Jimmy’s cracked eggs. (His dad had a shop, and Jimmy would sneak them for us.) They tasted delicious as we were so hungry, having had only a dripping g butty for lunch (dinner, as we called it then.)
What characters abounded in our village! A hotch-potch from all walks of life. There was a wonderful warmth there and still, after years, I feel that sense of belonging…All are gone now, most to new housing estates to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ - and some are gone to Heaven. I don’t believe in Heaven, but with the smoke and smells of Trafford Park, then one just had to believe in Heaven. Seasons passed by unnoticed, cocooned as we were by giant buildings that did not let in much wind or snow; there were few trees for leaves to fall from. Christmas meant the school party, and Mr Marrow (the well-named greengrocer), would come into school and give us all an orange.
Christmas also meant a party at the Smith’s, who lived at the Police Station, and a little above our station in life. They had a grand piano, also a daily woman. I loved to go there, as we had potted meat and cress sandwiches - and Ian, their little boy, had a wonderful train set that took up a whole room. My brother Ed was his friend. I think Mrs Smith took pity on us, my brother and me, as our dad had died. But we were well-behaved, and had a very strict mother who was well-respected in the community. She never had any new clothes unless someone died, and then, of course, it was black. When I die I want people to wear what they like, so that they will not seem like a lot of black crows round a table.
Whitsun was an other season that DID mean new clothes; no matter what, all the children must have new clothes for Whit…Mum had twenty weeks to pay the Stores Club - always the Co-op. it had to be. That way you got ‘divi’. We all walked in Witness with the church. The delight in being chosen to hold the banner was enormous - all dressed in white, a round every street we would walk, ending up at St.Cuthbert’s cenotaph. You always showed off those new clothes to a neighbour, hopefully to be told how lovely you looked, and be given a penny to spend if you were lucky…

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