Our Stories

Lightening Strikes Twice

I come from a big family, made up of six girls and one boy. When I was young I looked after my siblings, as I was the eldest. We had lots of fun looking for our next-door neighbour’s hen’s eggs.
We lived in Greenock near to a quarry and three of my sisters were always wandering, so they were nicknamed the happy wanderers. Everyday we had to go looking for them. One particular day we were all playing at the quarry, it was a beautiful day. About 3 o’clock in the afternoon the heavens opened.
We were running home and a friend saw us from his window and came running out with a raincoat to cover us. Just then the lightening struck. It was like a match in front of my face and I stood still, terrified. We ran the rest of the way home and from that moment I was terrified of thunder and lightening.
That is until about five years ago, right here in Clayton. A friend phoned me and needed some urgent help. I hurried from my house and was half way there when again the heavens opened. I could hear a rumble in the distance and my old fear came back. I hurried but I was too late, the lightning came fast. There was nowhere for me to hide so I just kept going. I reached my friends house and as I shook off the rain I realized I had faced my fear. I was no longer the little girl running home from the quarry.

By S Paterson

Tennis Days

When I was young, I always dreamed that one day I would become a famous tennis player. I played for Philips Park Tennis Club from the age of twelve. Mr. and Mrs. Sides ran the club and they lived in a little house right inside the park. It’s still there today. They really loved the game and fortunately they liked me too and could see that I could play. They often invited me to their house and when the door opened I would smell the scones that Mrs. Sides was famous for and we’d sit and talk about tennis over a cup of tea and her buttery scones.
My grandparents brought me up and I loved them both very much. They couldn’t afford to buy me the best tennis rackets or outfits but they did their best. Whenever I entered competitions Mr. and Mrs. Sides always left a good racquet on the form for me. At the club I was playing with a lot of posh kids who had everything, they were pretty stuck up and sometimes I caught them laughing at me. However, even though I had cheap racquets I was still better than most of them. I got my own back because it made me more determined to win and when I served, I aimed not to get an ace but to get them in the face!
I played until I was 19 when Mr. and Mrs. Sides retired and I won many cups and medals. I couldn’t afford to go to Didsbury to play so I gave up. I do think that if we have more tennis players from working class families we would have more Wimbledon champions because they’d have the determination to win and would work harder to achieve.

By Sandra Webb

My Life – A Glimpse

When I was born, my mother passed away. When I was 6 months old, I was put in a convent with my two sisters, because in those days you did not get money like they get today. I was there until I was 11 years old.
When I came out of the convent I lived with my aunty Nellie, and I went to St Patrick R.C. School. I didn’t like the school that much so sometimes I wouldn’t go.  I’d stay with my friend in her house until it was time to go home, 4 o’clock. My aunty Nellie never knew about this.
There was some land close to our house and in the school holidays my friend and me would go there and play. We’d use old bricks to build pretend houses and would spend all day in the sunshine. Our aunties knew exactly where to find us when it was teatime.
The last few years at school were all right, but I was glad to leave and start work when I was 15 years old. Back in them days you left school on the Friday and went to work on the Monday. There was no going to the DSS for money you had a job to go to as you left school.
I loved my work as a machinist. My wage was £2.2.6d. When I got paid I would give my aunty Nellie my wage packet and she would give me 2s 6d back. I thought I was well off. I would pass this shop on the way to work and go in and put 1 shilling down on a two-piece suit, which I loved. The suit was about £3.10.6p, which was a lot of money back then.
It was there I met my husband, Bill. He was always asking me to go out with him. There were four couple and we would go dancing to Chicks Hibbert on Ashton Old Road on Saturday nights. It was a good place and a good night out, but we had to be home for 11 o’clock.
After going out together for three and a half years we got married in 1954. We had four children, two boys and two girls and we are still together. On 30 October 2009 we will have been married for 55 years.

By Mary Paul

Twelve into Two

When I was eight I had a mastoid in my ear and I spent a lot of time either in hospital and a convalescent home in North Wales. I was anaemic and underweight and the sea air was good for me.
I was born in Bradford, Manchester and I had seven brothers and two sisters. We lived together with mam and dad in a two bedroom terraced house, which is now the home of Manchester City Stadium. We had to make do with mattresses on the floor. Us three girls shared one mattress in the back bedroom and the seven lads had two mattresses between them in the front bedroom. Mam and dad had a bed settee downstairs.
When I got married we lived in a two bedroom terraced, had two daughters. Thinking about how much space just the four of us took up I don’t know how twelve of us managed, but we did and we were happy.

By Rita Fish

Alpine Street at War

One morning, when I was a young I was in my grandmother’s back yard in Alpine Street in Clayton. We were hanging out the washing when a plane appeared from nowhere. We thought it was one of ours and I started jumping around and we waved at it. Suddenly it started shooting at us, for a second we stood still then we both ran in the house and hid under the stairs. We lived in a two up, two down and there wasn’t much room so Grandmother kept a table under there and we had to squash around the side of it huddled together. I was crying and grandmother kept saying, ‘you’re all right, you’re all right.’
We stayed like that for a long time I was too scared to come out. But Grandmother eventually stretched out her body and went to the kitchen. She made us both a cup of tea and I didn’t dare go outside again. That night when we were in bed, the familiar sirens began to wail. Grandmother got me up, wrapped me in her coat and we hurried to an old ladies shelter that was further down the road. When the bomb dropped all three of us were thrown from one side of the shelter to the other.
The bomb hit Bank Street. One man was killed.

By Jean Oliver

My French Friend’s Story

My friend was a teenager living on the French/Belgium border when the war broke out. Although German soldiers occupied her hometown, life for her went on as usual and was even sometimes exciting.
Some years later she went dancing and there she met a handsome Polish airman. It was, as she says, love at first sight and they eventually married and came to live in England.
My friend could speak no English at that time so she set about learning the language with only a dictionary to help.
They settled down to life in this country raising two children to complete a happy family. So well did she learn English, she was able to become a tutor, teaching languages at Xaverian College, in Manchester, where she remained for many years.
Now, having lost her beloved husband and being retired she joins in all the activities at The Openshaw Resource Centre.
This is where she became my bonne amiee.

Fares Please
A friend of mine tells me she was just two years old when she was taken on the last horse-drawn tram along Hyde Road from Ardwick Green to Reddish. It would have been quite something to see these vehicles being pulled along on the tramlines by strong horses.
My mother, who lived on Ashton Old Road, would relate stories of how as a child she and her friend would sit on the doorstep waiting for the horse and tram to come up the road, then they would run to the bottom of the brew near old Massey’s factory (now the Aldi store) where there would be a ‘pull-up’ horse waiting.
This horse would be harnessed to the tram to help the regular horse haul the vehicle up the hill, returning to its post until the next tram arrived. The horse didn’t have a shaft and its reins hung loosely at its side so that if it became bored it could wander around.
My mother and her friend would happily sit and wait for the next tram to come along.
The Railway Station
It is late evening and the rail commuters are leaving the city like lemmings. Making their way up the long approach to the station, passing the modern shops and the blood bank, which long ago replaced the old wall with its advertisement boards, they stride with purpose.
At the station entrance more commuters pour from the buses and taxis, converging into the fast flowing stream of bodies jostling each other through the doors, some heading for the train barriers, others to join the impatient queues at the ticket windows.
Outside the barriers stands the static crowd, perhaps waiting for the destination indicators to cease clattering and reveal the information they require; or maybe they are awaiting relatives, friends or business associates.
Suddenly the nasal voice coming over the station tannoy announces the arrival of an inter-city train, and expectant faces look towards the barrier for a familiar figure. There are hugs and kisses for families then bags and parcels are carried off to be loaded into the waiting cars. Sweethearts meet, shyly kiss and wander off, arms round each other’s waists, oblivious to the crowds. Businessmen shake hands and head for the exit in deep conversation.
The rent-a-car company man stands with his identity board in the air waiting for the customer to approach and the schoolteacher finally rounds up her charges and counts heads.
Then they are all gone, and only the book and magazine readers are still wandering around the newspaper kiosks, perusing the latest issues and the ticket collector takes a breather until the next human flood arrives.
Meanwhile the unfortunates of the city come out of the corners and forage in the waste bins for whatever takes their fancy, or stoop to pick up bits and pieces dropped by careless travelers.
The whole scene is a kaleidoscope of life, the happiness and joy, sadness and hope, all passing through on the way to somewhere.
A final whistle blows, the last train leaves and a silent platform awaits another day.

3 stories by Dorothy Gartell

Shopping in Modern Times

I had no idea that shopping in 2008 could be so stimulating. Remembering years ago when corner shops sold everything, if needed and considered trustworthy, one could get say sugar and flour and pay for it at the weekend. The shopkeeper would write this down in her tick book.
The other day I was with my daughter in her car. She decided she’d call at the supermarket to get some shopping.
‘Do you want anything, mother?’
I answered, ‘yes I do. I haven’t enough money with me though.’
‘Oh never mind money, you can use my credit card.’
We walked into the supermarket, a trolley each. Everywhere was lovely and bright, so welcoming and inviting. I noticed the staff seemed cheerful and smiling pleasantly at customers. Helpful too! Nothing too much trouble to them. Usually, before buying anything I think of all the reasons I can do without it. Here I was putting items in my trolley. It was like an exciting adventure. Before I realized I had lots of goods.
We strolled over to the cashiers – immediately it seemed as the goods were totaled – an assistant was putting them in a bag for me. My daughter produced her credit card, as she signed for the goods the cashier said, ‘Do you want any cash back, madam?’
My daughter said,  ‘Yes, £50 please.’
The cashier handed her the crisp notes. This flabbergasted me. Not a bit like my experiences years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed my supermarket experience.
Later, when my daughter and I were sitting at home, drinking coffee, enjoying the expensive cakes we’d bought, I asked, ‘When does your credit card bill arrive?’
‘Oh mother, don’t worry about that. I’m not. And I won’t!’

By Kathleen Turton

Life goes on

I was born in 1948 in a hut, which was really an old army hut with a corrugated tin roof, windows and a front door. This house was two homes in one, back to back, a wall right in the middle. I don’t remember how many rooms we had, not that it matters now, but I do remember that my godmother lived in the first part of the hut. She raised hens and I would go and help to collect the eggs and would be given some for my mum. Once, when I was about two, I went to collect the eggs and a big hen came running at me and pecked me on the nose. It didn’t hurt and I laughed and carried on collecting the eggs.
My younger sister and I were put in a home when I was about three. Only for a few weeks while my mum was at the hospital with another sister. We were glad when we could return home. Later that year when we were playing in the garden I climbed on some corrugated tin and slipped. I cut my leg and ran into the house and grabbed my mum’s best snowy white towel. I wrapped it round my leg and my mum was cross until she looked at my cut and then she bandaged it for me.
For some reason when I was four my lovely blonde hair fell out. I had to have electric probes on my head, which didn’t hurt. Then when my hair grew back it was red, or rusty as my mum called it. I never did find out why.
Some of my best memories are the days when my mum would take us to the seaside. We would run on the beach and collect cockles and mussels while mum would light a fire and put some pans with saltwater on them. She’d put some cabbage and new potatoes and by the time we came back from collecting the different seafood’s, the potatoes and cabbage would be just right. These were great times.
I went in and out of homes for a lot of my childhood, sometimes with my sisters and other times on my own, like when I went into the Convent in Bishopton. I was there from age 14 to 16 until I got my first job and went back home to mum and dad. I had my first son age 17 and my parents stood by me. Life wasn’t always easy but eventually I married and had more children.
Now I live in Clayton and some of my sister’s live close by. I’m 60 years old and I’m glad to say my life is still going and I hope to see many years ahead. I think it’s best to take each day as it comes and each evening I thank God for the day I have come through and in the mornings I thank him for the day that is about to begin.

By Margaret

A sense of community

I worked the bar in a certain pub when I was younger. The girls who worked there didn’t pull drinks. Often a gentleman would come in and pass me a note, ‘girl wanted, such and such street, 10 minutes.’ I’d pass this on and half an hour later it would be drinks all round for everyone from the earnings, £20 a shot, not a bad wage for less than an hours work. It was the 1930’s and I was young and innocent, and the girls made sure I stayed that way.
One day when I opened up the pub one of the girls was missing. The news came through that she’d been picked up in Piccadilly the night before. Madam came from the back room and called the girls together. She allocated roles to all of them: ‘you, you’re paying the electric, you, gas, you’re looking after the kids, you’re on food.’ And so on until all the girls had a role to play. By the time she came home a few weeks later there was nothing for her to do, everything had been taken care of by her ‘family’.
The girls were never alone and looked out for each other. Some of them went on to own their own businesses and live in lovely houses. I was proud to be part of that community.

by Martha