Personal Stories

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Well when I was young and lived on the farm at Stoneshegate [Stones Hey Gate – local dialect] I remember we used to be able to skip across the road you know, no traffic to stop you, and play whip and top all along the road you know, there was no traffic to interfere with us at all.

Well I mean everything then – well a lot of things – they weren’t pre-packed; we used to have to weigh flour you know. There were three lads and every Thursday morning we were in the ‘back hole’ as we called it, weighing flour for a full morning; one filling the bags, another one weighing ‘em and the other wrapping them up. There were stones, half stones, four pounds and two pound bags you see, and the sacks they came in were two hundred and forty pounds weight and they used to go down the shute, then we used to dish it out into the bags so it was a full morning’s jobs for three lads. Sugar was…Tate & Lyle’s sugar had just started pre-packing but there was still quite a lot that we weighed out into two pounds bags.

My dad were a fairly heavy drinker so we’d never any money. When he used to take school dinners from…they made ‘em at Colden School and he used to take them on t’horse and cart to Heptonstall School and many a time he didn’t get past Shoulder of Mutton at Blackshaw because his parents owned that [laughing] so he wouldn’t have got home when I would have got home from school and I had to walk to school from Smithy Farm to Colden which is about two mile when I was five.

Well my name is Mrs Audrey Clark, I was born in Luddendenfoot, a place called Turner Buildings at Luddendenfoot which is up a place called Naylor Lane; it’s up the top end of the village.

We were in a proper run-down area and we were a bit neglected. Long shot, we got taken to an orphanage. Mother died…I never did find out when she actually died, and only thirty-five. There were three of us, two sisters and me and we were rather badly neglected, and oh they was out of work and getting his dole money twenty-three shillings a week but he could still afford to smoke and drink and make a real mess of his life you know, so we were taken away and put in an orphanage so that was the start.

Well when I were learning, I learnt in t’top shed and then I were in t’middle shed quite a while. You started off with two looms, then you get three looms and then four looms, and I finished up in t’middle shed.

My full name is Stuart John Gibson and I was born actually in Halifax at the Royal Infirmary during the war in 1944 when they didn’t have home births because of the black out and various other things you know so it were a case that they had to go into hospital in them days to have their children, so my mother went there and I was born there just at the end of the war it was, in 1944 I was born. What date was that? 6th of October 1944 it were, I think the war had a year to go

There was six children; I was the youngest of six children and my eldest brother was twenty…well he was married actually before I was born. My mother was forty-eight when I was born, I was the last in the family so I was spoilt being the youngest, so the others said.
My four brothers were in the First World War; one was a sailor, he was the married one and he went all through the war.

Peter Thomas, I was born on the 8th of September 1941 in Halifax, Halifax General but I lived at Fairfield, Palace House Road, Fairfield on the little council estate as was then; there’s a much bigger one now on to the station, but then there were only about…sixteen houses I think then up Fairfield, sixteen council houses.

I used to be deaf, and I couldn’t speak until I was about four through deafness, and then I had very bad problems with asthma. I’ve had many asthma attacks and I’ve almost died a few times through asthma attacks. I have really bad dyslexia in English; it’s got better over the years because I’ve worked on it and I’ve put a lot of effort into it but because of that, Maths has always been my thing.