[West Ender]

I never knew of anyone who died at the Swanee though a little boy, who I knew very well, drowned in the lodge of Stanhill Spinning Mill. Strange that the mill, which was in West End, was called Stanhill Mill.

I remember the mud at the Swanee. One of my brothers once fell in it and we had to walk home with him covered from head to foot in sludge and reeking of the stuff. I was supposed to 'cover' for him, at home, while he dashed straight up to the bathroom. I was only about 7 and walked into the sitting room trailing his stinky pullover behind me so the cover was blown. He didn't get into the trouble he thought he would. Neither did I, the day I fell into the pig-muck at Feathers' farm, but that's another story.

I don't suppose Kemp Delph still exists, does it? It was an old quarry, full of water, in a field behind the main road in Stanhill and right at the edge of Ossy Moors. It had a steep 'cliff' at one end and a sloping 'beach' at the other. We used it as the local lido in the Summer, for swimming and sunbathing, and people used to take picnics up there at weekends.