A happy memory of growing up here.

[garinda]

Don't panic!

Not another maudlin Saturday thread.

Why not share a happy memory we have, about growing up in this huddle of northern towns, surrounded by wild moorland?

I remember one fantastic Sunday afternoon, when l was about ten.

It has snowed heavily the day before, but this day was startlingly blue skyed, and clear.

As ususual for Sundays, we'd been to church in the morning, and to Nan's afterwards for lunch.

Dad decided it was a good day for an 'adventure', as he called doing something out of the oridinary, such as walking to Rishton on the canal path in the pitch black, or sledging over Brookside in the moonlight, which are just two more examples of our many 'adventures'.

The roads were too bad to drive on, so we set off from Stanhill on foot. Warmly dressed in thick coats, hats, and gloves.

Eventually we got up on the moors, above Haslingden Old Road, and started to climb higher still. Avoiding the massive boulders, which had been rolled thunderously down the hills, after the recent bursting of the reservoir banking, a year or so before.

We climbed higher, and higher. We never saw another soul. Just us four adventurers. Dad, Mum, my brother, and me.

It was so beautiful, it was breathtaking. Literally, being so icy cold.

I remember feeling so happy to live somewhere so lovely, and felt so safe, and secure in our little family unit.

For some reasons we took a camera. Must have been film needing to be used up after Christmas, before it was taken to the chemist to be developed.

Even stranger are the photographs.

No 'Smile lads', 'Now you do me and Dad', posed, cheesy grins.

None of us are looking at the camera.

All are looking back, down the moors. Me pointing something out, whilst my brother looks at whatever it is through his binoculars. Mum, looking young in a brown wool maxi coat, and knitted cloche hat. Julie Christie dressed by Bessie Bradock. Dad, in a black coat, his legs hidden by a snow drift.

Reject photographs, from some seventies band album cover.

I haven't seen the photographs for years. Dad's been dead for nearly eighteen years. My little brother has two children older than we were then.

When I think what fun we had that day, the beauty I saw, the love I felt, it feels like it happened yesterday.

What happy memories of growing up in this part of Lancashire have you?

We've all got at least one...hopefully.

So spill...

[cashman]

Have many happy memories of 5 of us setting off fer the day, goin oer the coppice,to Gamblers Caves, was a great adventure fer young lads, used to set off after breakfast wi butties n a frozen jubbly, play Japs n Commandos or Cowboys n Indians when we got yon, 4 used to have a swin in the res next to Gamblers,(not me couldn't swim in those days) n finally returning home about 6-00 ish to be screamed at,yer teas in the oven, your fault if its dried up, it never was though me nan was a liar. sadly only 2 of us left now.

[MargaretR]

I remember weekends spent at Cockerly Farm up Fielding Lane.
We slept in a romany style caravan. I played 'house' in the empty pig styes and made daisy chains, with the farmer's daughter.

My parents made friends with the family at Skirwith farm Ingleton, and many happy weekends spent there. - bottle feeding baby lambs, playing in piles of hay, sleeping in a feather bed, going to bed by oil lamplight.

[jaysay]

I remember going to Ewood with my Grandad when I was only four, sitting in the Riverside stand then walking back to Blackburn calling at my dads cousin near the Infirmary

[steve2qec]

Canal bike rides...which I still go on now with my daughter. Funny how the best memories are usually of the simple things.

[flashy]

EVERY Sunday my gran used to take me and my sis for LONG walks...we'd go through Jacksons farm, cross over the canal bridge at the bottom, walk on through the other farm Jacksons owned at the bottom and before the motorway was made we'd then carry on through the Dunkenhalgh, through Rishton, into Great Harwood, back through Clayton, up Church lane and back to Dill Hall, sometimes we where thankful when gran only wanted to go on a short walk, we'd cut out Rishton and Harwood and go up by the G.E.C, up through Hygeine and onto Mercer park, that was before Mercer park Hall had been done up, one Sunday i remember being in Mercer park sheltering from the rain and lightening in the hall, i think the building wasn't used then and it had a little opening that you could stand in, maybe i'm wrong....i was only about 6/7

i don't have many memories of when i was little, not so many photos, thats why i take Reece all over the country and take huge amounts of pics, i want him to have lots of childhood memories, they are precious, you never get your childhood back so make sure your kids do memorable things

[groove]

Groove has really enjoyed these posts, especially Rindi's which seems to capture the mystical magic of youth.

[mobertol]

Sounds like you lived near where i did Flashy -that was our haunt as kids for playing out!

Sunday mornings were "our time" with dad while mum got Sunday lunch ready. Usually we'd pop round to his mum and dad's on Haywood Rd and if we were lucky there'd be something left over from Saturday in the bakery. Then we'd go round to the side of the Coppice -can't remember the road name and then set off up the Lane through Spire's Farm which was still a working farm and on up to the cottages beyond. Sometimes we'd stop here and play with some other children who lived there -their father was a colleague of Dad's. I remember being told how Spire's Farm and the cottages had bells which had been used as an alarm to warn the town's people of attacks (from the Scottish? possibly) hundreds of years before.
Then we'd go right over the top of Hambledon Hill - I remember it always being windy but never remember getting wet. We'd sometimes come right back over the Coppice and down to Avenue Parade, there were some sort of trenches up there which we used to be in and out of. Me and my sister probably walked twice as far as dad with all the toing and froing. Unfortunately there are no photos of these walks but we did them throughout the year in all seasons.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by flashy

EVERY Sunday my gran used to take me and my sis for LONG walks...we'd go through Jacksons farm, cross over the canal bridge at the bottom, walk on through the other farm Jacksons owned at the bottom and before the motorway was made we'd then carry on through the Dunkenhalgh, through Rishton, into Great Harwood, back through Clayton, up Church lane and back to Dill Hall, sometimes we where thankful when gran only wanted to go on a short walk, we'd cut out Rishton and Harwood and go up by the G.E.C, up through Hygeine and onto Mercer park, that was before Mercer park Hall had been done up, one Sunday i remember being in Mercer park sheltering from the rain and lightening in the hall, i think the building wasn't used then and it had a little opening that you could stand in, maybe i'm wrong....i was only about 6/7

i don't have many memories of when i was little, not so many photos, thats why i take Reece all over the country and take huge amounts of pics, i want him to have lots of childhood memories, they are precious, you never get your childhood back so make sure your kids do memorable things

It's great you're a parent who decided to give your child, something you don't have many of yourself, early childhood memories.

He's a lucky lad.

Precious memories are treasure we can draw on for a lifetime.

Without being soppy, your dad, and your mum, will have been proud of what a good parent you've proved yourself to be.

[Margaret Pilkington]

My happy childhood memories also revolve around things which cost very little.

A play tent made for us by my dad......I can see him now, treadling for dear life and guiding the fent of white twill cotton through the sewing machine. Yes my dad could sew!
That play tent was used during the long summer holidays.....it was, in our imaginations, all manner of things....an indian teepee(cowboys and indians) a field hospital, a house. It was limited only by our imagination.
I remember paddling in the brook at the back of Highams mill, catching tiddlers and sticklebacks with a loop of wire covered with an old stocking and stuck in a bit of bamboo.
I remember sitting in the kitchen in winter, by the light of the fire drinking cocoa and eating toast done on the coals, while listening to Dick Barton on the radio.

I remember picking blackberries in the autumn......arms and legs covered in scratches from the spiky brambles....mouth purple from eating the luscious fruits, unwashed? Of course they were unwashed. We were told that we had to eat a peck of muck before we died.

I can remember Stantons pop van coming every Friday teatime, and us pestering to be allowed to buy a stone jar of Sarsaprilla........dark like Guiness, with a creamy bubbly froth on top. Pop? No of course it wasn't pop...it was the champagne of pop
I can remember sitting on the back stoop with a twist of paper with sugar in it and a stick of very sour rhubarb from the allotments. Dip and bite.....it was so sour it made your bum wink.

I have so many memories of my childhood.....we were poor in terms of spending power, but rich in experiences...and for that I am truly truly grateful.

[claytonx]

I lived in Clayton as a youngster but had no sisters or brothers so i spent a lot of weekends and holidays at a friend's house of my mothers, were there was three children two girls and one boy all older than me but only by about one or two years.Me and the son Harry went all over Accrington Gatty Park The Coppice, Peel Park ,Oakhill Park,We spent a lot of time fishing stood on the concrete jetty on Ewbank Lodge catching gudgen putting them in a bucket taking them home where they all died(now we know short of oxygen)
These friends lived in the last house under the railway arch in Bull Bridge which was behind a tall wall with a lot of steps (all the row as since been pulled down for the new roundabouts) we could climb up the shale side which was at the back of the house up on to the railway line which we did often to walk to Burnley rd. we would also play on the building site which now is Broadway. There way green painted boards at both sides with the river going under in a tunnel which again we made use of going back home.
In the evenings we would play with some of there friends from school in there house at murder (no tele) and going to bed it was 4 in a bed 2 up and 2 down waking up with some ones toes under your nose.
When i stayed in Clayton it was football in the school yard until Bob Simmons chased us that is Jack Simmonds dad Jack played cricket for Lancashire and finished as Chairman I taut him all he knows! spent a lot of time in the ruins of the old mill at the bottom of Mill st playing in large pools of water sailing home made boats Good days but always missed and still do brothers and sisters.

[claytonx]

Originally Posted by flashy

EVERY Sunday my gran used to take me and my sis for LONG walks...we'd go through Jacksons farm, cross over the canal bridge at the bottom, walk on through the other farm Jacksons owned at the bottom and before the motorway was made we'd then carry on through the Dunkenhalgh, through Rishton, into Great Harwood, back through Clayton, up Church lane and back to Dill Hall, sometimes we where thankful when gran only wanted to go on a short walk, we'd cut out Rishton and Harwood and go up by the G.E.C, up through Hygeine and onto Mercer park, that was before Mercer park Hall had been done up, one Sunday i remember being in Mercer park sheltering from the rain and lightening in the hall, i think the building wasn't used then and it had a little opening that you could stand in, maybe i'm wrong....i was only about 6/7

i don't have many memories of when i was little, not so many photos, thats why i take Reece all over the country and take huge amounts of pics, i want him to have lots of childhood memories, they are precious, you never get your childhood back so make sure your kids do memorable things

Flashy, your post mentioning the Hygeine just brought a memory back, of me going with my uncle to visit someone in one of the old cottages on there, the one's facing the large wall nearly every Sunday morning, we walked not as far as you only from Mercer st

[flashy]

me and Reece rode our bikes along Hygeine last year, it took me right back to when i was little

[cashman]

Originally Posted by flashy

me and Reece rode our bikes along Hygeine last year, it took me right back to when i was little

Which aint so far,yer still a young un yet.

[flashy]

young aye ok, tell that to mi old bones