Some of my Memories

My name is Eric Ellis and I was born at 17 Pinfold Lane in 1940 to Thomas and Edith Maude Ellis. I lived at Pinfold Lane with my brothers Ronald and Brian and my sister Audrey until 1948 when we moved to one of the newly built council houses on Kitson Hill Road. I have only been away from Mirfield for brief periods, always to return.

As you read these pages you may think that I am saying that things were much better in my youth and I must confess that I believe this was the case for the most part. There was however, one notable exception to this and that was our stretch of the river Calder and the canal. If a person fell into the river they were more likely to die of poisoning than drowning and they would be rushed off to hospital for a series of injections. If anyone should be seen sitting by the side of the river with a fishing rod they could expect to be collected in a green van by men wearing white coats. Today we have reached a point where fishing is once again a normal recreation.

While we are on the subject of pollution, there was another problem of those times that was nationwide but still obviously affected us in Mirfield, and that was thick black fog which later became known as smog. SMOG is an amalgamation of the words SMOKE and FOG and was what happened when particles of soot from the burning of coal by every household and factory in the country got trapped in the minute droplets of water that make up fog. We have all heard the saying, "You couldn't see a hand in front of your face" and I can assure you that in a really bad smog this was an actual fact. I relied on the bus service to get me to and from work in the late 50s and early 60s and still remember the conductor (yes every bus had a conductor then) getting off the bus to walk in front, shining a torch backwards to guide the driver. Because of the industrial nature of our Heavy Woollen District we were afflicted by this as much as, if not more than, other areas of the country. The signs of this pollution were to be seen everywhere: black tree trunks, black walls and black buildings. We thought that black was the natural colour of stone and I remember being amazed later when the programme of sand-blasting buildings revealed the true colour underneath. Even our art for many years had portrayed lots of black smoking chimneys. It was because of the obvious health problems of breathing in this pollution that Britain introduced smokeless zones where the burning of coal was prohibited and only smokeless fuels were allowed. Eventually these zones linked up until the whole country was smokeless.

If you would like to delve a little deeper into the recent history of Mirfield then I would recommend that you purchase two books by Francis Stott. These are 'Looking Back at Mirfield' and 'Changing Face Of Mirfield'. They are available from Mirfield Library and some local newsagents at just £7.50 each. They are also available from the publisher, Greenfield House Publications, 2 Sandringham Way, Royton, Oldham, OL2 5YH. All profit from these books goes to Yorkshire Cancer Research, The British Heart Foundation, Kirkwood Hospice and MacMillan Nurses. The books are rich with photographic gems of a Mirfield that has now passed by and is only a memory.

For those who wish to go even further back, then H. N. Pobjoy's 'A History of Mirfield' is a must. This book is now out of print but the Library should have a copy on its shelves. This book traces Mirfield from its origins up to around the 1940s and makes great use of the diaries kept by the Rev. Joseph Ismay who was vicar of Mirfield from 1740 to 1778.

Early Memories

My father always kept livestock for as long as I can remember. In the large garden behind the house in Pinfold Lane he had a chicken run. At one time he also had ducks. Just after the war he had a large pig that he kept in an outbuilding attached to the house. At various times he also had goats, which were expert at escaping and we spent many hours trying to track them down. The only time he was without animals or chickens was when we moved to Kitson Hill estate but as soon as an allotment came free at Foxroyd he had chickens again. I still remember him plucking and gutting the occasional fowl and the smell of singeing feathers and the worse smell as he disposed of the waste products on the open coal fire. He was a keen gardener and provided vegetables for the table but his real passion was his roses that abounded in our front garden.

We used to play around the 'Docky' which was a local name for the area around Taylor Hall Lane. In the centre of the estate of prefabs was a concrete construction which was left over from the war. Its exact use I never knew but it provided a great playground for us. There were also air raid shelters for us to explore. The ones I remember were at Foxroyd near Nab Lane, at the junction of Pratt Lane and Lee Green Road, at the bottom of Old Bank recreation ground and in the grounds of Mirfield Grammar School.

There was also Garforth's quarry in Taylor Hall Lane with a working brick kiln and two ponds on Old Bank Road which were flooded quarries where we caught newts and salamanders. When Kitson Hill Estate was being built there were still fields at Foxroyd. When we moved there,   Foxroyd farm  was still occupied and there was a working pump with a wheel that could be turned to pump up the water. When the farm was finally vacated we had a free run of the whole area including the stream that ran through the middle of the fields down to Nab Lane. Here we could find frog spawn then tadpoles and eventually tiny frogs.

In the field below the Parish church graveyard is a spring that gives rise to a stream that runs down through the church fields to Ravensthorpe. This stream had thick growths of watercress and we used to search for tadpoles at the appropriate time of year. We spent hours playing in the water on summer days during the long school holidays. The spring was adjacent to the railway cutting which was spanned by a wooden footbridge with swing-gate styles at each end. The cutting is now filled in and built on and the bridge has long since been removed having fallen into disrepair.

Later when we started dating we would go dancing at the Glen Ballroom and also at the Drill Hall in Nettleton Road. There were also the Ambulance Rooms at Ravensthorpe where dances were held. Our favourite drinking places on these occasions were The Navigation Tavern, The Black Bull, The Railway, the Bridge Hotel at Hopton and occasionally the Bull's Head at Ravensthorpe where they had a piano that we would all sing along to. We used to pay for our girl friends into the Dance Hall then us boys would get a pass-out and be off to the local pubs until closing time. Strangely enough, the girls would still be waiting when we got back.

Water Royd Lane to Crowlees in the 1950s.

We would leave Kitson Hill estate at Cripple Gate and walk down Water Royd Lane, past the King's Head public house and enter the fields at the Baptist Chapel corner. The path ran left down the side of the first field then turned right at the bottom. There was a distraction on the left at this corner in the shape of a large apple orchard in the grounds of the Murder House. We raided this orchard many times when the apples were ready and there must have been up to 50 trees there.

Continuing along the path, which was bordered on the left by a hedgerow and on the right by a fence, we came to a stone style. Now there was a stone wall on the right, which ran alongside the path and over this wall were 3 or 4 large trees in a row that we used to climb to devour the apples. At this point another path joined ours from the right coming from the handful of houses which comprised West Royd Avenue at that time.

Our route now brought us to a very high wall where the path turned left in front of it. Soon we came to a corner of the wall where it turned at right angles away from the path now bordered on both sides by hedgerows. There were a few gaps in the hedgerow which revealed a tall arched gate through the wall. We would climb the stone wall and peep over to see if the coast was clear then sneak through the gate into the grounds of Westfield House. Here were large greenhouses and pear trees trained along one wall with plum trees along another. This was a much more dangerous place as there was a gardener and it lacked the anonymity of the larger orchard. Also the only escape route was through the gate.

Back on the path we could carry on in a straight line to meet the path which ran from Pratt Lane to the back field of the Grammar School and then Towngate. We would usually turn right here though and the path crossed another field which could contain anything from swedes to wheat depending on the crop for the particular year. At the end of this field was another wall, this time on the left and a row of trees which again could be climbed. The field over this wall is now the playing field of Castle Hall School and the trees have survived. The path finally arrived at the Grammar School and we could go straight on past the entrance of the Memorial Hospital to join Crowlees Road at its junction with Parker Lane where Crowlees Boys' School was then situated. This last short road was unnamed but is now Richard Thorpe Avenue. Alternatively we could turn left onto the path that ran down the back of the Grammar School to Towngate or turn right along the edge of the field to link up with Westfield Road and then to Crowlees Road again.

This journey was completed without passing a single dwelling until Crowlees Road or Towngate was reached.

Just above the Shoulder of Mutton public house in Lee Green, there stood two houses — the one further from the pub being home to the Walker brothers, David and Stuart. This photograph is taken from an upstairs window and looks across Lee Green to the open expanse of fields and trees which is now obliterated by West Royd Avenue, Fernhurst Road, Overhall Road, etc. The low, black hut across the road at the left of the photo is Pattinson's fruit and veg shop. Mr. Pattinson lived in the top house of the row just visible beyond the shop. Mr. Pattinson also had a horse and cart from which he sold his green grocery all around Mirfield. Another occupant of this row of houses was Eddie Rigg, our own speedway ace who rode for Odsal Speedway. Eddie had a garage in Little London City, just above Lee Green School where he used to work on his bikes. The ash tree on the right of the picture remained as a feature in the pub car park until recently but had gone at the time of writing this in 2007. The houses themselves were demolished long ago. The photograph just misses Mr. Brearly's spice boiling shop which was next to Mr. Pattinson's shop on its left hand side.

Photograph by courtesy of David Walker.

Can't Believe You Made It!

I received the following text by email. I have no idea who the original author is but the email encouraged the recipient to pass it round so it should be all right to reproduce it here. It did have an American slant in its wording so I have anglicised it a little.

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If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.
(Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.

No cell phones. Unthinkable. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We ate buns, tarts, bread and butter, and drank fizzy drinks but we were never overweight...we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms ... we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Local football had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment..... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.....Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And if you're one of them.

Congratulations!

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