Rochdale - Beyond Redemption? Part 3

Continued from here

From Louise Gardens we moved to Shelfield Lane in Norden, where we got to explore even more!  This was in the days when the land at the side of Whittaker Moss School was full of Pussy Willow trees and we'd pick the buds and take them home (I'm really not sure why I did that, because I never planted them or anything as I recall!)  We had strict instructions not to play near the reservoir, but obviously we did know how to climb over the wall so we did - but every time without fail, that inspired a need to run straight home because the sound of the water rushing into the rez (short for reservoir, keep up! lol) always made me desperate for the loo!  

We'd go blackberry picking and come home with nothing to show for it except purple fingers and tongues (although my sister always managed to smear the purple all around her face as well, mucky kid! Hah!) I remember getting stuck in a tree too.  My friends had somehow managed to convince me to climb it, despite my fears and pleas to the contrary!  It had a long wide branch that my friends stood on to swing off, and I'd seen them do this loads of times every day for weeks - but I just couldn't shake that fear I'd learnt by the stream at Smallbridge, and no matter how hard I tried, I just could not jump off that branch!  In the end, one of my friends had to run back to my house and ask my dad to drive down to rescue me.  I was again mortified, because I felt as though I was letting my dad down by not being a big enough, brave enough girl to just swing on the rope, but now I can see that it was because my previous experience had frightened me.  Adult eyes... they really do see the things that children can't comprehend!  Dad saved me that day by parking his car under the branch and eventually coaxing me to climb on to the roof and sliding down the windscreen... One day I will get over that fear and whizz down a zip line!! (Aha! Note to self for later!)

While we lived in Norden, I went to St Vincent's and learnt all about how we shouldn't talk to "the proddy dogs next door"... I refer you to my earlier "Wait... what?" gif!  Religious intolerance goes back a long time, but teaching it to little kids?  I have no idea who ever told me that the kids at Caldershaw were "Proddy Dogs", but I do remember not understanding why we weren't supposed to speak to them - especially because my cousins didn't go to Catholic school and they weren't that bad! Lol.  I tended to ignore that bit of advice, and although I didn't talk to any of the Caldershaw kids on the way into school, we all played very nicely together on the streets and fields near our homes.  

I did make some good friends at that time though, and although things weren't perfect (yes I am aware, and I'm lucky enough not to have been a victim of that injustice either - we don't need to bring it up, I'm trying to increase the positive now) my friends and I were all pretty much happy children from what I remember.

I got to know all the little back streets and short cuts, found out where the best blackberry bushes were, cut my knees from falling off my adjustable metal roller skates, ate home made fudge from Mrs Jenkins across the road, clambered about in the building sites when new houses started to spring up - I can still remember the smell of concrete drying - went sledging down the hill in front of St Vincent's (and got in trouble from Dad for laughing so much when my little sister failed to stop and crashed into Mrs O'Hara's classroom wall! Sorry sis!) and made loads of new friends both in and out of school, some of whom I'm still in touch with today, thanks solely to Facebook!

We went for walks in Ashworth Valley (Ashfield Valley was a big shock to the system when I discovered that a few years later!) 

Climbed to the top of Knowl Hill, 

Got confused between 10CC and ELO when I discovered that one of them had a house on Norford Way (it was 10CC, but I still have to check every time I hear one of those bands even today!)

I spent a lot of time at Grandma and Grandad's on Elmsfield Avenue, trying to find out what goodies they had in the bottom drawer of the dresser where the treats were kept.  I became known (to Grandad at least!) as The Phantom Jaffa Cake Eater, even though Brandy Snaps were my favourites.

I climbed over fences, camped in the back garden, knew the neighbours, always had somewhere to go if I needed help, and knew to set off home when the streetlights came on and actually in the house by the time they'd turned yellow! (Only at certain times of the year though, I still had to be in bed well before the street lights in the Summer!)

We moved abroad for a few years in 1980, but I moved to Bamford for a few months in 1982 and went to St Wilfrid's School. We have a Facebook group for ex pupils, and last year a reunion was organised.  When you think how many children must have attended over the years, there was only a tiny fraction of us at the party, but it was brilliant to catch up with a lot of people I've neither seen nor thought of for a long time.  I'll try to keep it brief about this school, but most of us really have very fond memories of our time there.  Mine wasn't a brilliant experience because my accent had changed in those 2 years and now some of the kids I went to primary school were calling me names for being posh or a snob, so I ended up going to boarding school instead.  (Yeah good idea Sarah, that'll show them for calling you a posh snob! Haha!)  Mr O'Laughlin was either a fantastic headmaster or a complete tyrant depending on who's story you listen to, so I'll just go with my own impression of a very nice, but sometimes shouty man who ran our school and who I tried to avoid at all costs, because being called (or sent) to the headmaster's office was a very bad thing.  

I only had one bad experience with a teacher there, and that was a History teacher who took exception to me for no apparent reason.  I was a good girl and a bright student, so having an angry red faced man bellow at me to "Go and stand outside the class young lady!" was really scary!  I don't think I even knew what I'd done wrong, but I seem to think I had to stand outside his class every time after that.  The only purpose that served was to put me off History for the rest of my education.

In 1984 we moved back to the UK and into Whitegate in Dearnley and made a whole load of new friends. We played on the street, on the lodge behind our house, down the road towards Lightburn we'd play Hide and Seek, sometimes we'd feed the horses in the imaginatively named "Horse's Field", and generally muck about being kids and trying not to blind each other with our pretend light sabres... 

We got into trouble from "Handlebars", the local Bobby, for sitting on the steps outside Dearnley Methodist Church, "It's freezing out here here, haven't you got homes to go to?" to which we'd usually reply that we weren't doing any harm sitting there counting cars, and home was boring lol.  He was always friendly enough, we just didn't take him seriously when he tried telling us we'd get piles from sitting on the cold wall - why do adults say such ridiculous things sometimes?

We explored all over the place in Littleborough.  Most of my friends had lived there for their whole lives (and many still do live within striking distance of our old stomping grounds) and we played cricket up on "The Wreck".  That name always confused me because there was no ship wreck in sight, just a big empty patch of grass, a couple of goats and a Jehovah's Witness Church.  It was only later I found out it was actually "The Rec" and the rest of "Rec" was "reation" - and now here we are in my attempted Re-Creation of the views of Rochdale 

This is my "Smug" smiley, because I do keep telling people that everything's connected! 

We had some great times during those years, and then a couple of years later we discovered that we could pop into Alec's shop and occasionally get away with buying Clan Dew (Clan Ewww more like! The lengths teenagers will go to attempt drunkenness is really quite sad haha!) We started to go further afield, like up to Hollingworth Lake when there was a fair on, or up to the "bottomless pit" on Blackstone Edge to swim in the summer (another thing we probably weren't allowed to do!) then when it got dark or rainy some of us would pop round to one particular house where we could smoke and play cards without any parents getting in the way of our fun.  I did hear a couple of rumours about inappropriate behaviour by the owner of that house, but I spent a lot of time there, both with other kids and alone with the man in question and I never once saw or experienced anything untoward.

I think this is a big part of my point to be honest.  Sometimes judgements are made based on one person's experience.  Now I'm not saying that anyone was lying, nor that one person's experience should just be dismissed - of course it should be properly looked into!  Wrongdoing and illegality should be tackled head on, and appropriate actions should be taken - but I prefer to look at the bigger picture.  There must have been about 20 of us who spent time there, and to my knowledge, only one or 2 people ever expressed any discomfort about being there - yet they still came back.  I can only judge people based on my own experience of them, and since I never experienced anything other than good there, I have fond memories of being there.

Somewhere along the way, we've all forgotten the town we grew up in.  We've managed to forget that the reason we have so many beautiful buildings is because Hitler made it a "no fly zone" during WWII because he wanted our Town Hall - Hitler did some really REALLY terrible things, but I will always thank him for preserving that beauty for us.

http://i1.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/article1234312.ece/alternates/s615/rochdale-town-hall-nightJPG.jpg

I remember being outside there one day in the 70s and seeing a big black car pull up.  I remember how excited I was that it contained a local celebrity!!  I was pretty awestruck that there was a famous person right in front of me, and I also remember giggling to myself when I noticed he was wearing his red tartan slippers.  I watched him waddle into the beautiful Post Office building, and felt important because I'd just seen him with my very own eyes and not just by looking at a photo in the paper or watching a link on a TV programme.

I had no idea of the terrible things that man was doing behind closed doors, and in all honesty, I wish I still didn't know about them.  I didn't imagine anything other than lovely things when I was laid on the floor with my chin propped up on my hands watching Top of the Pops either.  

For some reason, I was something close to embarrassed when Lisa Stansfield appeared on one of the Saturday morning TV programmes and her Rochdale accent filled the airwaves.  I really disliked being compared to her because of that accent... Seems I was a posh snob after all!  (Sorry Lisa!  I'm over it now though, and I love your music and that you still have your accent!) Gracie Fields was too old to be cool, and Mike Harding was just a bloke who'd made everyone think it was hilarious to call me a cowboy... How moody was I?!

The thing is, I wasn't alone.  I think I caught that attitude from other people around me.  I've discovered that Attitudes are like viruses.  If you spend a lot of time listening to bad ones, you end up adopting them as your own, and when a lot of friends are leaving the town they grew up in and telling you it's because "it's gone to the dogs" then you start believing it.  When you hear Rochdalians referring to their own home town as "Dogdale", and see all the pubs and clubs closing down because of violence and trouble, you start to wonder whether you should maybe leave as well...

That's what happened to me anyway.  But the thing is, I remember all of these great things (and many more!) about this town. Now I can call on the help of Derek Parsons, who's name seems familiar but I don't (to my knowledge) actually know him.  However, I'd like to thank him for the work he's already put into this project and the photos and information he has on his page.

This photo for instance.  I've now discovered that it was due to be demolished in January so it's probably gone now, but I remember my childhood confusion as to why they kept pulling that big building down and then rebuilding it before we drove past again...  That childhood innocence is lost forever when you start learning the truth about things, but it was a source of great wonder to me for YEARS before I discovered it grew and shrank depending how much gas was inside it!  This is the point I'm trying to make about the way things are looked at now.

Our innocence has been stolen.  Our pride has gone with it.  Everyone knows that terrible things have happened here, and we just hang our heads in collective shame and apologise on behalf of the bad guys.  

Well I'm not apologising any longer for the mistakes of people I've never even spoken to.  I didn't do those things, I didn't hurt those people, I didn't ruin those lives.  My heart breaks for the lives that were ruined, and I hope with all of my heart that they manage to find some peace, but I cannot - and will not - live my life in penance for someone else's mistakes.

I love this town.  I love that I can see signs of it coming back to life.  There are new market stalls next to the new Metrolink and Bus Stations, and the traders there have a petition going to get it covered over and made a permanent fixture.  I've signed the petition, because I can see how the new position could be really good for our town and all the business who still have their homes here.

Continue here for part four and the bet!