Cadishead

Cadishead consisted mostly of brick, two-story council houses, a few shops, some farms, and wooded areas that filled with bluebells, foxgloves and daisys in the springtime. There was bus transport to nearby towns, while trains were used to travel to more distant places. Nearby was the Manchester Ship Canal, with a ferry service to Partington.

The Ice man delivered ice for the ice-box weekly, and the rag-and-bone man called regularly to trade our discarded bottles and rags for trinkets or goldfish.

There were some relics of the war in our area. A couple of streets away was an area that had been bombed, and had ruins of a few houses where we would play among the bricks and rubble. It was referred to as "the foundations", or more often, "the foundies".

Our school had a bomb-shelter - an underground cave where pupils and staff hid while air raids were in progress. We were not supposed to go down there any more, but we did. There were pools of water down there, which makes me wonder what it would be like down there during a raid, standing around in mud and puddles.

A small river, the River Glaze ran close by, and on its bank was an area we called the Willows that was full of willow trees. This was a popular place for us to play Cowboys and Indians, have archery contests, light fires and generally mess around. The willow trees also provided us with wood for our bows and arrows.

Many areas had their own "gangs" of kids who would play together and not mix with gangs from other areas. We were the Cadishead Kids, and in Glazebrook, on the other side of the river was the Glazey Gang. We usually respected each others territory, but occasionally a trespasser would be caught on the wrong side and sent firmly back to their own side.

Down the Lane nearby was a large recess, left over I think from either an abandoned waste-management or mining site, and it had filled with water. This sometimes froze over in the winter time and became our skating area. We had no skates, but had great fun sliding around in our shoes. Next to it was a large mound of a white substance - I don't know what it was, but we called it the Acid Tip. When there was snow, we would slide down this slope, with or without a home-made sled, and onto the pond. There had been occasions when one of the kids had fallen through the ice into the freezing cold water below it. Nobody was ever seriously hurt though, to my knowledge.

A smaller open space near our home was the site for our annual Guy Fawkes night. We spent about two to three weeks dragging branches from various places down the Lane to prepare the bonfire for November 5. Closer to the event, some of the adults brought old car-tyres and other items that would help the blaze, and one of the locals made the Guy - a dummy that would be placed on the bonfire before lighting it. On the night, almost everyone from the neighbourhood gathered for the bonfire, with their bucket of fireworks at the ready. Some of the fireworks were "bangers" ranging from tiny Tom Thumbs that the braver kids could hold in their hands, to larger "tupenny bungers" that could probably be heard from the next town. One of my favourites was the "rip-rap", or jumping jack, that was a folded-up string of small bangers. When lit, it jumped around as each fold exploded. Others were more colourful, and included snowdrops, Roman candles, rockets and many more. Sparklers were only for the very little kids.