I was 5 years of age when the 1926 miners strike started. This was an extremely tough time for all the miners and their families. As a very young boy I vaguely remember being constantly fed with broth made by groups of miners wives. There was no benefits in those days, if work stopped for any reason then money also stopped and so did food. People supported each other and in many cases relied on the generosity of the local farmers who provided free vegetables to make this broth. The strike eventually ended with no change in the miner’s situation. It was a choice of starving or going back to work, so reluctantly they were forced back down the mines in order to put food on the table for their families.

From the Tawd Vale pub and the school, if you walked for about half a mile, there was another collection of houses with two pubs and two or three shops. This place was called Stormy. Stormy was a small village consisting of only four or five streets with approximately 70 houses. For a small place it was full of character and characters. From memory, the first building on the left side, as you walked down the main street (Berry Street) was the Beehive pub, next was the main shop owned by Edward Draper (Ned). He used to own an open top charabanc (a type of coach), in which he used to take the locals out for the day in the summer – usually to the seaside resort of Southport. I never got to see the charabanc, as I was a baby at the time, but I have seen photographs. Next to Ned’s shop was a row of terrace houses. The last house led into a small street called Morrell Street. There were only two or three houses in this street, one of which was owned by Billy Mayor, who had two jobs, - a coalman and undertaker. Billy had a glass sided hearse which was pulled by a team of four black horses with plumes, he also had a wagonette in which he used to take people to Ormskirk on market days. After Morrell Street, there were only three or four more houses down the left side of the main street. On the right hand side of the street, was the second pub called the Seven Stars, then a few more houses and then the entrance to Summer Street, which had terraced houses on both sides. As far as my memory serves me, there was a sweet shop and next to that was the Rendezvous club. A lady called Mrs Edwards owned both the shop and the club. Mrs Edwards was definitely a businesswoman and ensured that any winnings from the dominoes and billiards that were played at the club, were paid out in tallies, which could then, only be spent in Mrs Edwards shop!

If you walked back up Berry Street and past the Seven Stars, to the open land, the road carried on a short way to the Tuppenny Pit. The name was changed in later years to Blaguegate Colliery. The people I remember most in Stormy were: the Draper family - grocer and charabanc owner, Nurse Hopley - the midwife, Billy Mayor - coalman and undertaker, and Harry Whistler - miner and cobbler. You could often see Harry returning from his regular work down the pit wearing odd clogs. One was his own, the other would belong to a fellow miner and Harry would be taking it home for repair, leaving his own in temporary exchange. Another character was Rose Gibson the pea queen, who used to organise gangs of people at pea-picking time in farms around the area. Mums and dads may have been scraping a living and kids were eating sugar and jam butties, but one thing I do know, it was a very nice and friendly place to grow up in. It is a shame it no longer exists.

After school my mates and I would occupy ourselves by going to the slag heaps, which were huge deposits of dirt etc, which were sent up the mineshaft in tubs, after the coal had been extracted. We would rummage in the waste for ponmug, (where the name came from I don’t know). Ponmug, which looked like pieces of thick grey slate, was used as fuel. The ponmug was of poor burning quality but if you got the fire in the grate going well by using bits of wood and coal until hot, you could then add the ponmug. When this started to burn, it would spit bits of residue outwards and so we had to have a guard in front of the fire. Sometimes we would be lucky and find odd bits of coal as well, all this was a bonus in helping to keep the house warm in winter.

My dad decided to make a move from the Barnhouses to number 43 Clayton Street in Skelmersdale. These little terraced houses gave us our first contact with gas lighting. We had to buy little white mantles for the two bedrooms and also for the living room and the rear kitchen. Each room had a pipe coming out from the wall with a control tap and jet, where the mantle was fitted. The mantle looked like a small white mesh cup and was placed directly over the flame. When the gas was turned on and lit, the gas flame heated the mantle until it glowed and gave off white light. The house lighting was a great novelty to us at first, in comparison to the paraffin lamps we used to have. The streets were also lit with gas lamps and men were employed, together with long poles to light them at dusk and turn them out in the morning.
Living in Clayton Street was quite pleasant; the people were friendly and helpful. They would occasionally knock on the door and come in for a gossip and a chat about local news etc. Nobody bothered to lock their doors; there was no need to. Most people had a small table by the front door and when they were out sometimes on a Friday, they would leave money on the table for the milkman or rent man to let themselves in and take payment for the week.

I used to go to Billy Shaw’s Empire picture house on a Saturday night with my mum and dad. When I got a bit older, I went on a Saturday afternoon to the matinee with lots of other kids. This was quite a laugh because before the main film was shown there would be a few shorties, such as The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Wheeler and Wolsley, and The Dead End Kids.
The main film would be Cowboys and Indians or maybe a Tarzan picture or any other adventure film. The noise the kids made would often cause the man in charge to shout a warning telling them that if they didn’t shut up he would open the side doors. This would throw daylight on to the screen spoiling everyone’s view in the darkened cinema. Very often Tarzan would be swinging his way through the trees, making his 'king of the jungle' roar with fifty or more kids in full voice mimicry, lifting the rafters of the cinema, and the double side doors would swing open, just as Tarzan was about to wrestle the man eating lion! The man in charge would only close them once the kids had settled down. Also we got used to the odd breakdown during the show when the film snapped, this would mean several minutes of noise and stamping of feet whilst the projectionist taped the film back together. It was quite an event.

The roads in Skem were all cobbles and sets in those days, and horse and cart was the main mode of transport. In Clayton Street Jim Hutton came round with his horse and cart selling vegetables and I think he sold fish as well, also Cockle Jack would do the rounds, selling cockles fresh from Southport. Another chap, who sold fruit from his cart, had quite a big round, which must have made him thirsty because he was well known in all the pubs in Skem. At the end of his round and after he had quenched his thirst, he would secure the reins from the horse to the edge of the cart, mutter a few words to the horse, then lie back on the cart and nod off and the horse would take him home.

Whilst we were living at Clayton Street my brother Joe was born. I was still going to the Endowed School; it was about a quarter of a mile on the main road to get there. Arrangements had to be made with my grandmother Barrow and her daughter Mary-Alice to enable me to have something to eat when the school broke up at lunchtime. It was during the period that followed while I was still at school, that an event occurred, which has always remained in my mind. The people who lived in the Tawd Vale pub kept pigs, the pigs were getting quite large and the time had come for two of them to be killed for food. This particular day we came out of school at lunch time and the double doors at the entrance of the large yard at the side of the pub were wide open and the local pig killer Ralph Meadows was stood there with his large knife stuck in his belt and a rough brat tied round his waist. {In case you’re not sure what a ‘brat’ was, it was an apron made from a material similar to Hessian. I remember my mother always used the word after I had, had a bath, she would say ‘ take the worst of the water off with the rough brat, before you use the towel.’) Two men, who accompanied Ralph, fetched a large wooden trestle and they went to the pigcote to get the pig. After a lot of tussling and squealing they managed to get the pig astride the trestle and then tied each leg to the trestle legs, leaving the pig lying on its belly with its head hanging over the front of the trestle. Now comes the scene, which could not happen officially today because it would be a crime and a spell in prison would follow. Ralph withdrew his big knife from his belt and went over to the pig, put a bucket under its head, at the same time picked up his pint mug and cut the pig’s throat from ear to ear, he put his mug to catch some of the blood and proceeded to drink from the mug. A crowd of school pals and myself (aged between 7-8) and had been watching the whole episode in amazement, but apparently this procedure happened every time he killed a pig in the local district. On the way back to school after lunch, Ralph heard a crowd of us passing and he shouted through the yard gates, “Do you want this?” and threw the pig’s bladder to us, which he had blown up and tied with string. He said, “You can have a game of football with it.” This cruel event was a regular occurrence in those days, and was deemed as quite acceptable, although I don’t think that the drinking of fresh pigs blood was a normal part of the practise! It was a horrific scene to witness at any age and has remained vividly in my memory.

One of my school pals was a lad called Peter Molyneux and we became friends, he lived a couple of doors up from my grand mothers shop in Whalley Street. Peter had a brother named Jonathon and I used to spend quite a fair amount of time in their house, especially on a Sunday when I would come with my mother, when she came to see her mother and sister at the shop. Peter’s mother’s name was Jane but his father had passed away. There were a few other lads living in the street and we all used to play football and piggy or other games behind the houses, where there was a large open area.

Time went by and I moved through school. Each class was named in the following way Standard 1, Standard 2, up to Standard 7, which was the top class. The cane was always at the ready in each class. I fell foul of it a few times and when school closed at three o’clock, I would occasionally go home with a red mark on the palm of my hand, which tended to smart a little, but the fact was recognised that if you had done something wrong in the teachers opinion then you had to pay with a rap on the hand. This was usually followed by another clout from my dad when he found out I’d been up to no good and he would re-enforce the teachers punishment. In my opinion these forms of discipline, were not ‘beatings’ and taught me right from wrong, putting me on an even keel that would last me my whole life through. I must say I did quite well academically in each class I was always in the top three, mostly either first or second.

While I was still at school my dad had been talking about moving from Clayton Street, because there were only two bedrooms and my brother Joe was getting older. So after about three years in number 43 he decided to apply to Lancashire County Council at Preston for a smallholding in Lathom, which was a couple of miles outside Skelmersdale. He had no experience in farming but he was willing to try poultry farming. Apparently some of these holdings were not being taken up and some had been empty for quite a while. He eventually got a letter from the Lancashire County Council to go to Preston Town Hall to be interviewed to see if he would be a suitable tenant. After a lot questions they finally decided to give him the key to a smallholding in Slate Farm Lane off Coal Pit Lane in Lathom. This property, just under an acre, had been lying vacant for approximately twelve months. The outbuildings consisted of a horsebox, an outside toilet - complete with container, a washhouse and a garage. The house was larger than our previous residence, with three bedrooms, a front room overlooking a lawn, a bathroom, which was sited on one side of the kitchen at the rear of the house, and a small pantry situated under the stairs, with a door leading back into the front room. There was a driveway alongside the house leading to the end of the outbuildings. We were very satisfied with everything we had seen and being in the open country was brilliant, so we were itching to move in. There was just one drawback, it was a case of going back to the old paraffin lamp days for illumination and also we had to use paraffin for cooking. But after a while I began to like living there.

I met up with another lad, who’s dad had a smallholding that backed onto ours and we became friends. His name was Jimmy Gore, he introduced me to two other lads whose dad and mother owned the farm at the bottom of Slate Farm Lane. Their names were Tom and Jack Wilkinson, so we were soon all pals together and we were all of similar age, I think I was about 11 or 12 then and still at school. There was quite a large wood across the fields on the opposite side of Coal Pit Lane. (Coal Pit Lane was later changed to Firswood Road). We used to play in the wood quite often, climbing trees, looking for birds nests, making bows and arrows, and chasing rabbits. One day when we were in the wood, we met another lad of similar age to us, who apparently lived in another smallholding further down the road. His name was Bill Baybutt and he soon joined up with us. My younger brother Joe was itching to join us but he was a bit too young and I thought he couldn’t join in with our adventures.

After hearing people talking including my dad and one of his brothers, Ashton, we became interested in fishing, but none of us had any gear. My dad had a set of fishing rods, so I was fixed up. We had no money to buy fishing gear so it was a case of begging and borrowing if possible. My dad said that his brother Ashton had a couple of rods and would be coming here on Sunday. He said quot;Why don’t you ask him, he might give you a set – it’s worth a try." So when Uncle Ashton came on Sunday I made it my business to ask him if I could borrow a set of rods. I told him that me and my mate Jimmy were thinking of taking up fishing and I was made up when he said "I’ll give you a set, I have one that I don’t use very much. It’s not as long in length as the others but apart from that there’s nothing wrong with it." He told me to pop and see him one day next week and he gave me some line on a spool, a couple of bottoms with hooks attached, a couple of floats, and some useful tips as well. He also said that when my dad got going with the poultry I would be able to make some floats out of cock feathers.
We knew in the district around us there were several ponds and a canal, so we were eager to get going. After school one day Jimmy and myself got the bikes out and fastened the rods to the crossbars and off we went to a pond in a field off Hall Lane in Lathom, where we caught quite a lot of small Rudd. That was the beginning of a lifetime sport for the two of us. The other lads joined us shortly afterwards and we all used to go 2 or 3 times a week, often fishing other waters in the area.
I remember one night Jimmy and myself got so involved catching fish, one after another, that it got so dark that we could hardly see the floats, so we had to pack in and by the time we were on the way home it was pitch black. Shortly before we got home (about half a mile away) whom should we meet up with in the middle of the path - hands on hips, but my mother walking towards us. When she saw us she erupted and shouted at me in broad Lancashire dialect "Tha’s ed thi egg, tha not gooin any moor. W’ere av yo’ bin till this time o’ neet?" She eventually calmed down and things were soon back to normal and we still carried on fishing, but we took care to be back before dark.