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Walking Days of Skelmersdale

Here's an article on the old Walking days, Carnivals and Fairs reproduced from the Advertiser 28th November 1985 by Geoff Howard

Skelmersdale more than 50 years ago and the occasion when more than 1000 people walked in the Mission Sunday School procession shepherded by Mr Tom Aspinwall in bowler hat conjures up a lively picture of a bygone era.
Mrs Margaret Hodges has vivid recollections of the Sunday School walking days of the 1920's and early 1930's and indeed she and her sister Miss Emma Siveter have preserved a pictorial record of life in Skelmersdale around that time.

The Carnival procession 1934 The Skelmersdale Carnival in 1934 on High Street passing the top of Sandy Lane with the fairground in full flow on United's ground.
(Sorry about the crease!)

The fair had arrived on the football field at the top of Sandy Lane, and the excitement built up for a full week before the last Sunday each June which heralded the Sunday School treat and walking day. Boys, girls, men and women had acquired new outfits for the great day, many of them bought with the money saved up in the 'Clothing Club' organised by Mr Hodson and Mr Taylor.
Margaret recalls that the Skelmersdale Old Prize Band and the Temperance Band would take turns each year to lead the procession, with the extravaganza getting under way after the singing of 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow!'

Riders

Elsie May Lathom and her helpers had placed the sashes over the girls' dresses, the infants would ride either on Dick gardner's waggonette or in later years Johnny Riley's coal wagon which had been cleaned and polished while Fox's landaus carried the older ladies.

Walking day about-turn by the Horseshoe Inn Skelmersdale Mission Sunday School walking day in the 1920's with the scholars about to perform an 'about-turn' at the Horseshoe Inn. St Richard's Church can be seen in the background.

By the time the procession had ended, everyone involved had earned their tea. They walked up Witham Road, down Barnes Road into High Street, on to the Derby Arms where they turned round and moved back past the top of Sandy Lane into Liverpool Road as far as the Horseshoe where it was 'about turn' yet again. Then they retraced their steps along Liverpool Road, down Sandy Lane into Ormskirk Road as far as the Lathom boundary, then turn-about number three to Clayton Street, Sherratt Street and the Sunday School where a banquet of sandwiches, cake and a bun awaited.

Remembers

Margaret, who lives in Lancaster Crescent with her husband Jim, remembers three generations of ladies who brewed the tea for the treat - Mrs Dawson, her daughter Mrs Phillipson and granddaughter Mrs Donnell.
She can reel off a stream of well-known Skem families who worked behind the scenes, Mrs Rhoden, Mrs Eastham, Mrs Abram, and the Sunday School teachers Mrs Grayson, Mrs Webb, the Misses Barker, Aspinwall and Hodson, Mrs Moss and Mrs Pimblett who also taught at the Council School.
"After the fun of the fair, if we could afford, very occasionally we would have a ride in a landau which would take us either to the Horseshoe Hotel or to the Derby Arms and back. We felt so grand", says Margaret. "The men and boys would have a go at the coconut shies and would be going home with a coconut or a coloured glass bird which would clip on to their coats or the peak of their caps."

Walking Day procession down Sandy Lane The Walking Day procession making it's way down Sandy Lane.

Photographs such as Margaret, Jim and Emma have treasured down the years represent an invaluable record of life in the thirties as Skelmersdale was nearing the end of its heyday as a mining community. Margaret's grandfather Thomas Siveter had travelled from Staffordshire to find work in Skem, at the pottery but died after falling from a ladder while mending the kiln.
And to underline just how hard times could be, Margaret's mother Jane Siveter, though aged only 13, was left with the responsibility of bringing up the family following the death of her mother. They all moved from a three-bedroomed house into one with only two bedrooms because their new home had the facility of a washing boiler.
Margaret worked for a short time at the Orm Weaving Company in Taylor Street where husband Jim served his time . . . the men who maintained the machinery were known as the Tattlers and whilst they were ensuring everything ran smoothly, the mill girls were lip-reading as they carried on a 'conversation' amid the hubbub.
"We worked from eight in a morning to half past five at night and Saturday mornings as well, all for 7s 6d a week," says Margaret.
"Times have changed but I do think people in those days made more of an effort to look for work than they do nowadays, even with all the unemployment around us."