Snapshot: Lucky to be one of our big family at 11 Dudley Road
We are a family of 16, and the walls of our old home could tell many a story. This photo was taken in about 1966 or 1967, guessing from the ages of the people in it. It was taken at 11 Dudley Road, where I was lucky enough to spend all of my childhood with my 13 siblings. In the picture are three of my sisters – Monica, Geraldine and Mandy – and two of my brothers, Michael and Danny. The two young boys, Jim and Paul, at the bottom of the picture were the sons of one of the many lodgers we had staying with us to help pay the mortgage .
My mum and dad bought the house in 1961, just before my sister on the far left was born. One of the things that I’m always drawn to is the amount of washing, especially nappies, on the washing line. My mum must have worked so hard to keep the house going, as my dad was always at work, trying to raise his super-size family.
My dad met my mum during the second world war, when he was based in Grantham as a paratrooper. He went off to fight at the battle of Arnhem and was shot and captured there. He spent the last nine months of the war at the Belsen prisoner of war camp.
When he got back in 1945, he married my mother and they went on to have us all. We had a brilliant upbringing, and 11 Dudley Road was always teaming with life and many dramas.
The house had seven bedrooms and my dad paid £1,500 for it – the only way we could afford it was to rent out rooms, mainly to Irish immigrants who were moving into the town in the 1960s. Dad tried to get grants to repair the roof etc, but was always turned down because the rateable value of the house was too high.
But regardless of the financial situation, we never went without – and were always loved.
Christmas was always great and we all seemed to get spoilt. I remember one year, Dad and my brother-in-law Terry worked through the night on Christmas Eve to wallpaper and decorate the front room ready for Christmas Day. When we got up to see what they had done, we were so happy as they had made Christmas for us (Mum was in bed ill at the time).
It’s these memories that are making life a bit more bearable at the moment, as we have just lost our mum. She was the glue that held our family together since my dad died more than 20 years ago. We have been blessed to have had such parents, who gave us so much, worked so hard and made us what we are.
Nick Perry
Playlist: Grown-up glamour at the ‘Reveera’
Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra
“Weather-wise, it’s such a lovely day / Just say the words and we’ll beat the birds / Back to Acapulco Bay”
“Weather-wise, it’s such a lovely day …” sang Frank Sinatra, and when the summer sun shone – as it occasionally did in Rochdale in the 1960s – we headed up to the “Reveera”. Our elongated vowels showed little regard for the exotically named Riviera leisure centre at nearby Norden. It was a large open pool with seven diving boards at one end. We were all decent swimmers but sat mostly on the grassy banks as the water was freezing. I was 11 and just about to go to grammar school up the road in Bury, packed off by parents suspicious of the imminent introduction of the comprehensive system in Rochdale. It would be the first of many transitions.
The tea rooms sold toasted tea-cakes and ice creams, and music blasted from the loudspeakers. Away from my two younger brothers for the day, I felt pretty grown up. When Sinatra’s Come Fly With Me played, it oozed a sophisticated, languid class and was so different from the Val Doonican and Andy Stewart records my dad played at home. It hinted at another world far from our chip shops and chapel, from our drizzle and ginnels. Places even further away than Bury.
I’m not sure if any of us “beat the birds back to Acapulco Bay” or found that “bar in far Bombay”, and I settled contentedly on the other side of the Pennines. But when I am lured back, I’ll make that 50-mile, 50-year journey over the Snake Pass (where the air is rarefied) and sometimes revisit childhood haunts. Houses stand where the “Reveera” was, but I’ll pause on the corner where the diving boards used to be. And as the sun peeps through the clouds, I’ll hear Sinatra’s siren sounds – “Come fly with me, let’s fly let’s fly away”.
Ian Goodwin
We love to eat: Grandma’s toast and a beefy cuppa
Ingredients
1 beef Oxo cube
2 slices of toast
Lots of butter
1 teaspoon
Mix the Oxo cube in a mug full of boiling water. Butter the toast liberally and cut into strips. Dip the toast in the hot Oxo.
Our parents lived in Hong Kong, and my brother and I were sent to boarding school in England. During half-terms and some weekends, we were looked after by our paternal grandparents. I have many fond memories of the times we spent in their house, along with some of the more bizarre house rules. My grandfather refused to watch any television channel with adverts, which meant many hours watching any sport that had music to accompany it (think the floor in gymnastics, or Ski Sunday) and a dearth of cartoons.
My grandmother was an excellent cook and home baker, but one of my most vivid memories is of the snack she used to make me on cold afternoons – beef Oxo in a mug, with hot buttered toast. It is many years since I last tried it, but I recently mixed up a stock cube in a mug to put in a beef stew and was instantly transported back to my grandparents’ front room, with its sunburst clock on the wall and loud flowery wallpaper that matched the flowery sofa.
Eleanor Draeger
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