I consider home to be Brindle, where I have lived for the majority of my life. I lived with my parents in Whittle-le-Woods for 23 years, and then spent five years on the outskirts of Chorley before moving to Brindle in 1988. Occasionally, we have considered moving house, especially when our contemporaries were moving upmarket every five years or so, but we’re still here, so you know the outcome.
Within five years of moving to Brindle, we had two children, and then we thought it would be easier to extend rather than move, which is what we did. We made many substantial changes to the property in 1994, fitting an additional bedroom upstairs, moving the bathroom to the upper floor and adding an en suite and dressing room to our bedroom. At the time, I don’t think we anticipated how difficult it would be to live in the house throughout this upheaval with two tiny children. One evening, Geraldine was working away and I returned home from work with the children, and I found that the builders had removed the bathroom wall. It was a breeze-block wall, and they had sawn through the blocks, creating considerable dust. The builder was showing me the progress made, and he proudly announced that the bath could still be used, turning on the taps to prove it! The light switch was hanging by its cable, and the floor was thick with dust and rubble, but we could still bathe, sitting effectively in the dining room! This was the low point. Work was completed between August and October when Emily was 2½ and Laurence just nine months. Once finished, however, we had everything we needed in a house – three bedrooms upstairs, a separate playroom downstairs and a large garden. We weren’t planning to move anywhere soon.
We were enjoying village life in Brindle, getting involved in many of the social activities and feeling very welcome. Within a few days of moving into the village, I received a visit from a gentleman called Geoff Moore, who invited me to join the Cavendish Club, but the way he described it made it sound very intriguing. The members met once a month at the Cavendish pub, and Geoff was very conspiratorial, stressing that women were not allowed to attend. I soon agreed to go along to the next session, which was to be on the topic of St John, although I wondered what I was getting into. The meeting turned out to be very amusing, sitting with a group of old men who had lived in the village for years and hearing a talk from another character about how the St John’s Ambulance brigade started. It was all very much like a gentleman’s club, with pseudo-formalities, but I found it fascinating. The members were all very well educated, talking intelligently about all manner of topics. Over the years I have learned such a lot from these meetings, although I’m sorry to say that lately, I have not been as diligent in attending regularly. We meet between September and May, and the January meeting is the annual dinner. September usually takes the form of a visit somewhere, and the other talks cover a wide variety of topics. Geoff had set up the Cavendish Club in the early 80s as a gentle reaction to the Women’s Institute since many men in the village noticed that their womenfolk were spending considerable time at the WI.
The children were settled in schools, and we were in steady jobs, and so the next opportunity to move would have been when the children were leaving school. At this time we reviewed the options again, but having just managed to pay off a mortgage, we weren’t keen on going into debt once more. We also discovered that nothing for sale at a similar price to our own house offered as much as we already enjoyed. We weren’t ready to move down market, and having just secured an additional piece of land, we decided to stay a bit longer. This was confirmed recently after we invested in more building work to make the four rooms at the rear of the house into one large, open-plan kitchen area. We’ve probably spent more than we could recoup if we were to sell now, but since we are planning to stay for at least another decade, we can enjoy the value of the improvement work.
I have always grown up with pets, although I can never claim that any single animal was solely mine. There was always a dog and cat at home when I was a young child, but they are barely a memory for me. In fact, the dog may actually only be a memory – I may never have known him, but I own an item that reminds me of him. Mum often told the story about how her little dog used to wander alone around the district, and one afternoon before I was born, he came home carrying a huge joint of meat, clearly intended for some family’s Sunday lunch. Mum was unable to wrestle it off the dog, but she did rescue a wooden-handled knife that was stuck in the joint! The dog enjoyed the meat, but Mum kept the knife, being unable to return it since she had no idea to whom it belonged. She was still using the knife when she died in 2007. It had been sharpened so much over the years, that the blade is now curved like a scythe and is pretty useless, but I keep it in a ‘memories’ box since I can’t bear to throw it away.
There was also a cat at Roscoe’s Farm, but my clearest memory is finding it dead by the front gate one morning. Later on, Mum and Dad acquired a black and white dog called which they called Whisky. He was a border collie (allegedly), and used to love running round the field, probably practising his sheep-rounding skills. He arrived in March 1968 and cost ten bob (50p), and I grew up with him. I took him for walks, but living on a farm meant that he didn’t need taking out every day, but we certainly managed at least once a week. He loved going for a walk though, and became so excited when the word ‘walk’ was mentioned, we resorted to spelling it out so he didn’t realise what we were planning. When he died in 1981, Mum didn’t want another pet, but Dad insisted and later in the decade, they bought another black and white dog, also named Whisky. Whisky II, as he became known, was a great companion to Mum in her later years and I think he moved with her to Mountbatten Road.
A fortnight before we got married, Geraldine and I visited the funfair at Blackburn, and somehow, won a goldfish. I don’t remember how, but I do recall coming home with it in a plastic bag. We had to re-house it at my mum’s for a while when we went on honeymoon, but I don’t think it ever returned.
In 1988, one of Geraldine’s friends was working at County Hall in Preston when she heard that a cat had given birth to several kittens in the basement. Evelyn decided that we needed a pet, and so she brought one of the kittens to us, delivered in a Rank Xerox paper box. The tiny black cat was subsequently named Roxanne, or Roxy and lived with us until 2005. She was a lovely pet, rarely any trouble and good with the children. Sadly, she went blind in her last few months, in addition to gradually slowing down due to arthritis. The vet finally decided that the last of her nine lives were spent when she stopped eating in October and she was put to sleep.
We couldn’t be long without an animal, though, and on 5th November, we offered a home to a 3-month old half-pedigree kitten called Tiger Lily, Tilly for short. She is only half pedigree, since her mum was a prize-winning British Black Shorthair who decided to go wandering one day and had a rendezvous with a ginger tom of uncertain parentage. The ensuing litter were a mixed bunch, and we chose a multicoloured kitten with a black nose, one ginger leg, four white paws and amber eyes. She made up for her lack of ancestry with a surfeit of character although she did appear rather aloof compared to Roxy. It’s the breeding showing through, you see. Although she hails from Cheshire, I am very disappointed that she has never smiled once. I suppose it is due to Stockport now being classed as part of Greater Manchester and is no longer Cheshire.
During the summer of 2014, we had regular visits from an apparently stray cat whom we nicknamed Buster. He looked like a Buster, with his solid appearance and no-nonsense features, and he was definitely the tramp to Tilly’s lady. Despite our reservations, the two cats appeared to get on very well, and may have become friends. Buster enthusiastically ate any meal put out for him (or anyone else, come to that), and soon began to appear morning and night expecting food. Local enquiries suggested that no-one actually owned him (although several people admitted to feeding him), and he appeared to be the offspring of a farm cat from nearby. Anyway, later in the year, he was neutered, wormed and chipped and by Christmas, he had a seat at our table. The good thing is that his presence tipped the gender balance in favour of the males in our household, which can only be a good thing. These days, the two cats appear to just tolerate each other; we still see the occasional nose rubbing, but just as often we hear hissing. Overall, we are happy with the arrangement, as, I’m sure, is Buster.
Over the years, there have also been gerbils (Fidget & Smudge), who lasted about three years and a couple more goldfish. The goldfish were a Christmas present for Emily from her boyfriend at the time. One fish lasted a few years, but the remaining one thrived and is now really fat and refuses to die. He must be about eight years old but as I write, he appears to be taking his last breaths, or whatever it is that fish take.