b'Village Life In The 1950sJudy TarranLife in the fifties was very different from life in the village today.Outside the Village Hall c1953 - Chapel Sunday School Tea Party on Whit MondayM y memories are that it was a busy, quite noisyof the day. We had to remove her head collar and place - with the many animals contributing thestand well back (orders from Mr H) as she lunged most noise. A lot of people also worked in and aroundforward to drink in the stream and roll on the ground. the village. There were seven working farms andWe all loved her, and she was a great favourite when several small-holdings where two or three cows werewe went potato picking in the October holidays. Any the norm; quite a few had one or two pigs, and mostfarmer who had milk to sell put it into churns to place people kept poultrythe ducks spending most ofon stands at several points in the village where it was the day in the beck! Mr Horner of Shields Farm hadcollected by lorriesusually Northern Dairies.about fifteen cows and he had a milk-round in theFishers Agricultural Engineers had several workers village and also delivered the schools daily milk forincluding Hubert Hesslewood (a larger than life man!) the infant class. Some of the children at the bottomwho was the blacksmith. He wore a huge leather end of the village were friends of Mr Hs daughtersapron up to his armpits, and goggles when he was and we shared jobs. We often went to bring the cowsworking at the forge. Shoeing the horses was an event home (usually from a field down Bolton Lane) and thenwe liked to watch, but we felt sorry for the horses as tented them in the village until they were taken intothe red-hot shoes were fixed and nails hammered the farmyard for milking. Woe betide us if they startedinto the hooves. They didnt seem to mind, and only on someones garden. This was more exciting if theoccasionally started to move; but Hubert was able gypsies were staying on Bolton Lanehaving to driveto settle them with a few strong words and a prod the cows through their camp was quite scary, but theywith the rasp. Hubert had his own transport from never harmed us in any way.Thixendaleit was a motorbike and sidecar, which Another favourite chore was taking Violet (Mr Hsyou heard long before you saw it!working horse) back to her field (Mill Hills) at the endThe village school had three teachers when I BULLETIN 7 99'