Open Writing

Earlsheaton Common is a plateau, an ‘evil scar’ is how 18th Century records describe it. We didn’t think of it as evil. It was one of our play areas.

The face of the Common rises some two to three hundred feet from the Calder Valley floor. The lower part was in our young days inhabited by Lowsiders, whilst above Middle Road the escarpment consisted of shaley clay for the final 100 feet. There it sloped at an angle of 45 to 50 degrees. And we played on that?

The area would be filled with lead if we had been firing real bullets, not to mention the graveyard for baddies -- we ‘killed’ thousands.

At one section the path along the Common’s edge skirted the village and provided a convenient route of escape from prying eyes and gossiping tongues for those who had enjoyed a convivial sojourn in local hostelries. There we would see them, plaiting their legs and dexterously avoiding a fall down the Common face. Chuntering and mumbling to themselves, such characters were figures of fun to us. Once in a fit of benevolence, one such gave us sixpence. Wow! We were rich, but not for long, after the squabble as to whom the money belonged.

Further along that evil scar, where the road proper runs, stands the Coronation Seat, installed to commemorate the coronation of King George VI. The seat became the focal point where old and young nearby residents would foregather. A four foot high brick screening wall arcs around the rear of the seat, and it is against that the wind hammers itself when westerly or southwesterly winds blow.

Before the Clean Air Act came into being, the wind would have gathered itself at some point in the South Atlantic Ocean with an ultimate goal being Earlsheaton Common. One section of Old Gusty would come ashore in the Liverpool area and scream across the North Cheshire Plain, collecting aerial debris churned out by Lancashire’s industries. Far from being satiated by that menu of man-made muck, the merry breeze would gather fumes from some of Yorkshire’s belching chimneys -- domestic and industrial -- topping off the compound with outpourings from Dewsbury’s gas works and Brown’s chemical company.

Picture this if you will. George Herbert Swift, five feet nowt in his stocking feet, gripping the back of the Coronation Seat, snooking up the gale and declaring, “By ‘eck, it fair duss yer gooid ter breeath fresh air.” Fresh air!! As Harry Tolson emphatically maintained, “Onnybody ’oo cud suck that stuff up their nooase an’ survive cud live i’ nuclear fall aht.”

But then George had been born and bred to it. Maybe that was what stunted his growth.

What should be appreciated by now is that the Common top cops a lot of wind. The area is about a quarter mile in length, open to the aforementioned elements on one side and on the other gable ends of terrace houses and their boundary walls.

To traverse that distance in a high wind calls for stamina and endurance. Many times people are pinned against a wall, waiting and praying for a lull in the wind pressure so they may escape from the fiendish force. Should it be raining, as often is the case, then one experiences a pressure shower for good measure.

The last row of houses at the extreme end of the Common -- now demolished -- was called Perseverance Terrace, aptly named since one had to persevere to either reach or leave it.

One might judge the period of time from when these memories are drawn when I say that atmosphere and sex were both considered as being dirty. That, however, did not prevent men and boys ogling the fair sex as they struggled to maintain a semblance of modesty against the would-be revealing wind.

Now for a change of scene. The year 1936, the setting Earlsheaton Junior Mixed School.

The news had been announced that King Edward VIII had abdicated because of his love for Mrs. Wallis Simpson. One of the schoolboys in the play area of the above-mentioned school, the one tightly wedged in the corner formed by the boundary wall and lavatory wall, was called Simpson, and he was resolutely, if fearfully, proclaiming his innocence against accusations being levelled at him.

“’ee knows Mrs. Simpson. ‘ee’s got to. She’s got t’ same name as ‘im.”

Schoolboy logic. “Yeah, a’ll bet she’s related to ‘im.”

“She’s ‘is aunty.”

“She’s not mi aunty.”

“She is.”

“She i’n’t. I ’avn’t gor a’ aunty called Wallis!”

“She’s pinched aar king!”

“Well, ah can’t ‘elp it.”

Memory robs me of the final outcome. Suffice to say, the lad survived.
I refer to that incident by way of an introduction to t’ Lowside, an area lying towards the foot of t’ Common. From there on, the ground levelled out. The flat area was occupied by hen ‘oils, pig ‘oils and rag-tatters’ marshalling yards. The whole a sprawl of ramshackle wooden huts with corrugated iron sheeting serving as roofing and boundary limits.

The atmosphere was more tranquil down there, yet seemed to be permanently laden with the stench of decaying market stall cast-offs, brewing pig-swill, pig muck and smouldering rags.

We passed that way when the feast was in town since that ‘business complex’ was adjacent to the feast ground. There were also the occasions when we wished to view goods engines shunting in the Lancashire and Yorkshire goods yard. Then we would stand on the wooden-slatted footbridge and let steam and smoke blow up the short legs of our trousers as the locomotives passed below.

Now back to t’ Lowside. There it was that Simpson lived in a terrace house, one of ten or so, built with their roofs stepped down the foothill of t ‘Common escarpment.

A tight-knit community were t’ Lowsiders, popping in and out of each others’ houses, gossiping and whiz-whazzing, a custom Simpson bore in mind when called upon to serve in defence of the realm during World War II. Joining the RAF, our hero became a member of the communications division and there his inventive powers were spurred into action by thoughts of home. He remembered how his mother and neighbours had to brave the elements, nipping from house to house up and down the hill.

As a consequence of such ruminations the lad ‘acquired’ the essential ingredients to provide each house with a telephone, which were installed on the next leave. Happy householders could then contact each other whilst sat by their own firesides, merrily chatting away in comfort whatever the weather.

Today the face of t’ Common is afforested. T’ Lowside has been partly demolished, whilst the windy plateau is inhabited by Asian ex-colonials. Still, the restless wind is ever present and continues to whistle around t’ Coronation Seat.

Who knows, perhaps the shade of George Herbert Swift still hovers there snooking up the gale.