Little Eaton in the early 20th century

Lily at Little Eaton School

I started at the village school in the September before I was four. Our house was immediately above the school and when I heard the children in the playground I would run down and join them and then go back into the class with them. This led the infants’ teacher (Miss Eva Green) to tell my Mother I might as well go on the register.

(Head teacher Mr Grocock).

The school had a corridor, on one side was the infants’ class and the next class up. On the other side was one quite large hall with two partitions which divided it into three classrooms. This hall was where we used to hold our Sunday School anniversary and other meetings were held there. Then the partitions were pushed back making quite a large hall.

The school was heated by large black stoves which had to be stoked from time to time. When I first went there were no wash basins but some were installed in my time.

There were two playgrounds, one for the girls and infants, and one for the boys. The toilets were in a separate building at the end, four holes cut into wooden seats with a low one for the little ones and they were kept quite clean. In the girls’ playground there was a portion with a roof over it where we used to crowd if it rained. Almost every day it was used by the miners’ children who live too far away to go home for dinner as the village children did.

I do not know actually how far away the mines were but several of the children came to our school. They had to walk over the moors to get to school. In the summer they were normally barefoot and poorly dressed. Derbyshire winters are almost always severe with heavy snow and they still had to walk over the moors. If they were lucky they might have something on their feet – big sister’s or mother’s boots – and an old coat or shawl across their shoulders. As I’ve said the school was always well heated but at 12 o’clock all scholars had to leave the classroom, village children went home, but the only place where the miners’ children could go was under the covered playground. There was nothing to sit on except the floor and two sides were open to the rain, snow and wind. Here they ate their lunch, sometimes only a crust of bread, maybe if they were lucky, it might be spread with lard or dripping. They had to stay out until the doors were unlocked at quarter to two.

Religion

We were Chapel folk, somewhat looked down on by the church members. The church was on the other side of the village but we could hear the bells when they were rung on Sundays. Sometimes we heard them tolling and that meant someone in the village had died and the number of times the bell range gave the age of the person, one toll for each year. 

There were two chapels in the village on the main road, one at each end of the village. We went to the Congregational being the nearest to the Baptists, my Mother having been Baptist in her teens. It was very small  so it meant that the Sunday School Anniversary held on Whit Sunday each year was held in the ordinary school in the hall with the partitions folded back and it was always filled with people who never came to the Chapel during the rest of the year. While we lived there I sang a solo during the Anniversary service. I was four years old the first time I sang alone so I must have sung four times while we were there. One year, whether I had done exceptionally well, I do not know, but various people gave me some pennies for singing. Mother said I was not to take any money and she would be very cross if I did. A day or two later, I met a Sunday School teacher’s husband and he gave me a threepenny piece, a very tiny silver coin. I had never had one before, only pennies, halfpennies or farthings, so I took it. I soon realised I should be in trouble if Mother knew I had taken it, so I decided to go to the post office where the choice was limited, only various boiled sweets in a green glass jar sold at 4oz for 1d, and I bought 3d worth – 12oz of acid drops and walked around eating them. 

On the Monday after the Anniversary, we had a Sunday School treat. This was held in a field and we had races and games and scrambles for nuts. The men had a tug of war and we finished up by sitting in a large ring and having tea which always tasted different to tea at home but I liked it. Only once can I remember rain upsetting the plans and we had our tea in the Chapel with the pews pushed back and tables for our tea.

There was nothing during the week at our chapel but at the other chapel which was Methodist they had Band of Hope, Christian Endeavour and, at some time during the winter, a concert was usually given by the children. I used to go to these various evenings but, although I never at any time went into the actual Chapel, I was always included in their summer treat. This one was always held in two fields belonging to one of the farmers when the hay was cut and dry. There was a dry wall between the two fields and hay got splendidly tossed. I always enjoyed that afternoon. Again, we finally sat in a big ring to have our tea, but there were no races.

Methodist Church, Alfreton Road, known as “Top Chapel”

Childhood: woods, fields, trees

I look back upon the years we spent in the village with a lot of pleasure. There were so many places to go to, fields, lanes, moors and woods, being able to go out and pick mushrooms, wild flowers, crab apples and blackberries, with few restrictions anywhere.

I was always allowed quite a lot of freedom, being an “only” one. If I wanted someone to play with, I had to go out and find someone. Children were not encouraged to play in their friends’ houses but, with no cars and little traffic of any kind, it was quite safe to play on the road. Here we played many games, hide and seek, rounders, tick, hop scotch, ball games, skipping and at school ring games. Tick = A game where you race around and tag someone who then becomes the one that chases.

Our energy was all used up tossing the hay. The lane past the hay fields led to the Fox Cover, a quiet beauty spot which was very beautiful. I suppose there must have been foxes there but I never saw one, only the lovely trees and wild flowers. The entrance to this lane from the main road passed over a small bridge over the brook and once during a severe thunderstorm, some boy scouts and their scout master sheltered under it to keep dry. Unfortunately, one or more of them were killed under the bridge having been struck by lightning. On another occasion Mother and I were watching a storm from the bedroom window when we saw a large tree go up in flames on the other side of the valley, again having been struck by lightning. It seems the weather was always extreme in Derbyshire, heat, snow, rain and thunder but we took it for granted, home was always warm in winter and cool in summer, even though for the first few years, a fire was always kept going in the range as that was the only way to do the cooking or heat water.

Bottle Brook

A brook ran through the village, parallel with the main road. In the summer village children spent most of their time playing in the water. In summer it was reasonably safe but there were parts where the water was very deep and dangerous. For this reason, I was absolutely forbidden to play in the brook. In the hot weather it would almost dry up in places but after snow in the winter, once the snow started to thaw, the water would come down the hills and very soon the brook was a raging torrent. At least two children were drowned while we lived there.  It flooded quite a lot in the village, we saw houses where the water had reached three feet and it was not possible to get from one side of the village to the other, and for a while the floods were still deep. Mother and I were going to Coventry but could not get to the station because the road was flooded and someone took us over in a little horse drawn cart. By contrast there was a waterfall which was always covered except in hot weather when it would be dry.

Near to us lived a family called Carey and one of their daughters, named Annie, was about 13 years old. Mother would sometimes give her a penny or two to look after me, I suppose I’d be about six years old.

 (Annie Carey born in 1901 to William and Kate Carey, married in 1923 to William J.F Tipping, died in 1987. She was five years older than Lily Beatrice.)

One summer Annie and I were walking alongside the brook which had practically dried up leaving the top of the waterfall quite dry. Annie suggested we should walk across to investigate what was on the other side, somewhere we could never have got to when the brook was flowing. We walked across and I cannot remember exactly what happened but we ended up in the mud and water at the bottom of the waterfall, which must have been about 5-6 foot high and covered in thick green slime.

There was no way that we could see to get out as the water at the bottom was always quite deep. We shouted and shouted and eventually a man came and somehow pulled us out. My father never used bad language and I did not understand what he was saying until, later, Annie enlightened me. I cannot remember Mother’s reaction to this episode but it was not the only time the brook got me into trouble.

I have mentioned the shop kept by Aunt Polly. The actual shop was a large glass lean-to built onto the end of a terrace of houses and Aunt Polly lived in about the third house from the shop. The front door of the house was level with the pavement but the kitchen was below down a flight of stairs with the back door opening onto the path beside the brook. All the cooking was done down here and the big cooking range always had a large fire burning in it. One day I was with Joyce and Roy and we were going to Aunt Polly’s for some reason. We walked along the path beside the brook, the path ran from the waterfall, behind the houses and shops on the main road and continued on past Aunt Polly’s kitchen. Hearing some noise we stopped to see what was happening and there were several small boys quite naked jumping off the bank into the water. I stood on a large flat piece of rock to see what was happening and one of the boys pulled on the rock which tipped and my feet went into the water. As I’ve said playing in the brook was strictly forbidden and I knew I was in serious trouble. I dare not go home with wet shoes and socks and one of us had the bright idea we could dry them in the oven in Aunt Polly’s kitchen. Since it was afternoon we knew there probably would be no-one in the kitchen and we were lucky, so shoes and socks were soon in the oven. How long we left them, I’ve no idea, but when we took them out the socks were singed brown and the shoes had shrunk to about half their size, baked hard. When I got home I was sent to bed without my tea. I did not like that very much but what really upset me was that I had been seen walking in the village without shoes, a thing only the miners’ children did. I wasn’t a miner’s child and was very upset that anyone might think I was. Around tea-time Mother came up and brought my tea and said my friend Joyce had explained to her mother what had happened and she had come over and told Mother it was not really my fault. As well as my tea Mother brought me something I have only seen once in my life – a blue rose.

Joyce and Roy’s father was a painter and decorator and he had been working for a man who was trying to grow a blue rose and he had brought some home and sent one over to my mother. I never heard any more about it. It may have been that the 14-18 War put an end to his experiments but I certainly never saw a blue rose again.

 The Birkinshaw family, parents Edwin and Millicent. Edwin was a house painter. Children Millicent Joyce born 1904 and Roy Duncan born 1907. Joyce married Alfred Hollingworth in 1930 and died in 1979. Roy married Florence Lily Meredith and died in 1973.

Snow and ice – sledging on the field behind New Street

One very bad winter there had been a great deal of snow, followed by a thaw and then a severe frost. The hill in the field was coated in ice and one of the Poole family had the bright idea that it would be a good idea to use a ladder as a toboggan that we could all sit on and slide down. There must have been about eight of us, including Eric at the front and me between his father and mine. We went down the hill and straight through our quite thick hedge and landed in our garden. We only made one trip.

I enjoyed that field for many reasons, the field itself grew mushrooms and many flowers including violets which I would try to find to give a little bunch to Mother on her birthday, May 17. Later we picked blackberries from the hedge for jam and crab apples for jelly. Mother made jam and jellies all through her life and there was always good food. Over a stile was a path leading to a beautiful wood where bluebells grew and where there were many red squirrels.

Moorside / Baileys Farm

There were two other paths across this field, one of which led to the road to Morley. The other path across our field went to the farm where we bought our milk. I sometimes was sent to fetch it and took a small enamel milk can with a lid and a handle over the top. Mr Garrett, the farmer, would milk a cow while I waited, pour it into my can, warm and frothy. There was no pasteurisation in those days but I do not think it did me any harm. The price had gone up a little since my Mother’s day and was now tuppence halfpenny a pint. Sometimes I was sent for the butter and it would be in a round pat with a design on top and I would take it home wrapped in a cabbage leaf. The farmer had one daughter, Winnie.  She was in my class at school. I cannot remember what it was about but I had, I think, the only fight I ever had. It was with Winnie Garrett and it ended when I pulled her red woollen cap off her head and threw it in a puddle and then stamped on it. Nice child!  Poor Winnie did not live very long, I saw her grave in the church yard when I went back in the 1930s.  

  (The Garretts farmed Moorside for 3 generations. Rosetta Winifred Garratt of Moor End Farm, Little Eaton, born 1906, married George Cooper in 1932 and died in 1932, aged 26.)             

The neighbours: The Pooles

My parents were friendly with a family named Poole who lived next but one to us. Their eldest daughter lived in the next-door house and her husband and my playmate Eric who was about as old as myself. 

(Eric’s sister was Gwen (later Tatam). Eric and Gwen’s father Samuel John Downing (1879-1929) was crushed to death at work (Eric’s mother Edith was a schoolmistress until marriage).

Postcard from Bell Poole to Lily in 1915.

(Isabel May Poole, born 1896 in Little Eaton, married Richard Cleminson in 1921, died 1965 in Norwich)

The Park

We had a large recreation ground (Little Eaton Park) where we could play and sometimes watch cricket. The celebrations for King George V’s coronation were held here, at least, for the children. The adults had a meal in the school  grounds.

Here there was a maypole, round which the bigger girls danced (why couldn’t I?), there were donkey rides, races and games, a tug-o-war and a lovely tea. Finally each child was given a Derby ware mug with the heads of the King and Queen embossed on the sides, inside was some shiny new money and some nuts, maybe something else. After dark there was a firework display up on the hill on the other side of the village and we watched from Mother’s bedroom window. 

Chickens to eat were a luxury then and we did not have one very often. Suppose we had visitors or something and Mother ordered a chicken from someone who lived the other side of the village. I was sent to collect it but when I got there it had not been killed. No problem, the farmer’s wife went into the chicken run, picked up a bird and rung its neck. She tied its two legs together and gave it to me to take home. I had come quite some distance when it started to flap its wings which frightened me so much I dropped it and ran. Fortunately someone who knew me saw all this and picked it up and brought it to my Mother.

I have mentioned Joyce and Roy who were my playmates and that their father was a builder and decorator. He had a large yard next to their house where he kept the building materials, ladders etc. We children were not supposed to play there but on this occasion Roy and I were playing down there. I do not know how it happened but Roy got some white powder on his dark pullover. Being ever resourceful I got some water from somewhere to wash it off and was very surprised when his pullover dropped into holes. The powder was quick lime which burnt as soon as it was mixed with water.

The Fair

Possibly once a year a small travelling fair used to come: swings, big horses, a little roundabout, various stalls and coconut shies. Ice cream small cornets were a halfpenny each and I usually had one. If I was lucky Dad might knock down a coconut which I loved.

(This was Tittlecock Fair, a forerunner to the Little Eaton Carnival). 

Fire at Breadsall Church

Another excitement was when the church of a neighbouring village, Breadsall, was set on fire and the interior completely burnt down. It was a real case of arson, bundles of straw had been soaked in paraffin, set alight and pushed through the windows. It was blamed on the Suffragettes but I never knew what really happened.  We walked over the next day to look at it. It was a sad picture, the pews and even the thick wooden doors were burnt and inside under the spire the bells lay where they had dropped when the beam burned through. My father went over and took photos, I still have one. 

My brother, Reg, was born on August 9th 1914 and that seemed much more important to me than the fact that we were at war with Germany. My grandmother had come to stay to be with Mother when the baby was born and I could not understand why she was so often in tears. The reason for this was that her son, my Uncle Sam, who had been in the regular army for some years and had been discharged for about two years but was still on reserve. This meant immediately war had been declared, he had to go back into the army and Grandma knew she would probably not see him again until the war was over. 

Reg as a toddler 

While we were still living in Little Eaton, I suppose our lives were not really very eventful, maybe that is why the small events were so important, balloons flying over, the new bus service, the attraction caused when Uncle Will came on his big old Rex motorbike to visit or Belle Poole coming round to show us her first evening dress, and many, many more.

The Great War

One day I was up in Mother’s bedroom and from her window it was possible to see a long stretch of main road and marching along was a great procession of men walking towards Derby. I had never seen anything like this before and ran down to the main road to see what was going on. This seemingly endless procession of men were marching into Derby to join the army and at each village or small town they went through, more and more men joined them. They carried pitchforks, scythes, axes and anything that had possibilities as a weapon and were singing as they marched. There were boys who looked as if they had come from school to men, old enough to be their grandfathers, some well- dressed and some who had just come from the mines with coal dust on their clothes and faces, farm workers and every other type of man.

My Uncle Will got my father a job with him at the Talbot Passage in London where he went in the autumn of 1914. He was very upset at leaving his photography and although he worked in a factory for the rest of his working life, he always hated it and still continued with his photography for many years whenever he had the chance. 

One episode I do recall, one night during winter 1914, I was awake when Mother came to bed – as my father was working - we shared the double bed. Mother was giving my brother his last feed and suddenly realised she might have left the window open in the downstairs room. Our bedroom was still only lit by candle and I was sent downstairs with the candle to close the window if it was open. I stood on a chair by the window, still holding the candle, trying to see if the window was open and the long lace curtain caught alight. I must have screamed and Mother came running down and what her feeling must have been, I do not know. Actually, the curtain fell to the floor as I was standing on the chair. I was not hurt at all.

Mother and I and the new baby stayed in Little Eaton until September 1915. I do not remember much about that year. I suppose everyone’s life altered around that time.

The pictures show Lily’s Uncle Will, “on his big Rex motorbike”, with Lily’s mother in the wicker basket, and Lily’s brother Reg as a toddler.

In September 1915, Lily, her mother and the new baby Reg left Little Eaton and moved to Coventry to join her father.