Historical Memories

Family, work and play in an industrial village:
'If you don't holler, we shall not foller'

Lilian was born in October 1904 and still lived in the house she was born in at the time of the series of interviews between 1997 and 2002.

She remembers from a young age being able to see people on Croft Hill from her garden. She had a married sister who lived opposite the Baptist Church and Lilian played with her nephew who was just two years younger than herself. He had lovely presents sent to him from an aunt in America and Lilian remembers continually borrowing Grimm’s Fairy Tales. When she was very young she was ill and the doctor prescribed lots of fresh air, consequently she spent a lot of her childhood outside. There were a lot of children living on Vicarage Street and she often had friends to come and play in the garden, it had once been part of an orchard. She remembers a tea set which was laid out on the lid of the well. There were no council houses built at this time and she remembers playing in the fields where Weavers Close School is now.

During the Wake, big pieces of meat would be eaten. The meat would be taken to Bests bakery on Almeys Lane to be cooked and on Wake Sunday they would have Yorkshire pudding made in a big tin. Lots of changes in Earl Shilton - cottages on Keats Lane, she also remembers a row of cottages where the library is. Her mother related memories from her own mother (Lilian’s grandmother) who with a family of her own during the cotton famine (early to mid 1860s) would feed her family and would eat the left-over crumbs. As a child Lilian’s mother would have had to pay 1/2d to attend school. The old Vicarage and its gardens were situated on Almeys Lane (now flats) and during the cotton famine Reverend Towers made soup for the poor people of the village. He also painted the church. Lilian doesn’t remember Reverend Towers but does remember Mr Maughan and particularly Mrs Maughan ‘who made herself so lovely’. If they met Reverend Maughan in the street, ‘we’d have to curtsey and we’d go up the backs to miss him'.

As a child Lilian had a lovely time, one game she remembers was called ‘holler’ - two gangs - one gang would hide and the other gang would have to find them and shouted ‘if you don’t holler, we shall not foller’. She loved riding her bike and would cycle up towards ‘what we called the Mill’. She remembers having to run at the gate to stop the bike. At dinner time (school dinner time was 12-2 o’clock) she would go cycling with friends, New Road - Marston Lane - come through Stanton. They picked May blossom and built houses with it in the fields. They celebrated Mayday, a group of children would congregate and pick bluebells, cowslips and ladysmocks and the clusters of flowers would be fastened to the top of a stick and Lilian remembers singing for old Mr Cotton, his housed situated on High Street ‘jutted out’ (near Tower Road). He would give the children 1/2d each - it bought a bar of chocolate. The children had a special song which Lilian can’t recall but thinks part of it included – ‘Come again, go again Maypole Day, Maypole Day. I have a bonnet trimmed with blue, I cannot wear it'…?