I was born in Matlock (Darley Dale) and lived in Matlock Green. There is also a Matlock Bath a tourist visit with high hills on either side. In fact Derbyshire is very hilly.
This picture is where I lived. It is the Horse Shoe Pub, Matlock Green.
I came from a well off family; well my Mum had the money. My father borrowed 100.00 pounds to buy the Horse Shoe Pub from my mother's mother who died in 1953. It was on a cross roads. One road went to Chesterfield, the other to Bakewell another to Derby and the last one to Nottingham. It was a very quiet road in the 50's. Children roamed free in safety.At least my brother Andrew and I did.
We fished in the river and climbed a shale hill and got stuck, a man came to help us. We played at Riber Castle and fields around, in the summer we filled jars with lady bugs there were millions of them in the fields, or we would play on the old war plane in the field behind where the army hydro had an old plane we would clamber over.
The pictures are of Riber Castle, Matlock Green Shops, and Mr. Ross scout master. The post office was on the corner next was the fish and chip shop then the grocers , and Aunty Dolly's Sweet Shop which you cannot see, then there was Stoppards Hardware shop.
The drill hall field was a lot of fun to play there.The grass was as tall as we were until the tractor mowed it down. There were no girls to play with only boys; I was always stuck in the goal when football was played.
We played at the drill hall field often and someone had an old parachute, it was huge and we children would hold onto the outside of it and lift it up in the air and run as fast as we could and run through it as fast as we could or else the punishment was a kiss from me. At age nine that was the kiss of death. The boys ran really fast!
There was an old airplane in the field we use to clamber over and play on.Imagining that we were flying the plane. It was rusty and old but we all had a good time playing on it.
I had a crush on Norman age 9 he had a round face with red cheeks and his father looked after the army drill hall. His red rosy cheeks were so glossy and I liked to kiss him on his apple cheeks and he did not mind.
One day he was gone for a long time. My mum said he was in hospital with diabetes and he won't be able to eat sweets anymore. Or course it did not sink in until I saw him again and he had lost a lot of weight. When I wanted to share my sweeties with him he said no and reminded me that he could not eat sweets anymore.
There was a mean dog that growled and ran for us if it was out of its pen. It bit anyone and we were frightened of it. Its owner bought a muzzle even so it ran after us in the field. Even so we would taunt it to run after us and we ran like hell to jump over the wall. It still gave us the same buzz muzzle or no muzzle.
Our orchard had apples, pears, damsons, Logan berries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, Victoria plums, raspberries. The fruit always tasted good with flavor. I would try and lose things in the branches of the trees.
I remember my mother taking me to get my first braso off we went shopping to Chesterfield.I felt very grown up until I had to wear it. It was constricting and uncomfortable for someone who had not worn one ever. Mum said I would get use to it, but it was horrible.
These pictures are of the crooked spire in Chesterfield and the shops.The wood was wet when they built the spire hundreds of years ago and it twisted, it is still strong though.
I hated it so much I hung it high in a pear tree. Even so my mother could tell I was not wearing anything with her x-ray vision. I would tell her I could not find it, or that I had lost it and she told me that in order to be a young lady one would have to suffer. I hoped birds would nest in it, but it was found and washed and forced onto me again.
Our front garden customers would sit and the children could play. There was a wall the backend of the garage and we had a climbing pear as old as the garage when the hotel was a Stage Coach Inn. It clung to the wall and pears from it were the best I had ever tasted. It could have been hundreds of years old it was there before we came. Like most things in life the next people who bought the Free Pub which means they could sell any kind of ale not just one, pulled the pears down and built a concrete car park once a garden where the children use to run about. In the back garden they put a tacky plastic purple McDonald's like plastic tree for them to crawl in and out of.
The Horse Shoe was hundreds of years old.It was built over a duck pond and had been an inn to stage coaches.We had so many garages and open barns.On top of the garages were a long hall and the Jehovah Witnesses came to my father and asked it they could rent the hall. He said yes as long as they left him alone and not come to the door and they agreed.
We had a coal shed where coal was stored and the coal man would come monthly. Big shiny pieces of nutty slack thrown the coal shed.To the left was a garage with no door. Irish Laborers would sit there when it was raining waiting for their ride and would chat to me when I went off to school.
There were three bars the tap room where workers could come in filthy dirty. The floor wasbrown tileand it had no redeeming featuresother thatiron chairs and benches with tablesand a fire in the winter. The snug was for women where they could chat and have comfortable chairs a warm fire and tables. The lounge bar was for everyone if they were dressed well and the surroundings were comfortable with two fires. It was cozy.
Before my parents changed the outlay of the inn they would have to carry me upstairs through the tap room. The workers were mostly Irish and they insisted that I have a little beer with them and bought a tiny little beer glass with them. Every day at 6.00 pm I would sit on the bar and drink this tiny beer with them dressed in pyjamas.
Upstairs the house was really big to me, we had two living rooms, four large bedrooms, and an office a huge play room my brother and I would play in it was so big you could ride a bike in it.When we had alterations the stairs were put on the other side house so my beer drinking days were over at 3.
We had a living room and kitchen downstairs at the back and the stairs went up to the second floor to new bathroom and a long hall way. There were glass cabinets full of silver. One cruet was a china man pulling a rickshaw of salt and pepper cruets. Large silver serving trays, plate's tea sets, coffee sets, and so many things now days it could have sold for millions, only my Dad ---well that is another story. There were about 30 ebony elephants their tusks made of ivory. My mother had an alligator bag which was so stiff I could hardly open it. There was jewelry and a grandfather clock. It was amazing to see and still amazing to remember. I went to riches to rags. Love Mummy��
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