Village Life

Along Church Lane and in most parts of Gatley there were pumps for water, it was lovely to drink. There was one in the yard behind the Indian restaurant, one at the back of Gatley Glass, the Horse and Farrier, and at the rear of the shops down Old Hall Rd. I think I can remember about 20 in all with every farm having one.
There was no such thing as hot water in Church Lane and the houses on Gatley Green. There were no bathrooms! Just one cold water tap. There was only two kinds of soap, either carbolic or Perfection. Whichever one you used had to bath you, do the washing, and scrub the floors! You also used it to shave with!

In the houses and shops the lighting was by gas and you had to buy mantles to make it burn brighter. Some had oil lamps hanging from the ceilings or candles. There was only one bedroom with gaslight and the others relied on candles. Gas was supplied by a meter in the cellar, a penny in the slot!

If there was a fire in the area the fire engine was kept in Cheadle.
It was horse drawn and the horses had to come from where the carts were. They had to be sent for, one from Wilmslow Road and one from the High Street, although there were other places they were stabled, so that they could be harnessed to the fire engine before it could set out for the fire.

Most of the fires were on farms, either in haystacks or thatched cottages. One large fire was at Handforth Hall, it burned for 4 days!

Every house had a window cleaner with the charge 2d or 3d a window. They all had handcarts with their ladders on them.

Most people had day gardeners, some for half a day and others for the full day. If it was raining they were sent home without pay! They earned a meager 2/6 for a half day and 5/- for a full day.

Most of the houses in Gatley had cellars which had to be limewashed. In 1920 you used to get a lump of lime and put it in a bucket to boil. When it went cold it was a pure white, and you could add Dolly Blue, Venetian Red or Yellow Ochre to it. Outsides of buildings were done with limewash. The cellars were used mainly to keep food in. They had stone or marble slabs in them to keep the food on. Hares and rabbits were hung on hooks from the ceiling to go "high" before they were cooked.

The roads in the village were kept clean by one man who did all the sweeping by hand. He pulled along a handcart. All the roads had setts. Along the road from Gatley to Cheadle, with the tramlines running in the middle, there were no litter baskets, but you only ever saw the odd tram ticket lying on the ground!
Park Rd. and Styal Rd. were kept clean by the Bucklow Rural Council of Northenden and all swept by hand. In the summer a watercart came along the roads to keep the dust down.

There was only one postman in the village. He would start at Gatley Station and then go along Gatley Road and Church Lane. It was a sight to see him at Christmas with parcels and a hare or a turkey hanging from his back to be delivered. Many people would give him a drink at Christmas, some whisky, others rum or port. At that time there were three deliveries a day!
By the time he finished he had a job to get round!

Most people kept a dog outside in a kennel with straw to keep it warm. They were chained up and you were frightened to go near them when taking the milk or newspapers. They were well fed and looked after. Many people suffered from dog-bites in those days. Most houses had cats, usually because of all the rats and mice that were around. Fly-catchers would be hung from the ceiling, or an opened bottle of vinegar used to trap them.
People engaged a maid at 10/- a week and their keep, with one afternoon and every Sunday off. They always had someone to do their decorating and repairs, no such thing as Do-it-yourself in those days! Plumbers and builders all had 10 or 20 men working for them, with wages being about 1/8d an hour. No such thing as emulsion paint and rollers!

Women went to house cleaning. Charwomen would do the rough cleaning like outside work, the steps etc. Two hours in a morning for 2/6d! Tradesmen earned between 2 and 4 pounds a week. Laborers got about 1/3d an hour but the insurance stamp was 1/8d a week!

When people died you were asked to go and see them in their coffins. This was a big event in the village. The coffin would be in the front room with the lid up against the wall. For the funeral the coffin would be put on a bier and pushed to the Chapel graveyard in Old Hall Road.

We had only one school in Gatley in those far off days, next to St.James' Church. Now it has been pulled down and there are flats on the site. The children came from as far away as Brownley Green, where the Civic Centre is now.

They had to walk a long way in the hard winters when there was up to thirteen weeks of terrible frosts. Of course, there were no school dinners, just sandwiches, and if you wanted a drink it was cold water from the tap, drunk out of an enamel mug chained to the wall. We all drank out of the same mug!

However the school was nice and warm with a coke stove and pipes all round the room. School time was nine 'till four, with two teachers, a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Crossley, and an infant teacher, Miss Lake, who came from Manchester on the train. There were no buses in those days.

Exams consisted of one scholarship a year and, of course, the cane if you misbehaved or didn't do well. We used slates and pencils and ink that we made out of powder and put into the inkwells. The girls playground was on the left and the boys on the right. There was drill in the playground but no gym. We used to play marbles and the girls would play hopscotch. After school we would run around the village with a hoop.

Once a month we would get the School Board Officer to see who had not been attending. There was a lot of truant and he would spend a lot of time enquiring why the truants did not come to school. His name was "Daddy" Ward.

We used to enjoy Pancake Tuesday and run away in the afternoon. There was a rhyme that went like this.

"Pancake Tuesday is a very happy day
If you don't give us a holiday we'll all run away
Where will we run to? Down the green lane
Don't tell the teacher or we'll get the cane"
We often used to get the cane!

I went into that school when I was 5 and left when I was 14! I started work for my dad, painting and decorating. He was Chairman of the Cheadle and Gatley Urban District Council.

In the holidays we would go onto the fields where William Scholes' playing fields are now. There were ponds with wild geese and moorhens, wild ducks, snipe and kingfishers. We would hunt for birds eggs and try and find wasp's nests to burn.

Happy days!