By Margaret Brooks
After those hard cold winters, we always had long Hot! Hot! summers from end of April until late September. No coats or cardy’s, short pants, and ankle socks. We could play in the woods or outside with friends until just before dusk. To name a few, Carole and Gordon Moody, Eileen Lee, Dorothy Mac Intyre, Vivian Curtis, and Sadie Master’s. And no harm befalling us. Haig Road was surrounded by apple orchards. The apples helped to supply Hartley’s Cider Factory. This strong beverage was bottled, labelled, and sold on at the factory that was situated on the nasty bend in Allington Lane. The house still stands but modernized of course as you go down the hill, on the right, before Willow Barn.
The top end of Haig Road. We moved into the first build bungalows as did Mr and Mrs Scadding, along with Joan Instrell. I would like you to see how it looked was back then. These old photo’s hold special childhood memories for me.
On looking back to about 1947, on a Sunday my mum would wash, and hand brush my long hair in front the kitchen range, then we would go to the top of the garden. My mum would watch me run across the ploughed fields at the top of Haig Road Sandpit to Joan Instrell’s bungalow, where she had a tray of chocolate delivered, I’m supposing by Cadburys! as we had no shops close by. My mum would wait for me to return.
(Picture of Joan Instrell, and her mum outside their bungalow in Haig Road)
That’s how free our world was way back then we would come to no harm. When we came indoors, I would lay on the floor in front of the fire. Who remembers listening to Dick Barton Special Agent, and Open the Box with Michael Miles?
(An un-adopted Haig Road, all stony and uneven)
Haig Road and on the left Weavils Road
The remains of Green’s farm in Haig Road.
Haig Road 2023