Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 5 looking for what has been lost

Out with the Pit and Nelson, date unknown

I went looking for that Herbalist shop on Old Street recently, and followed it up with the Deli which from memory was almost opposite, and of course both had gone.

Which I guess is the biggest confirmation you can have that going back to a place where you were happy is a mistake.

I spent three very happy years on Raynham Street and have occasionally returned since I left.

For people like me Ashton will always be frozen in a time around the long hot summer of 1976, when the streets seemed to shimmer in the mid day heat and the hills above the town appeared burnt brown.

And of special memory were visiting that old Herbalist and buying the Polish bread from opposite.  Not that I ever got to like sarsaparilla despite trying on a number of occasions.

Now I am no romantic and can also remember those cold wet days when the wind down Penny Meadow could slice through even the thickest overcoat or the mornings when you opened the front door to six inches of snow.

That Herbalist's

That said those were magic years which I guess were as much to do with being young and starting out together in a new place as they were about the town.

This seemed like one of those transitional moments when we had crossed from being students and irresponsible to becoming grownups.

All the more so because to get home meant that long bus ride from the city out along the Old Road or squeezed in with the commuters on the train from Victoria.

So having arrived in the town you had physically shed the city.

And what a time we had.

We tended to go to the Lord Napier, or the Pit and Nelson, and when we really wanted to impress family and friends it was up to the Collier’s Arms with that wonderful view from the Pike.

Looking back we never really did explore Ashton’s history, although through the Labour Party there were plenty of stories from those who could speak of family memories stretching back beyond the 1930s to the early years of the last century.

And the Deli

Even now I carry the sad after comment from Sylvia who reflecting on her teenage years during the last war did not come up with the usual mix of fond tales of American servicemen and Vera Lynn.

Instead she quietly spoke of the lost years which were pitched against the death of loved ones and the wish not to get to close to people who might never return.

They were she said “the stolen years” and that was the end of the conversation.

Not that I shall now indulge in what Ashton has become which for most people is just how it is, for when you live in a place it changes and you with it, but I do miss the Moss, the PSA and the old newsagents on Penny Meadow.

But nostalgia is no substitute for real history which is and has always been my passion, so I am off to look for the old coal mines which stood close to our house on Whiteacre Road.

Pictures; along Old Street, date unknown, t01422, t01690, t01691courtesy of Tameside Image Archive, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

Ashton-Under-Lyne, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ashton-Under-Lyne