Stories from Accrington ......

 This is one of the images which for me sums up the 1920s.

It comes from a French postcard and was sent to Ethel and John Fisher who were on holiday in Scarbororough.

They were staying at the quaintly named Sea Dogs Guest House, 159 Columbus Ravine.

The property is still there and looks still to be in the business of offering bed and breakfast to holiday makers.

I like the idea that even though you were away by the sea you could still get a picture postcard, which in this case came from the mother of Ethel.

I don’t yet know her name but she lived in Benjamin Row which was at the bottom of Rams Clough Lane outside Accrington.  

Today the row is still there and to get to it you will have to traverse a narrow twisty lane which drops down from Broadfield.

And there for now the search for Ethel’s mum runs into the buffers, but it is early days.

I may have had a bit more luck with Ethel and John, who I think were living at 162 Willow Lane Accrington in 1930.

I say this because despite not finding them on the census records, there is a John Fisher who died on September 9th 1930.  According to the Probate records he lived at Willow Lane and left £455, to a “Harold Fisher, clogger”.

There is no mention of Ethel but the connection with Accrington is convincing enough to suppose a link.

And there is a John Fisher listed on the 1921 census, described as a widower and living with his son and daughter.  

They were Rose Ellen and Harold both in the early thirties, and Harold was a clogger working for the Co-op while Mr. Fisher was employed by Lupton Brothers of Accrington as a “iron pattern maker”.

Lupton’s appear to be a small firm employing five others.

All which offers up plenty of further research, but this all might fall down on the date the postcard was sent. For while we have the day, time and month, the year is obscured.

I read it as 1929 or at a pinch the following year, but none of that is possible if Edith died before 1921, so back to the drawing board and historical records.

Leaving me just to ponder on a date using the image of the fashionable young women.

Location; Accrington & Scarborough

Picture; picture postcard, circa 1920s, from the collection of David Harrop