My father-in-law (now deceased) grew up on Reedley Street, not far from what was then the workhouse. He used to tell us how, when vagrants went into the workhouse, they would hide any money they had before they went in as otherwise they would either be refused entry or relieved of their money towards their keep.
The favourite place to hide money was inside a wall by taking out a loose stone, putting the money in and then putting the stone back. The local children used to hide, watch the poor man hide his money, and then remove it after he'd gone.
Another tale he'd tell was that he and his brothers used to sneak into the grounds of the isolation hospital where patients would give them money to run errands for tobacco and so on. Although he personally was never caught, on one occasion other children were caught playing with some of the young patients and then detained themselves for quarantine. Little did the staff know that the hospital grounds were a regular playground for a number of local children, who by all accounts never took ill from it!
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