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Gloria, talking about the Fifties and Sixties, have you read this?

"A Childhood of freedom and risk--------------------- 1950s and 60s

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived,
because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based
paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or
cabinets and it was fine to play with pans. When we rode our bikes, we
wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on
our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags and
riding in the passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the
garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar
in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside
playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and
no-one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After
running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the
problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we
were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one
minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile
phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Internet chatrooms.

We had friends - we went outside and found them. We played elastics and
rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt!

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no law
suits.

We played knock-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the
owners catching us. We walked to friends' homes. We also, believe it or
not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to
school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs
of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing
us out if we broke a law was unheard of...they actually sided with the
law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion
of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one
of them."

I can relate to the whole of that------happy memories.

_________________
Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

It's good, I have read it before, it applies to our generation (50s,60s & 70s) we can relate to it, it is soooo true.



Stephanie.

Back to the Ogglety Gogglety again...... I remember it so well, living as I did on Cuerdale Street behind the Commercial pub. At the end of summer we'd be down that path picking blackberries and getting stung into the bargain. And later in the year we'd be dragging old branches and other scrap pieces of wood all the way back to the Commercial where the landlord in those days let us build a bonfire on some spare ground for Guy Fawkes night. Ah, those were the days...sticky toffee from No 10, apple pie from my mum, toffee apples from No 16, bangers that really went bang (three-two-one zeros) and Roman Candles.

(Sorry for the blantant nostalgia, but I am new to this forum and got carried away )

Steve

Hi Stephen, welcome to the forum. Feel free to get carried away. It's nice to read other peoples memories.

Kids miss out on so much these days with organised bonfires and fire works displays. The fireworks were only a very small part of a lovely evening for kids and adults alke. A good fire would still be glowing the next morning.

I found a recent picture of the Ogglety Cogglety online this last week. I must hunt it out and link to it.

_________________
Mel

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Walshaw Lane started at it’s junction with Briercliffe Rd next to what is now known as Saxafield House, from there it ran all the way down through Walshaw Farm and ended on Eastern Avenue, it was the lane which ran to the left at the top of the road going up to Walshaw School.

As a youngster back in the 1960’s I lived and worked on Walshaw farm with the two owners Fred & Molly Little, both where great characters, Fred not a small man with his clogs, thick leather belt and that pipe. Molly was a wonderful lady and made the best eggs & bacon breakfast imaginable.

I always remember in the garden of the old farm house were several very old graves.

Fred and Molly had a daughter Janet and sons Simpson, David, Maurice, Raymond and Geoff, Geoff emigrated to Canada back in the early 1970’s.

Long before the new St James School or the Drury Housing estate behind it was built, I remember sledging down the daisy fields which started where St James is now and went almost all the way to Walshaw farm.

Just outside the farm yard was a foot path which ran down to the old wooden bridge in the Netherwoods.

Good memories of a time long gone now.

We recently had a query by email asking where the name "Ogglety Cogglety" comes from. I contacted Roger and this was the reply he sent to them. It is reproduced here with his permission.


The name probably derives from the viking (Norse) words for "steep path made out of cobbles (coggles) of stone". This refers to the path before it was flagged by the Parish Council just over 100 years ago. Burried in the boulder clay, on which the path is built, there are large rounded stones dumped there at the time of the last Ice Age about 14 or 15 thousand years ago. The stones are largely of sandstone but there is a proportion of limestone. The limestones are whitish in colour and can be seen in the river bed. The sandstone is either a darkish yellow or brown but the limestone is valuable and was often taken from the river to be used by farmers who built kilns to burnt the stone to reduce it to a powderto improve the grass in their fields or make limewash (whitewash) or mortar (cement). The stones (both limestone and sandstone) are rounded by the action of the prehistoric icebergs and the modern rivers - hence the use of the word coggle from cobble, meaning "rounded stone".

The path runs down to the river Don to the east of Musty Halgh Farm which itself dates from the 14th century. The path crosses the river and then goes up the north facing slope of Extwistle Hill, to Extwistle Hall (1585) and from that building the paths used to diverge so that there were routes to Netherwood, Worsthorne, Extwistle Corn Mill (then to Roggerham) and lastly to Monk Hall. Some of these routes can still be seen, part of them were lost when there was open cast coal mining on the hill in the 1950's. The route to the Mill (its remains are near Lee Green Reservoir) was the important one and it was taken by farmers wishing to have their grain crops ground into flour from the 16th century to the early nineteenth century. (It might be that the mill was founded before this time but there is some dispute about this). From c1800 the mill was used for the dual purpose of corn milling and wool spinning and weaving but the building was made into a cotton mill c1820 and operated as such until 1884.

A word of warning: although the name "Ogglety Cogglety" might be Viking in origin (ie 9th century) it does not mean that the path, as a route, is that old though it could be. Lots of place names in our part of the world are based on words the Vikings used so it could be that "Ogglety Cogglety" is based on Ancient Norse which survived as Briercliffe dialect. For example there is a building in Lane Bottom (built in 1777) which is called "Th' Hicker Biggins" which, in Norse/Viking means "Higher Buildings".

Roger Barstow Frost MBE., MA., FRSA.

_________________
Mel

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