re: PICKHILL GARTH, KNOTTINGLEY

ADDED 22 AUGUST 2007

I would like to congratulate you on an excellent magazine which holds a wealth of information and brings back loads of memories almost forgotten - well worth the money.

I read in the August issue, Maud Hall's recollections of Pickhill Garth. My grandmother, Ethel Wrightson, my dad Arthur (Len) Wrightson and my Aunt Sylvia, lived in Pickhill Garth around 1943. My grandfather, Leonard, died in 1945 whilst my dad was serving in the army. My dad tried to get home on compassionate grounds before my grandfather died, but was too late.

My dad's grandfather, also called Leonard, was a school superintendent (also called kiddy catcher or nicknamed Dummy Wrightson). Dad recalled that he always called at their house first to make sure that they had gone to school. He also went to the local pea and potato fields to seek out the truants. He once called at a house on The Island to find out why a child was not at school and got hit over the head with a stool!

My dad married my mum, Hilda Dunn, in 1948 and they went to live in the Buck Inn Yard, where my sister Jean and I were born. I was delivered in 1948 by Nurse Berry. After I was born, dad asked mum what she would like, to which she replied, "fish and chips", so he went and bought some for mum and Nurse Berry. We lived there until I was about four or five years old, when we moved to a new council house in Springfields.

I remember visiting Granny Wrightson when she lived at Pickhill Garth. The entrance was between the Palace Cinema and a house on the right. I think we passed some cottages on the left with front gardens, before reaching my grandmother's in a row at the bottom of the yard. She also had a front garden facing towards Aire Street. I remember there being a boiler and toilets in the back yard. We usually entered her house through the back door into a small room with a kitchen range. There was also a best room at the front with a piano, but we never really went in there.

My Gran later moved to a new bungalow in The Croft in the late 50's or early 60's where she spent the rest of her life. Her maiden name was Abelson, apparently a Russian name, where her mother originally came from. This is something I shall have to look into in the future.

Mrs Brenda Speight, (nee Wrightson)
22 August 2007

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