Mollie's memories of the Critchleys and Mellings of Billinge and St Helens

This print is from a Dufay colour slide taken about 1938 by Tom Critchley. The picture shows Tom's wife, Annie (left), his sister Mary, his niece Mollie Platt and his brother in law, Harry Platt.

Mollie writes: 

    "My grandfather, along with a certain James Smith  (known as Bread Uncle Jim), had owned and run a bakery business in Crowther Street, St Helens. Grandfather did the baking and Bread Uncle Jim did the delivering with horse and 'van', taking bread and buns to houses as well as shops. Uncle Jim had married my grandmother's sister, Auntie Lizzie, but I never knew her, she died before my time."

    Another great aunt Mollie remembers was "Auntie Gaunt". Mollie writes:

    Down the road in Bleak Hill lived Auntie Gaunt, my grandmother's sister. Her name was really Phoebe. She married a man called Jack Gaunt, who tended to spend much of his time in pubs. I remember her rather sad sense of humour. She'd had a trying life and had saved secretly what she could and always kept her savings book hidden so her husband could not find it and spend her money. They kept hens and ducks and, at one time a terrible Alsatian dog, which was chained up. When I was about five, it clawed my face after I had fed it. I remember the blood pouring down my face and I still have the faint scars. Auntie Gaunt died before her husband and he married again, not very happily.

    Mollie also writes about "funny" Auntie Nan:

   "She was a real character, game for anything, and, I imagine, probably quite a success with the boys when she was young. She had married a certain Jack Gleeson and she used to visit from time to time accompanied by one of her quiet respectable daughters. By the time I knew her, she was extremely deaf and you had to shout at her. She in turn would shout back and I found her rather frightening.

    "Blackberry Mary was my grandmother's cousin. She used to walk from Billinge and bring blackberries in the autumn. Her daughter and son in law had a pub called "The Labour in Vain". The pub was pulled down some years ago. I never met the lady, but she ceased to visit after the move to Bleak Hill. Perhaps they never let her know where the family had gone.

   "However, there were other Billinge connections, and there is a story about the day a donkey fell down the dell. "I shooed and me mother pooed" and they got it out in the end. My grandmother's maiden name was Melling and there are lots buried in the cemetery there of that name. May Melling, who lived in Bleak Hill, (married name Lawrence) was some relation. Her sister Nellie kept a sort of corner shop, long since pulled down, near Liverpool Road. The Willecks who lived in Rivington Road were relations too. I fancy she may have been another of my grandmother's sisters. At any rate, her son was a sort of cousin and friendly with Seth Critchley, the youngest of the Critchley boys.

   "Then there were the neighbours in Bleak Hill. In the adjoining semi lived Mr and Mrs Henshall. He had a haulage business in Prescot. With them lived Mrs Henshall's sister Mrs Cox and her husband, who often seemed to be out of work. Neither couple had any children. They kept a parrot, which escaped outside one day and bit Mrs Cox badly. The parrot then took a fancy to my bare feet. They shouted at me not to move, and, to my relief, managed to recapture the bird. I've hated parrots ever since.

   The women were forever going into Liverpool buying clothes and spending money. They would soon tire of whatever they had bought and would either give it away or resell it for very little. Both my aunt and my mother took advantage of this service, especially as the goods were always of a very high quality. The women were very generous and the buttercup tea set in the corner of my dining room is one of their gifts to me.