In Mollie's reminiscences of her happy times living near and staying with the Critchley's of St Helens, she mentions "Blackberry Mary". This is a picture of Mary Melling from Ancestry. The name Mary comes in the Melling, Wright and Lythgoe ancestry branches of the Critchley family. Mollie writes:
"Blackberry Mary was my grandmother's cousin. She used to walk from Billinge and bring blackberries in the autumn. I think to sell. Her daughter and son in law kept a pub called the Labour in Vain at the foot of Billinge Main Street. 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."
This Mary Melling was born in Wigan and moved to Leeds, and I guess she is a younger generation to my Great Grandmother's cousin. But, as she is some kind of relation to me in ancestry, I thought she might be Blackberry Mary. I cannot find that she lived anywhere else other than Wigan, until her family moved to Leeds. If she is Blackberry Mary, then it is likely she was staying with her family in Billinge in the autumn, when she picked and brought blackberries for her St Helens cousins. In this case she would have ceased to visit the Critchley's of St Helens when she moved to Leeds.
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