[00:00:02] – Sam

Welcome back to Calder Navigation, where each episode serves as a compass, guiding you through the vibrant tapestry of Calderdale. I’m Samantha McCormick, your host and artistic director of Curious Motion. I’m delighted to present season two as part of our Culturedale Commission, celebrating Calderdale’s rich cultural heritage during the year of culture.

 

[00:00:24] – Sam

In this season, we continue to champion the voices of our remarkable neighbours, celebrating their resilience, diversity and the shared experiences that bind us together. From intimate conversations to profound revelations, each episode is an invitation to connect, reflect and celebrate the human experience. Season two of Calder Navigation is not just a podcast, it’s a celebration of community, culture and the enduring spirit of Calderdale. Join us as we delve into the heart and soul of our community, exploring the myriad of stories that shape our shared experience.

 

[00:01:06] – Sam

Today on Calder Navigation, we are shining a spotlight on Sowerby Bridge through the vibrant early life of one of the town’s own, Geoff Amos. Geoff’s life is a patchwork of diverse adventures and endeavours, from his days as an engineering apprentice to his stints as a performer and pub owner. From the rugged landscapes of engineering sites to the enchanting world of performance arts, Geoff’s journey embodies the spirit of curiosity and adaptability.

 

[00:01:36] – Sam

In this episode, Geoff invites us to stroll down memory lane, regaling us with tales of his childhood in Sowerby Bridge, particularly during the fifties and sixties. He shares the enduring impact his childhood has had on his life, including how he’s lived through immense changes in the town and in our general way of life. Through his anecdotes and reflections, we catch glimpses of a bygone era and celebrate the rich heritage of the area steeped in nostalgia and grit. Geoff also has an upcoming podcast project where he promises to delve even deeper into the mosaic of his experiences, with support from season one guest, Liz Leach Murphy. In fact, that’s how I met Geoff, thanks to Liz’s introduction. As you’ll hear today, Geoff has a lot to share and it’s not possible for us to cover it all in one episode, so do keep an eye out for their podcast. So let’s meet Geoff as he takes us through his childhood memories of life along the river Calder.

 

[00:02:39] – Sam

Hi. Hi Geoff. Lovely to have you. Thank you for being here.

 

[00:02:42] – Geoff

Oh, you’re fine. Nice to see you too.

 

[00:02:45] – Sam

I’m looking forward to having a chat and finding out all about your history and memories, especially here in Sowerby Bridge. So I thought, could we start with one of your first memories of Sowerby Bridge? Is there anything that comes to mind?

 

[00:02:59] – Geoff

There is. It’s-, it’s a bit vague now, given that I’m, you know, halfway beyond my 76th year now. So some things that are there, I had a lot of thought about that and then I have memories of very early on in my life, but I can’t put a year to them. They’re a bit, you know, they’re a bit-, and I was thinking that one of the very early ones, I was downstairs in the house, our house was a cellar, one room and then a bedroom and an attic, attic room. I’ve just got this little vignette of my dad stroking my head and my brow and saying, “You’ll be okay.” I was in a little bed or something. Now, I know I had pneumonia early on and of course, it sounds daft now, but the NHS wasn’t up and running, so I’m born 1947, you know, so we were at home and then I was very still. The fire was on, it must have been winterish, very, very warm. And then that fades, you know, that’s about it. And then there’s another little piece comes back of my dad reading to me. And because I had quite a bit of time off, very early school, he taught me to read, basically.

 

[00:04:25] – Geoff

And when I actually went to that first school, Ellison Memorial, apparently, I was like two years in front of the other kids. They were astounded. I thought I’d done something wrong, the way the teacher said, “I’ll just-, just stay there, Geoff, you know. It started off, she said, “Can you read this?” And yeah, didn’t realise, you know, then I saw her face, you know, and it was-, I thought, as kids do, am I doing something wrong? “Just sit there. I’m going to bring the head of school down.” Lovely lady. And she came down and gave another book and can you read that? And of course, I just read it off.

 

[00:05:04] – Geoff

Another one I’ve got is some shouting in the front room and this image of my dad’s got hold of this man like that by his jacket up against the wall. He’s shouting about something. I later found out it was our slum landlord wanting to put-, you know, see that. And again, that’s only minutes in my head. But I asked him, you know, many-, much later on, and he said, “Wow, you remember that?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well, you know, they wasn’t doing repairs,” you know, there was cockroaches and silver fish and dampness, you know. So I remember another one was outside toilet. I sat there on the toilet and I heard a squeaking. I looked down, there’s a rat looking up at me. Just come through. You know, it sounds like Monty Python, but it’s just how it was.

 

[00:06:02] – Sam

Yeah, yeah.

 

[00:06:03] – Geoff

Certainly didn’t think-, I didn’t even know what the word poor would have meant if someone-, but it was a rough and tumble street. It was quite well known in those days. Something else I just remembered, next door neighbour but two was actually peeing on me when I was sat on my little-, yes, that’s just come way, way-,

 

[00:06:26] – Sam

Isn’t it amazing, the little random things that pop into your mind, especially when you’re thinking about what memories have you got as well. And it is often the kind of slightly uncomfortable or horrible ones that stick out.

 

[00:06:38] – Geoff

And the daft thing is, when I did remember it, I thought it was a female friend. Until I only found out a couple of years back, actually, it was my mate Tony. And then there was something else happened. I couldn’t explain how I felt at the time. Not frightening, but I was sensing the whole street seemed to go really quiet. And I think it did because we were fairly close to Tuel Lane, which-, not the one that’s there now, because they cut a bend off, you know, to go down. There was this long parade of very old fashioned gipsy caravans just moving up, you know, and everyone-, the whole street just stopped and we looked. So I’m guessing-, well, they obviously went up Tuel Lane, which was a heck of a pull to get to the top. I think they would have gone on towards maybe the Dales or somewhere like that because in later years, I found out that there was a horse fair, for example, up in Applebee. And I romanced it a bit. But I’m thinking something like that, you know. And having tea for the coronation out on the street. Just loads of-, so there was all-, and they’re all just little things about that.

 

[00:08:02] – Geoff

Another one was-, I don’t know how old, I wouldn’t have been very old because I think we left Chapel Street in sort of ’55, maybe very early ’56. And I had a present, which was quite rare because it was something big. I mean, you know, my mum was still not working. You know, there was three of us and my dad was doing all hours God sends. And I got a three wheeler bike. Like a metallic blue. I can see it, you know, and with a little hood at the back, you know, you could put things in. And this is-, my mum said, “Will you go get some national milk?” It was dried milk that you got for nothing.

 

[00:08:44] – Sam

Okay.

 

[00:08:44] – Geoff

So you went on to Station Road to Allen House there, and I got two big tins so it was obviously-, well, I don’t know which brother it was for, because all this is just like that. So that’s going down on my bike onto Wall Street, turning right across the river, under the railway bridge. How I remembered it, I’ve no idea. Then left on Station Road and at the end of there was this nursing place where you went and then pedal back. I had to push it back because it-, when I got to Tuel Lane and that was like, you know, parents now would have gone, you know, a bit, you know, I mean, really, I didn’t think anything about it at all.

 

[00:09:24] – Sam

No.

 

[00:09:24] – Geoff

So there’s, there’s lots of little things. Oh, Maude Blackburn, first person on the street to have a television.

 

[00:09:31] – Sam

Oh, what was that like?

 

[00:09:33] – Geoff

Well, obviously she didn’t-, when you grew up as working class kids, largely, you were never invited into your friend’s house, you know.

 

[00:09:40] – Sam

Right. Okay.

 

[00:09:41] – Geoff

And that carried on to when I was ten or eleven and older. It was, it was really strange, you know, it’s-, but certainly my growing up was that-, so it was a tiny screen like that with a thing in front that enlarged it. And I can remember several of us kids just gazing in at it. And I did overhear when my mum came to get me away and there was another couple who got brought their kids. “Yes, well, it will be Maude, you know, no better than she ought to be.” So there wasn’t a dad there, you know, so.

 

[00:10:15] – Sam

Dramas on the street.

 

[00:10:19] – Geoff

So that’s sort of the early days.

 

[00:10:22] – Sam

Yeah, I’m interested to know how you would describe this area then as a child. And, I mean, we’ve got-, there’s obvious differences, isn’t there, in how the society has changed over that time? But I wondered from your personal perspective how you would describe Sowerby Bridge and this-, you know, the town and the surrounding areas in your childhood and now really, and what are the differences or similarities with that?

 

[00:10:49] – Geoff

I’ve got different memories. As a small child, I was a bugger for just going off. I must have drove my mum and dad mad and I mean upwards, you know, up into sort of eight, nines and tens. Well, everything was just wondrous because it’s the first time you’ve seen it, whatever it is, so you can’t-, you can’t describe, you know, you’re not going, “Oh, that’s a shop that does it. Oh-,” or whatever. I mean, later on, I remember some older kids saying, let’s go down to t’cut. So we went down there. So canal was there. I said, where’s this shortcut, then. That was my own, you know, I thought we were-, because I heard my-, you know, my mum went, “Oh, we’ll take a shortcut down here.”

 

[00:11:38] – Sam

Right, yeah. What else are you going to do?

 

[00:11:41] – Geoff

Yeah. And Cyril Sands was a local bicycle place for many here. Let’s go out back at Cyril Sands or Sands, so off I went. We went round the back. I think they were up to no good, but I said, “Well, where’s the sand?” You know.

 

[00:11:55] – Sam

Oh, right. Yeah.

 

[00:11:56] – Geoff

Because I’d been to Blackpool then, you know, so it was trying to put all that into perspective, really, when you were, you know, quite, quite young. So I’m guessing I must have been hanging around with kids maybe a year or two older.

 

[00:12:11] – Sam

Right.

 

[00:12:12] – Geoff

You know, but I wasn’t aware of manufacturing till later on, so maybe we might want to come back to that. It was a busy place, you know, the houses everywhere, there were mills everywhere, you know, all sorts of places. And then, of course, it did change, sort of more or less into the sixties, I would say, when it started to change, but the houses started to be pulled down. They’re all really not very pleasant housing as you can probably guess. And it was still the local council then. And prior to that, when there were little clutches of housing just off the main road or elsewhere, Sowerby Bridge council would put a little park in there, you know, a little bit of greenery, so you could sit there, because we were all back to backs and-,

 

[00:13:22] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:13:24] – Geoff

And what have you. So, planting cherry trees, which some of them are still there. One-, a couple have been made into a car park now, but there’s still two or three around, you know, so that was all right. And of course, it’s so new at that age. It’s-, for me, it’s just a sense of wonder.

 

[00:13:44] – Sam

Yeah. Isn’t that-,

 

[00:13:45] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:13:46] – Sam

I think that’s just so precious.

 

[00:13:47] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:13:48] – Sam

To have that and to remember that as in your childhood, you know, to have that sense of just the-, everything is a first and taking that in, I think that’s a really lovely thing to think about and maybe not something that we’re all-, maybe we don’t, I don’t know if many of us reflect on the wonder of childhood.

 

[00:14:06] – Geoff

No, I’m getting more and more to do it, you know, grandkids are around and-, and you’re thinking, you know, I was talking to Margaret about this, you know, it’s-, her daughter lives over near York now, so she goes over every Thursday and picks Heidi up from school-,

 

[00:14:22] – Sam

This is your partner, Margaret.

 

[00:14:22] – Geoff

Yes, yes, sorry. And then especially during the winter, we take her to-, are they called soft play areas?

 

[00:14:29] – Sam

Yeah, I think so.

 

[00:14:31] – Geoff

Yeah, and something like that. And although she’s eight and a half now, there’s lots of areas for little wee ones crawling and I just think I’m saying to her, “You know, what must be going off in their little heads when they can’t-, they haven’t a clue what’s going off. They can’t talk yet, you know, and then there’s loads of these kids running around and going up and down slides and goodness knows what, you know.” Do wish you could remember those times.

 

[00:15:00] – Sam

That’s such a sensory experience as a tiny child, isn’t it? The whole-, everything in you is developing at speed really, I suppose.

 

[00:15:10] – Geoff

Well, yeah, I guess so.

 

[00:15:11] – Sam

There’s so much information and things that we don’t remember that we’ve experienced. Yeah, it’s interesting to think that and just imagine what that might be like.

 

[00:15:23] – Geoff

Yeah, yeah. And whilst we’re on it around that subject, I mean there was loads and loads of different shops and I mean seriously, you know, I can remember just on the main-, or off the main street, in those early days you had butchers. Several of them, but they all-, I mean it was either pork or beef. They didn’t sell lots of, you know, and some…. Maybe the pork butcher might sell meat pies but otherwise, it was a pie shop.

 

[00:15:57] – Sam

Right.

 

[00:15:58] – Geoff

You know, they all had their own bit, you know, and with three tripe shots, one of whom’s pie and peas and things like that just at the bottom of bottom row there. And the other two, yes, it was all the different sorts of offal you could think of, you know, but more-, more on that tripe side of thing, you know, not liver or anything like that. That would be whichever butcher would sell them. There was a horse meat shop still.

 

[00:16:29] – Sam

Oh my goodness. Wow, I didn’t even know that existed.

 

[00:16:32] – Geoff

Yeah, my granny sent me down to it near the canal and I just went to pick it up and took it up and I can’t-, it was someone else I heard talking about it, you know, so I went down, you know, one with the blue door. Oh, horse meat shop, you know it’s-, there was an abattoir around the back just off the canal. Chemists with three-, there’ll be three confectionery companies. There was one called Mattocks which they did toffee and I think their main line was bon bons which was little separate sweets dusted in some sort of sugar, you know. Yeah, there was John’s Toffees near the river Ripon, back of the market as it was there then. And I grew to understand a bit later on when I saw that they specialised in making fudge a lot, but for areas of tourism. So you’d go to Blackpool and they’d be “Welcome to sunny Blackpool” fudge. And it was made here in Sowerby Bridge. Yeah.

 

[00:17:44] – Geoff

And then there was another one further on, just at the side of the canal called Lums. They were boiled sweets and their big favourite was a traffic light lolly. So you’d got the three colours on a stick and, I mean, it just makes me laugh. I can see it now. They had red vans, bright red, and on the side was a massive, you know, painting of a traffic light lolly. And with Kay’s it was Lums always take some licking, you know. So, yeah.

 

[00:18:25] – Sam

Yes, So what does it feel like now? I know that’s-, there’s lots of kind of things I think all of us think about, you know, we’ve got technology and all of this stuff that has reduced some of that localness, I suppose, yeah.

 

[00:18:41] – Geoff

Dispiriting, sad, when you’ve watched it decline. You can’t buy beggar all really in Sowerby Bridge now, unless you go to a supermarket, which generally I don’t. At the moment, there is a shop selling screws and stuff like that. It’s not far off it. There’s a baker’s. We used to have four shoe shops and two ironmongers. You know, it was like you didn’t need to go anywhere to buy.

 

[00:19:10] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:19:11] – Geoff

You know, all that’s gone, you know, we’ve got nine barbers just on Wall Street alone. Can you believe it?

 

[00:19:19] – Sam

I know there’s something about what you really can’t get online, I think still exists in physical form, doesn’t it? But if you can get it online, it’s kind of where-, and haircuts and a cup of coffee with someone are two of the things that you kind of-,

 

[00:19:33] – Geoff

Yeah, we’ve got that.

 

[00:19:34] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:19:34] – Geoff

And then that’s it, basically, really. I miss-, and you want to shop local as well.

 

[00:19:42] – Sam

Of course.

 

[00:19:43] – Geoff

Yeah, and all the manufacturing is gone. There was over-, I found a yearbook, I think it was 1965. I wish I could find it somewhere that was put out by the local council and, you know, it would let you know, like a gazette in a way. So there was lists of all the manufacturing and photographs and the mills. There were 65 different organisations making things in Sowerby Bridge, and a lot of them just off the-, off the main road through. And then, you know, from engineering, you know, to dye houses to cloth finishing, I mentioned, you know, the sort of sweets and lots of little food stores, you know. And in-, I remember Christmas, the one-, was it Freddie Bentley’s, which was by the river, at Christmas, he had a huge Hornby Dublo and that wasn’t for sale, that was just in the window with some lights, you know, and another one similar-, doing a similar thing in the middle of town.

 

[00:20:46] – Geoff

The rot started, I think, although I couldn’t-, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but they took the gas showroom away. And then they took the electricity shop away and you had to go Halifax to pay your bills because, you know, there was no direct debits. I mean, I’m talking about early sixties, maybe late fifties. So people thought, well, have to go up there, you know, and then-, and then the market started to suffer. That was Tuesdays and Fridays. And when my mum finished work, or if she was still working, we went down there late, very late afternoon and did all our shopping and went-, walked back up onto Chapel Street or when we’d moved, up onto East Parade, which is on the way out of town, you wouldn’t dream of getting a bus. And then some more people shopped up at Halifax in the market, brought it home. So it’s all this step down, you know, and then one or two of the shops started to disappear. There was one up East Parade, just off East Parade on the main road, which is where we moved to. Very old fashioned. They wore white overalls with the men working there and it was just smells, coffee and what have you. All that started to disappear. And in the middle of town where there was one of the two cinemas, there was a guy opened up a shop there and he sold tins with no labels. I think it was sixpence each. Oh, it was great. “Come on, man, can we, can we?” “Go on then.” And we’d buy it. We’d buy four.

 

[00:22:32] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:22:33] – Geoff

And we wouldn’t know.

 

[00:22:34] – Sam

I was gonna say. So you don’t know what’s in them?

 

[00:22:35] – Geoff

Oh, no, it’s great!

 

[00:22:36] – Sam

You just get random tins and see what you get.

 

[00:22:38] – Geoff

Can we eat them? Whatever’s in, and I said, “Daff bloody food, you know.”

 

[00:22:43] – Sam

Sounds fun.

 

[00:22:44] – Geoff

Yeah, it was, it was funny. There was a Greenwoods men’s shop at the bottom of Tuel Lane. There’s just, you know, such scores of things really. Yeah, oh, we had a sort of shop selling beers, an off licence at the end. This, this side on the Tuel Lane side. And this is when I started to learn about being abused. Some of the older boys would say, “Look, when we get here, right, we’ll open the door, but keep the door open, and then we’re gonna do something. And then when they come out-,” it was two brothers and a sister running it, “Just ask for something, you know.” “Well, what? What?” “Oh, I don’t know, a tin of fog.” And then they were-, they were taking bottles of bloody cider. And then when they ran out, I had to shut the door. And then when they came, because they were old and they come out the back room, “Yeah, what do you want?” I said, “Have you got any tins of fog, mate?” And, “Get out.” I eventually told one of the blokes, Leslie, as he used to drink in a couple of pubs in Sowerby Bridge and when I started going in the pubs, he said, “You’re young Amos, aren’t you?”

 

[00:23:59] – Geoff

I said, “Aye.” So I fessed up once. He said, “Do you think we didn’t know?”

 

[00:24:04] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:24:04] – Geoff

“There’s such a thing as stock taking, you idiot.”

 

[00:24:08] – Sam

That’s the thing, when you get older and things you thought you got away with, maybe you’re like, “Oh, actually, maybe we didn’t.” Yeah. Just coming back to the huge amount of change that there has been, and we are talking over a long period of time, but I think, you know, you and many other people have these incredible memories of a really different time.

 

[00:24:30] – Geoff

Oh, very different.

 

[00:24:31] – Sam

And I think from what you’ve shared so far, there was a real sense of community, very locally.

 

[00:24:38] – Geoff

Oh, yeah.

 

[00:24:40] – Sam

Would you say so? So in terms of that, I think that’s something that we’re all trying to really hang on to. But we’re in a such a different world now, aren’t we, with things that do draw us away all the time. I just wondered what your thoughts are around how we could find that or keep that or hold on to that sense of community, or is there anything going on now that’s kind of still giving the essence of that? Even if things are very different and we’ve had those huge changes and losses as well.

 

[00:25:07] – Geoff

Slightly. By fingernails. I mean, in the town itself or just around, we’ve got, you know, quite a lot of people working in the arts very quietly away, you know, you don’t know. And because they might be moving, you know, sort of theatre people, things like that. So there are little things happening. They’ve done a town square beach in the summer for the last three years. So there are little things. But I think it’s almost impossible because the way of our housing is.

 

[00:25:41] – Sam

Right, okay.

 

[00:25:42] – Geoff

You know, and work.

 

[00:25:43] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:25:44] – Geoff

You know, whereas, you know, we lived in Triangle for a little while, just up the road, and there were people there who’d never left Triangle, but they had three pubs then, there was a working man’s club, there were shops, there were mills, so they went-, maybe went to Blackpool once on a-, you know, things like that. And, you know, and so to an extent, that’s how I feel is happening in Sowerby Bridge. And there’s a thing about finding some funding for things and, you know, you think, you know, why are we getting knocked back? Well, Hebden Bridge is getting this, you know, Tod’s getting that. And it was let slip, we were trying to talk to some officers about, you know, what is it? We’ve got all these people, we’re doing shed loads of work, like Winter Light, which I don’t know if you ever turned up for that. We, the initial group doing it, did for three years, and then we just couldn’t do it anymore because-,

 

[00:26:42] – Sam

Very hard to sustain.

 

[00:26:43] – Geoff

You know, it’s money, you know, we’re three of us have a living, you know, so to stop that. And he said, “Well, you know, there’s no real township here,” said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You’re classed as a corridor.” Well, I tell you what, I could have killed him if I’d have got over him. Is that it?

 

[00:27:01] – Sam

Gosh.

 

[00:27:02] – Geoff

You know, when you look back to, for example, William Bates was a cast iron foundry. They were one of the very, very first, maybe in the world, certainly in Britain, apart from down in Telford, they were just off Tuel Lane, you know, we’ve got Pollit and Wigzell, which they are still working, steam engines, you know, working properly, not just at fairs. And even overseas, you know, so there’s all this going off and there’s-, you know, another company made hospital beds. So there’s all this stuff going off, history, not, you know, it doesn’t exist anymore. But what do you mean? We were one of the very early people into, you know, making mills for textiles, you know, late 18th century, it’s all there. And then to just go-,

 

[00:27:57] – Sam

Yeah, gosh, there’s a huge-, there’s a legacy in many ways, isn’t there? History is rich and diverse.

 

[00:28:04] – Geoff

Very much so. We’ve got one of the very, very rare horizontal water wheels.

 

[00:28:11] – Sam

Ah.

 

[00:28:12] – Geoff

Some developers put a fucking house on top of it. You know, and he’s been let-, just let go, you know, it’s just-, it’s nuts. There’s no sense of history any-, and, you know, there are people around, etcetera, but that’s how I feel. It’s going to be very, very difficult to come and build it back. There are the people around who are working away, doing things, but it’s all small scale and we’re all more or less having to do it for nothing, you know, and that’s not right either.

 

[00:28:44] – Sam

No, that is a massive challenge, isn’t it? And I think it’s a good point, really, that a lot of this in these days is coming from people’s goodwill and energy. And actually, that’s not sustainable or healthy for people, is it? If you’ve got to hold that for a long period of time. It’s clear that you have a real passion for the local area and you’re born and bred here, you know, it’s just wonderful that you’ve got that perspective, I think.

 

[00:29:09] – Geoff

I have lived elsewhere.

 

[00:29:12] – Sam

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

[00:29:13] – Geoff

But I like here. It’s got dirt under its fingernails, I think, Sowerby Bridge. And I like being here and you’re walking over the moors and I used to do that at ten and eight and nine. Oh, talk about freak my mum and dad out there. Where have you been?

 

[00:29:32] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:29:32] – Geoff

And I didn’t know where I was going. I just set off.

 

[00:29:35] – Sam

Oh, wow. Just following that curiosity that you have as a kid and just see where you end up.

 

[00:29:40] – Geoff

Walked the roads. We’d moved up to Sowerby for a year, then into the-, one of the council houses there and it must have been summer. Sparrows were everywhere, of course, you know, not now. And I just set off and walked up over t’tops. And I just really remember feeling quite good about it. I hadn’t a clue where I was going. I ended up in Triangle and I had an auntie living there, so I knocked on her door. “What are you doing here?” You know, I said, “I’ve just walked over from Sowerby.”

 

[00:30:12] – Sam

Yeah, that’s quite a long way, really, isn’t it?

 

[00:30:14] – Geoff

And then a bit older, 11, 12, 13, I enjoyed cross country running, so I used to just set off and-,

 

[00:30:22] – Sam

Wow, yeah.

 

[00:30:22] – Geoff

So that was good, yeah.

 

[00:30:24] – Sam

Are there any landmarks or kind of places that-, I know we’ve got streets and things that you’ve got real connections to. Are there any specifics that kind of still really hold that good feeling that you had when you were a child?

 

[00:30:38] – Geoff

It’s difficult because there’s so much been pulled down or burnt down.

 

[00:30:42] – Sam

Well, of course. Huge change, isn’t there?

 

[00:30:42] – Geoff

There is. It sounds like a tangent, but I have made a note of that, there’s an area and it’s called Hollins Mill Lane. I don’t know if you-,

 

[00:30:54] – Sam

I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know it well.

 

[00:30:54] – Geoff

It runs off the curve just before you get to the river, if you’re coming from where you live. Fire station, swimming baths, all that council offices there. And again, as a little snotty toddler, I heard this-, didn’t what it was. I was told, “Oh, it’s a siren.” “What’s it for?” “It means that there’s a fire somewhere and fire engine setting off.” “Oh, right.” So if I went down there, I’d see fire engine. I think it were my mum, can’t remember, yeah, yeah. So next time I heard it, I run down like mad. Doors are open. It’s not there. So this happened several times. This is where I understood about the world. I couldn’t have said it then about not being truthful, you know. So I’ll go ahead and come back to that.

 

[00:31:51] – Geoff

So a good few years on, I was walking past there, doors opened, fire engine flew out. And then about five minutes later, bloody siren went. I just thought, ah. But there was a cafe, it’s pulled down next to the library, where it was like, funeral type cafe, black and white waitresses, you know, in the centre of the cafe, there was a pub, Town Hall tavern, which I got till later, much earlier, coming back, there was a barber’s there. So he used to go there and he had two massive full size Airedales. I don’t know if you know, they’re quite tight, curly hair, so darkish brown and tan.

 

[00:32:38] – Sam

Okay.

 

[00:32:39] – Geoff

And then he had tropical fish and, God, was he boring. He’d it there and he’d drone on. And then he stopped. And you go sprinkle a little bit more food. And the puzzle, this is before I was drinking, but back to the thirties when my dad’s family moved down from the northeast. My grandma used to go there because they still had a brewery then and got yeast for baking bread from them and things like that.

 

[00:33:10] – Geoff

So there’s all this connection from being a little lad and then, glory of glories, I ended up walking into the library, and I was just, you know, just there. And I will-, I’m sure I’ll have had a snot nose and what, you know, or whatever, mucky. And I wished I could have told this wonderful woman how much it meant to me, because she just got up, she just said hello, you know, it wasn’t like, you know, “Off you go,” you know, which could have happened. “What do you do here?” I’d clock the books, and by now I was reading. Well, you know. And she said, “Oh, we’re a library. Do you know what that is?” I said, “No.” “Well, it’s where we’ve got books and you can come in and you join. You join up and then you could get tickets and you could take books home, you read them and you bring them back.” “Oh.” And she says, “We have a children’s section. And do you read?” I said, “Yeah.” Cocky bugger, you know. Well, I didn’t understand it was any different because I hadn’t really gone to school yet.

 

[00:34:22] – Sam

Okay, yeah.

 

[00:34:23] – Geoff

You know, so I’d gone and come back because I was ill again. “Oh,” she said, “All right, well, let me pull the book out.” I didn’t recognise it. “Have a go at this.” And I just-, and watched her face, you know, she was like, “Goodness, try this one.” And again, I sailed through that. She said, “Where have you learned to read at such an early age?” I said, “My dad, when I wasn’t very well for a good while, you know, a long time.” Felt like a long time anyway. And she said, “Oh, let’s just try this.” And there were longer words, but I was getting through. She said, “I’ve got where you-, so would you like to take some books back with you?” I said, “Yeah, how do I join?” She said, “Well, you’re underage in a sense, so it would have to be your mum or your dad. I’m going to write them a letter. Will you take it up?” I said, “Yeah.” “And just let them know that you’ve not stolen these because I’m going to give you some books to take back with you.”

 

[00:35:20] – Sam

Oh, lovely.

 

[00:35:21] – Geoff

Yeah. And that was it. I was going down twice a week.

 

[00:35:26] – Sam

Were you? Books are a big thing, then.

 

[00:35:28] – Geoff

Yeah. Oh, yeah, still are.

 

[00:35:30] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:35:30] – Geoff

You know, I can’t believe people that don’t read. I understand why people don’t, because it’s not their bag, but, you know, there’s just so much to come from books.

 

[00:35:41] – Sam

Totally. And libraries are special still, aren’t they? Really special.

 

[00:35:44] – Geoff

Hanging on. You know, hanging on. Come back to the street because there’s a lot more happening as I’m growing up.

 

[00:35:51] – Sam

Okay, please do.

 

[00:35:52] – Geoff

As I get older, we had to-, and when we move back into Sowerby Bridge, I used to go to the slipper baths. Do you know-,

 

[00:36:00] – Sam

No, I don’t know this.

 

[00:36:01] – Geoff

Slipper baths were public baths, not a swimming side, that was there, but they went to have a bath because we didn’t have-, didn’t even have a geezer at the time when we moved into East Parade. And so you’d go down Saturday morning, I can’t remember how much it was, maybe a couple of bob, half a crown, I can’t remember now. And that was separate. And when-, during the winter, this is amazing when you think about it now, they shut the bath down, Sowerby Bridge Council, for the winter boarded it over, like, no one wants to swim anymore? And then they had dancers every Saturday night.

 

[00:36:42] – Sam

Oh, right!

 

[00:36:42] – Geoff

Strict tempo, ballroom, you know, all that. And then when I was getting, like, 15, 16, maybe, yeah. I found out that they used to-, they started to put a beat band on in the interval, you know, with those horrendous acoustics while they went off and had their pie and peas. So that was great, so-, oh, this is good. I mean, it was ear splitting, but this is teenager time now.

 

[00:37:11] – Sam

Okay. Yeah, so this is what you’re looking for, isn’t it?

 

[00:37:14] – Geoff

It is. And that word, this is it. Never heard it before. This is teenager time, you know, just that very early. So it could have been 1960. And so we’d go in and then we wouldn’t stay for-, so we go back to the Town Hall Tavern because we knew we could get a pint there. So that was us, and we never went back, but that was all right. So that went on. And then, you know, growing up a bit more, that’s when we started drinking in The Puzzle then, when I was a little older, actually, I was just over 15. We finished school at 15, then at Ripon, and the week of that, in July, I went in there and had my first pint in there. Never stopped. It was quirky then.

 

[00:38:03] – Sam

Was it?

 

[00:38:04] – Geoff

But very different quirky, but quirky. And we’ve managed to keep that going, you know, so that’s great. Yeah. And there’s all sorts. And then come on to doing Winter Light, you know, so that little street-, and of course, you know, what I told you about the fire engine and all that business. That’s just-,

 

[00:38:24] – Sam

Wow, what a rich kind of experience or life, just in that particular area.

 

[00:38:28] – Geoff

That’s it, you know. Yeah, yeah. And we’re still doing things.

 

[00:38:32] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:38:32] – Geoff

You know.

 

[00:38:33] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:38:33] – Geoff

So, yeah, that’s just one little microcosm of the town, you know?

 

[00:38:37] – Sam

Absolutely, yeah. What do you think is your happiest childhood memory? Do you think it’s the library?

 

[00:38:44] – Geoff

I’ve thought so long and hard about this. Yeah, it has to be. But I started off thinking, “All right, then, can you remember ever being happy?”

 

[00:38:53] – Sam

Right, good question.

 

[00:38:53] – Geoff

And I have to say I can’t.

 

[00:38:55] – Sam

Okay. Okay.

 

[00:38:56] – Geoff

Not a miserable life, but I can’t remember.

 

[00:38:59] – Sam

Ah, interesting.

 

[00:39:00] – Geoff

Being-, that feeling. I must have been at some stage, but-,

 

[00:39:07] – Sam

What about the sense of wonder? Do you think that was linked to any sort of happiness? Or is that-, it is a different feeling, isn’t it? Yeah. Interesting.

 

[00:39:17] – Geoff

Wonder and interest and what is it? What was it? What was it used for? Can I get involved in it? You know, that when I was little and growing up, that sort of thing was fun, but no, I can’t. I can’t remember anything of laugh out happiness. And I mean, we went to Blackpool.

 

[00:39:35] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:39:36] – Geoff

You know, for a day sometimes on a local bus or a train, when my dad was earning a wee bit more and they enjoyed it, but-,

 

[00:39:48] – Sam

You wouldn’t describe it as happy?

 

[00:39:51] – Geoff

No, not the way I feel about happiness, I suppose.

 

[00:39:54] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:39:55] – Geoff

Yeah. I knew we were having a good time and enjoyed it and everything like that, so yeah, but not that huggable, sort of, like, oh, this is-,

 

[00:40:05] – Sam

Yeah, the kind of, I suppose, pure happiness, maybe. Is that the right word?

 

[00:40:10] – Geoff

Yeah, I guess so, yeah.

 

[00:40:12] – Sam

Yeah, I think it’s very individual, isn’t it? These things are actually-, happiness in itself is a very individual experience. I think we can be told certain things will be happy, but that’s not always the case, is it? And it sounds like you’ve had positive experiences through other emotions and other types of interests as a child, but, yeah.

 

[00:40:32] – Geoff

There was another time when we’d moved up onto East Parade, there next to Shepherd’s Rest. My mum was back working, so she-, out starting work at half past seven, finishing at five. My dad was doing all the overtime he could, evenings, Saturdays, sometimes Sundays as well, so we weren’t together as a family very much. Again, it was just there and then my mum had a bit of a nervous breakdown. She was off work for, I can’t remember how long, certainly six months. And so when she was a bit better, I just remember, she used to-, on prescription, she used to get sherry from the chemist, which you could at that time. I’ll tell you about my gran and her Guinness as well, and she had to have every day, like, sort of like a glass like that, you know, a tumbler thing.

 

[00:41:33] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:41:35] – Geoff

With an egg yolk in it and topped up with sherry mixed up.

 

[00:41:40] – Sam

Oh, that’s like a medicine. Oh.

 

[00:41:42] – Geoff

Yeah, and I went in, it was in the winter, got back to back from-, so cold, and a bit walked in. I could smell some cooking, fire was on. I burst into tears.

 

[00:41:53] – Sam

Oh.

 

[00:41:55] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:41:57] – Sam

What made you burst into tears?

 

[00:41:59] – Geoff

The fact that I wasn’t going home to a cold and empty house and she was up in the morning, you know, see us off to school. Feel quite emotional about that now.

 

[00:42:11] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:42:12] – Geoff

But, yeah, that was sort of happiness, but you wouldn’t have thought so, but yeah.

 

[00:42:16] – Sam

Well, I think, again, it’s very individual and it’s from your experience and only you will know.

 

[00:42:22] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:42:23] – Sam

What that is for you.

 

[00:42:24] – Geoff

Yeah, my gran. She was anemic.

 

[00:42:29] – Sam

Right.

 

[00:42:29] – Geoff

And this-, I were in East Parade by then. So I think I was probably about eleven then. I’d just come to Tuel Lane Junior School, and she, as part of her treatment, she’d-, seven pint bottles of Guinness a week. And it was when they still had the yeast in the bottom as well.

 

[00:42:53] – Sam

Okay.

 

[00:42:54.0] – Geoff

So she was told to shake it up a bit, you know, stir it up. So I had to take two bags, go down to the chemist with-, three chemists, I think, four actually. The one at the bottom of what was Tuel Lane, Tower Hill, it’s called now, and go in there and to get these-, I managed, it was all right in, you know, two bags.

 

[00:43:13] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:43:14] – Geoff

She used to drink the lot with her mate on Saturdays.

 

[00:43:16] – Sam

Oh, so all at once, kept topped up.

 

[00:43:20] – Geoff

Yeah. It’s just amazing. And I’ve been in a couple of times as well and I knew that these were rather posh ladies because of their clothes, I could guess. And it was a bit of a whisper and I clocked it and it was bottles of sherry coming out. There was only one at the time, off licence in Sowerby Bridge, which was still on the edge of Chapel Street before that got pulled down. That was early sixties. So I started to work that out. A little bit of genteel sort of, you know.

 

[00:43:53] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:43:56] – Geoff

God. And then there was Indian brandy.

 

[00:43:59] – Sam

Indian brandy.

 

[00:44:00] – Geoff

It was brandy, but we used to take it as spoonfuls for a bit of medicine on the go.

 

[00:44:05] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:44:06] – Geoff

And olive oil.

 

[00:44:07] – Sam

Oh yes.

 

[00:44:08] – Geoff

Yeah. That, that was put on your hair or your head. You didn’t cook with it, put it in your ears if you’d got bloody gummed up ears. You know, things change.

 

[00:44:17] – Sam

I know, isn’t it? It sounds like you’ve really embraced opportunities to do new things.

 

[00:44:23] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:44:24] – Sam

And that this sense of wonder and maybe curiosity really is part of who you are. Would you agree?

 

[00:44:29] – Geoff

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Liz, podcast Liz, you know, she’s brought this subject up as well and I hadn’t begun to think about it at all. I just thought, “Oh, it’s just happening.” Because in my early working days, my dad used to come talk to a lad who I work with, but he’s a lazy bugger, he’s only stuck out I don’t know how many jobs. My problem was I was a quick learner, which is not a problem, but then I’m thinking, “Is this it?”

 

[00:45:01] – Sam

Right.

 

[00:45:02] – Geoff

I know this backwards.

 

[00:45:04] – Sam

Oh, yeah. And then you need something else to-, yeah.

 

[00:45:06] – Geoff

This is-, I wasn’t used to thinking things through as such then. I mean, when I went to Goldsmiths, that really turned me around. Again, that’s-,

 

[00:45:15] – Sam

Another story. Yeah.

 

[00:45:18] – Geoff

And this lad actually tore a strip off my dad. I said, “You don’t know what’s happening with me, your Geoff. He’s brilliant at work.” This is when we worked for Ruttenham and District. He was a driver. 90 wagons out every day, Lancashire and Yorkshire, delivering parcels and stuff. I was his van lad. He says, “I don’t get up anywhere near as early as I used to, because I get there, he’s got up, he’s got first bus out, he’s up there. He sorted-,” because there was seven different routes around Leeds. So I’ve gone through the lot and pulled out what we were. I put them into order. I’d started loading. He says, “And I get there,” he said, “Half an hour, we’re up having his breakfast before we set up. That’s where your Geoff is, you know. He’s been searching for something.” He say, “He’ll not stop here. I know that. I hope it’s not soon, because it’s great for me, and that’s-,”

 

[00:46:14] – Sam

Yeah. It sounds like you just grasped everything that you could.

 

[00:46:18] – Geoff

But with that proviso, I don’t know.

 

[00:46:21] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:46:22] – Geoff

And I’ll try not to let you down.

 

[00:46:24] – Sam

Yeah, not letting people down.

 

[00:46:24] – Geoff

I always said that, you know. Yeah, yeah.

 

[00:46:27] – Sam

Yeah. Would you describe yourself as quite a resilient person as well?

 

[00:46:31] – Geoff

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s things happened in my life with two of our children, you know, it knocked us, Joyce and I, back something awful. But you just have to eventually find a way through, pick yourself up. All the doctor gave us was a big bag of pills, which I just fired straight into the river. And in them days, there was no counselling. I’m talking early seventies, you know, for both kids. And no, you know, that’s-, that wasn’t good, you know, so we got through. Don’t get over it.

 

[00:47:05] – Sam

No. This is the thing, when very difficult things happen, I think you live with it, don’t you?

 

[00:47:10] – Geoff

You’ve lost two children, you know, and it’s very early on for one of them, and it comes back. I don’t describe it as black mood, it’s a dark mood that comes on even now. And, you know, my close friends and family know it’s coming. I’ll just sit through a sentence, say “Look, I’m just gonna pop out. I’ll go make a cup of tea for a minute or two, you know,” and that’s-, and that’s the shorthand for what’s happening. So, yeah, we bounce back.

 

[00:47:40] – Sam

Yeah. And you have strategies for coping and dealing with those moods.

 

[00:47:46] – Geoff

Yes, I mean, Joyce and I still are best of friends. We were married 30 years, about 28 years in, before things-, so it wasn’t even Goldsmiths that-, there was a little thing. Joyce was nervous about what was coming back, you know.

 

[00:48:07] – Sam

When you’ve been away and things.

 

[00:48:08] – Geoff

Yeah. And, well, you know, at college, you know, university thing, and-, but that didn’t happen for ages. And then that final two years, we really tried, but it was-, we were married young. She was 17 when we had our first child, and I was 19. We didn’t give that a second thought. We just-, that was it. And so then, you know, we’ve just gently grown apart, really. I mean, I’ve been with Margaret over 26 years, still don’t live together, you know, so, yeah, you know, so.

 

[00:48:45] – Sam

Yeah.

 

[00:48:46] – Geoff

It’s been a full life and it still is.

 

[00:48:48] – Sam

Absolutely. And I’m really grateful to you for sharing.

 

[00:48:52] – Geoff

Oh, it’s fine.

 

[00:48:53] – Sam

Those memories. And you’ve made me really think about wonder, which I think is something that we maybe don’t get the opportunity to indulge in a little bit as often as maybe we should, or we need to. It’s part of our well being, isn’t it, that sense?

 

[00:49:08] – Geoff

Yeah.

 

[00:49:08] – Sam

Well, thank you so much, Geoff. I could actually sit here and talk to you all day, I think. And I’m sure you’ve got even more stories and memories you can share with us at some point. Yeah, I can imagine. Hopefully, maybe we get another opportunity to explore them at some point. But thank you. I really, really appreciate you sharing that with us. And I’m sure there’ll be a lot of people listening who will have-, it will have sparked their memories for them, too.

 

[00:49:34] – Geoff

I hope so, because I think our age group is the last really. Maybe-, maybe not even 60 year olds, because-,

 

[00:49:44] – Sam

Things change so much.

 

[00:49:45] – Geoff

Yeah. You know, really, yeah. Anyway, would you like to take some homemade biscuits back with you?

 

[00:49:50] – Sam

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

 

[00:49:52] – Geoff

I’ll fill you a little bag up.

 

[00:49:54] – Sam

That sounds great.

 

[00:49:55] – Geoff

You’re welcome. Thank you. Bye.

 

[00:49:57] – Sam

Thank you.

 

[00:49:59] – Sam

It’s time to wrap up another episode of Calder Navigation, and as we do, we want to express our gratitude for joining us on this journey through Calderdale’s stories. We hope these conversations have moved you and reminded you of the power of human connection.

 

[00:50:16] – Sam

Calder Navigation is part of the Welland Activator project aimed at combating loneliness in Elland and Calderdale. A massive thank you to our funders, Calderdale Council, Culturedale and Reaching Communities from the National Lottery Community Fund, empowering us to continue our mission of fostering connection and combating loneliness through projects like the Welland Activator. A big thank you to Untold Creative for production support, too. Remember to subscribe to Calder Navigation on your podcast app, share it with others, and please leave us a review. Keep exploring and connecting until next time.