A Wibsey childhood
Thoughts by David Bland
I am interested in the old characters and places of Wibsey.
My name is David Bland and I lived with grandparents Medley Greenwood Bland and Edith Ann Bland (formerly Ellis) in North Road Wibsey.
I went to Wibsey nursery school - Mrs Dobson I think was the teacher and Wibsey Junior school. That was back in 1953 or thereabouts. Some people I remember are Mrs Warburton who lived at the end of our row of cottages, Moulsons who had the contracting yard and I think owned the field with the turkeys in it that used to fly over the fence and lay their eggs in our garden.
My best friend was John Moulson who lived next door with his sisters Barbara and Rita.
We climbed every tree in the school yard and I shinnied up the drainpipe to get all the tennis balls that were stuck in the gutter, there was a friend of my grandparents called Mr. Bean who had a (very) small holding on a triangular plot of land at the back of the Cozy cinema.
I am only 57 so I suppose you have many people who can remember the horse fair with horses being paraded up and down Fair Road, and the cock pit (was it ever used for cock fighting?) Other names that I remember are Harry Smith an artist who lived with LucyandMary Ann, I called them aunties, I don't know if they were real relatives I think the library was built where their house stood.
There was Wally and Ann Elizabeth who lived somewhere near the top of Holroyd Hill and of course the chap with the Chieftain bike and the totem pole in his garden, (ed. Billy Ellison) There was an old mine shaft at the bottom of the field behind the nursery and you could drop stones down the edge where the slab that covered it didn't quite reach.
I am enclosing a photo of a furniture restoring shop which I believe belonged to relatives of mine, it seems they were one step up from rag and bone men