Memoirs by Annie Higginson

I started going to the Church of England School at Pilling after the Easter holidays in 1915. The first term after Easter was the start of the school year. The headmaster was Mr. Thomas Richards, he taught Standards five, six and seven.  Mrs Richards taught in the infant's room, baby class and first class, Miss Hargreaves was the teacher of Standards one and two and I always remember her wearing a light green blouse and a dark green skirt. Miss Jacques taught Standards three and four.

To go to school we walked along the footpaths in two fields belonging to Springfield House and one belonging to Tomlinsons Farm. We then came into Libby Lane where there were two semi-detached houses. The first family to live in one was the Ronsons, who had moved from "Irish Robbins" - I remember asking Mother where Irish Robbins was and being told that it was in the fields near Pilling Hall. At the other end of the lane was the new red brick house at Tomlinsons Farm. The old farmhouse with two old cottages attached was still standing. In one cottage lived Bob Cross and his wife Ada - he was nicknamed 'Co.'. If I was going to and from school on my own and he was in his garden he came to talk me.  He had two brothers Dick and Tom, Dick lived rough, sleeping on straw in the loft in the barns at the farms where he worked - his nickname was 'Bidger'. Tom lived in a cottage near the embankment, between Ridge Farm and Cockersdyke - his nickname was 'Cosh'. They were 'Bidger', 'Cosh' and 'Co.'. When houses were demolished, Bob and Ada Cross went to a cottage at Preesall Park and these a family by the name of Hornby lived in the other cottage and moved to the first house on the shore road past Sand Villa at Cockerham.

Across Libby Lane was the cottage where Miss Betty Lambert lived on her own. Next to her was the cottage and grocers shop of Henry Danson. On the other side of Lazy Hill near the marsh was the cottage where James Cookson lived who was the carrier to Preston. I remember seeing his black French Poodle carry papers when walking with Mr. Cookson's daughter.
On the small plot of land near the entrance to the school yard Jimmy Alty from Vine Cottage kept hens. In the early thirties two semi-detached houses were built on it. Pass the school, turn right towards the village and on the left stood an old cottage and outbuilding. This cottage had been the post office. Mr. Roberts, the postmaster, had two daughters, one married the Rev. Thomas Pearson, the Vicar of Pilling and the other married Chris Atkinson from Fleetwood. Mrs. Pearson used to teach in the Sunday School. Girls, after they had been confirmed, moved into her class and attended until they were in their early twenties. Vine Cottage is next to the church, here Jimmy Alty lived with two daughters and a son. It was here Dr. Taylor from Stalmine had a surgery on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. The son, Harry, had a fish and chip shop on the south side of the cottage; it was a wooden building and could have been the first in Pilling.

A little further along the road was the village smithy. It was joined on to the Ship Inn by an archway with a room over it in which the Pilling Brass Band used to practice. William Armer was the landlord of the Ship Inn. On the left band side of the road was Lewis' Cafe. Mr. & Mrs. Lewis and their daughter, Dora, lived there. Dora used to teach the piano - she gave twelve one hourly lessons for ten shillings (50p). Across the road was Arthur Simpson's shop and tea rooms. His house and shop were very old property, low and thatched. His tea rooms had been built much later of red brick and I'm sure when you entered you stepped down into a small passage. His shop bell had the loudest clang of any in the district. He must have sold hardware as well as groceries, because be had articles hanging from the ceiling. He was rather stout and he wore a long white apron tied round his waist. A little further on was Mrs. Z. Bleasdale's shop and tea rooms - she always had a glass dish of parched peas on her counter. The tea rooms were in a wooden building at the side of her house and painted at the top of the gable end was 'The Central Tea Rooms'.

Two doors further on was the home of Mr. Johnny Hall who was the sexton at the Parish Church and also the local newsagent. The papers he sold case by train to Pilling Station, Mr. Hall and his daughter collected them on their bikes and folk had to fetch their own from Mr. Hall's. Across the road standing end to the road was 'T'Owd Ball' which had been the Golden Ball until 1904 when a new one was built near the school. It had some farm buildings attached to the house. The Ship Inn, the Old Golden Ball and Elletson Arms all had a few acres and the buildings at Elletson Arms stood where the car park is.

We next walked across a triangular plot of land which we knew as the Pinfold. At the other end, which was narrower, was part of a wall which would have been part of the pound for keeping stray animals. To our left were the cottages known as The Old Bell. In the end one lived Mr. Johnny Webster the butcher. His shop was a wooden one, a lean-to at the end of his house with a thick chopping block and sawdust on the floor. I used to go with one of my older sisters who had to fetch a roast of beef for two shillings (10p) and sometimes sixpennyworth of liver (2.5p)

Soon after I started school I saw for the first time a herd of suckling cows. Mr. Corless had bought 12 Hereford cows and their calves. They were in one e of the fields we walked through to school. Going home for dinner one hot summer's day there was a weasel and four young ones stretched out on t footpath fast asleep. I stayed for a second or two to look at them then hurried away, I thought the mother might bite if she woke up. Playing in the field near home I would sometimes talk to Reubin Parkinson, the mole catcher. Be always wore a long overcoat, almost down to his ankles and it was buttoned up to the neck. His companion was a liver and white spaniel dog and be lived in one of the two old cottages behind Bodkin Hall, known as Ling Bow.

I might have been six or seven years old when I saw, for the first time, a Char-a-Banc - it was going through Lancaster. My parents and I were in the upstairs drawing room at the Farmers Arms in King Street, Lancaster. Mrs. Bousfield, the landlady, was with us when a maid came in, so excited saying, 'There is a Char-a-Banc coming', so we went to the windows to look. I always remember it as a long grey vehicle with doors down the side and people, wearing dark clothes, sitting from one side to the other. It went down Thurnham Street. Mrs. Bousfield was wearing a fawn coloured dress with a dark brown collar and was standing in front of a sofa upholstered in yellow material.

Mother, two of my sisters and I were going home from a service at the Wesleyan Chapel one night in October 1917 when one of my sisters said, 'Just look at those shadows passing over our house' when Mother said, 'Yes, when you see shadows flitting across a whitewashed house it is a sign that something terrible is going to happen'. She had hardly got the word 'happen' out when there was such a loud bang and the sky to the north was lit up with what looked like debris thrown up. With one voice, the others said, 'White Lund'. There was a munitions factory at White Lund between Lancaster and Morecambe and there had been an explosion there. One evening in late summer 1918 my sister and I went watch a Fordson Tractor being demonstrated in a field the south side of Head Dyke Lane. This field used to be part of Holme Farm, Smallwood Hey, farmed then by John Holden. After the First World War was over, it was divided into two and let to two local ex-servicemen.

In school holidays I would sometimes go with Mother to Fleetwood. We would go in Limerick Thornton's horse drawn waggonette to Knott End and then across by ferry boat.