Over the past four years, Saddleworth Voices have recorded almost 70 interviews to preserve fond memories and anecdotes of all things local.
With the support of Saddleworth Parish Council, Delph Community Association, Delph library, Saddleworth Museum, and the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe, the team of volunteers has created an oral record of our times, with the added advantage of capturing accent and dialect.
Copies of the recordings are currently available in Delph library, Saddleworth Museum, and at the NWSA.
Here, Julie Green, nee Good, born in Uppermill in 1955, looks back at her life surrounded by relatives, especially on the Burns side.
Her grandad Burns was badly gassed in the First World War and died in his fifties. Her great aunt Sarah took bodies into her front parlour from the 1949 BEA Douglas DC3 Dakota aeroplane crash on the moors which killed 24 people, when the mortuary next door could not cope.
Her mother was cook at the Wagon Inn and Julie often helped serving on. Julie attended Lee Street School, and then Colne Valley High School in Slaithwaite to where she used to catch the bus from Uppermill (or hide round the corner till it left!)
Once, however, she and her friends Lesley Schofield and Hillary Fielding missed the bus and decided to walk the ten miles to school. It took several hours but when they arrived instead of receiving praise for their efforts they received a telling-off for being late!
The Saddleworth of her childhood was one where everyone knew everyone else and “as a child you couldn’t get away with anything”!
Julie remembers the Grey Lady in the park in Uppermill as a ghost and at night if you went through the park “you used to run like heck!”
As a 17-year-old, Julie took a job as an au pair in Germany and later she worked in Butlin’s. In her late twenties, she returned home for Band Night felt homesick, met David Hirst, married him, and stayed. They ran a hotel business on a 72 foot narrow-boat.
Now, Julie is very involved with Boarshurst Band Club, which is a centre of the Greenfield community. As a long term resident, she has very fond memories of the excellent Saddleworth traditions such as the Rushcart ceremony, the Beer Walk, Saddleworth Morris dancing, and Whit Friday (for which as a child her relatives would each give her sixpence for her new clothes bought specially for the church procession).
She is a keen line dancer and in the 2002 Commonwealth Games closing ceremony she and Gaye Lewis formed part of the left wing of the dove of peace.
Her husband, Dave, passed away in 2008, and Julie is now married to Steve who was born in the house next door to where Julie was born!
Julie has seen a lot of changes in Saddleworth but she says it’s still a really warm and friendly place and she would not want to live anywhere else.
