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, Ronald Marriott, who was born in Aberdare in 1920, was interviewed in 2010 and looks back on his life and how he came to live in Saddleworth.
When Ronald was 14 years old, his father, a railway worker, was killed in an accident, and Ronald had to find work to help support the family.
Like most men in the area, he went down the pit. A few years later he was trapped under a fall of coal for eight hours until rescued. His family wouldn’t let him go underground again and, following in his father’s footsteps, he found employment on the railway.
In 1940 he joined the RAF and was trained as a ground anti-aircraft gunner before being sent to Singapore. His ship, the Athlone Castle, was bombed and damaged by a German plane and had to be repaired in Durban.
In 1942 his squadron were withdrawing from the Thai border with the Japanese hard on their heels. Their planes, obsolete Blenheims, were no match for the Japanese fighters. He was bombed in Kuala Lumpur and in Singapore. Many of his squadron were killed.
Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in February 1942 but he managed to escape by boat to Batavia after hiding in a monsoon drain and being helped by some Chinese. He took a ship to Ceylon, surviving another bombing attack when the ship ran into the Second Battle of the Java Sea which saw the Dutch East Indies finally lost to the Japanese.
Ronald was sent to north east India and to Imphal where he was bombed again. The battle was one of the turning points of the Burma campaign. Finally, he was repatriated to the UK.
When his ship docked in Glasgow, Ronald and the returning servicemen had nothing… just the uniforms they stood up in. The Salvation Army was at hand at the dockside and was “marvellous”.
Ronnie was directed to Morecambe where a local policeman had to force the hotel landlord to accept him rather than a holidaymaker.
As luck would have it, there were two girls from Greenfield staying there on a Wakes holiday. One of them, Jean Ainley, looked after him, sharing her food with him and they got on famously. At the end of the week, Jean gave Ronnie a ring and said if he wanted to see her again he should find her and return the ring.
Some months later, Ronnie was demobbed, hitched a lift to Oldham, caught a bus to Greenfield, was dropped off at the King William pub and asked a passerby if he knew Jean.
“As a matter of fact, I do. She works in the mill with me. I’m going back there now and I’ll tell her that there’s someone to see her”.
Jean emerged at the top of some steps, saw Ronnie, and began to cry.
“I’ve brought you your ring back!” said Ronnie. They were married in Greenfield shortly afterwards and had two children, Roger and Barbara.
Ronnie first worked in a joinery for Jack Buckley and then on the railway for 34 years. He helped lay tracks through Standedge tunnel and for the Delph Donkey sidings when the Queen Mother stayed overnight in June 1960.
He was a keen amateur boxer, having won cups while in the RAF and had even sparred with Freddie Mills in an exhibition match in India.
On retirement from the railway, he kept a small-holding and owned shire horses. Every year, St Mary’s Church would receive five dozen “beautiful” eggs to be sold to help raise funds.
He was a Special Constable based in Uppermill for over 30 years and was presented with a medal when he retired as a sergeant.
And his verdict on having lived in Greenfield all these years…….”It’s been lovely”!
