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, Martin Plant looks at the life of Anne Parry.
Anne was born in 1930 and has lived in the same house in Grasscroft all her life.
The Grasscroft of her childhood didn’t feel like a suburb – it was rural with cattle in the fields and fewer trees.
Her abiding interest in nature came from her grandfather. A very early memory is of walking with him along the canal and she was carrying a dead heron but she can’t remember why!
Anne attended Friezland Elementary School, which had around 100 pupils during the war years as numbers were swelled by evacuees from major cities.
She enjoyed school even if she was once caned for creating a disturbance by showing off her new watch! Later, she attended Hulme Grammar School, which she remembers as being rigid in outlook compared to schools today.
Her mother was a teacher and her father worked for Platt Brothers of Oldham, the biggest cotton machinery factory in the world, employing twelve thousand people in its heyday. He was laid off for some time in the 1930s and during the war worked in Oldham repairing aircraft.
Anne can recall seeing from her house Manchester on fire after a German bombing raid, with the barrage balloons silhouetted against the flames. She remembers a bomb fell on Greenfield cricket ground in 1941 but didn’t go off!
While at school, pupils went to a nearby mill for shelter when the air raid sirens sounded. Her mother knew someone who was killed when a flying bomb landed on Oldham.
The Grasscroft and Saddleworth of her youth were self-sufficient in terms of shops. You could buy anything that was needed, including clothes made to fit.
Entertainment included a cinema in Uppermill and dances in Mossley Mechanics Institute. In summer, people came in droves by bus from Manchester and Oldham.
Holidays for Anne and her parents were often taken in Rhyl where they stayed at a boarding house but took their own food, which the landlady cooked for them.
Anne gained a degree in English and history and mostly worked in adult education. Her interest in local history led to her being a founding member of Saddleworth Historical Society in 1966.
Now it has over 400 members including from overseas. It produces a quarterly bulletin reflecting local research and it has regular meetings and speakers at Saddleworth Museum.
Anne collaborated with Professor Chaloner of Manchester University in writing a book “The Saddleworth American Connection” about locals who emigrated to America, including the grandfather of William Wrigley who founded the chewing gum empire.
Anne is a member of Saddleworth Singers, which gives two concerts a year, usually at Uppermill Methodist Church. She is also a member of: Saddleworth Naturalist Society which has speakers in winter and walks in the summer; Saddleworth ‘91 Club which is a lunch club with a speaker; Saddleworth Civic Trust; Saddleworth Voluntary Services, a lunchtime club held at Uppermill Civic Hall; and Saddleworth Archaeological Trust.
Anne has been a long time helper at Delph Library after an attempt was made to close it in 2004. She and her husband Gordon were members of the British Naturist Society where meets were mostly “private meets” and “mostly down south!”
Anne was a parish councillor for Greenfield ward between 2007 and 2011.
