{"id":3045,"date":"2021-05-23T17:43:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T17:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3045"},"modified":"2021-05-23T17:47:15","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T17:47:15","slug":"monica-huckwell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/?page_id=3045","title":{"rendered":"Monica Huckwell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Monica-Huckwell-180710_0040.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Monica Huckwell interviewed by Arlene Ellis 10<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;July 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a>I was born in Brigg, in Lincolnshire, a long time ago. My connection to the village was my two great aunts lived next door to each other, one in the house that I live in and one next door. When my aunt Monica died, she left the house to my mum. It sounds very posh this and it wasn\u2019t. We used to come up here for our holiday. I would be about ten or eleven. It wasn\u2019t very far, it was quite easy on the train because we didn\u2019t have a car then. We used to come up here for a few days or a week or so for our holiday from Lincolnshire.&nbsp;<\/a>That was when I started coming up, I suppose in the early sixties when my aunt died. I only go back that far and my mum\u2019s family goes back a lot further. When we first came here somebody mentioned a quoit pitch. I never played but I remember it being there. Same with the water pump.&nbsp;<a>The only thing I did do when we used to come up is meet up with some of the youths on the green and go mushroom picking. At some stupid time, why you have to go at stupid times to pick mushrooms, I don\u2019t know if they disappeared during the day or whether it was just a ploy to get us to go down the fields, I\u2019ve no idea. That was Jean Hardy\u2019s son, David, and Phillip Binch, bless him he died. It was a nice time, every time we came up, you\u2019d meet up with a little gang. I don\u2019t think we knew what we were picking to be perfectly honest! But it was an adventure, at 5 o\u2019clock or some stupid time.<\/a>&nbsp;Otherwise you didn\u2019t go out anywhere, you just made your own fun, of course you did in those days. You weren\u2019t really encouraged to go down to the fields very much, although people did. The farmer used to have the most beautiful racehorses, which he trained, and of course you know how spirited they can be, so we weren\u2019t encouraged to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1968 I came to live up here. At that time, we\u2019d rented the house out to my ex biology teacher and her husband, whose name was John Slack. He got involved with the amenity\u2019s society. They moved out and I moved in. So that was the start of me living in this area. I did move out and come back again a couple of times, as you do, marriages and things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;It was a very slow village then, very slow. Everybody knew everybody else. There seems to be an awful lot of elderly people, I suppose I\u2019m one of them now, but at the time there was a lot of elderly people living in the village that were real characters. Lovely, lovely characters. You knew them all and there also seemed to be an awful lot of children, which there aren\u2019t anything like as many now, or they don\u2019t come out to play.&nbsp;It\u2019s very different now. The main thing is three quarters of the people work. I think they\u2019re all out, that\u2019s the problem. There isn\u2019t as much community as there was.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;I started in \u201968, when I was 18, I started my life up here and it was very different to Lincolnshire. The Post Office was there where Janet Hardy lives now. Her mum ran it and it was a little shop and Post Office. It was very handy because there was only Yarm then, there wasn\u2019t Orchard Estate, there wasn\u2019t anywhere. If you couldn\u2019t get it at the local shop you didn\u2019t have it basically. There are other people I remember, like Mr. Bretherton the coal man. I know a policeman used to come to the village but I don\u2019t remember one actually living in the village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a>I got a job and then my mum came to live up here to look after my daughter. It was the first job I\u2019d ever had in my life. I remember going for the interview and I was offered \u00a310 a week. I remember going home and saying to my mum, \u201c\u00a310! We\u2019re going to be rich! Look at all the money we\u2019re going to have.\u201d They contacted me, I think they came around, obviously there wasn\u2019t mobile phones and things then, and I think they said would I like the job and could I start the next day? It was like, \u201cyes, I think I will.\u201d It was just at the industrial estate at Eaglescliffe. I was there quite a while. It was a big Scania lorry place. I enjoyed that job.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a>When my daughter was born, she was very, very premature, not compared to now but she was only 4lb and that was quite small then. I was allowed to bring her home as long as I kept the temperature at a reasonable level. Although I did think \u00a310 was a lot of money it wasn\u2019t. It was a job keeping the place warm. Mr. Bretherton, bless him, he used to knock on the door and say, \u201cHave you got enough coal?\u201d and I\u2019d say \u201cno, Mr. Bretherton, I don\u2019t get paid until Tuesday, Wednesday\u201d, whatever date it was, and he would always leave me a sack of coal so that I had warmth for the baby, which was lovely. I did actually contact his relative not that long ago and say thank you because it was such a lovely thing for him to do. The milkman, Tommy Stafford, was exactly the same, he would always make sure I had milk.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before my mum came up, she still was still in Lincolnshire. When my dad died, she said she would stay a year down in Lincolnshire before she came up. There was only me, I was an only child. She stayed a year to the day and then said right, I want to be up, so within 24 hours we\u2019d packed her up and we brought her up here. She lived here and because she\u2019d sold that house [in Lincolnshire], she managed to get us a little house on the estate. My godmother from London came to stay with us, so they lived together. It was company for both of them, they were both wacky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Living next to us after my other great aunt died, my great uncle lived there. Harold Hale, he was called. He sold the house to Mrs. Redfern, who was a Binch. The Binch\u2019s had bought the nurseries from our family and they ran it as a nursery after us. I didn\u2019t know any of them because that was a little while before me. I do remember it being run as a nursery. I remember the Binch\u2019s using it as a nursery. They had people in the two houses there. It was always nice to have that connection. I can only say stories that I tell are only what my mum told. I wish she was still here to be able to tell them. It\u2019s always when you look back now and think I wish I\u2019d listened; I wish I\u2019d written it down. I was looking at photographs this morning and turning them over and thought why didn\u2019t mum put a name on the back.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mum must have known the village fete when it was on in the rectory grounds. That was lovely. You didn\u2019t think of it as an old-fashioned fete at the time, but I suppose it was. It was lovely to see a little film about it, that was really nice. It wasn\u2019t back to the crinolines, but I remember bits of it. It was a very nice fete. It moved so it changed quite a bit. I think it went to the school and it was never quite the same. Otherwise, things like Yarm Fair,&nbsp;<a>we went to Yarm fair. It was for potato picking week which was October. I only ever went potato picking once and it broke my back. Being tall you didn\u2019t do jobs like that. Because it was potato picking week people were off, so that was when they decided they could have the fair, because more people were able to go. That was different as well, now it\u2019s probably only half of what it used to be. T<\/a>hey still have the riding of the Yarm fair. It is very different because even the Gypsies don\u2019t particularly want horses, they have them but not how they used to.&nbsp;I very much like it but then I don\u2019t have any connection particularly with Yarm in that I haven\u2019t got a business or anything. I suppose it must be hard for them, for people who\u2019ve got businesses, but the atmosphere is fantastic, even just to walk through it is lovely.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was such a disappointment when the bonfire on the green was stopped. But it\u2019s what happens now, it\u2019s called a claiming society. It was lovely. It was the building of the bonfire and the ritual of lighting it. It was still going in the morning and you went out there and put a potato on in the morning and took the kids to school and when you came back the potato was done. It was nice times. They did grass seed for a long time and then they decided to take up the turf. That was better. They could take the turf up then put it back down and nobody knew it had been done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My eldest daughter, the one that\u2019s 50 this year, she was in Brownies and guides. My son was in Cubs and my youngest daughter did Brownies, I think she passed on Guides to be honest. She didn\u2019t like any of that. All of them still call it home, so that\u2019s nice. They had connections, and of course going to school here. There were school fetes that used to come round onto the green. I was looking at some pictures today of my children in the maypole dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My son was saying, \u201ccan you remember when my mum lived here and she used to send me to the pub for a bottle of soda water\u201d. You press the side and it shoots out, it\u2019s really old. You delivered the empty glass syphon and you\u2019d get one full. My mum used to ask my son to go because it was really quite heavy, he was allowed to get a packet of crisps and a pickled egg at the same time. That was his payment for going. That was yet again run by lovely characters. I can remember quite a few of them. I loved the story about the keys, I could totally know that would happen. I\u2019m not saying people aren\u2019t honest now but they\u2019re not as honest as they used to be. You could leave doors open. We never could because there was a teenage girl who used to escape her mum and run into our house, because she knew my mum would spoil her and give her biscuits. She used to wrap herself around one of the chairs and wait for her mother to come take her away again. We never locked the door until she started coming in. We had to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My great great-grandad, William Nicholson, who I was telling you about, bred a strawberry variety of his own. It was quite famous apparently.&nbsp;I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that difficult to grow a strawberry but still, it\u2019s a claim to fame!&nbsp;I\u2019ll show you a picture of my great granddad, we have a beautiful picture that we usually have above the fireplace. He ran the nurseries at the back. I\u2019ve yet to find it, but somewhere I have a very big ledger, which is sort of a cashbook. It tells the wages, which wasn\u2019t a lot at all, and how much they got for goods and all sorts, which is quite interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He got the bits of cross on the green together, apart from the top bit that\u2019s still missing. He put it back together and put little railings around it and sort of said \u201cwe\u2019re keeping this bit\u201d. It\u2019s got a plaque on it with his name which is nice. I\u2019ve often either sat on those chairs or met people that are there and they\u2019ve said \u201cwouldn\u2019t it be nice to know who he was \u201c.&nbsp;&nbsp;I do!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was told by my mum that my great great-grandfather, who had the nursery, was asked to go and buy the trees to plant on the green. Every one of them is different. I\u2019ve got a picture of each one because my uncle was a horticulturist. He took pictures of every one and tried to get the names of them all. I\u2019d asked the Parish Council if there was any chance they could have a little brass plaque on each tree. It would be quite an interesting thing for Brownies or Guides to go around and see all the different names. But it never came to fruition. I think they ran out of money. As I say I\u2019ve got a picture of each tree and my uncle named most of them. Two or three of them are acers, but they\u2019ve got different names. That was quite interesting, he loved coming up and seeing those.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Funnily enough we had the arborists here last week. They were cutting the branches and I said something about the tree on the corner outside our house. He said \u201cI hate those. I hate limes, can\u2019t bear them.\u201d I said I can remember when it was planted it was a twig. Before it was a lime it was an elm. It got Dutch Elm so they had to cut it down 30 years or more ago. It\u2019s grown substantially and it is a magnificent tree. As an arborist I don\u2019t know why he doesn\u2019t like lime. There will be a reason but I didn\u2019t ask.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monica Huckwell interviewed by Arlene Ellis 10th&nbsp;July 2018 I was born in Brigg, in Lincolnshire, a long time ago. My connection to the village was my two great aunts lived next door to each other, one in the house that I live in and one next door. When my aunt Monica died, she left the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3045","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3046,"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3045\/revisions\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egglescliffeara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}