Christine Wheeler (nee Hartley)

Totley in the 1920s

While staying in Matlock with my brother and his wife last Autumn, I was taken to look at Totley and district where we were brought up and which I left forty years ago. How it has changed! But it set me remembering. 

I was born in 1923 at 192 Baslow Road, The houses and bungalows had long gardens back and front and there were children of comparable ages in most of them so my brothers and I never lacked playmates. Neither did we lack a playground for there were the continuous gardens for our games, fields opposite (with corncrakes and moonpenny daises in those days), the Bank down to Totley Brook with its woods and the river itself. When the family went for a walk there were the little lanes round Totley and the Moors beyond. 

In the summer we spent many hours in the Brook down by the footbridge. Shallow and stony, there were endless possibilities, catching sticklebacks, turning over the stones to look for caddis fly larvae or just moving the stones to make dams and ponds. I expect we arrived back home wet and muddy to meet our mothers wrath, but I don't I remember that. There were fields either side of the main road between Heatherfield and Totley Rise before Mr Laver and Mr Marcroft built their housing estates and I remember the bullocks standing by the wall under the shade of the trees as we walked down the road to the Rise for shopping. The traffic was not so heavy and we could go errands and cross the road with no danger. 

The shops are very clear in my memory. On the Rise there was Harrisons the grocer and wine merchant, Mr and Mrs Cartledge the butcher, Mrs Jackson at the Post Office, Wints' another grocer, a bakers and next door Mrs Spring the sweet shop - she sold delicious home made ice cream in the summer, Then came Mrs Greaves the drapers. She also sold toys and we spent a lot of time with our noses pressed to that window. Mr Roebuck the chemist was next door, then Mr Chambers, the fish shop, A fish and chip shop next and then a row of cottages before the newsagents at the very end where the back lane curved behind it with the Mill meadow beyond. I hardly recognise the Rise now with its dual carriageway. 

Over at Greenoak near our home there was a very useful, little sweetshop for spending our Saturday pennies, lollipops, sherbet and two ounces of sweets at twopence a quarter! Mr Clayton the cobbler was also here, his shop was his workshop and smelt of leather and varnish, and had shelves of shoes waiting to be mended and collected. His machinery roared and clattered while you waited to be served. Is there a shop like that anywhere today? The Co-op was beside the Hall and my small sister was fascinated by the spring and overhead wire which look the money to the cash desk in the corner. I can still remember my mother's Co-op number having been sent on countless errands. Greenoak Hall was exciting; our parents had our joint parties there with the other children, and my Mother and Father, very dashing, used to go to dances there, all dressed up leaving us in the care of the maid. 

When I was seven we moved down to Totley Brook Road and life was never quite the same. I suppose we were growing up too with new interests but I often feel sorry for my younger sister who never had that freedom which we had. She does remember the shops though!

April 1988

Schooldays in Totley in the 1920s

There was a choice between the Council School up in Totley Bents or one of two little private schools. Dore and Totley High School in a large house on Grove Road run by a Miss Trott or Norwood High School for Girls, Preparatory for Boys, run by two sisters Miss Crossland and Miss Ethel. This was housed in Dore Union Church Hall on Totley Brook Road. This was the one we all went to. The Church Hall would look very odd today. It was built of corrugated iron painted green. It was replaced by the present hall in the late twenties. 

I shall never forget the teachers. I was taught by Miss Ethel for most of the time. She was small and thin with glasses. Her hair was dark grey with plaits twisted over her ears in a style called "earphones. She was sharp and you minded your p's and q's. Miss Crossland took the older girls. She was taller and rounder and had beautiful snow white hair waving softly back from her face and dressed in a bun at the nape of her neck. She was very dignified and much respected. 

The teaching methods would make a modern teacher laugh. We had copy books with copperplate writing - at first words then sentences - on alternate lines to copy. Much heavy breathing and protruding tongues assisted this work. Reading - well a few of us at a time stood in front of a roll of large shiny wall pictures. They showed girls in pinafores with cats, dogs, or toys with a sentence along the bottom.

September 1990