When I was a child in West End (admittedly a smaller place than it is now) I knew just about everyone who lived there. Some I didn't know as well as others but I could put a name to most faces. And almost everyone knew me and my family.
Within our community there were "sub groups". There were the "Wesleyans", who went to the Methodist chapel, and the C of Es from St Thomas'. I went under another, wider, sub group which took in most of Oswaldtwistle, I was "One of St Mary's". There was also the Spread Eagle Lot, who lived in and around Spread Eagle St., the Thwaites Rd. Lot and "Them from th'Hare" who patronised the local tavern.
To our (my mother's) family there was a group known as "The Co-oppers". They were neighbours who shopped at the local Co-op. In the late 1920s my maternal grandfather, who was a local councillor and owned my aunt's baker's shop in West End, had fought against the opening of the Co-op - purely on the grounds of his own self-interest as he didn't want his trade damaged - and he and my aunts looked on Co-op shoppers as traitors.
School catagorised you too. I was a Paddock Houser, from age 11, and then became one of a new sub group - a teenager - but I still was a West Ender.
The point was everyone knew each other, knew other families' histories, knew each other's business and would rally together in times of trouble or celebration. There was a real feeling of community and of belonging. I don't think you find it so much now and I think we're the poorer for that.
Within our community there were "sub groups". There were the "Wesleyans", who went to the Methodist chapel, and the C of Es from St Thomas'. I went under another, wider, sub group which took in most of Oswaldtwistle, I was "One of St Mary's". There was also the Spread Eagle Lot, who lived in and around Spread Eagle St., the Thwaites Rd. Lot and "Them from th'Hare" who patronised the local tavern.
To our (my mother's) family there was a group known as "The Co-oppers". They were neighbours who shopped at the local Co-op. In the late 1920s my maternal grandfather, who was a local councillor and owned my aunt's baker's shop in West End, had fought against the opening of the Co-op - purely on the grounds of his own self-interest as he didn't want his trade damaged - and he and my aunts looked on Co-op shoppers as traitors.
School catagorised you too. I was a Paddock Houser, from age 11, and then became one of a new sub group - a teenager - but I still was a West Ender.
The point was everyone knew each other, knew other families' histories, knew each other's business and would rally together in times of trouble or celebration. There was a real feeling of community and of belonging. I don't think you find it so much now and I think we're the poorer for that.
