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This is Mellor Street on a quiet, warm summer day in the early sixties. Our house was next-door to Mrs. Hallows's - the one with the bedroom windows open - and behind our house stood Sherr's Mill where dad worked for a time as a boiler man, and also where brother-in-law Eddie Peet lost his arm in a tragic accident. Sherr's Mill was considered to be the cause of much infestation in Mellor Street, and I can easily recall those dark winter mornings when, having rose from my bed and gone downstairs, I was met with the sight of a moving carpet of cockroaches covering the entire floor of our living room.. These cockroaches got everywhere, and woe-betide any member of the family who put their shoes on without first banging them hard against the wall. One morning I walked all the way to school with a large cockroach in my cap, and only discovered it was there when I took my cap off in the school cloakroom. Farley's Estate - on which Mellor Street stood - had been built on the grounds of a vast lime pit, and when the estate was completed it was the builders intention to put the houses on the market for open sale. Before this came about however, the estate was inspected by Droylsden Council and the houses were found to be substandard. It was then decided that the houses should be set up as rentable properties. Many years later, the estate was brought up to scratch and existing tenants were given the opportunity to buy their homes at reasonable prices. That's how my parents managed to become 'property owners' for the first time in their lives. In 1966, my parents, George and Edna, were finally divorced after many, many years of constant and bitter rows. Mother moved out in 1964 and took the youngest kids with her, which left just my father and I as residents of 25 Mellor street. Our family's connection with Mellor street was soon to come to an end however, when a fire broke out during the early hours of a Monday morning in July 1965, which left the whole house gutted. |