The year now was 1933, and unemployment was rife. To beat the dole and the apathy of the times, people had to seek and take work wherever it could be found. The alternative was to try and make a few bob off one's own back, so to speak. That was the reason the streets in those days were filled with hawkers of all types. Apart from the mobile barrow boys - of which George was one of many - there were professional beggars and street singers. Sometimes a couple, one pushing a pram, would render a mournful duet and as they reached the corner of the street ready to do the next one, another singer or singers would be entering the street they'd just finished with. There were also many more tramps roaming the streets in those days, and organ-grinders were commonplace.

The rag bone men usually kept out of the streets and their trade was plied in the back entries where they would announce their presence by banging plates together or blowing battered bugles until they were red in the face. All this noise to be followed by the individual and throat strangling cries of 'RAG BONE' or 'BONE'. Most of the cries however, were completely baffling, and if the particular 'tatter' hadn't been known in the area he could well have been taken for a foreigner. Street corners were favourite spots for the spoon players of the day. Anything that might put a few coppers in the pocket was done, and often kept the wolf from the door for yet another day.

Edna's mother was an unfortunate victim of epileptic fits. When Frances was fifteen-years-old, both she and her sister were taken ill with scarlet fever. Frances' sister died from the illness and though Frances survived she was left as an epileptic. The fits would come on quite unexpectedly, and many was the time Edna and her dad, Joe, had to hold Frances down on the floor and try to force a wooden spoon in her mouth to stop her biting her tongue. During a fit, Frances would 'fight like a lion' and Joe and Edna would struggle to contain her. When the convulsion subsided, Frances would sleep for a full twenty four hours and when she awoke she wouldn't remember a thing about it. These fits unfortunately, and obviously, weren't confined to the limits of her own household, and on one occasion, whilst walking down the street, she was taken over by a fit and crashed to the ground face first, smashing her front teeth in. Edna later collected Frances from Ancoats Hospital after being informed by the police. It was a duty Edna performed on more than one occasion as it was a regular occurrence

It was whilst working at the Cambrian Street Mill that Edna and her workmates spent their evening's looking for lads, and the most popular place for these scouting trips was the Cambrian Street Rec' off Beswick Street. The local 'rec' was a much patronised place in those days, especially for teenagers who were on the lookout for members of the opposite sex, hence the visits by Edna and her crew. One summer's evening, whilst larking about on the 'rec', Edna and her friends were approached by a few lads who had rolled up on bicycles. Edna recognised one of the lads as George Siddall and though these two little groups were to meet fairly often, again nothing came of it. George and his mates would let Edna and her crew borrow their bikes for a ride round the streets and the evenings were spent generally larking about and having a laugh. From these meetings on the 'rec', however, Edna Day and George Siddall again went their separate ways. 

George had eventually got out of his nightly firewood round by getting a job at Kidd's Glasshouse on Kirby Street. From there, he moved to Teddy Hill's, where they made donkey stones, and every night before leaving work, George would fill his pockets with donkey stones of all colours, shapes, and sizes. They were also shoved down his trousers, in his waistcoat and anywhere else he could find to put them. Either way, young George would walk out of work each night weighing about 35 stone and looking like Cyril Smith. On the way home George would go knocking on doors, selling his donkey stones at a 1d. a dozen, and every night he sold out.

One evening, as George was waiting for his girlfriend, Margaret Pollitt, outside the Humphrey Cheetham pub in Clayton, Edna Day happened to walk by, and the two of them got chatting. Eventually, George asked Edna if he could walk home with her, and to cut a long story short, a couple of months later they were married. Edna's mother, Frances, didn't like the look of George at all, and forecast that the marriage would not be a happy one. But, despite her mother's objections, the marriage went ahead. George Siddall and Edna Day were married on Thursday July 9th, 1936 at the Cheetham Hill Registry Office. The witnesses were George's sister, Charlotte, and George's best mate, Albert Drinkwater. After the wedding the four of them returned to the two-up-two-down terraced house - 684 Ashton New Road, Clayton - which George had managed to rent in time for them to start their married life together.

The wedding breakfast consisted of a large pan of stew, which George had made before setting off for the Registry Office and which he warmed up on his return. So, the four of them sat down to a basin full of home made stew. After the wedding breakfast was over, George counted the cost of the day's events and found that after laying out 7/6d for the wedding itself; 2/6d for the wedding ring from Woolworth’s, and one or two other things, he was left with three-halfpence - a halfpenny short of the price of five Woodbines. George however, managed to borrow a halfpenny from one of his new neighbours so he was able to get his five Woodbines after all, which made his day complete. George was now a happy man. Not only had he got himself a wife, but five Woodbines as well. What more could a man want.  

George and Edna were given a few items of furniture by the family with which to start their married life, amongst which, was an old rocking chair given to them by Nana Siddle. On the back of the chair were carved the initials of Annie Siddall, George's young sister, who had died the year previously. Annie had loved Nana's old rocking chair and apparently was never off it. She would sit on it every time she visited her Nana, gently rocking it to and fro. Whilst living at 684 Ashton New Road, Edna underwent a very strange experience when one night, as she was bathing her new baby, Marjorie, the rocking chair - which stood in the corner of the room - slowly started to move. Edna noticed the slight movement out of the corner of her eye, then dismissed it from her mind. And then it moved again. 

Edna glanced back at the chair, and watched in horror as the chair began to rock faster and faster and faster; until it reached such a pitch it was rocking violently and wildly out of control. By this time Edna was outside on the pavement, having snatched the baby and a towel to wrap her in, and there she waited for George, who was in the Clayton Arms round the corner. When George came out of the pub, Edna told him what had happened and he entered the house to find the chair completely motionless. Nevertheless, after borrowing an axe from a neighbour, George was just about to hack the chair to bits, but Edna stopped him and took it back to Nanna Siddle's house. Derek was born in that house on Ashton New Road in 1937, Marjorie having been born a year earlier. In 1938, George and Edna moved off the New Road to number 38 Croft Street, Clayton, a little terraced house next door but one to the Victoria pub.  

It was in Croft street that the next two children were born; Beryl on December 23rd, 1938, followed by Roy, on February 19th, 1940. And only a few months prior to Roy's birth, of course, the Second World War had begun. The announcement that we were going to war with Germany was made on September 3rd, 1939, and at that time, George Siddall, was employed making Anderson Shelters in preparation for the outbreak of war. Granddad George Siddall was also employed making Anderson shelters, and the foreman over the two George's was Joe Day, Edna's dad. 

Shortly before the declaration of war, families started to be evacuated from the towns and cities and were sent into the countryside where, it was hoped, they would be out of harms way. The clouds of war were gathering very quickly by this time and on Day two of evacuation Edna was on her way with the three kids. She set out on the Saturday morning to Victoria Station which, by the time Edna arrived, was a seething mass of children, all labelled and tagged. Parents, teachers and nurses etc., were all waiting to be despatched to various places of safety around the country. Edna's destination was to be Market Drayton in Shropshire, where she later arrived with Marjorie, Derek and eight-month-old Beryl. 

Edna was taken from the railway station by car to a farmhouse a couple of miles away, where they arrived about dinnertime, having left Manchester at 9 o'clock that morning. On their arrival Edna and the kids were given dinner by the lady of the house and then shown up to their room. Before leaving Victoria Station, everybody on the platform had each been given a bag of food by the W.V.S., and after unpacking all the clothes and food bags, Edna took the kids out for a walk in the countryside. Edna's mind was in a whirl with everything that was happening, and she didn't know what to do for the best. After walking for what seemed like hours, Edna had made her mind up and started to make her way back to the farmhouse. 

On her return, she explained to the farmer's wife that, though there was a war on, she would feel far more settled in her own home in Manchester, and having said that, she went upstairs and repacked everything she'd unpacked only hours earlier. The farmer's wife objected to Edna's decision to go back home, telling her she couldn't leave just like that, as Edna and the kids had been put in her care, and she was being held responsible for their safety and welfare. However, Edna had made her mind up and that was that, and nothing this lady said was going to change it. Edna made her way back to the railway station with the three kids in tow, and soon they were on their way back to Croft Street.

When Edna had left that morning for what was expected to be a long stay away from home, George had kindly invited his brother, Joe, to stay with him as a lodger. When Edna arrived home that evening she found the door locked, however, she knew where George would be; in the pub next door, and that’s where she went. After dragging George out of the pub, he opened the front door for them then disappeared back to the pub. Joe's new lodging's had lasted about half a day, so he went back to his mother's where he could continue fighting with his dad. George's other brother, Fred, had become a professional boxer by this time, and fought regularly at Belle Vue. He was pretty good apparently, which isn't too surprising considering the amount of practice he'd had sparring with his dad. In September 1940, Edna and George moved out of Croft Street, and landed on Farley's Estate in Droylsden, their new address being 25 Mellor Street. And at this address, another five children would be born.  

                                                   Memories of 25 Mellor Street

After war had been declared in 1939, everybody was getting ready for the expected onslaught from the German bombers, but people started to wonder what was going on when, at first, nothing much seemed to be happening. From the declaration of war on September 3rd, 1939, it wasn't until June 20th, 1940, that sirens signaling the first air-raid was sounded over Manchester, and the first H.E. bombs dropped in the area landed on Salford on July 29th, 1940. In the First World War, conscription wasn't introduced until halfway through the war in 1916. When the Second World War started however, conscription was imposed from the start. George's brothers were all called up and dispersed to various parts of the world to fight for their country. 

Edna's two brothers were also called up. Sid travelled the world serving his country, whilst Alf somehow managed to get a 'cushy job' in the stores and never once set foot on foreign soil until he went to the Isle of Man for his holidays in 1959. George never received call-up papers as he was classed as being in a reserved occupation - he was working at Massey's in the machine shop. He did however, volunteer for fire-watch duties, working under the auspices of the Fire Service, where every evening, after the completion of his days work, he was on duty. Later, he volunteered for the Home Guard and was issued with an army uniform and a rifle. He was put on Ashton Moss where his job was on the radio allocation side of the Home Guard Unit. George worked down below in the dugout, and it was his job to keep a watch on the radar screen for any sign of approaching enemy aircraft. If and when anything was spotted, he would give the wire up above to the awaiting 'regular soldiers' who would then get the big guns going.

The first night George got his rifle, he was dead chuffed. When he arrived home he warned Edna that if she ever argued with him again he would shoot her on the spot, without any warning. In response, Edna grabbed the rifle and chased him down the ginnel, where, if she had caught him, she would most definitely have shot him, with even less warning.

On August 8th, 1940, propaganda leaflets were dropped by the Germans over the city of Manchester, containing the message 'Last appeal to Reason'. Along with the leaflets, the Germans dropped a few H.E. bombs which landed in Worsley, shattering a few windows but nothing more. On August 30th, Ardwick suffered its first air raid, when a bomber seemed to have followed the railway lines from Knott Mill. A direct hit flattened two houses in Lime Bank Street, and another bomb made a hole in the railway bridge in Fairfield Street, the latter caused a bus to swerve and run into a brick wall, killing the driver. Many more bombs were dropped on Ardwick that night, but apart from the bus driver, nobody else was killed. The large scale attack on Manchester was yet to come, and when it did, George remembered it well.

The Manchester Blitz began on the night of December 22nd, 1940, and the city centre was soon alight and burning fiercely. The glow from the massive fires lit' up the night sky, and could be seen for miles around. When the attack commenced, George got Edna and the kids into the pantry under the stairs and told to them to lie down face first on the floor. The bombing of Manchester on that never to be forgotten night, was continuous and relentless, and George remembers peering through the front-room curtains and seeing the glow of firelight over the city centre. That first attack on Manchester was soon to be followed by yet another massive German air raid. This second wave of more than one hundred German Luftwaffe carried on the Blitz of Manchester - beginning at 7-15 p.m. on Monday December 23rd, and lasting until 1-30 a.m. on the morning of Xmas Eve, 1940.

After the terrible hammering Manchester had suffered, a count of the dead and wounded was taken. A total of 363 people had lost their lives during the air raids, and 455 were seriously injured, whilst a further 728 casualties were treated in hospital for less serious wounds. The Siddall family, as well as the rest of the people in Droylsden, were fortunate that during the Blitz, Droylsden had remained unscathed. The houses on Farley's Estate were furnished with 'proper' air raid shelters, with roofs made from reinforced concrete. These solid shelters must have been a great comfort to those who lay awake listening to the dreaded overhead drone of German bombers and the not-too-distant explosions as once again our city was under attack. George had fixed up electric lighting in their shelter, and bunk beds were also put in.

The worst damage suffered in the town of Droylsden was when a stick of bombs was dropped at the far end of Greenside Lane. The bombs were 100 pounders, probably intended for a train showing its boiler fire on the nearby railway. Three or four houses were badly damaged and a fire was started, and though two or three people were injured, nobody was killed. The families were evacuated from the demolished houses to the nearest rest centre where they stayed the night. Later in the war, when the Flying Bombs were released by the German's, the nearest they got to Droylsden was Clayton, and apart from an unexploded bomb that landed near Fairfield Wells - and later exploded - that was it. The Siddall's next-door-neighbours in Mellor Street were the Holt's, and whilst George was doing his bit in the Home Guard on Ashton Moss, he worked alongside a very pleasant young member of the Holt family who, unfortunately, was killed not long after joining the forces as a regular soldier.

The rationing of food during the war also included beer and cigarettes and one night, George, having got dressed up to go for a pint, travelled the length of Ashton New Road from the Snipe to Ancoats and never got a drop. The memory of that particular evening is by far the worst memory George had of the war.

After the outbreak of war, coal rationing was introduced, which brings another memory to the fore regarding the Siddall's early days in Mellor Street. During the war years, Edna, and Nellie Hallows, her next door neighbour, often rose at the crack of dawn to head off in the direction of the Vale tip in Clayton, where, along with many more mothers, they would sit on top of the tip waiting for the coal wagons to arrive. Sometimes it was a long wait, but time soon passed as all the mothers would sit about chin wagging and as soon as the first wagon arrived, they were in business. This first tip from a wagon would send all the mothers scurrying and sliding towards the tip bottom, where they would fight like cat and dog over the precious pieces of shiny coal. However, the wagons arrived and tipped their rubbish all day long, so they all got their share eventually and once their carts were full, Nellie and Edna would push their 'bounty' all the way home to Mellor Street, the two of them bearing a strong resemblance to Al Jolson. However, their carts full of coal would keep their kids warm for the next few days, and that was what mattered.

The war was coming to an end by this time, but not before the German's scared the living daylight's out of Edna. One morning, Edna was taking the kids to school and as she reached the canal bridge a German bomber flew right over her head. It was so low she had to run over the bridge and hide on the canal towpath until it disappeared out of sight. She clearly remembers seeing the Swastika's on the underside of the bomber's wings, and her knees were still knocking a couple of hours afterwards. 1945 saw the end of the war, and on May 8th - V.E. Day - a street party was held to celebrate. Tables and chairs ran down the length of Beech Avenue from top to bottom, and festivities continued long into the night. George and Edna, along with Jack and Nellie Hallows, finished their celebrations in John Street Club where, as well as the beer, a fish and chip supper was enjoyed from the chippy facing the club.

Most of the people from Farleys Estate were in John Street Club that night, and a good singsong was had by all. World War Two had been a war with a difference. For the first time in history, civilians had seen the violence that comes with war brought to their own doorstep. Up until 1939, wars had been kept at a respectable distance, but from that date on, the whole of the human race would live under a shadow of fear. The First and Second World Wars had left horrific and terrifying tales to be told, whereas a Third World War would probably leave no tales to be told, and no one to listen if there were.

*            *            *            *            *

On Tuesday morning , August 17th 1943, yours truly was born, though due to my birth, Edna, my mother, became very ill and developed pneumonia.  However, it would have taken more than pneumonia to see mother off,  and thankfully,  she soon recovered.  My memory's of life as a child in Mellor Street begin just after the war, and are of long, hot summer days, and of even longer, cold winter nights; when we'd settle down in front of the fire and listen to the radio, read comics, or in my case sit drawing until bedtime. Comics were a popular pastime in the late forties and early fifties, and many was the night I'd venture out into the darkened streets to swap comics with Ian Holland, Les Higgins, Ernie Beedham, Eric Lewis, Alan Gallagher and Colin Plonk &tc.        

Another trip into the black of night was the long walk to John Street chippy on a Saturday night, from where I used to fetch Roy and Beryl their supper of steak pudding, chips, peas and gravy, whilst I got a lousy six-pennerth-o-chips for going. Those were the winter nights when Roy used to sit by the living-room fire, and rather than move when he got too warm, he'd give me threepence to get him a cup of water from the kitchen tap to cool him down a bit.

When I think back to those days of my youth in Mellor Street, our Roy seems to take a prominent role in almost everything I can remember.  For instance, one dreary, grey Saturday in early winter,  when I was about seven years old,  I remember going with Roy and Eric Lewis to the croft which lay in the grounds of Christy's Mill on Ashton New Road,  where,  after mooching about doing nothing in particular,  Roy spotted what appeared to be a case ball lying partially hidden in a clump of grass.  As it turned out,  any thoughts we had of having a 'kick about' were soon forgotten when we discovered that the 'case ball' was in fact, a solid stone ball,  which weighed about ten pounds.  Whilst the three of us stood examining the ball, a couple of lads from John Street turned up, and one of them, Ray Goole, asked Roy what we were doing. After throwing a crafty look at me and Eric in turn, Roy told him we were playing football.

Raymond asked if he and his mate could join in as they were just in the mood for a game of football, and after a bit of thought, Roy told him they could.  "Ere, 'ead this back to me,"  Roy shouted,  "A'yer ready?"  Eager Raymond, who was jumping up and down in anticipation was more than ready, and got himself set to 'smack' the ball straight back to Roy as hard as he could. (I couldn't believe what was happening.) Roy threw the solid stone ball high - or as high as he could - into the air and an excited Raymond leapt from his crouching position like a coiled spring.  Raymond's head met the ball with all the force he could muster from the strength of his youthful neck muscles and,  needless to say,  the poor lad instantly hit the deck.  I can vaguely recall poor Raymond opening his eyes for a few seconds to thank Roy for the game of football, before slumping back into unconsciousness.  I don't think the poor lad was ever the same after that.                           

       Roy & Dave 1955

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