Memories of a verger Part 1

A Verger’s memories of St. John the Baptist

Robert – ‘Bob’ Kirkpatrick became verger at Hey on 4th April, 1943 and he came to The Ladies Society twice to entertain us with his memories, we recorded his recollections and I here is a transcription of the tape recording.  With only minor editing for interruptions etc. what you are reading are Bob’s own words……

‘I began at Hey St. Johns 5th April, 1943 and when I went for the interview, and was accepted I wondered what I had let myself in for, because it was Caretaker at the Day School, Verger and Sexton (which is a new name for grave digging of course) and Pew Rent Collector.  Seven shillings a year was the Pew Rent, and woe betide anybody who sat in the wrong seat, there was no words exchanged but the faces showed, of course.
I had an old friend who was at the Day School at that time, and a chap called Baggot was the Headmaster, of course, I got a lot of information from him.  The school was a difficult building, it was a massive great height, the hall, as was the Infant School – a terrific height and the three pokey little classrooms and it was terrible place in winter, freezing cold.  It used to blow over the open fields from Austerlands top and all the toilets were at the top end of the yard, thirty or forty yards away and the doors were left wide open and the result was that I finished up about a couple of degrees higher up at tea time than I did when I started.

But anyway, to begin with the church I think you all know the history of it where you had to go to Ashton to be baptised, or married, that was a long trip wasn’t it, so there was a little Chapel of Ease built.  There was no Waterhead, no Scouthead, no Lydgate no Leesfield, nothing, and it was all on it’s own was Hey, and it came under the diocese of Chester and it started off from there and of course it grew and grew and we have it as it is today.  It did undergo one outside change, the windows were arched Norman style, whereas now they are pointed, so … to get into the interior, one of the first major changes was during Ernest Buckley’s stay at Hey, and the galleries ran all the way right round from the East wall, right the way round the choir and the organ right the way to the other wall.  Ernest decided he would open the Chancel up because it was badly overshadowed.  He decided the gallery would have to be cut back into the Nave, quite a way and that opened it up, but he took a terrific amount of stick over it because it was all right up to a point, but when it had been done the massive pulpit stood out like - oh I don’t know what it stood out like. It was on a plinth and a pedestal and there was an alabaster staircase up to it and it was really, oh a long way up.  Of course the balcony in those days would be full, preaching to a full church then - the Reverend Grundy.  His tablet used to be on the floor in the Chancel and it was taken up and put on the wall, and Ernest decided he would remodel it and the pulpit stood out, massive thing it was.  I don’t know how many pieces it was in, he had a monumental mason pull it to pieces, rebuild it and lowered it - very much so.  So that was that for the time being, but the Stamford Mill at that time wasn’t a mill any more, not spinning, and the mill lodge was being filled in and some of the pulpit finished up on that fill-in – oh there was a meeting in church about that.   But he did a good job for me, in my opinion for what it’s worth, it was a jolly good job.  As for the parish itself, it boasted three Sunday Schools, one was at Strinesdale, it’s only about a couple of fields below the Roebuck Inn, one was Austerlands on the corner of Thorpe Road, and one was Shelderslow in Cooper Street.  The Whit Friday walk – that was the walk that was.  We used to assemble outside the church, and the band came from Horbury near Wakefield and they came for over sixty years, and they began hymn singing outside the church, and they marched down to Lees square, there was no library, or any shops, just a police station (it was manned) but also a police cell there if anyone got out of hand.  They used to have a mass sing there, then they all peeled off different ways, and ours was up Oldham Road, Springhead.  We used to sing at Shelderslow School, then march up to Heywood Lane and sing at Austerlands Sunday School, down Austerlands to Stamford Road, and along Stamford Road and that was the finish and you got your bun and your tea.  It was all morning, 9.00am set off to 12.30, this was Whit Friday as it was then – not Whit Sunday, then in the afternoon to the football field, Phoenix, and then later to Woodheads field.

The parish itself has had its fair share of those dark satanic mills, Austerlands, still standing of course,
And then you came down into the village itself, Hey Spinning Company and going along Turner Street, still in the parish was Dowry Mill, and the Oldham & Lees Spinning and coming back into Hey was
Further Hey Mill there, so quite a few for a small parish.  But that was how cotton was, it was ‘King Cotton’ and Waterhead was alive with mills.

The church itself blossomed to the church as it is today, but the second disaster was the fire, during Bernal Kelly’s day, of course once the fire was confined to the roof it was finally decided that the whole place should be cleared out but it was a disaster in itself, it was a masterpiece of an organ that was ruined.  Of course the Fire Brigade are there to get out the fire quick, they get that water going and everything else comes second.  The Greenfield Architect, Mr. Howcroft, did not get on with the job as the PCC would like so he was replaced, and along came John Ashcroft, and they gave him a free hand to set about the whole place, which he did, and as you know it was absolutely cleaned out wasn’t it, the pews the lot, the floors, everything that was wood was out, and he set about restoring it and you have it in its present form now.

A very quiet parish years ago, acres and acres of open land which the developers spotted, and of course they went in, and the parish as it is today unlike its neighbour Waterhead, it was developed and Waterhead was more or less gutted a jolly good knocking about, they smashed it up really and made a lot of old people unhappy.  So anyway then, I’ll just drop in at Waterhead for a minute or two, that was a hive of activity, shops all along Huddersfield Road, whereas in Hey there was very little in shopping.  Dunkerley's shop, which was the subject of a little bit of television, still going, and further down was a Bakers and Confections shop then going to where the Paint and Paper is now was a little branch of the Co-op and then you went down into Lees for the main shopping.  Lees was a thriving township.  Huddersfield Road near Hestair Hope, there’s a sign there, Oldham Metropolitan Borough, Lees, and further up the road is a Boundary stone.  This isn’t the one I rescued that one morning when a YTS group arrived and were going to crack it up. They were getting ready with a sledge hammer, a gang of youngsters, very happy go lucky – hang on a minute, hang on I said.  I went up to Mr. Kelly and told him what was going on, if you want to save it he said you get it saved.  Anyway there it stands now; you can nearly fall over it as you come out of the west door, can’t you.

The old School was given by Austin Ogden, a cotton merchant I suppose he would be because the Ogden family were quite wealthy.  It was 1884 that Rev. Grundy’s wife opened it, and it was run by a group of Managers,  and the Vicars at that time had very little say, but they had a seat on the Board of Managers, but that was the way it was in those days.  But it niggled the then vicar, he was a bit upset I think was Richard Jenkins.  Inside there was a mounted brass plaque, most of you have probably seen it.  There are fifteen children on there, and the fifteenth was Decimus Quintus!    In the old records down in Manchester, the comment was ‘Robbed by guile of his situation’.  There might have been a bit of skulduggery there you know.  I don’t say it applied to Mr. Mattinson himself, but it’s written in, ‘robbed by guile’.  Inside the church there was at least a dozen graves which they found during the main restoration, they scooped the whole floor, lifted the soil up, and where the two pillars are, where you came in at the main door, at the bottom of one is an iron coffin, how that happened I don’t know.  One of the workmen said ‘here what do you make of this’ – it was a new one to me.  There must be a dozen graves inside so it must have been built on a burial ground, must have been - surely they wouldn’t have built it and then started burying people inside!
(A little discussion followed with reference to a letter received a long time ago, from the then Bishop of Chester, saying that they could not bury people in church, something which had begun to happen because of grave robbers, so Bob agreed that this might explain the graves inside the church).

Kath Sellars