Tatham School Memories


 


From Bill Hosfield, Halton

My Mother, Fanny Leeming, was born at Oakhead Mire, Mewith, on 12th October 1888, and lived the first twelve years of her life with the Bland family at Usherwoods Farm. She attended the old school at Tatham Fells, and a copy of the photograph that appears in This Remote School always hung on the wall at our house in Halton. In that photograph she is the second child from the right on the third row from the front. The teacher in the photograph is Miss Croasdale, who according to the book was at the school from August 1895 to some date in 1898, which means that the photograph must date from that period, and that fits in with the age of my mother, who would be around seven or eight when it was taken.

Another child I can identify is Nellie Houghton, who appears third from the right on the front row. Nellie's parents farmed at Fourstones, which is the next farm to Usherwoods. Nellie married Joe Robinson, and she and my mother were friends all their lives. My mother could also name many others on the photograph, but alas, they were never written down.

This Remote School also refers to the Rev. Marshall, and to his death in a cycling accident. This my mother often referred to, as the scene of the accident was at a place called Bottom Dale, on the road from Halton to Slyne.

Another person mentioned in the book was the school attendance officer, Mr. Danson. He lived in Halton, was attendance officer for Halton school in the 1930s, and was well known to me, as his mother was one of our neighbours.

My mother often reminisced about the people she had known at Tatham Fells, and could name all the farms and who lived there, some of these being: Halls at Knott Hill; Claphams at Barley Bank; Hodgsons at Rantree Fold; Grimshaws at Fleet House; and Taylors at the Green Smithy, Bentham. When my mother was well over eighty I took her to see Fred Grimshaw, who was then living in a cottage near the auction mart in High Bentham, and I took them both to visit their childhood haunts.


Page created 20-6-2010. Latest update 20-6-2010
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