I have not mentioned pets, perhaps because of the unfortunate circumstances that seemed to surround them. It was almost impossible to keep a cat for very long, because a man in Shady Grove kept pigeons and he used to put poison down. If his wife saw anyone with a cat she would say, “You’ll not have that for very long, you know Enoch puts poison down” We lost two cats through this, Felix, a black tom, and Whisky, a black and white Persian. He was a very smart cat and there were a lot of tears when he fell victim to the ‘poisoner’. I very much wanted a dog but Mum was not very keen on the idea. However, some people at Rode Heath offered Dad a little black terrier, and Mum agreed to my having it. I called her Betty, a funny name for a dog, but Bet became a constant companion, she went on all our excursions to the wood, and joined in all the games. Then one day she cut her foot on some glass, and though we carried her home and bathed and bandaged it, she was dead the next’ morning. So that was the end of pets for a long time.
I have mentioned that Shady Grove became a cart track after the junction with Wesley Avenue. On the right, it was bordered by a high hawthorn hedge, awash with thick fragrant white blossom in May. Keeping to the right brought you to Shipley’s farm. It was always so called, but it was really just a small holding, about two fields. It dozed quietly under the summer sunshine, no sense of haste or pressure disturbed the tranquility. A moss covered five barred gate, almost hidden in lush grass and buttercups, marked the start of Shipley’s land. (no doubt it had been left open a lifetime before, and over the years nature had fastened it ever more securely so that it would have been impossible to close it. A number of glossy hens forever clucked and foraged in the grass in front of the house. They massed in a feathery cloud in front of Mrs. Shipley when she came out with the corn. They laid rich brown eggs, and it was for these that I was sent to the farm when we no longer had any hens. They also had two or three goats in the field at the back of the house. Mr. Shipley had a mass of curly grey hair, he was only small and sometimes when I went to the farm on a winter day he would be sitting by the fire reading, and I thought he looked like a gnome. He was always very pleasant, as was his wife, she liked to dress in pinks and plum colours, with lots of strings of beads. They had one son, Hollis, who was mentally retarded. Those days people just said he was ‘simple’. His parents looked after him lovingly. sometimes he went to the village, shopping with them. He was very frail physically as well as mentally and he died while just a young man. Fortunately for Shipleys, at about the time that Hollis died, Edgar Taylor was without a home. Edgar was the son of the family who kept the ‘off license’ in Back Lane, just off Shady Grove. The rest of the family had married and left home, Mrs. Taylor had died many years previously, and when Mr Taylor died, Edgar needed somewhere to live. He did not want to run the business, so he went to live with Shipleys. It was an ideal arrangement on both sides, Mr. and Mrs Shipley treated him as a son, and Edgar was happy to be so treated. I think it fair to say that everyone liked Edgar, he was quite handsome and had a very pleasant agreeable manner. The fact that he never seemed to be interested in girls was not commented on. More of Edgar later in the story.
We used to visit friends at Rode Heath. Their name was Sadler. They lived in one of a short row of Georgian houses, just off the main road. The houses stood back a long way from the road, they were double fronted with a long path from the front gate, so that by the time you were half way up the path, Mrs. Sadler would be at the door to welcome you. Ted Sadler, her husband, had been knocked down by a car some years previously, and it had left him badly crippled and unable to go to work. He was a highly skilled decorator of pottery so he had a workshop and a small kiln built in the large garden at the back of the house, he bought the best quality fine white china, decorated and fired it, then sold it without difficulty to a wide range of buyers. His colours and designs were quite beautiful. All the gilding on the china was made from real gold dust! He was helped by his son, Reg, who was also a skilled decorator in the pottery industry. Reg also painted several water colours. The ‘Canal Bridge’ and the ‘Pansies’ were painted by him. Sad to say the lovely old stone bridge in the painting has been replaced by a modern monstrosity. Reg was the same age as my Dad, and Ted and Ella would be, I suppose, in their late sixties when we used to visit them. She was a well educated fascinating woman, and their home .was full of lovingly polished wood, and of course a fair amount of pottery. Visitors were always warmly welcomed, and there were many, but the serious flaw in Ella’s character was the extreme possessiveness that she exercised over Reg. He was their only child, and though when we first knew him he would be in his early forties, he was a totally confirmed bachelor. He was about six feet tall, heavily built, with a good humoured ability to get on with all types of people. It seems incredible that a tiny woman could have so bound him that he had become incapable of forming a life for himself. Over the years he had brought home various girl friends, but Mama had contrived to point out defects and disadvantages in all of them! Of course, it must be said that he must have lacked the desire to free himself from this maternal stranglehold, and eventually he had settled down to a life of cosseted ease, much to his mothers delight. Years later when she had been ill, she confided to Mum that she regretted having persuaded him against marriage. She realized that he would be utterly bereft when she died. Mum and Dad bought a coffee service from Sadlers on the occasion of Aunty Nan and Uncle Tom’s Silver Wedding, the cups and saucers had delicate green panels, and between each panel was a fine scroll design in gold, the rim of the cups and the handles were also gilded. It cost three pounds ten shillings, (special price because they were friends). Still a lot of money in those days. Aunty and Uncle were delighted to have it and I’m glad to say that my cousin Doreen still treasures it today.
I must now mention something which took place years later, about 1945, I think, but as it closely concerned the Sadlers I am including it now: the following account may sound exaggerated, but it is quite true, and I have a newspaper cutting relating to it all. One Sunday evening we were visiting Sadlers when some friends arrived from Kidsgrove. We had met them several times, but on this occasion they had brought a friend with them. She was introduced as ‘Miss. Madeley’, she had been ill and Cyril and Hannah Harding who had brought her, said they thought a little run out in the country, and an evening spent with friends would do her good. She quickly became at ease and begged everyone to call her ‘Nellie’ and the evening passed pleasantly as usual. No one there was aware of what was being set in train by this simple act of friendship! At that time Well’s Bus Service ran buses between Hanley and Sandbach, via. Rode Heath. On the Tuesday morning following the Sunday evening visit, Nellie arrived on the eleven o’clock bus, and made her way to Mrs. Sadlers. “I’ve come to see if I can be of any help”, she said, “Hannah was telling me on Sunday that you had been poorly, so I’m here to do any little jobs that need doing”. Mrs. Sadler murmured something about being delighted to see her, but she could not allow a guest to start doing housework.. “Nonsense” said Nellie, and insisted on being given dusters and the carpet sweeper, etc, in no time at all rugs had been taken up and shaken, and furniture polished, all in a very cheery fashion. “I’ve brought a nice bit of fish for our lunch, and enough for Reg to have some tonight” says Nellie. She cooked the lunch and cleared away and Mrs. Sadler was quite impressed.
In the afternoon, the Vicar of Odd Rode called as was his habit. Nellie made tea, (and conversation.) When she had gone to the kitchen for more milk, the Vicar remarked to Mrs. Sadler, “What a lively person, and how nice for you to be waited on for a change.” When Nellie returned from the kitchen the Vicar asked her if she had to be ‘home early’. “No” said Nellie, “I live with my sister and she knows I’ve come to Rode Heath for the day.” “Well,” said the Vicar, “why don’t you come to our Whist Drive in the Village Institute, we have one every Tuesday at seven thirty”? “Yes I will, I enjoy a game of Whist”, says Nellie. After staying to prepare Reg’s tea, under instructions from Mama as to exactly how he liked it, Nellie departed for the Whist Drive. The following Tuesday was almost a repeat performance, including the Whist Drive. Then the Vicar called to see Mrs. Sadler again, and after some beating about the bush, he said, “er, your friend, Miss. Madeley, I’m very impressed by her competence and her cheerful nature, do you think, er, that is, I m wondering whether I could ask her to be my housekeeper, what do you think?” Now, here Mrs.Sadler is revealed as a bit of a snob. She said, “Well of course Nellie is indeed all you say, but I hardly think that she would be a suitable type for a clergyman’s household, after all, one has to think of entertaining people, the Bishop, for example, or Sir Phillip and Lady Baker Wilbraham, (the family at Rode Hall) “One can hardly imagine Nellie coping with that”. The subject was closed and the Vicar left. However, when three Tuesdays had gone by, and the pattern established, Mrs. Sadler was telling Mum the story up to date, and also her horrifying conclusions! “I‘m perfectly certain that she is after Reg,” she said, “checking with me that she is preparing his meal to his exact liking, constantly anticipating his every need, “another cup of tea Reg? more bread and butter’? though I must admit that she behaves in much the same fashion towards Ted and I, but I’m so afraid that Reg will fall into her grasp, I admit that I should have allowed Reg a little more freedom when he was younger, and I would like to think that he would have a suitable wife to care for him when I am gone, but not someone like Nellie, it’s just unthinkable my dear.” Mum muttered something about, “Well perhaps Nellie will get tired of coming, or in any case, Reg may never even have considered the possibility, But Mama was apprehensive. Then the next Tuesday evening, two old ladies of the village walked home from the Whist Drive, and stopped at the home of one of them for a cup of tea and a chat. A little before eleven o’clock the visitor said she must be going, but on going to the door they found that it was raining heavily. The hostess found her umbrella and decided to see the visitor home. Imagine their amazement when passing the bus stop, to see the Vicar and Nel1ie waiting for the last bus! “He was holding his umbrella over her and obviously she must have been visiting the Vicarage after the Whist Drive”, they remarked to their friends, the next morning when going the rounds to give them the news. At that time there was a small local paper called ‘The Alsager Times’. It published all manner of information and bits of village gossip, not only about Alsager, but over a wide local area. naturally they could not fill a newspaper with what was happening in Alsager, A few weeks after Nellie and the Vicar had been ‘seen sharing an umbrella’ the Alsager Times had, on its front page, “Vicar of Odd Rode Married”. There followed an account of how their reporter had tried to find out details of the wedding, with little success. He had discovered however, that the Vicar’s bride was a Miss. Madeley, from a small street in Tunstall, it was believed that they had met at the home of some friends in Scholar Green. The whole account was unkind, and in very bad taste. When Nellie and her husband returned from the honeymoon, they very quickly moved to another living. I suppose they felt that they could not face the so called ‘Christians’ at Odd Rode.