Sir Ernest and Lady Craig lived at Milton House, they were secluded behind a high fence and shrubbery on the Station Road side, and a six foot high wall on the Crewe Road. This wall extended the length of the space where there is now a lovely green and flower bed opposite St Mary’s Church. I only saw Lady Craig once, and I don’t remember seeing Sir Ernest. They were not involved with the life of the village at all. The two old type bungalows on Crewe Road belonged to them. The gardener, Sam Rigby lived in one, and people called Painter, who also worked for the Craigs, lived in the other one. We used to visit Sam and Ethel Rigby, they had two daughters, Winifred and Dorothy. Sir Francis and Lady Joseph lived at ‘The Gables’ in Church Road, with their two daughters, Rosamund and Cynthia. The house was quite large and stood in a lot of lawned garden. It has now been demolished, and the rather exclusive estate called The Gables, now stands on the site. Lady Joseph was one of the daughters of Joel Settle, who had built a house called ‘The Hill’. Sadly, his sons were killed in the first world war, and the house eventually came into the possession of Sir Francis and Lady Joseph. They immediately re-named it ‘The Hall’! Delusions of grandeur indeed.
Sir Francis was a very genial man, proud of the fact that he had come up from nothing, and frequently referring to his humble origins in Liverpool. Rosamund and Cynthia were quite pleasant girls, they all attended St Mary’s Church, and did enter into the life of the village to some extent. The thorn in their flesh though, was the ‘chippy’ at the entrance to the Hall drive. Joe Baddely and his wife and several children lived in a small house, the front of which was in Crewe Road, and the back entrance was actually in the drive itself. The front room of the house had been converted into a fish shop, from which they sold wet fish every morning. The walls were white tiled and everywhere was scrupulously clean. A small frying range had been installed in the back kitchen, and here each night they cooked the most delicious fish and chips. They were always busy. A small piece of fish was twopence, and with a penny worth of chips, you had a most satisfying meal.
Naturally this thriving business, especially the nature of it, annoyed the Josephs, and if, for instance, they were giving a dinner party at the Hall, it did rather cramp their style when guests cars had to brake sharply and weave slowly in and out of groups of boys and girls eating chips out of paper! Mrs Baddely used to regale her customers, (gleefully, it must be said) with details of Sir Francis’s latest proposal. Offers to install them in more spacious, properly equipped premises, sums of money, all were made, to no avail. The chippy remained. When Mr and Mrs. Baddeley died, the premises were demolished. The Hall was destroyed by fire many years ago, and a new house was built on the site.
Alsager had a number of fairly prosperous shops, one of which was ‘Hancock’s’ on the Bank Corner (a supermarket now). This shop, a bakers and grocers, was quite large, and the house in which the family lived was separate and stood in a lovely garden. Old John Hancock, retired from an active part in the business, used to stand on the step, an imposing figure, with a ‘gold guard’ across his stomach, and a ready smile for prospective customers. I always thought he looked like the King, perhaps because he had his beard trimmed in the same style. Dad used to tell a story about a boy, Billy Macmahon, who worked as an errand boy for old John. He had had the job for about a year, one of his many duties was to push a handcart loaded with groceries for delivery in Hassall Green on Fridays and Saturdays. Old John said to him, “now Billy you’ve been here a year, I m going to give you a rise, how much do you get?” “Threepence a week sir,” replied Billy. “Well from now on I’m going to give you fourpence.” said old John.
In addition to the shop, run by John’s son George, they had a bakery across the road where ‘Eric Alcock’s’ shop is now. On the corner where the National Westminster is, was the District Bank. Dick Holmes was the manager and lived on the premises. Next came ‘Leather’s’ paper shop. That was not a lively concern. Mr. and Mrs. Leather came from Bury in Lancashire. She was tall and bossy, Jimmy, her husband was small and seemed quite content to tramp around the village delivering newspapers and quietly carrying out her orders. They must have relied on the newspapers to provide them with a living, for there was little for sale in the shop. A huge glass case dominated most of the floor space, but this rarely contained anything more exciting than a few ‘dummy’ boxes of chocolates. As a concession to the Christmas spirit, a doll appeared in the showcase at the beginning of December. I suppose they hoped to sell it, but as it became more soiled as the years went by, I don’t think they ever did.
The Post Office was in the middle of the village, (Lloyds florists now.) Mrs. Heath was the Postmistress. she ruled her little domain with a fine sense of bureaucratic power, and many years later when the Post Office was moved and she became merely the proprietress of just a private shop, selling toilet items and patent medicines, it was found that she could smile and show polite attention to customers. This surprised many people.
Next to the Post Office was ‘Boyce Adams’ grocers, whose main shop and head office was in Hanley. it was a thriving business selling good quality food, and had many customers, but the really old fashioned high class grocers and provision merchants was ‘Bickertons’, on the corner at the junction of Crewe Road and Station Road. Daniel Bickerton founded the business, then it passed to his son Tom. After his death his widow carried on the business for a while, then she re married and sold the business to Micah (Mick) Stubbs. He was a well liked popular man who carried on the shop in the true tradition of what a good grocers should be. The shop had a long mahogany counter, fronted by a row of glass topped boxes of biscuits. The fixtures behind the counter were polished mahogany also, and housed large green and gold canisters containing coffee beans and a selection of teas. Coffee would be ground, and weighed on highly polished brass scales, and the resulting little package sealed and tied with very fine twine. Almost everything sold in grocers those days came to the shop in bulk, and had to be weighed up. This included sugar, dried fruits, cereals, and all butter and lard and margarine. On the white marble topped provision counter would always be a large cooked tongue, and a freshly boiled ham ‘on the bone’, ready to be beautifully carved for you with a long thin knife. A customer buying cheese would be given a taste of one or all of the cheeses on display. Hanging from a rack at the back of the counter were hams and sides of bacon, some delicately smoked. A pole with a hook on one end was kept handy and any piece of bacon would be lifted down and sliced to the desired thickness on an old fashioned bacon machine. There were also displayed small glass jars of tongue and calves foot jelly, and Patum Peperium, (‘Gentleman’s Relish). You will find in subsequent chapters that the grocery trade has played quite a large part in my life, so I will leave it there for a while.
The building where our council offices are now housed was once a private house called Prospect House. It has not been altered very much on the outside, in fact the old Alsager Urban District council offices were in an old house standing in the area where the Civic Centre now is. Alexandra’s lived at Prospect House, they had two children, Betty and Peter. Betty was blonde and very pretty, she was in my class at school. I remember one occasion when we both sold small ribbon rosettes at a whist drive, the proceeds from which went to support the local football team, Alsager Juniors. Alexandra’s then left Alsager and the house stood empty for a while, then a family called Powell moved in. They quickly established themselves in a very friendly fashion, and opened quarterly accounts with lots of traders. Grandad was very pleased by the fact that as he was the nearest greengrocer, they were constantly popping over to the shop, ordering lavishly from whatever was on display. All the children had new bicycles from Holland and Hollinsheads, and everyone agreed that Powells were an asset to the village. Then the blow fell. They just disappeared one night, about three months after their arrival, when the bills were due to be paid! The fact that they had done a ‘moonlight’, ran through the village like a fire. They owed money to almost everyone, but the worst hit were Boyce Adams, Dick Beswick, (the milkman), and Grandad. his account was about sixty pounds, a blow he found very hard to bear. I think apart from the loss of money, everyone felt let down, as the family had been so likeable, they certainly were confidence tricksters par excellence.