Saddleworth’s Lilian still wants the gossip at 102-years-old

Lilian at 102 – with her own grown sweet peas

By Stuart Littleford

From packing eggs at her parents’ small holding in Dobcross to observing bomb craters in Greenfield, 102-year-old Lilian Stell tells Saddleworth News about her fond memories of the area.

Lilian Stell (formerly Dawson) married husband George on 8 September 1934 when she was 23 years old, she was born 14 July 1911. Husband George was a sheet metal worker and served his apprenticeship at Fred Allens in Greenfield.

Lilian told Saddleworth News: “George and I decided to get married by special licence after we came back from holiday in the Isle of Man, because of this the girls at work thought I was pregnant! We wanted to save money and rented a small house until we saved up enough to buy our own house.

“We had both worked hard and saved up the money for seven years and eventually bought a house 10, The Park, in Greenfield, which we had heard about. The cash price we paid was £409 – 10 shillings on 14 November 1939, only then did we decide to have children and so Barrie was born in 1941.

“Perhaps they should do that nowadays eh!” says Lilian laughing.

Lilian at 100

She worked at Tanners Waterside Mill in Greenfield and her elder sister Nellie used to take her there to teach her weaving. When she left school at age 14 they lived on a small holding on Standedge Road at Dobcross.

“Dad used to take chick eggs on the train to work to sell at Platt Brothers loom makers in Oldham. Mother and I used to wrap them at nights and pack them in a box – I remember the ferret got in once under the wire netting and killed all the hens.

“I used to walk a mile on the road going to the mill and sometimes I would get a lift with the delivery drivers who would drop me at the railway halt. You couldn’t do that now could you?”

Did you hand over all your wages? – “Of course I did,” she says.

“There was nowt to spend it on where we lived. I used to walk down to Saddleworth viaduct at a road junction and there was one shop there that sold sweets but it was about two miles.

“Grandad Dawson came from Marsden and used to visit us at Standedge. I used to stand with Nellie watching him walk up the lane and she would say ‘Here comes the old b****** again’, but you can’t write that down can you!

“My father was Willy Dawson and my mother was Elizabeth and came from Watersheddings in Oldham. The other mill I worked at was Greenfield Mill and they made cigarette papers there.”

Lilian was told her Dad was in the Army in the First World war but she didn’t remember much about that as she was only three at the time. In the Second World War her husband George was making aircraft fuselages at different factories with his occupation.

“We used to hear the planes coming over bombing Manchester and once one dropped on the cricket field at Greenfield, but it didn’t go off. We all walked to the hillsides around to see the hole.

“I’ve never had a passport but George used to go on planes with his job. His family came from Hebden Bridge and came to Greenfield to work on the Dove Stone reservoir, I know grandma Stell used to watch the train taking building material up there.

“When Barrie and Trevor were at school I got a job at Butterworths, a bakers and confectioners at Uppermill, and I used Holts yellow buses from Mumps (later Yelloway Coach Company) to get there.

“I always remember at home father had a record player and those large records, it was a big piece of furniture, but I don’t know if we had wireless as well,” She said.

Lilian moved to Lytham St Annes 27 years ago to be nearer to her sons, she lived alone up to the age of 101 refusing all outside help except for daily checks from son Barrie, who died 31 August 2010 and some neighbours. She remained totally independent until failing eyesight and some lack of mobility forced a reluctant change of plan and she decided to move into a care home in the town.

On her 100^th birthday as well as a telegram from the Queen she got a congratulatory letter from the Minister for Work & Pensions Ian Duncan Smith, and when her good friend John Featherstone read the letter to her, she said: “Write back and tell him I’m still a customer and to keep sending the money”.

She still used to use late husband George’s apprentice pieces, a stainless steel hoe and watering cans, for doing garden weeding and sweet pea cultivation right up to age 101.

This fascinating lady who was three years old at the start of World War One, still listens to the news on the hour from Radio Lancashire, plays over and over the CD’s of Russell Watson and still wants to know the latest gossip. All this fuelled she says by a “daily glass” of Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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