Back in the 50s & 60s, the lads would head down to the pit hills, these seemed like a left over from some old mine workings.

The shale had been formed to make a great cycle track, with a number of slopes and a large flat surface to race around.

It was mainly pushbikes that use the circuit but on occasion, motorbikes would come along and race around, which was quite exciting.

There was some old structures, in the form of a chimney and a "bottomless" shaft, which we used to drop things down, it seemed like forever before we heard them hid the bottom, a few lads tried to tie ropes together and lower them down to see how deep it was, but we never reached the bottom.

The haunted house was situated in the dip on harthill, it stood empty for ages and was a great adventure to visit, there were stories of "The headless monk" who wanderer around harthill, of course, I don't know of anyone who saw it but everyone knew someone who had!!

We had a couple of cobblers Jack Sowerby, who was near The Junction Pub and Ted Rudd who was based on "The Little Green", next door to Ken Goodman's carpet shop, numerous corner shops Easton's (Opposite the Junction Pub), Smiths (Near The Green), Colbecks (Town Street), Lodges (Harthill Lane), The Lion Stores (Finkle Lane) to mention only a few.

All the goods were kept behind the counter, so when supermarkets (Coopers in Morley was the first one I saw)came along, it was a great surprise to see shelves full of provisions and sweets that you could select and put in your basket before you paid for them, it almost felt like stealing.

All manner of of goods could be bought in the village, without the need to travel into Morley, we had:-

A clothes shop, which was next door the current washeteria.

A hardware shop at the top of Mill Lane (Nr the Greenside).

A TV and Domestic Appliance shop (Eddie Prince's) on Street Lane.

A paper shop or 2.

A Trio of Fish Holes The Triumph, Holbrook's and Scott Green.

A couple of Off  Licences One in Street Lane and Speight's on Church Avenue.

And a butchers, so we were pretty much self sufficient.

 

Gildersome had it's very own street sweeper (George Bloomfield), he seemed to have a full time job maintaining the area from the "Church Corner" to "The Green", I am sure he did much more but as a school boy, that was my only sight of him. He did a cracking job and the village was kept looking great all year round.

 

There was a "Rivalry" between the Street Lane and Church School pupils although we would all trail, every day, from our respective schools to the "Dinner Centre" on harthill, we seldom socialised and very rarely had friends from the other school.

 

The boys brigade was active and quite a few Methodist lads were members, Methodist girls tended to join the girls brigade. First Sunday of the month, the brigades would parade through the village from Greenside Methodist to Spring Bank Crescent. (I had a stint of playing the Big Drum and it gave me great pleasure to walk round the village, around 11am on Sunday morning, giving it large). The C of E lads joined the scouts / cubs and lasses joined up with the guides / brownies. On remembrance day, all the youth organisations joined forces and held a mass parade, ending up at the cenotaph. A great time was had by all.

 

Milk was delivered (What seemed 24 hours a day) by Herbert Burnley, he used to have a horse and cart but ended up with a contraption of tricycle. Kindling was sold by Chippy Schofield, real characters known by every one in the village, a bit like the "Greengrass character in Heartbeat"