SALLY.
Sarah, or Sally as she was known, was born in 1903. I cannot give an up to date comprehensive picture of Sally and her family because she left the district many years ago and no one has made contact with them since. The information provided here is from my own personal recollections of them as a child, except for the data in the Electoral Registers for Stoke-on-Trent for the year 1928. This register, for number 2 Forrester Street, Longton, (the home of Absolon Shaw), shows an entry for a Thomas Woolridge. He was the husband of Sarah Norcop.
My earliest recollections of Aunt Sally are when I was a child of five or six years of age. In 1945, my mother ran off with the lodger, Fred Howe, and went to live in the Canterbury area. My father had to resign from the army to attend to our upbringing but, unfortunately, he found the single handed task too demanding. Rather than place us in care, he sold the family home and took my brother and myself to live with aunt Sally and her family. We lived with her for two years (I think). They lived at 38 Anson Road, Meir - a newly built council estate, and a notorious area of the Potteries. The reason for the notoriety was that the residents
were refugees from The Nook, an area of Longton long known for its poverty, filth and squalor. The City Council, in its infinite wisdom, rather than integrating these unfortunate people into various communities throughout the city had simply transferred them, lock, stock and barrel, from The Nook to the Anson road area. Of course, in doing so they had transferred a community who knew nothing else other than the way of life they were used to.
My memories of Saturdays in Anson road have remained with me all my life. Mostly colliers, the men worked hard in dangerous and dirty conditions and at the end of their weekly toil they would let off steam the only way they knew. It would start at lunch-time. The clatter of steel tipped clogs at the top of the street would grow to a crescendo as, one by one, the colliers left their homes and joined the ever increasing throng on their way to the local ale-house. By the time they reached the end of the street, the gang had grown to forty strong and the Anson Road Boys were about to hit the drink. Later in the day, in various degrees of intoxication, the boys would come trundling home. The bravest of the wives would be leaning on the wooden gates, arms akimbo, and the language and shouting and screaming would begin. This would continue until late in the evening until the gang would again set off for the ale-house. Although we children were sent to bed early, there would be little sleep for us. Around midnight the men would return and the bedlam would begin in earnest. The nerve jangling noise of breaking windows and the harsh cries of the womenfolk as they battled with their drunken sons and husbands were common sounds which continued long into the night. At its peak, skirmishes raged behind closed doors until their ferocity forced them onto the street and in the dim light of the old gas lamps, in a series of running battles, father fought with son, brother with brother, and mother with both.
For my brother John and myself, this was a sight to behold - until it began to happen at 38 Anson Road.
Uncle Tom was a poacher. I have no bad memories of him. On the contrary, I remember his joviality well. He was missing a few fingers on one of his hands. Apparently, he was out drinking one night and decided to visit a fair which was in the locality. On his way, he called for some fish and chips. When he arrived at the fair he saw a lion in one of the cages and, because it was slobbering, put his hand through the bars and offered it some fish. Unfortunately for Tom, the lion took a few of his digits as well as the fish and he ended the night in Longton Cottage Hospital. Thereafter, he was often referred to as "Lion Tamer Woolridge". I recall Uncle Tom's jacket very well. It seemed to be one large pocket. I remember him walking into the house and, like a magician, producing a tableful of rabbits from the coat. One can imagine the mainstay of our diet at Anson Road.
As I stated earlier, all was well until friction built up in the house. Aunt Sally was caught in the middle. It was time to get out. By this time my dad had met his future wife and we moved out to live with her. I was sorry to leave this rough but loveable home. We had come to look on Aunt Sally as a surrogate mother and Tom as a favourite uncle. We also got on well with Aunt Sally's offspring. Besides Tom and Leslie, there were also her daughters, Gwen and June and her youngest son, Terence. From those rough and loveable characters, brother John and I learned a valuable lesson. We learned how to survive in a world where poverty was the norm.
By the end of the 1940's, Aunt Sally had become disillusioned by the quality of life in The Potteries and moved her family to the coalfields of Kent. I have not seen or heard from them since except for a letter which appeared in our local paper. The item was a request for information regarding the altercation between Uncle Tom and the lion. The request was from Terence Woolridge and he was writing from Kent asking if others could confirm that his late father had indeed been bitten by a lion.. There were a number of replies to the affirmative. I asked the newspaper to send on a letter to him for me but I had no reply.