Local history at its best

The History Society’s Autumn season began on Thursday September 20th with a large attendance of visitors who came to hear two well-known local people reviving memories of this district in the post-war years.

Ruth Cliffe, a mainstay of Hankelow Methodist Church for over 60 years, spoke from a newspaper cutting of 1947, when her father moved his farm lock, stock and barrel from the Lake District.

After a twelve hour journey in a hired train, the cows – and the bull – trudged through snow from Audlem station to Hankelow Hall. She then gave a well-presented slide show of Hankelow places and people up to recent times.

Declaring himself a first-time speaker, Ian Jones regaled the audience with stories from his childhood around the 1950’s, arousing fascination and mirth in equal measure.

With dead-pan voice he recounted how as a boy he sold rabbits at half as crown each to a shop in Nantwich, whose pies for customers were invariably  ‘chicken pie’!

Ian’s subject was Kinsey Heath, which in those days had some 50 children; they used to run a rope across Kettle Lane for a tennis net. Those were the days, a bygone era.

The society was treated to two excellent story-tellers: local history at its most informative and entertaining.

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