Day 2 Change at Chinley
Change at Chinley was the instruction given to get from Manchester Central Station if your destination was on the Sheffield bound train. You could then get off at Bamford. Manchester Central Station is now the G-MEX International conference center and Concert Hall (Grade I listed) but my recollections were of this cavernous space filled with smoke from the steam trains (no giggling please or I will stop right here….. yes I am old enough to have travelled on steam trains). You could now see pop bands and rejuvenated rockers on your nights off but I digress. Going to see my Grandmother was quite a logistical feat. I was one of 10 kids and normally 4 or 5 of us went along with my mum so getting everyone organized and in the right place at the right time was somewhat like herding cats.
It never really seem to take much time once you were on the train, a quick change at the aforementioned Chinley then Hope, Edale, Bamford and you were there. After Chinley it was all countryside and apart from the train smoke obscuring the view or filling the carriage with if God forbid you failed to close the window through the tunnels (I said stop sniggering) the vistas were to my young eyes breathtaking. Rolling hills, big fields and lots of trees. How impressionable is a young child?
Once off the train a quick body count and we were off. The station was at the bottom of the village and the walk to Grandma’s was up the hill. I say hill it was probably only a 3 degree incline but it looked like a hill back then. Up past the Derwent Pub past the post office and the villages only hair salon, past the Anglers Rest (the river Derwent flowed somewhere close by) past the shop which sold almost everything around the corner a there you were.
“The Beeches”, my Grandma lived in a house with a name, (it probably had a number but to me it was always The Beeches). Two stout wooden gates secured the drive which once opened allowed access to the gravel path leading right around the side of the house. Entrance was normally through the kitchen door at the back rather than the front and neither would ever be locked even when unoccupied.
The house was built of stone big stones not bricks it was a village house and it will stand forever give or take a few new windows and roofs. It overlooked the valley and the village and the view lives with me every day of my life. I can just close my eyes and it is there. The train line we had just alighted from ran along the floor of the valley. You could not see the train but you could follow the smoke trail as they chugged to and frow at regular intervals there were less delays and cancellations those days (last warning about the laughing by the way).
The mind pays tricks on the young and I never noticed that the original residence had been split into three houses so it would have been very very large at one time. Lucky for me the home of my mother’s family was the one at the end. Furthest from the road and overlooking the farm and the whole of the valley beyond it. It had a dry stone wall which was always a fascination, it was sturdy and looked like it would withstand all natural disasters although I was told off a few times for running along the top, I was a kid and that’s what kids did.
Anyway an impressive house and a greenhouse half stone with glass top which had a vine in it (funny the things you remember) which had grapes, Grapes in the middle of England wow who would have believed that, although I never remember tasting them. There was always something growing in there and it is another of those “I must have one of these when I grow up” things. It is on the list of items we will have in the French home we continually think about buying.
The whole place looked big, possibly a lot bigger than it really was but I am happy with my memories of the place. The building behind the house was the Catholic Church which suited Grandma very well (more on that later on). the house was a place where people dropped in and left at irregular intervals adding to the exciting and the relaxed almost anything goes atmosphere. Wild and cultivated flowers and a few trees dotted about the garden and real cows in the field not 5 yards away. Now of course I knew about cows but you rarely got to see them up close and personal. (There are not many cattle ranches in Salford) Frightening beasts and so big (remember I was around 8 years old) and smelly.
Walks would be taken and sights seen from various vantage points some of which I planned to reenact on this trip. As I grew up and managed to acquire my own transport we would travel over the dreaded A57 “The Snake Pass” which is the only road over the hills to this quaint spot. The road is aptly named as is snakes around the hills with almost no straight patches. There is now a Motorway 20 miles north which is very fast and very straight but where is the fun in that. You need adventure in your life or it is not worth bothering.
Tomorrow back to talking about the trip we are on (promise)