A Miner's Son's Childhood in 1920's Lancashire

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The little girl, Nellie Loveless, died from complications of whooping cough soon after this photograph was taken in 1923. The little boy, her brother Walter Loveless, survived the poverty and malnutrition of the twenties and went on to serve as an RAF pilot in WWII. He died in 2005.

Here is his account of his childhood in a Lancashire mining town in the 1920s.

"We lived at 65 Bolton Road, Atherton, which was a two up, two down house with a small scullery but no bath. There was a large cobbled communal back with two entries between six houses. There was a little pen and vegetable plot. Also Granddad kept hens and grew green vegetables.

I went to Bluebell Little Infants’ school. The headmistress was Miss Sambrook who was a staunch Tory and British Empire Loyalist. At election time people often wore colours of their party but Miss Sambrook would only allow blue ribbons into the school (Tory) and banned “those nasty yellow ribbons” (Labour).

There were no school meals or milk, but during the miners strike of 1926 I remember being supplied with a bowl of soup and chunk of bread after the strike had been going on for six months or so.

Dad used to go picking coal on Pretoria tip almost every day. During school holidays I remember taking sandwiches (bread and jam) and a pit can full of water for his dinner. The coal was for our own consumption, but on good days enough was picked to be able to sell some.

The miners were on strike for about twelve months and towards the end the TUC called out other unions in sympathy, mostly transport etc. This was the General Strike which only lasted about three weeks before it collapsed. The miners were on strike because their wages were being cut to below starvation level. Eventually they were forced to go back because of the terrible conditions existing after 12 months of privation. They went back on the reduced wages which had been offered originally and which had caused the strike.

There were occasional disturbances and Atherton was full of policemen who had been drafted into the town from non-mining areas. I cannot remember if there were any troops in Atherton, but the Home Secretary of the day Winston Churchill did mobilise the troops against the miners. My Dad, even during the 1939 – 1945 war, detested him and never forgave him.

It must be said that the Atherton mines, Seven Feet, Gibfield and Chanters were owned by Fletcher Burrows and Co Ltd. Both the Fletchers and Burrows families lived in Atherton and were caring employers, years and years ahead of the other mine owners. Accordingly, they found the odd week’s work for most miners in strict rotation. It was ‘made work' but nevertheless very useful. They had the miners working on the cricket and football fields, improving and enlarging them etc. So much so that they were both superb grounds and easily the best in the leagues in which the teams played.

They also levelled old pit tips and landscaped them (all done by pick and shovel), the most striking example being the ‘Top Field’ and the fields behind it. This is where Hesketh Fletcher School and the surrounding playing fields now are.

During the strike and after my mother took in washing and went cleaning for Dr Crawshaw. My job when I got a little older was to collect and deliver the washing. I also used to go door-to-door selling lettuce and celery etc grown by my granddad. The customers were mostly up Bolton Road.

My grandad and his brother sometime in the 1870s had walked and worked on the way from Dorset to find work in the pits. Although it was so long after the Tolpuddle Martyrs, anyone with the name Loveless was an outcast in Dorset and accordingly was unemployable, the only job being farm labourers. As a countryman, he had a wealth of knowledge about animals, herbs etc. His first job down the mine was looking after the pit ponies.

Regarding herbs, he used to make a special salve (ointment) from herbs. I can just remember him taking me round the fields collecting some of the ingredients. This salve was famous all over the district and people used to come to the door to buy it. It was mostly used for boils and abscesses. These were the scourge of people because of a completely inadequate diet. It seems that this salve drew out all the poisons and infection.

When the pits were working normally again in 1927 (though there was still short time working) my dad was offered a ‘Fletcher’s house’ by the mining company. Fletcher’s houses had been built by the company for sale to their employees. It was a small estate all on its own behind Bolton Road. Subsequently it was completely surrounded by council houses in the 1930’s. They were completely modern (by 1920’s standards) and had a bathroom, three bedrooms, two rooms downstairs, largish kitchen, pantry, front garden, back garden.. Adjoining the back door was a coalhouse and next to that an outside toilet. It cost 15 shillings per week which was stopped out of my dad’s wages. It was heaven. My granddad had come with us and had retired.

There were open fields in front which were used as playing fields (being council land) and at the back was the back field which was enclosed by the other houses on the estate. Having to pay this 15 shillings however proved to be a terrible burden later on.

In the meantime, I had gone to Bluebell Big School (now St Phillip’s) and ended up in Mrs Whittle’s class. It was a school which had a poor record and most of the pupils came from desperately poor families, many from the slums in the notorious valley. I don’t think there was a pupil in the school who wore shoes – everybody wore clogs.

It had never sent anyone to the Grammar School and Mrs Whittle was determined to rectify this. She decided that I had the potential together with a girl from another class, whose father was a foreman in a foundry. At this time my dad was a member of the W.E.A. (Workers’ Educational Association) and used to attend weekly lectures at the technical school on Monday nights. Mrs Whittle also attended these. She persuaded my dad that I should sit for the ‘Scholarship’.

Leigh Grammar School football team 1933. Walter is at the left of the second row.

It may not seem remarkable now, but for a pitman’s son to go the Grammar School was virtually unheard of then. They must have put their heads together, because when told that we could not afford this she found out that certain funds were available from the British Legion (my dad being a member after doing four years in the Great War).

Consequently I was given homework every night and my dad made sure that I did it. I did not want to go but had no alternative. I started at Leigh Grammar School in September 1928. The famous Depression started in 1929 and really got a grip in 1930, and hardly improved the whole time I was there. There were a lot of fee-paying scholars and they had to leave when they were 14. Regardless of the deprivations I had to keep going until I got the matriculation certificate.



During the 1920’s and up to about 1938 the working class people could not have existed but for the Co-operative Society. This period was its hey-day. There were two co-ops in the district - Leigh Friendly and Hindsford & Atherton. Between them they had eleven grocery shops, several draper’s shops, shoe shops, clothes shops, coal rounds, milk rounds and bread rounds. Nobody paid cash, everything was on the book and you were supposed to pay each weekend. This never happened, as you paid as much as possible and there was always something left on the book.

However there were four Quarter Days in a year when you had to pay up all outstanding amounts. From about twelve years old it became my job to go and pay each week, and eventually I started to dread Quarter Day because I had to tell them that we could not pay up, and ask could we carry something forward to the next quarter.

For every payment made you were given a ‘check’ with the amount on. These you stuck on to a special sheet. At the end of the quarter you added them all up and took them to be checked in order to get your dividend. Then on a set day known as ‘Divi Day’ you went along to collect it."

- Walter Loveless

After Wings Parade, Cranwell 1940
Walter is in the centre with pipe.