Referring to my brother Fred, he married his wife Elsie Hill, whose father was responsible for Hills Café being built circa 1924. Fred and Elsie were married on 16th April 1927 at eight o’clock in the morning (no banns) special licence. They were married so early so that the family of Hills could get back to the bakery business. They had their honeymoon at St. Annes on Sea where Elsie’s father Levi and his wife Ellen had a boarding house. So they were running a bakery and café at Whittle and also a boarding house at St. Annes. Levi had, I think, a brain hemorrhage during one of his flying visits. He was ill for some time and I think was only forty seven when he passed away in 1930. Elsie died in 1949 aged 45, leaving three girls, the youngest, Pat, being nine years old. Fred never remarried!!
Around 1927, when I was ten or eleven years old, I used to go direct from school to go out in the Hills Bakery van with Reginald Hill driving. I would first have my tea in the living room of the café which is at present the doctors surgery. We would then go round the village selling bread and cakes and around five o’clock we would be at Swansea Mill, known as “Boothmans” to await the mill-workers coming out, who would purchase items from the van, which in those days was a Trojan, similar to the ones we had at Leyland in the thirties. They were always difficult to start as one had to crank up a handle by the driver’s seat and, if the engine was cold, it took a lot of energy to get the engine to fire. Occasionally, one had to get people to push it and you would pop the lever, what we now call the change speed lever, into position. There were only two positions, forward and reverse. There was no such thing as an ignition key, like the present cars have. On Saturday morning I would go with Reg to Leyland to sell the bread etc. and only finish late Saturday afternoon. For all these hours I was paid one shilling for the week and many times I would have to wait a few weeks before I was paid. Eventually it came to an end as I was surplus to requirements. During the holidays I would accompany Reg around Withnell. Reg Hill was my brother Fred’s wife’s brother, there being four in the family, two males and two females. The younger female, older than Reg was Gladys, who later became Mrs. Arthur Rimmer, and they ran the café whilst Reg and his younger brother, Arnold, ran the bakehouse and later additional vans. That was after Mr. Hill (Levi) had died in 1930.
Continue to 04. Teenage Years