William Dillon (1877-1933)

William Dillon was the second son of John and Mary Dillon and was born on 8th June 1877 at 10 Birchall Street in the St George's District of Manchester (now Newton Heath). He was known as Bill, a bright lad who was a good writer and good with figures. He did not follow his parents into business but became a Bass Dresser by trade, and seems to be the only member of the Dillon family around this period to have become a craftsman.

A bass was the traditional name for a large, heavy brush with long, stiff bristles - today we call them yard brushes. They were made by hand in those days. Lines of holes were drilled into the wooden head, the ends of the bristles were dipped into tar before being inserted into the holes and allowed to set. The Bass Dresser completed the job, trimmed the bristles to shape and size, and was responsible for the final appearance of the finished product. His job was skilled work and he must have served an apprenticeship (possibly for as long as seven years), but skills and job names such as these have long since disappeared, as everything is now done by machine.

Sometimes, Bill was described as a journeyman brush maker, which indicates he moved between factories, with his own tools, taking whatever work was available, and probably made other types of brushes. There were many small brush manufacturers in the industrial cities, as brushes were then almost the only cleaning tool available. It would be another generation before vacuum cleaners began to replace them.

On 24th November 1900, William Dillon married Elizabeth Ann Taylor at St Philip’s Church, which was on Ridgeway Street, Ancoats. Their married life started around the corner at 7 Porter Street, but within six months they were living at 18 Marcer Street, on the other side of the church. Though the family professed to be Methodist by religion, and usually attended the Methodist church, for important events such as weddings and christenings, they used the Church of England. Such things didn’t seem to matter to them, provided it was Protestant.

William Dillon's wife, Elizabeth Ann Taylor who was known as Lizzie throughout her life, was born in Manchester in 1879. She was the eldest child of John Taylor and Mary Ann Bartley, who married in about 1877, and they were both born in Manchester. Mary Ann may have been called Polly. John worked as a labourer for most of his life, often in a blacking works, where he was sometimes described as a maker-up or packer. Blacking was an important product made from carbon black, of which soot is a common example. It was used by every house maid and housewife to clean the cast iron fire surrounds and ranges that dominated every kitchen, and left them with an attractive, dull sheen. A blacking works must have been a very dirty place in which to work, and packing the product by hand must have been a dreadful job. His hands must have been permanently ingrained with the blacking.

In addition to Lizzie, they had five other children: Ada (1881), Mary Ellen (Nelly) (1887), John (1890), Fred (1893), and Selina (1894). From the dates, it is possible that they had other children between 1881 and 1887 who did not survive.

Everybody knew William and Elizabeth Ann Dillon as Bill and Lizzie, and Bill would call her Lizzie Ann when he wanted to emphasise a point. They were opposites in many respects. Bill was nearly six feet tall, slim and had dark hair that had turned steely grey before he was fifty years old. He was easy going with a quiet, reserved, placid temperament. She was only just over five feet tall, of slight build like her parents and had red hair, which retained its colour into her old age, so possibly she also had some Celtic genes. She was strict, strong willed and ambitious, and made the decisions in the family, which suited Bill. If any of their children wanted anything from Bill, he always referred them to Lizzie.

Over about a 16 year period, Bill and Lizzie had eight children, it must have seemed that she was either pregnant, or just getting over the birth of their last child, and the house must constantly have been full of nappies. Their surviving children in order of birth were: William (1901/2), Cyril (1903), Lilian (ca 1908), Norman (1909), Edward Clifford (1911), Ruby (1914 - my mother) and Gladys (1918). Another child, John, was born (probably between Cyril and Lily) but died young, possibly of meningitis. Ruby could not remember John, and he probably died before she was born, but her mother often spoke fondly of him.

Bill continued to move between employers following the available work and, in about 1905, the family moved to Liverpool. It seems clear that he could not find work in Manchester, as it was a long way to move for a family who had always lived within a few streets. There were several other Dillon families living in Liverpool at the time. Possibly one of them was related, found out about work nearby, and they moved close to them. They lived in the Liverpool area for about 15 years, and experienced some turbulent times there.

Their son Norman was born on 1st November 1909, when the family lived at 46 Humphrey Street in the Orrell district of Bootle, which was then a separate town to the north of Liverpool, though both places formed a continuous built-up area. It was a growing town at the time and mainly populated by people working in the building trades. It was a pleasant place to live, better than Liverpool, and housed many craftsmen and artisans, such as Bill.

They lived on the modern "Klondyke" estate of terraced houses, which was built in about 1895. Each house had six rooms and was fitted with electric light, which was very advanced for the houses of working people at the time. The estate was built by William Jones, who claimed to be the largest builder and owner of houses in Bootle. He established a brick and tile works at the end of Humphrey Street using clay dug from pits only one street away, and these were used to build the houses. At this time, the Orrell area was still largely rural with open fields and country lanes, but the brick works and clay pits must have been a blot on the landscape. The environment must have been polluted with the noxious fumes from the brick firing process.

Another son, Edward Clifford, who was always known as Teddy, was born on 5th September 1911, by which time they had moved to 30 Kipling Street in Bootle. This was nearer the docks and a cheaper area. Bill was then described as a Brush Maker and possibly on less wages. The events during Lizzie’s pregnancy with Teddy were probably amongst the most significant of their lives.

There was a general upturn in trade in the country at about this time, but this did not lead to more jobs or better pay. Just the opposite, many employers decided to increase their profits by introducing newer machines and increasing the output of their employees. One of the results of this policy was a fall in real wages, as more men chased fewer jobs, and this could have forced Bill and Lizzie to move to a cheaper area. On 14th June 1911, seamen in Liverpool came out on strike demanding better working conditions and 10 shillings a month pay increase. The dock labourers and carters then came out on strike to support them, and thousands of workers joined the Union of Dock Labourers.

Bill and Lizzie Dillon lived in Liverpool during the Great War period from 1914 to 1918. Ruby, their second daughter, was born on 26th October 1914, just a couple of months after the outbreak of war. By this time, they had moved to 42 Maguire Street, off Vauxhall Road, in Liverpool. Bill’s occupation was given as a Journeyman Brush Maker on her birth certificate, which implies he moved between factories and found work wherever he could.

The Dillon family lived at 42 Maguire Street in 1914, running left to right in the centre of this picture, which runs off Vauxhall Road - running top to bottom on the left. Off the map to the left is the main factory area of Liverpool, the mainline railway from the north, and the docks.

Maguire Street must have been an even cheaper area than Kipling Street as it was in the middle of an industrial area, with few houses. Number 42 was directly opposite the “Malthouse”, a liquor distillery that also made methylated spirit. In the same street were: a colour, paint and varnish manufacturer, an engineering works, a mortuary, a shop fitters, an iron foundry, an oil and tallow merchant, a soap manufacturer and a public house. Notice also the large number of factory, warehouse and mill buildings in the adjoining streets.

The whole area was very busy, noisy and polluted, full of traffic and working people, and certainly not a suitable place to bring up young children. The toilet facilities in the houses can be clearly seen as separate, stand-alone buildings at the back, and were probably not connected to the main drains. Men would come and empty them twice a week. It seems primitive today, but many people lived in similar houses, and there were worse than this. The rent must have been cheap in an area such as this, which indicates that the family were having a difficult time existing on Bill Dillon’s wages as a brush maker.

B ill was 37 years old when the war started in 1914 and had a family of six children to support, so it is easy to see why he did not volunteer for service. In 1916, conscription was introduced for men up to the age of 41 and he would have been eligible to join the forces. However, he was not called up and never served. We shall probably never know the reason, though his daughter Ruby believed it was because he had a weak heart. She remembered, when she was a young girl living in Liverpool, her father had a seizure in the bedroom and rolled under the bed. Lizzie had to pull him out and get the doctor to treat him. So, he was clearly not a well man from a relatively early age.

Bill and Lizzie’s youngest child Gladys was born on 26th September 1918. They still lived at 42 Maguire Street and Bill was again described as a brush maker. Many men who didn’t serve in the forces during the war had to take an occupation that supported the war effort, but even this seems to have bypassed Bill, and they were relatively untouched. One thing is certain, he would have earned good wages in the war, so they were probably relatively prosperous during the period.

Lizzie never really liked living in Liverpoot, so far away from her family. She always wanted to go back to Manchester, so they returned in about 1920 to resettle back in the Ancoats district, where they had lived about 15 years earlier. Possibly one of the reasons for returning was to help look after their aging parents. There were few social services at that time and would have expected to play their part. Also, this was still a prosperous period and there would have been more jobs available in Manchester than when they moved to Bootle.

By this time, they had seven children. Bill, the eldest, was about 18, and may already have left home to join the army. The second eldest was Cyril 17, then came Lily 12, Norman 10, Edward Clifford 8, Ruby 6, and Gladys 2. Cyril probably started work when he was 12 years old and Lily may also have left school, so the upheaval had an impact on their jobs too, as they would have had to find new work. They all returned to Manchester together, which gives a clear indication of how close the family was. The fact that several of the family were working and contributing to the family income may also have been a factor in them returning together.

Back in Manchester, they rented a terraced house at 26 Rolleston Street in the Ancoats district, next door to Lizzie’s sister, Ada. The day of their removal must have been a big event - it was certainly memorable. It was dark by the time they arrived at their new house in Rolleston Street. They lit the gas lights to find that the house swarming with bugs. This was common in the poorly built and relatively insanitary properties that were plagued with damp. Every couple of years, the council used to clear out whole streets at a time, when the new batch of bugs started to stir in the springtime, and fumigate the houses with paraldehyde powder. It left a distinct, unpleasant and choking chemical smell behind that contaminated everything, and took many weeks to clear, but at least it kept the bugs under control.

In their new house, the bugs were all over the walls and the ceilings. So everybody, including Ruby who was only about six years old, had to set to work to kill them with rags dipped in methylated spirit. It appears that Bill had expected it as he had the equipment ready. They were all at it until well into the night before they could move the furniture in and go to bed.

Bill and his brothers, Ted and John, were similar in appearance, and they were all tall, bright, good writers and good with figures. No doubt they were capable of accomplishing more, but were limited because of their working class background and basic education.

Some of their Liverpool lifestyle stayed with them throughout their lives. They had lived within reach of Aintree, and most years Lizzie returned with her sister Ada for the Aintree Race Festival, which included the Grand National. Not that she was a gambler, she was a Methodist after all, but it was her holiday and she enjoyed the pageant of the occasion. Perhaps they stayed with family at the same time.

It was common for Bill and Lizzie to spend their holiday time with family, and probably it was all large families of the time could afford. Bill often went with one of his brothers to visit his family in Ireland in the summer, probably in Wakes Week when the factories were closed for their annual maintenance. He enjoyed the voyage from Liverpool across the Irish Sea, which probably suited his easy-going outlook on life. He was the last person in the family to maintain the Irish connection. When he died in 1933 all knowledge of the family in Ireland died with him.

Lizzie’s sister, Ada, was a widow by about the mid-1920s, and she later became the landlady of the Railway Hotel public house on Great Ancoats Street. Ruby remembered her as a nice, kindly woman.

Another of Lizzie’s sisters, Nellie, married Harry Webb, and he was also a publican in Ancoats. He was a short man who was very loud, belligerent and opinionated, and all the children were frightened of him. Harry was a strong Labour Party supporter and often spoke at their meetings. When she was about 14 years old, he took Ruby to one of the meetings he was addressing . It was very noisy and argumentative, and she didn’t like it. She was not impressed by Labour Party politics and never went again. The experience made a lasting impression on Ruby, who never voted Labour throughout her life.

Bill’s eldest brother Ted and his wife Tilly lived just a street away from them at 43 Clayton Street, in a two up, two down Victorian terraced house. Ted was the supervisor of the Manchester Council street sweepers in the area. Tilly worked all her life as a cleaner in a haberdashery shop on Oldham Road. It was only a short walk to work and she was there twice daily, at 6.00 am and 6.00 pm. They were better off than most, because they had no children of their own, and were particularly fond of Ruby and Gladys.

Tilly and Ted’s house was a perfect example of a Victorian working class home. They maintained it to a high standard, impeccably clean and well furnished. The front door opened from the street straight into the parlour, which was on the right. On the left-hand wall was a large, highly polished, mahogany sideboard, on which stood a massive pair of blue and white Chinese vases with lids. The rest of the room was full of furniture and ornaments, including a display cabinet of china. Clearly Tilly had good taste, and the income to spend on the things she liked, though it would all have been second hand.

At the back was a large living kitchen. Even in the 1950s when I was a boy, they were still using the black, cast iron fireplace range for cooking, though Tilly did also have a gas cooker, probably for use when the fire was not lit. A long set of brass fire irons lay in the hearth, propped up at each end on a pair of fire dogs, all surrounded with a large brass fender. They were all cleaned weekly and gleamed brightly. On the right-hand wall was a large chaise-longue, upholstered in green velvet, and next to this was a latched door at the bottom of the stairs. Opposite the fireplace was a large, square pine table that had been scrubbed so often the wood was bleached white, though it was usually covered with a red chenille cloth. On the wall behind this was a floor to ceiling dresser, with drawers below, and a full of display of crockery. There was also an easy chair on each side of the fire, so the room was filled with furniture.

The scullery lay beyond the living room with the only source of water in the house, from a bulbous cold tap over a large Butler sink. The back yard was clean enough to eat your dinner off. It had been scrubbed clean for years, and the edges were finished off with a neat line of chalky, white rubbing stone. The outside toilet was similar, with whitewashed walls and a strong smell of bleach.

T ed Dillon died in about 1945 and Tilly kept his photograph on the living room wall. This was taken when he was about 50 years old and showed him with piercing eyes, a head of dark hair and full moustache. Tilly later remarried a man called Charlie, who worked for the Clayton Aniline Company. She outlived him too, before she died in the early 1960s. Gladys cleared out her house. All her beautiful furniture and possessions were sold for next to nothing, but this was all they were worth at the time. The only items she kept were the brass fire irons, which never got polished again, so they soon lost their lustre and quickly wore out.

Bill’s brother John Dillon also lived locally. He never married and would often be invited for Sunday dinner. Family gossip has it that he served in the Great War and was awarded a medal for bravery (possibly the Croix de Guerre) but it has not been possible to confirm the story. He was a tall, strong, well-built man and, apparently, rescued several soldiers under gunfire by swimming across a river and bringing them back slung over his shoulders. He did this several times without concern for his own life. Unfortunately, he was not the same person when he returned from the war, becoming rather quiet and solemn. John was a local hero though, and often carried the flag at the annual parade on Armistice Day. After the war, he worked for Manchester Council as a lamplighter and knocker-up. He lit the street gas lamps at night and switched them off in the morning whilst knocking people up for work at their bedroom windows with his lighting pole.

Bill Dillon’s job as a brush maker must have been reasonably well paid, as he never changed it or worked as a labourer. At the same time, jobs in his trade seem to have been difficult to find and he had to change his employer several times after moving back to Manchester. Trades such as his were dying out, and it is likely he was being replaced by machinery that could work faster and more consistently than a craftsman.

On one occasion, he worked for a company in Bolton, which was a considerable distance to travel to work in those days, but there was a recession and a lot of unemployment in the industrial cities. Every day he travelled to Victoria Station in Manchester by tram and then to Bolton by train. He left the house at about 6.30 am and arrived home at about 7.30 pm Despite the time long involved, the expense must have been a heavy drain on the income of a large family. Even so, Lizzie refused to move to Bolton to live. This would have been moving away from her family again and, anyway, she did not like the town. Fortunately, the job only lasted until he could get another in Manchester. A trade directory of 1933 (probably compiled the previous year) lists 19 businesses making brushes, and Bill probably knew every one of them.

In about 1922, the Ancoats area where they lived was cleared and the family were rehoused to a new council house at 5 Seymour Avenue in Clayton, a district further from the centre of Manchester along Ashton New Road. This was part of a large estate which was still not complete. It was a modern house in a quiet cul-de-sac, with three bedrooms, a bathroom that included an indoor toilet, and a garden.

Clayton was a considerably better area to live than the inner districts of Manchester. Bill and Lizzie must have felt like they had accomplished something to move there. In Ancoats, it was common to see children bare-footed or with torn and tattered clothes, but not here. So to move to a brand new house in Clayton, must have been an exciting experience and a significant change for Bill, Lizzie and their children.

The three girls, Lily, Ruby and Gladys, shared a double bed in one of the rooms, but they were used to this from their previous house. They often slept two at the top and one at the bottom, and this was the way it continued until Lily got married in about 1929. Before going to bed in the cold weather, their mother would wrap a blanket around the shoulders of Ruby and Gladys, fastened in front with a large safety pin. This was in case they lost the bedclothes in the night as each sister was trying to gather them around herself. Cyril, Norman and Teddy shared the third bedroom until Cyril married Mary Margaret (Polly) Hayes on 1st February 1930, when he was 27 years old.

At about Easter time in 1933, Bill Dillon was taken ill, but was not sufficiently worried about it to see the doctor. There was no National Health Service then and a doctor would have to be paid. He didn’t get better and the doctor was called at about the end of May. Bill was lying in bed when the doctor examined him. After he had finished the examination, he turned immediately to Lizzie and said, “Take the pillows away”, which was a common expression at the time to say Bill was dying and did not have long to go. He died on 1st July of stomach cancer when he was only 55 years old. Yet another of our male ancestors had died young. He was buried in the local graveyard at St. Cross Church in Clayton. His gravestone wrongly shows his age as 53, which must have been the age given by Lizzie. It is interesting to think that she may never have known his proper age - such things just weren’t as important then.

ELIZABETH ANN DILLON (nee TAYLOR) AND HER CHILDREN

Lizzie found it hard to settle at the Seymour Avenue house after Bill's death. She started attending séances locally and did this occasionally for the rest of her life. It’s doubtful that she made contact with Bill, but it serves to demonstrate how much she loved and missed him. They were clearly a good match for each other, despite having almost opposite personalities. She never showed any interest in another man until she died almost thirteen years later in 1946.

She often went for a walk locally with her eldest daughter Lily and, on one occasion, they came across a row of shops being built on Manor Road in Droylsden, less than a mile away from where they lived. The whole of the area was being developed and she decided to buy one of these and start a greengrocery business. She had no previous experience of greengrocery or of running a business, and there must have been some influence on her to make such a decision. This is likely to have been her brother, John Taylor who was the manager of a stall on Manchester's wholesale greengrocery market, Smithfield Market, and it is known that he helped her to understand the buying, pricing and selling of the goods.

Lizzie was a remarkable woman. At a time when most people were planning to take things easier and enjoy life, she was about to embark on one of the greatest challenges of her life. She was about 52 years old, which was considered to be old at the time. Even though she had always been a hard working, organised and thrifty person, this was a big risk at her age. She had saved up over the years for a day like this, and possibly had some money from life insurance after Bill’s death. This covered the deposit, stock, and the shop fittings. In comparison to her, Bill was a lot less adventurous and probably would have prevented her from embarking on such a risky enterprise. Perhaps his experience of watching his parents try to establish a grocery business weighed heavily on him. She was now her own boss and rose to the challenge.

Lizzie Dillon started the shop during 1934. In the Trades Directory of Manchester and District for 1933, there is no mention of any shops in Manor Road. Her decision to start a business influenced the lives of most of her family for at least the next two generations, though they didn’t realise it at the time. It also has to be borne in mind that this just followed the depression years with unprecedented unemployment amongst working class people. So it was not the best time to start any new business. There were also at least three established greengrocery shops in the immediate area, so the competition was significant.

A large housing estate was under construction behind the shops. Housewives still bought perishable goods on an almost daily basis, and she believed this would provide enough customers when the houses were occupied. There were eight shops on the row and she was only the second person to buy one of them. One of the centre shops had been taken by Pam Taylor (no relation) for a hairdresser’s salon and Lizzie picked the other centre shop, which also had a nice number, 246 Manor Road, Droylsden. The property cost about £350, which she bought on a mortgage of about £4 a month, and this included the ground rent and the rates.

Droylsden was a small town situated between Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne. Because of the proximity of these larger towns, the town had declined as people left to work elsewhere, especially in Manchester. By the 1930s, Manchester was overcrowded and several housing estates were being developed in Droylsden to take some of the overflow and the town’s population doubled between 1920 and 1940 as people moved back. Our family was part of the movement away from the city.

The shop was double fronted with two large display windows, one on either side of the front door. The actual shop space was about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Looking in from the front, a door on the back right hand side opened into a corridor leading to the living accommodation behind. At the top of the corridor on the left, was the door to a sitting room behind the shop, the stairs were opposite on the right hand side; straight ahead was the living room, and a small galley kitchen was beyond that. Upstairs, there was a large bedroom over the shop and a long landing with two more added. In total this area was about seven yards wide and twelve yards deep and ended in a six-foot high brick wall, with a four-foot wall between the properties. There must have been a price to pay for this, but it gave much needed extra space.

Lily worked in the shop with Lizzie for a couple of years before starting her own business on Ashton New Road in Clayton, fairly close but far enough away to ensure they weren’t in competition. The money to set this up came from her share of the Manor Road business. Norman had been a window cleaner up until this time, so he joined his mother in the shop and assumed the responsibility for the wholesale buying and the heavy work. Norman became a popular local figure and was hardly ever without a girlfriend. He was a good catch for somebody as he had a business, and in those days that meant he was well off.

The items they sold would be considered to be basic by today’s standards. The produce was essentially seasonal, except for imported items from the Empire, such as oranges, bananas and grapes. The window on the left-hand side is mainly full of fruit and vegetables, with bananas and grapes hanging up on large hooks. The boxes in front of the window contain rhubarb, new potatoes (in the basket) and spring cabbage. There are some boxes of fruit on the trestle table to the right, and the barrel probably contained apples. The top sticker on the right-hand window is advertising “Iceland Fish” and there are a few spring flowers inside the window on the right.

Rabbit was part of the staple diet of many working people in those days, sold as a full or half rabbit. The pelt was removed by slitting it at the neck and peeling it from the flesh. A man came every week to collect the pelts and paid a small sum for them - they were used for making hats, gloves, fur coats and trimmings for clothes.

T he picture shows baking apples were 3 pence (just over 1p) a pound and “Fyffes bananas are food and fruit for you”. “Batchelors Peas” were pre-packed dried peas. There was an informal agreement amongst the shop owners along the row that they would not compete with each other, so Dillons did not sell any canned vegetables at that time, as tinned food was sold by Storton’s, the grocers, three shops to the right. The widow just showing to the left is of Wagner’s, the pork butchers. In later years, Dillons did start selling tinned vegetables, because the customers kept asking for them.

Norman died in 1942, and Fred and Ruby Collins took over the shop in 1943. In the late 1940s, they expanded the inside by knocking through to the sitting room behind the shop and later extended the kitchen. The left-hand window was then for flowers only and the right window for fish and poultry. They still displayed items outside, and the trestle table was still going strong as late as the 1960s, when Gladys and George Scott owned the shop. They sold the property and moved the business to Droylsden Market in about 1965, taking the trestle table with them.

On 3rd September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Norman was then about 30 and still unmarried, and he volunteered to join the army, which gives an indication of his character. At his medical examination in Manchester, the Medical Officer told him bluntly to: “Go home lad, you’re dying”. That was the first Norman knew that he was suffering with tuberculosis. He didn’t feel ill and had never even suspected. He was devastated and so were the rest of the family. Once he knew he had contracted tuberculosis, he immediately became ill, as if by magic. He went into a sanatorium near Rochdale where his condition slowly improved.

Norman seemed to make a full recovery and was discharged to return home, probably early in 1942. He then slowly resumed work in the shop, and life started to get back to normal. Unfortunately, on the evening of Saturday 27th February 1943, after a day’s work in the shop, he had a haemorrhage of the lung, and died suddenly. Norman was only 32 years old, had never married, but was a great loss. He was buried with his father in the graveyard at Saint Cross Church in Clayton. He left savings of about £300, which again illustrates the profitability of the business. It came to his mother Lizzie, as his next of kin, and she gave it to Gladys, her youngest child and the only one still to marry.

Lizzie considered selling her shop in Manor Road after Norman died. She was 62 years old and had assumed that Norman would take over the shop so she could retire. Her children had married and left home, except for Gladys. She had helped them establish themselves and set most of them up in their own businesses, including Cyril by this time. It seemed as if her obligations were met and her task complete.

Fred Collins had left the army but was still not back to normal health, and Ruby was doing the buying for both shops. Consequently, they decided to sell their business in Clayton and go into partnership with Lizzie in Manor Road on a 50/50 basis, splitting the profits between them at the end of every month. They agreed to pay £1000 for their share of the business. This also gave them the property and they took over the mortgage payments. They could just about afford this from their savings, but she refused to take it, insisting they paid her in instalments over a period, so that they did not have to spend all their savings at once. Apart from the conveyancing of the property, there was no written agreement as they were family and trusted each other.

Shortly afterwards, Fred and Ruby moved to 246 Manor Road, to live with Lizzie and Gladys. It must have been a tight fit with four adults in a three bedroom property, but they were used to living as a large family sharing a small house and it wasn’t a problem for them. The intention was that Lizzie would buy a house near Blackpool and Gladys would live with her, so it was only for a short period.

During the 1930s, Lizzie started going on coach tours around Britain. Even when the war was still at its height, she was determined to take about three tours a year: “Because I might not be here next year.” In early 1944, she retired from the shop completely. She had always wanted to live in Blackpool and bought a large three-bedroom semi-detached house in Thornton, near Blackpool, and Gladys went to live with her. She soon became lonely in a place far away from her family and friends so, after about a year, she rented it out and bought another house at 15 Longden Road, Longsite in Manchester, and again Gladys went to live with her.

On Saturday 21st June 1946, about 6 months after moving to Longsite, Lizzie was taken ill with a heart attack. Unfortunately, Dr Taylor was on holiday, so a locum came to visit her and he diagnosed indigestion. Lizzie was plagued by indigestion throughout her life and always kept a packet of antacid tablets in her handbag, so the diagnosis was accepted without question. She particularly loved hot buttered toast, with the butter put on thick like cheese. This is enough to give anybody an attack of indigestion, or a raised cholesterol level. It soon became clear that the attack was serious and Dr Taylor came and see her the following Monday. He had previously observed symptoms of heart problems in her, and had told her to slow down and take things easier for years, which had possibly prompted her retirement. He diagnosed a heart attack and immediately arranged for her to go to the Jewish Hospital. Unfortunately, it was already too late. She died from a second heart attack on Wednesday 25th June 1946.

Lizzie was the linchpin of her family. She was consulted on many, if not all, the important decisions taken by her children and was greatly missed after her death. Even late in her own life Ruby was heard to say: “I wish my Mam was here, she’d know what to do.” Just how much would a person with her determination and wisdom have achieved with a better start in life, or even if she had gone into business years earlier? It is interesting to note that none of her children developed their own businesses much further during the next generation. They did not have the same determination and strength of character as their mother - it suited them just to make a comfortable living.

Elizabeth Ann Dillon was buried in the graveyard at Saint Cross Church in Clayton, together with her husband Bill and her son Norman. The grave was always well tended, especially by Ruby, Gladys and Lily. It helped that they all sold fresh flowers in their shops. Lily was a particularly gifted florist and some of her creations were very beautiful. Gladys lived the longest and was still taking flowers to the grave when I last visited in 2002, though the graveyard was no longer maintained to the standard of the past. Everything except the gravestones had been removed.

After Lizzie died, her eldest brother Bill helped Gladys sell the houses in Longsite and Thornton. She then moved back to Manor Road with Ruby and Fred, and started working with them in the shop again. It was still her home as she had inherited her mother’s remaining share of the business, which was the remainder of the money agreed, but not yet paid by Fred and Ruby.

Gladys also inherited Lizzie’s furniture, but didn’t want her favourite old rocking chair. This was in bergère style with open weave back and sides, and padded arms with worn wooden knobs on the ends. It was probably too old-fashioned for Gladys, but Lily wanted it and it had pride of place in front of her fire for many years. I remember as boy how comfortable it was.

None of Lizzie's grandchildren continued in the greengrocery business and the short-lived tradition died out. But we all owe a debt of gratitude to Elizabeth Ann Dillon as she created the opportunity for us to have a much better start in life than she, and our parents, enjoyed. I feel extremely grateful to her.

One day in the summer of 1957, Ruby’s brother Teddy came into Dillon’s shop, which was now owned by Fred and Ruby. They looked at each other as if to say: “What does he want?”, but were busy at the time and asked him to wait in the living room. Teddy’s wife Millie had left him to live with the father of her child, who was once Teddy’s best friend. He had also sold his greengrocery shop in Strawberry Gardens, Droylsden that Lizzie helped him to set up. He had been drinking heavily since Millie left as the purpose was lost from his life, was on the skids, and wanted to borrow money. They gave him some money, but not much, as they knew it would not be repaid. No doubt Teddy also asked his other brothers and sisters.

By the Easter of 1958, Teddy had been admitted to a large, institutional-type hospital somewhere to the south of Manchester. He was an alcoholic by this time, diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and told to stop drinking. But it was too late, even in hospital he was slipping out to a local pub during the day. He died within a couple of months.