1958 - 1995 97 Mansfield Road, Layton, Blackpool, Lancs.

Of the four places I could perhaps call home, this address evokes emotions. From the heights of joy to the depths of sadness.

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Before I embark on this little tale, a thought or two. Of the half dozen or so who may be reading this blog, all are 'related' in some way to the marriage between Glennys and I. All, in one way or another are related to Glennys. She and I separated almost ten years ago in September 1997.

I think all of you readers feel strongly about that separation and I'm sure you aportion the blame based on what you know or have assumed about the nearly forty years that preceded it.

The blog is about my life from 1939 to the present day so the tales told herein are mostly about the first 58 years and therefore cover all of my marriage.

The point I'm trying to make? It's often very difficult to write about those times gone by. Difficult because my mind is littered with sadness and regret and guilt. Difficult too, because as I write, I imagine that my readers are troubled by a variety of emotions too as they read my words.

All but one of the "assumed audience" have been involved in marital breakups directly and affected by other breakups. This seems to be part of the fabric of our society. It's not new and only archaic laws held many couples together in earlier times. No folks, I'm not making excuses or pointing fingers.

So here we are, we strangely entangled few, sharing the nearly seventy years of of our little slice of history. I seem to be the teller of tales for the moment. I love the job I've given myself. But sometimes it's difficult ............. very difficult ............ to write of long past events while so very conscious of my readers' emotions.

Enough!

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On then with the tale of 97 Mansfield Road.

It was home for me from the very first time I visited in 1958.

The last visit? That was perhaps 1995. Looking back they both have an aching sadness about them now.

My first visit was the stuff of romance. Remember, this was, in effect, day one of the beginning of Hutton sons and Hutton grandchildren - mayhap a whole dynasty, although of course I didn't know it at the time. It went something like this (details blurred by time):

In 1958 I was at R.A.F. Weeton on my Airframe Fitter's course. Three of us trainees had formed a loose alliance. Geoff 'Boffin' Bellingham, Sid Trendall and myself. A more dissimilar trio it would be hard to imagine. Boffin only figures as an odd statistic, so for now can be put aside. Sorry Boffin.

One fateful, sunny day, probably a Saturday, Sid and I had taken the bus the nine miles into Blackpool in search of adventure (airman couldn't afford cars in those far off days!).

Perhaps drawn by a poster advertising hydroplane racing in nearby Lytham St. Annes we'd gone to watch. Now Sid was worldly wise and skilled in the art of charming the girls (I patently wasn't!). He, a rough and ready Londoner, would have called it 'chatting up the birds' I suppose. Soon enough he was 'chatting up' a waitress in the lakeside cafe. Having made a date with her and he then bethought himself of me. "'Ere," he said to her, "got somethin' for my mate here?"

She assured him she'd find a partner for me. Ecstatic and affeared by turns I began looking forward to what was, in essence, my first date. Thanks Sid.

A few days later Sid and I were again on a bus headed for Blackpool, it was raining. I was wearing a borrowed tie and a borrowed raincoat and in the throes of a fearful headcold.

The foursome, Sid and Maggie and Glennys and I, met up and we all went to a movie. I think it was "Boy on a Dolphin" with Alan Ladd and Sophia Loren. There mayhap began my infatuation with the lovely Miss Loren. She climbed from the sea into a boat in a soaking wet dress - how could I help myself?

Despite my doubtful attire and my mucous-blocked condition, Glennys agreed to another date, amazing.

Meet again we did but it was a little more chaotic and went thus:

On the day of the next date, I missed the bus and had to catch the next. Of course she was long gone when I alighted at Blackpool's bus station. Then began a small epic of determination, of which I am occassionally capable.

Knowing approximately where she lived. I caught a bus for that area. Getting off by guesswork I set about knocking on doors, calling, I think, at every fourth house. Glennys Ward- Eversley is surely a rare enough name and I reasoned that sooner or later I'd find someone who knew her. If not that street, maybe the next. How long I tried or on how many doors I knocked I don't know. I likely saw it as exciting and romantic and worthy of a knight on a horse. In the end the knocking didn't work and I remember asking a passing maiden if she knew the name. Surprisingly she did and offered to show me where she thought Glennys lived. (Another tribute to my boundless charm!).

In time we stopped and she pointed down what I was to come to know as Mansfield Road. Perhaps I started the 'every fourth door' approach again, I don't know but in time I knocked at number 97 and her mother answered the door.

Glennys wasn't home and I set off on another fruitless search where her mother thought she might have gone. Cutting the long story a little shorter I returned to #97 to wait and in due course she came home. So began the affair ............... and a seemingly endless series of returns to Number 97.

Sid Trendall? He eventually married Maggie his date.
Boffin? He started dancing lessons in Blackpool and in due course, married his instructress.
As history relates, April 4th 1959 I married Glennys and began making little Huttons.
All three of us ........ surely aircraft mechanics are the sexiest of men!


It was almost certainly 1995 that I was to visit 97 for the last time. Glennys and I were living in Bourton-on-the Water for that strange year we came back again to England. Mother-in-law Rena was perhaps visiting Andrea. It was agreed we'd drive up to Blackpool and stay a couple of days and perhaps re-visit old haunts - a sort of memory lane affair.
The first evening we made up the beds but, come time to retire I found the nicotine impregnated house was just too much for me. My respitory system rebelled and, as far as I can remember, despite the late hour, we packed up and headed back to the Cotswolds.
Little did I think that that would be my last sight of the old place. Soon after, Altzheimers began its cruel attack on our beloved Rena.

As for the 37 years in between the two events mentioned above? We came and went, to and from #97. Pictures show Andrea and Mitchell and Martin and Sherri and Glennys and I and Rena of course, in front of the old place at widely differing dates.
The little Batten/Hutton subtribe stayed there before and after Singapore, before we emmigrated. Brief visits, short holidays. Any housing moves or assorted crises. I fear we quite took the place AND the welcome for granted.
Rena grew a magic looking garden in front with displays of roses.
Martin and Trish even visited during their honeymoon.

Now? Strangers no doubt live there and know nothing of "us". With Rena's depature the Horrocks connection with Blackpool ended. She was the last of the family to live in Blackpool as far as I know.
"They" had come from Manchester to Blackpool in the 1800's no doubt in search of a better life ........... now their descendants are scattered like dandelion seeds.

But #97 lives on in memory at least.