1939 10 Swanfield Terrace, Laneshawbridge, Lancashire, England. My birthplace.


I'd sort of promised myself (and my readers) that I'd try and write a little about each of the places I'd lived. A daunting task really.

The list of these is a couple of entries back if you care to look. So here we go, beginning where I began, well, emerged, I'm not sure where conception took place!

This is 10 Swanfield Terrace in Laneshawbridge, a village in Lancashire not far from the border with Yorkshire. Below the arrow and to the right of the man, is the house. The why of my being born here is mostly a mystery and belongs in another entry. It's be hard not to stray into those circumstances - after all some of it's sinister enough and weird enough to belong in a novel.


My birth certificate gives this as my birth address.

This link will give some of the history of the place:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laneshaw_Bridge

In 1983 I visited the village during my great genealogy phase. Nobody was at home at number 10 Swanfield terrace but I wrote to the address and below is the reply. Quite interesting stuff.
Click to enlarge and click the "+" to further enlarge to read.

As for the background to my being born there? Mine is a muddled family history. The four family names then, i.e. my grandparents, were Hutton, Addlesee, Webber and Calvert.

My father was Harold Eric Hutton and my mother was Freda Webber. She was 17 when they married, prompting the thought that she may well have been with child then. But there's no evidence to support that. I turned up two years later, when she was nineteen.

My mother's family were from Halifax in Yorkshire. Very sketchily, and it's largely guesswork: their import business had failed and their next venture, a carpet shop had failed too. My grandmother had set up a bakery in Colne which is very near to Laneshawbridge.

My parent's marriage seems to have been a very rocky affair. Sooner or later I hope to write it in what detail I know. I never met my father but I knew my mother and, knowing her, it could well be that she drove him to extremes of behaviour. She always asserted that he gone for her with a knife on at least one occasion. His second wife and daughter tell of a very different and rather loveable man. We'll never know but I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So how she came to give birth to me in this odd little house essentially in what might be described as the middle of nowehere I really don't know. Was she fleeing from him to save herself and her unborn infant as her fearful tales suggest or ..............

Anyway I emerged, on March 13th., supposedly blue and with the cord around my neck. Survive I did despite it all.

A few months later the whole family seems to have reappeared in faraway Sevenoaks in Kent.

I'd give a lot to know the details of those few years. Oh yes indeed.