special days cause so much trouble

Hand up jingle I didn't know why Mothering Sunday began so it's new to me.

I have enjoyed reading these stories, it's hard to imagine children going into service. Love hearing how some of them had made their escape.

Cari our wedding reception was on Dene Road at the Theological college.
Lona my youngest daughter also went to Beaver Road School and her older sisters were at Parrs Wood for a time.

Cari Condolences from me too
I too lived in Didsbury from the age of nine until I was eighteen (1955 - 1964)
Cari, I think it was you that also lived near the airport, where I live now, unless I'm mistaken? I think we emailed.

I went to Beaver Road school until I was eleven and then to Levenshulme High school.

That's a great story tanith. You come from a family of strong females.

My Mother was sent from a Welsh mining village into service in London when she was 14, 2yrs later her then 14yr old sister was sent to a different family in London , the sister turned up at my Mums employers house saying how much she hated the family she was in service to and she persuaded my Mum to run away. They had no money and bearing in mind this was in the 20's they proceeded to walk home to Wales, they got as far as Reading before the police found them, my Grandfather had to go Reading from the Welsh Valleys to collect them both. My Grandfather moved the whole family up to London as there was no work in Wales and they opened a cafe in Paddington.

Sorry totally off topic

Cari
I too lived in Didsbury for a while, firstly in the 60's and then again when I moved back for a time in the 80/90's.
My wedding reception was held just a few doors from the house where my grandmother had been in service.

So a bit of mothering on Mothering Sunday must have been something to which those who had loving mothers to go home to for the day looked forward with great anticipation.

Riverwalk, there are a number of stories here from those of us whose grandmothers ran off from a life in service. My grannie saw 12 hour shifts at the mill, whilst renting a room from her grumpy uncle as a much better option. How she and her sister managed to get from Coventry to the north west I don't know. My dad (her son) said she told him they walked. That's how good life in service in Coventry was!

I agree it's harrowing and often very sad, and by today's standards totally unthinkable, nevertheless it's our social history and it's shaped this country.
I didn't do history at school (other than Ancient history and the Romans) so am still learning!

I hate to hear about life in service!

It makes me sad to think of those young boys and girls, not yet into their teens in some cases, being sent off to a life of servitude.

I love hearing others' stories about life in service. my GPs (paternal) were shop-keepers and sadly I was never close enough to them to learn about their lives.
My maternal GM died of TB when my mother was 6, she barely remembers seeing her mum because she was ill for years before. Her father I rarely saw.
So reading the stories here is fascinating to me. Thank you for sharing them.

Condolences, Cari

I'm grateful for the compliment but I'm also fortunate not to have needed to be tough-skinned as far as mothering is concerned. Do you think HQ would let me change my username to Rhinohide?

My paternal gran went to work as a laundress at the age of twelve. She was 'fortunate' enough to still be able to live at home with her parents and those siblings who remained, but her pay barely covered her tram fares to and from work and her food let alone anything else.

Mothering Sunday was unknown in Scotland but its offspring, Mother's Day has spread north.

Thanks Stansgran that would explain the no boys thing. Love the idea of your granny swimming with her fruitcake

I always thought that Mothering Sunday was to commemorate the Church as Mother and therefore to let girls who would presumably be mothers one day off to see their mother with a fruitcake they had made showing how much they had learnt in service. It's possibly a bit fanciful. My grandmother ran away to sea . You can't really go home with a fruitcake when you're at sea unless you're a strong swimmer.

Mine was in Didsbury, too, ga. That was where she met my grandad at the age of 14. He worked at McVitie's and courted her with broken biscuits!

My grandmother also went into service at the age of 14. She worked in a big house in Didsbury, Manchester, which I believe was the home of the Sieff family who ran Marks & Spencers.

I'm another one whose grannie went into service at age 12. She hated it and ran away, taking her younger sister with her. The verbal family history is that the two girls walked from Coventry to a village outside Manchester. They had an uncle living there and working in the cotton mills. He rented them a bed and he girls started work at the local cotton mill. I've fond memories of visiting gran there when we were "doing" the cotton trade/slavery in history when I was 14. She got permission to show me round. My memories are of overwhelming noise, fluffy bits of cotton in the air and a bunch of lovely women who'd worked together throughout their lives. They seemed to know more about me than I did "eee your grannie, she's so proud of you" .

The rest of grannie's family gradually moved north, some to Lancashire to work in the cotton mills and a number of the male family members to Yorkshire to work in the pits. Isn't is good that so many of us know quite a bit about our family histories.

i didn't say 'thick skinned' I said 'tough skinned' there's a world of difference Elegran and it was not to you it was to bags

My late exMIL went into service at 14 and lasted one day. She ran away - home (quite a long way I think). She then started work at the local co-op shop but her older sister was in service for a few years and never quite forgave her for escaping. It was pretty grim I think.

Rubbish if you are claiming that I said that "most of us are thick as two short planks" It is perfectly obvious that most of us have at least average understanding, and many considerably more.

However it has been said that some of us are too thickskinned, because we don't get our knickers in a twist if our family forget to send us a ritual offering on a hallowed date. I felt I would like to point out that we are not in quite the same lonely neglected position that mothers used to have to be in when their daughters left the nest, when it was not possible to contact them at all for months at a time.

If they emigrated, they may never have met or corresponded again for the rest of their lives, no phone, no email, no text, no Skype, no way of keepingthe relationship alive at all.

Oh shite! bother! I meant to have the bed changed before bacon time.