When I was a child, Much Wenlock was a very self-sufficient little town! As the centre of Borough Affairs, we ‘Wenlockians’ regarded our town as the ‘Capital’ of our area!
Wenlock was ‘town’ for most of the surrounding farms and villages as it had been for centuries. The Farmers Market on Smithfield was a busy place almost every Monday. Although our street market no longer operated, a wide choice of shops for every need lined High Street, Wilmore Street and Barrow Street as far as the Raven Hotel. We had three banks, Lloyds, The Midland and Barclays which were open 9am to 3pm Monday to friday and Saturday morning 9am to Noon.
Today, when all Supermarkets carry a huge selection of fresh produce and processed food from all over the world it seems incredible to look back on a time when almost all our needs were supplied fresh from local sources!
As with most towns across Britain the ravages of the deep recession of the 1930’s had resulted in a few empty store-fronts. However, most businesses continued to hang on, living on the edge of poverty, really having no alternative means of support. Frugality was a way of life, waste an abomination!
In such a world, self-respect, pride and respectability assumed enormous importance! These were the symbols of success. Money and position were accepted facts of life over which we had little control.
Almost everyone rented their property from the Abbey Estates and rents were frozen throughout the War and for many years after. I believe the rent collector visited the cottages weekly, but all businesses paid their rent in person at the Gaskell every Quarter Day.
Looking back, it is amazing to think of the amount of control exercised by landowners. When my mother wished to purchase land from the estate to build a house in 1950, the sale was not permitted until Mrs. Ward (the then current owner of the Abbey Estates), had reviewed the Architect’s drawings and deemed that our new house met with her approval!
Some of the most coveted houses were those built by the Council in the 1920’s – The Crescent, Southfield Road and Havelock Crescent! All these houses had front and back gardens, indoor plumbing and full bathrooms, plus electricity! Many of the older houses did not! No one had central heating; we relied on coal or wood fires for heat and often for cooking too!
For everyone, our gardens or allotments provided a major contribution to our diet and nothing was allowed to go to waste! I remember my mother putting out the word that our thirteen blackcurrant bushes were ripe and loaded with berries. All were welcome to come and pick, but please leave a picked basket for her! By noon the next day the bushes were picked clean and a large basketful was left just inside our back door!
The war brought additional hardships, especially for those still suffering from WW1 injuries! Men who had lived through the horrors of one war and WW1 widows who had battled to raise a family alone had to watch their sons being taken to fight yet another war! The youngest veterans of WW1 found themselves re-called to their old regiments!
Thinking back to my childhood it amazes me how many women had jobs in addition to running the house and caring for the children. Most of the smaller shops were run by women, their husbands (if living) were employed full-time in other trades or in the Military. Women made up the vast majority of teachers and all the nurses!
Many widows and single women ran their own small holdings raising chickens and a few sheep, goats and/or beef cattle. Often, these women had just carried on after the death of their husband or parents.
Others worked as ‘char ladies’ helping to bridge the gap created for wealthier families by the exodus of all the young unmarried girls to better paying jobs in the munitions factories. The land army brought city girls to live and work on the larger farms. Some stayed on after the war preferring the country life to smoky cities!
We often talk of the huge loss of life in WW1 and see the long lists of the ‘Fallen’ on old Memorials. We do not often think of the fact that each of those men killed was either the husband or future husband of some poor woman who, in spite of Society’s perceptions regarding women, had to find a way to survive and often raise a family in a world where a ‘working woman’ was often viewed with suspicion and became ‘faceless’ as a social entity!
