Oral memories of Marple and surrounding areas were recorded, organised and presided over by Mrs Gladys Swindells, then Chairman of Marple Antiquarian Society (now the Marple Local History Society). The original interviews took place after 1961, by which time the interviewees were over 80 years of age, so that their memories go back to the late 19th. century.
Thanks must be given to Bill Beard, Ruth Hargreaves and Louise Thistleton for transcribing the memory recordings. Given the quality of these recordings, from the early 60's, with local accents and forgotten colloquialisms, an admirable achievement.
Two memory transcrpits, of the series, are now on the Marple Local History Society website..
http://www.marplelocalhistorysociety.org.uk/stories-from-the-archive/memories-of-local-people.htmlfrom Mr. Lenthal'ls memories...
We lived in Marple Lodge until 1898 but there was a period of 18 months when we had to leave because at 3.0’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve 1893, or perhaps 1894, when we were turned out of the house on account of a landslide. The whole of the embankment fell down and just missed the house and they were expecting a further fall. We went right up to Station Road in Marple to Beech Mount and were taken in by friends, the Heighways at the time. I remember the day after the landslide I was sent to stay with friends of the family in Chapel-en-le-Frith and went past the landslide on the other side of the track. The rails on the up line were standing bare in the air at the time so it wasn’t a very happy place to be in. There was no further fall and it was eventually built up. I should say, in connection with that, that there was a family of six of us, six children and my father and mother . It was rather a do as to be taken in and we were treated very kindly. That’s all I remember of that.
From Mrs. Rowbottom' memories...
From being a little girl I remember going to Compstall. My grandfather was Mr Sherwin and he was the manager of the Mill (below) and lived at a house call Poplar Grove. We used to be quite excited going there because he had a coachman and carriage. He had an orchard and we used to love having the fruit from the orchard. It was a very nice house with a lovely, large dining room because he had a big family you know, 13 children, and a large lounge, morning room and large kitchen. The drawing room was always a great interest to me as a little girl. My aunts were three maiden ladies and they had all sorts of beautiful things in Compstall Milltheir drawing room so it was quite exciting for a little child like me. My grandfather died in the year 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. We children were not allowed to go in the procession or go to the fields after the procession for tea and buns because Grandfather Sherwin died at that time.
