Many U.K. Members Here?

Turpinr

No such thing as health and safety in those days.
People with fingers and limbs missing was common place and fatalities too.
My missusususus nephews and great nephews live in Darwen, it's only over th'ills from us

size11s

I understand Darwen is getting a bit chi chi these days. Just up the road, used to cycle there as a kid, nice small town. I hope it still has great Indian restaurants and that indoor market.

size11s

I grew up just south of Blackburn, twixt it and Bolton, near Darwen. My maternal grandfather had tales of being in t'mill at 14 and having to crawl under the looms clearing the fluff away whilst they were still running.

size11s

I understand Darwen is getting a bit chi chi these days. Just up the road, used to cycle there as a kid, nice small town. I hope it still has great Indian restaurants and that indoor market.

size11s

A Darwen factoid. Darwen is the birth place of machine printed wallpaper, Potters of Darwen, who were initially calico printers turned their hand to wallpapers and eventually Crown paint and wallpapers became the biggest employer in the town. The area used to have lots of paper, bleaching and dyeing mills.

That's pretty hardcore mountain biking territory around Belmont. I used to run on the moors as a youth, with a mate who was a squaddy, when he was on leave. Many a turned ankle.

Turpinr

I don't know about the indoor market but the Indian restaurants are still great.
I used to mountain bike over there too from Rivington, over into Belmont, Tockholes then over t'moor and up Darwen Tower which has just been done up.
Good fell running country too.

tikkathree

Oh we could narrow this down. I had family in Ewood. As a teenager I went to dances on the boundary.

tikkathree

You'll be telling me it's no longer pronounced "Darren" next!

size11s

It's definitely still "Darren" and the wallop is bloody expensive wallop now!

If I remember Egerton to Darren is about 6 miles yet they have quite different dialects. There was a night club outside Darwen called Bogarts, lots of rumbles there between locals and 'outsiders'....lol

tikkathree

Did me coortin' at Tock'us. The pub furthest from Blackburn, a Lion/Matthew Brown house on the left.

Members of this forum with no connection to the industrial NorthWest of England and especially the wet side of the Pennines are asked to be patient please.

size11s

Oh my goodness, I have a vague and distant memory of Peppermint Place. Am now down in the cosy Cotswolds, which is OK but a totally different vibe to my home town.

MRC

S'allright, even I, a Black Country kid, have a connection with the area. My favourite uncle was something important in Lancs Council, Parks and Playing Fields IIRC, and lived just to the south of Blackburn at a really quiet place called White Coppice just on the edge of the moors. When I stayed with my uncle & aunt I could easily walk up into the moors -- loved that so close to the muck and brass but so quiet 👍

MRC

S'allright, even I, a Black Country kid, have a connection with the area. My favourite uncle was something important in Lancs Council, Parks and Playing Fields IIRC, and lived just to the south of Blackburn at a really quiet place called White Coppice just on the edge of the moors. When I stayed with my uncle & aunt I could easily walk up into the moors -- loved that so close to the muck and brass but so quiet 👍

Gav1967

I'm a black country kid too although Hampshire is my home these days.

size11s

I think the areas most recent notoriety was the moors burning on Winter Hill, quite a sight. I was up there at the time for a funeral. I am sure that they have recovered now but it was devastation when I last saw it. We used to sledge on Winter Hill on an upturned car bonnet, madness!