Top choristers were paid half a crown each at weddings – ‘good money’ for teens in the 1950s
North Staffordshire historian MERVYN EDWARDS gets a flavour of life in Penkhull from stalwart Rev Allan Townsend, who has lived in the village for 74 years and has seen many changes – good and bad
I’VE had good times in Penkhull over the years, having taken part in pub quizzes, having led history walks and even been a tottering participant on a three-legged pub crawl – another story for another time.
However, for a real flavour of Penkhull you have to talk to locals such as the Rev Allan Townsend, who I originally came to know through his long-running association with Rotarians and Probus groups as well as other societies.
At the age of 78, Allan lives in Penkhull and has been a familiar figure in the village since childhood, give or take the odd work-related absence.
“When I was four-and-a-half,” he tells me, “My father bought a house in Sheppard Street off London Road, Stoke, next to The Villas. I was brought up there and my mother lived there until shortly before she died in 2015.
“For some unknown reason, my parents sent me to all the Penkhull schools, and that was my introduction to Penkhull.”
Allan recalls many of the teachers who formerly taught him, and their names may be remembered by today’s readers.
“I began my schooling at the age of five at what was then Penkhull Infants’ School, now the village hall. I was there for two years,” he said.
“The headteacher was Miss Roberts, and among the teachers were Miss Wetherill, Miss Bailey and Mrs Foreman. I then went to The Close – now residential accommodation – and studied there for four years, it being my junior school.
“One teacher was Miss Nancy Massey, and I kept in touch with her until she died not so long ago.
“Mrs Sanders was also very nice,
and I also recall Miss Chilton. The Chiltons were a big family in Penkhull and lived in Greatbach Avenue.
“I was ill when I should have taken my eleven-plus, so went to Penkhull Senior School, which is the school building at the end of Greatbach Avenue and Prince’s Road.
“I was there for two years and I still see one of my old teachers, Mr Edge, a woodwork teacher. His wife also taught there, she being an English teacher.
“Having passed my 13-plus, I then went to Longton High School, staying there for four years.”
Allan mentions several little shops in Penkhull from his remote past.
He said: “Miss Charlesworth, who was a very large lady, lived in Queen’s Road and kept a little shop on the corner of Prince’s Road and Honeywall, opposite the senior school.
“Children hadn’t got much money in the 1950s and sweets were still on ration, but she used to make little iced lollies from cordial and water and she would keep them in her freezer and sell them for a penny.
“The Brunts had a little grocery shop at the corner of Newcastle Lane and Manor Court Street that was formerly the Royal Oak hostelry.
“Eardley Street contained a row of old cottages, and at the top of that row was a detached shop property that was run by a Mr Holt. Occasionally, I bought six pennyworth of fish heads from him for our family cat.
“At the top of Penkhull New Road, on the corner of what is now Kirkland Lane, was a little grocer’s shop run by Jimmy Lawton, who was churchwarden at Penkhull. Just below his shop there was a family who ran a taxi service called Creamline, which was well-used in its time.”
At the age of ten, Allan was judged to be a decent singer and so his father approached Kenneth Gleaves, the choirmaster of St Thomas’s Church in Penkhull.
“He was quite well-known as a bass baritone in the area,” conveys Allan.
“He took me in as a chorister. Just before Christmas, Ken would take a group of older choristers – thirteen, fourteen year olds – around the village, singing Christmas carols.
“This was quite an experience for us youngsters as we collected more money than we were likely to receive in pocket-money from our parents.
“We would visit pubs and people’s houses – including the Harrisons’ house at the top of James Street.
“They owned a big furniture shop in Stoke, opposite the market, and they gave us quite good money and a mince pie.”
It seems that there were occasionally opportunities to make a little money if you were a chorister – especially if you excelled.
“When we had a wedding ceremony at the church”, muses Allan, “it was always the top eight choristers who would be required to sing – and we were paid half-a-crown each as payment. This was good money for us in the 1950s.”
Whilst a chorister, Allan took to religion. He points out that in those days, the Church provided many things that the State now provides in terms of social welfare.
“Youth clubs were the thing at one time, and you might meet your girlfriend through them,” he reasons. “Venues such as The Place in Hanley were not around in those days.”
Allan was later prepared for
confirmation by the legendary Penkhull Vicar, V G Aston, and confirmed – with his mother – in St Peter’s church (now Stoke Minster) in Stoke on Advent Sunday, 1955.
Allan spent 25 years in the civil service and local government, though took a very active part in church affairs.
He had done some theological training as a youth, but was not ordained until the age of 50.
During his career with the Church, the only ecclesiastical position he held in Stoke was as a non-paid curate at Fenton from 1993 to 1996.
However, he held a small number of posts in and around Birmingham, in the process giving up his career in the civil service in order to serve the Church full-time.
After three years at St Saviour’s in Saltley, Birmingham, he retired and returned to the Potteries in 2009, to live in Penkhull. He has helped a number of local churches, covering for illness or holidays.
Clearly, he has been influenced by two famous Penkhull vicars he knew in his youth.
“V G Aston was a rather quaint old man, perhaps eccentric but much loved in the parish,” he said.
“I only knew him in his later days, having become a chorister at St Thomas’s in 1953 when I was ten and he retired in 1956. He was a very thorough man when he trained us for confirmation.”
And what of Penkhull’s archmoderniser, the Rev Arthur Perry?
“The Rev Arthur Perry was very kind to me. He became Lord Mayor of Stoke-on-trent in 1957 and never missed taking a church service in his whole year in that position,” says Allan.
“At the time when the Rev Perry superintended the renovation of St Thomas’, I was a teenager on the church council and I recall him appealing for funds to restore the church. It was refaced in sandstone.
“I recall the roof windows that were like little cottage windows with leaded glass – diamond-shaped panes – and sadly, these were replaced with clear glass during the restoration.
“This took away a little of the building’s charm, but the Rev Perry did a tremendous job of sprucing up a filthy, dusty church. It was a commendable effort in preservation – it’s a pity he didn’t do it for the rest of the village!”
Having talked to many Penkhull people over the years about Arthur, I was keen to hear more about him.
Allan expresses: “He put religion before anything else, being very pastoral, a very good parish priest.
“His social ideology led to the demolition of the old Penkhull village, which certainly had a charm about it.
“I think it was the poet, John Betjeman, who said that you shouldn’t pull down old cottages, they should be renovated and preserved.
“The old Penkhull village was very much a Spode production. Spode had produced that village for his workpeople so that they would be out of the smoke.
“The old Penkhull Square – where Jeremy Close is now – was charming. I admit that there was squalor there, but the tiny old cottages were lovely. I think that they could have been saved.
“So some of Arthur’s ideas didn’t go down terribly well, but he stuck to his principles and believed that it would be better for the community.”
Community is a word that Allan uses frequently – whether we are talking Penkhull past or present.
“I have noticed the rise of a much more pronounced community spirit in Penkhull, much of it focused around the village hall,” he said.
“Many people have rolled up their sleeves on the hall’s behalf and a successful community café runs there every Thursday.
“Penkhull also has a flag that is distinctive and has been created by the community. Penkhull is still a self-contained community and its geography lends itself to that – the church in the centre, the properties around it.
“People don’t move very often, either – there are elderly people living in Penkhull who have always lived there.”
A thirty-minute film, A Virtual Walk Around Penkhull, presented by Mervyn Edwards, has been produced by Green Door CIO and is available from the Green Door hub at Westport Lake, near Tunstall.