Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal

Sid Dyer.

The Canal and Life in the Thirties During the thirties, as a young boy, I along with my mates would spent a bit of our playtime, as you might call it, going for walks along the canal or cut as we called it. On sunny days, when we were on school hols, not many in those days, we would go with a bottle of fizzy water down Stoneclough road to find the bottom canal which ran through Prestolee and Ringley eventually ending in Salford. Even though we were kids we enjoyed the quiet and peace of the canal. In those days the canals were lovely, clean and colourful with plenty of wildfowl. Not far from the road bridge at Ringley, looking towards Irwell Bank Mill, alongside the canal there was one of the many set of locks and a cottage on the bank known as Caloes Lock. At the other end of Prestolee, there was another set of locks that went upwards to another canal. This was the canal that ran from Bolton to Bury. The locks were noted as a real feat of engineering. A model of the Locks at Nob End can be seen in Bolton Museum. Alas during the 1930s the canal burst its banks and to this day part of the canal between Nob End and Ladyshore has remained dry. Then again modern progress and the construction of the Motorway has destroyed parts of the canals. At Darcy Lever on the way to Bolton the canal used to run through the village by way of an aqueduct, which unfortunately has long since gone. I left school at the age of fourteen and on the 3rd September 1939 I started work as a miner following my dad and uncles. My first pit was Ladyshore Colliery at Little Lever. The colliery was situated on either side of the canal. One shaft on one side with the larger shaft on the opposite bank. The first year I spent working on the surface on the cleaning belts. This involved picking dirt from the coal before it could be sold. The coal was then loaded on to barges and towed by horses along the canal to Radcliffe and Bury. When the regular man wasn't available a boy was needed to help steer the barges on the journey. This did not occur very often but when it was your turn it was a nice morning out. After the first year of work, being about 15 years old, I volunteered to work underground. Unthinkable isn't it? Transport to work in those days was by bicycle or bus. Alternatively those that lived close by in Little Lever walked. I would cycle to the pit from my home in Kearsley along Seddons Lane and the canal to Nob End. The snow falls during the winter of 1940 were the worst I've seen. The heavy snow falls made it impossible to get to work by bicycle so we had to walk and that is something I'll never forget. In those days we wore clogs not boots. Imagine trying to find your way along the canal bank with snow drifts almost 8 to 10 feet deep in places. After a few years at Ladyshore I moved to another colliery and better things. Oh well at 75 it's nice to look back at those early years of my life and remember the canal and my time working at Ladyshore. Sid Dyer January 2000.