Monday, September 23, 2024

A visit to Thiepval (4 - Leonard Hiley)

The post today returns to my trip to Thiepval in July and the last of the 4 names on the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme battlefields.


Leonard Hiley was born in Eccles, Lancashire in about 1885. He was educated at the Eccles British Schools. In 1905 he married Ethel May Whitehead in Weaste and they lived at 59 Knight Street, Eccles. Leonard and his father Beaumont Hiley were both Tripe Dressers. Leonard and Ethel May had 4 children - Dora (b 1906), Winston Beaumont (b 1910), Leonard (b 1912) and Gwyneth (b 1916).

Leonard was employed at the Ship Canal Sand Box Works at Weaste and enlisted in Salford in 1915 with the Lancashire Fusiliers 19th Battalion, the 3rd Salford Pals. He attained the rank of Lance Corporal. The Fusiliers' first taste of action was at Thiepval Ridge in the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916, the Salford Pals being almost wiped out. Leonard was one of those killed in action on that day.




An online 'Database of the Missing' can be viewed on the computers in the Visitor Centre at Thiepval. Leonard is among the soldiers shown and the images below are taken from this database.






Monday, September 16, 2024

The life of Henry Hiley Part 7 - Starting at School, January 1924

Now it’s time I told you how I started at school. That would be when I was 5 years old in January 1924. I was well aware of what went on at that school because of course I’d had a brother and 3 sisters who had either been there or were still there, and the routine that was drilled into my mind was that the children would be larking round in the playground, chasing each other, playing their games, and making any amount of noise, when the schoolteacher on duty, whether a man or a woman – it could be Mr Beasant, it could be Mr Forrest, it could be Bob Butterworth, it could be Alice Holden, it could be Clara Rubberneck as we called her, Mrs Riley, Mrs Allerby, Miss Wilson - whoever was on duty would come out with a bell, like a town-crier’s bell. And, clang!, whatever was going on in the playground had to stop, and if any child failed to stop what he was doing in whatever attitude, he or she was sent in to receive the cane. At the second ring of the bell the children would line up in their classes and they would be marched in, in the morning to a full assembly where we sang a hymn and said a prayer, or after playtime directly to the classrooms, and in the afternoon of course directly to the classrooms.

The photo below, taken in 1986, shows the playground at Littleborough Central School. Henry wrote:
This is exactly as it was when I first went to school in January 1924, except for the grey looking vestibule. 


Now then, on my very first day I was in the playground and decided that I needed to go across for a pee. The bell went. I was halfway across the yard. If I were to move I would be sent in to get the cane. If I didn’t go sharp I would wet my trousers. So what did I do? I had a pee there and then in the middle of the playground, and what the lady thought of me, if it was a lady, or a man, whatever the teacher thought of me, well that was it. In the first week or so I remember being sent home because I had dirty trousers but as far as I can remember there was no further such incident.

In the same class were, both boys and girls of course, all of us about 5 years old, no more, but in that same class was Barbara Kershaw. I remember one or two of the other girls as well – Alice Harrison, she was a cheeky thing, there was Matty Hacking, she was rough, and of course I remember a lot more of the boys. Especially on the street, we used to go out and play on the street, there was Geoffrey Collins who’s still alive, Edgar Chadwick, he’s dead now, Leslie and Albert Smith, Lesley’s still alive, Albert was killed in a street accident only a few years ago. I’m speaking now in the year 2002. The Smiths’ father was a butcher. Geoffrey Collins's father was a painter.

I liked school. I can remember my first reading lessons – c in cat, d in dog, and so on. I can remember some of the decorations on the classroom walls. They were pretty basic and I was surprised when I went into that school some twenty or more years later to find that some of the classrooms had still the same decoration as they had had in the 1920s.

The photo below shows Henry's class of 42 pupils at Littleborough Central School in the mid 1920s. Henry is 6th from the left on the back row and Barbara Kershaw is 4th from the left on the row in front. Henry and Barbara married in 1944.


Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Samuel

This is the 200th post in the Hiley Blog.

To celebrate this landmark, here are photos of one of the newest members to join a Hiley family.

 

Samuel Jonathan Hiley de Jesus
Born in Madrid, Spain
20th June 2024

 


Samuel with his older brother Gabriel