Category: Crowle memories

January 1, 1970

Crowle at War: Part 7. Meat, Killing a Pig – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

Meat. We had to make do with our ration of beef and mutton. Pork products we had by the barrow load. Ordinary people could give up their bacon ration and were allowed to keep a pig instead but at the start of the war the government took half the pig when it was killed. Farmers had to record the number of piglets born and were […]

Crowle memories World War 2

January 1, 1970

Memories of an air gunner

Based at Sandtoft airfield this gunner remembers cycling into Crowle and Belton. In Crowle he was befriended by Pidds the Butchers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/91/a4104091.shtml

Bill Goldthorp World War 2

January 1, 1970

Crowle at War: Part 8. Salted pig – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

My father started to salt his own pig, the shoulder, ham and sides of bacon. I would be sent to Wrights the grocers with a wheelbarrow and return with a block of salt 2 & ½ feet long and a foot wide and high. The cold slab would be deeply covered in salt and the hams etc. rubbed in salt every day and covered in […]

Crowle memories History

January 1, 1970

Early cinema in the Isle of Axholme – Colin Lovelace

Early cinema in the Isle of Axholme Colin Lovelace My grandfather, John Lovelace, had a cinema in Crowle near Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, called the ‘Palais de Luxe’ at the Market Hall, shortly before the First World War and opened several more in neighbouring villages like at Epworth (from September 23rd) at the outbreak of war. He ran these until about 1922 when he either sold […]

Bill Goldthorp World War 2

January 1, 1970

Crowle at War: Part 9. Preserving, Newspapers, – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

Preserving. One could use the sugar ration and occasionally get extra sugar for preserving. My father’s orchard contained a Conference pear and another type of pear tree, Victoria and Damson plums. Green gage plums could be bought from the Ramsdens who owned the Tetley Hall Estate. Every autumn my parents put up about a hundred bottles of fruit in the old Kilner Jars. Damsons were […]

Bill Goldthorp World War 2

January 1, 1970

Crowle at War: Part 10. Dietry Supplements – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

Dietary Supplements. All the lads were at it. I firstly with my cockerels and two year old hens. We all were after rabbits and woodpigeons, which the farmers regarded as pests. Rabbits at first without much success trying to use snares. Then my father bought me a Webley air rifle for a birthday present. My rabbit total suddenly shot up. At eight years old I […]

Bill Goldthorp World War 2

January 1, 1970

Crowle at War:Part 11.Pig potatoes, war casualties – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

Pig potatoes. The small potatoes would be scooped up and taken to the fold yard. Every farm had a yardman who looked after the cows, pigs, chickens and other livestock In the farm building where the pig potatoes were stored would be a large copper where the potatoes would be boiled before being fed to the pigs. Boiled in their jackets they were lovely flowery, […]

Bill Goldthorp Roads

January 1, 1970

Mill Trod – Submitted by Bill Goldthorp

Submitted by Bill Goldthorpe Mill Road, Crowle, Mill Trod was the name given to Mill Road by the older inhabitants of Crowle when I was a boy, although by then the official name was Mill Road. I feel very sad that many of these old names have been modified. Mill Trod, makes me think of a tired farmer plodding alongside his horse and cart with […]

Bill Goldthorp History

January 1, 1970

Gervii (Fen Dwellers) – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

I am proud to admit being a 50% Gervi by inheritance and a born and bred Gervi until the age of 18 when I went to University. At this time immigrants into the Isle were rare. It probably accounts for my bizarre sense of humour which is constantly getting me into trouble. So here goes lets get into trouble again. For the benefit of newcomers […]

Bill Goldthorp

January 1, 1970

Crowle Market Place – submitted by Bill Goldthorp

The market square has barely changed in over one and a half centuries. The above sketch, from the mid 1850’s, is taken from Read’s History of the Isle of Axholme published in 1858. Note the gas lamp, the only streetlight in Crowle. Crowle was modern; it had a gas works, which paid good dividends to its investors. The gas works lasted to about 1940 when […]