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Talk:Church Street, Kilburn - then and now
George Hall’s father, Alfred, owned the cattle pictured.
Mr Hall, of Flate House Farm, Kilburn, remembers the day the picture was taken.
“Our farm is just up the road and round the corner, off the picture. My father rented a field belonging to Kilburn Hall and we used to walk the cattle down from the farm to the pasture every morning about 8.30 and fetch them back again at 4.30pm. I used to help before I went to school and when I got home.
“I was about 10 at the time this picture was taken, so it would make it around 1951. They used to open-cast coal at Smalley and one of the coal lorries, passing through the village, had taken the corner too fast and gone into Hall Farm at the bottom.
“The Evening Telegraph came out to take a picture of the lorry as we were walking the cattle along the road, so he took a picture of them as well. I think that might be my dad at the back.
“There used to be four of us driving the cattle – dad, myself and a couple of farm hands.
“Our farm on Woodhouse Road has been in the family for three generations for more than 100 years. My grandfather, George Francis Hall, rented it in 1899, eventually buying it in 1913. My dad worked with him and took the farm over when he died. Then I worked with my dad until he died in 1969 and carried on until I retired in 1975.
“I’ve never lived anywhere else. I still have 25 acres but I rent them out now. The Hunter’s Arms was largely a colliers’ pub. Everyone around here were miners at one time. I think it’s only open at the weekends now.”
Farm hand Harold Trevor Wallis, of Horsley Road, Kilburn, said: “I used to work for Mr Hall and help drive the cattle down to the field until I left in 1940 to become a Bevin Boy.
“My grandma, Mrs Nellie Wallis, owned the Hunter’s Arms in 1928 before Harry Bramley took over. His daughter, Ivy, and her husband, Jack Horsley ran it after him. Ivy still lives across the road from the pub.
“The stone house next door was two cottages. Alf Parkin, his two sons, Jack and Fred, and daughter Harriet, lived in one of them and Bill Thompson lived in the other.”