THE letter recently about naming the complex at Horwich "Middlebrook" also made me wonder why it was so named.
Like G Pollitt, I recall Middlebrook starting at Blackshaw Lane and ending at Junction Road, Deane.
When I was a child, in the long summer holidays, when it was safe for children to go out alone, I, my sister and two younger brothers would go out for the day with our jam butties and bottle of water. One of our favourite places was "up Middlebrook", and, having only enough money for a one-way bus ride, would walk from our home in Great Lever -- quite a distance for young legs -- to the start of Middlebrook. Following the brook, past the pig-pens and allotments, paddling in the water and playing tig etc all afternoon.
Eventually we came to the steep bit leading to Junction Road -- picking and eating blackberries (Ugh! Those maggots! Did we notice them?), creeping past the cave? Cut into the bank where all the ghosts from Deane churchyard above lived. On to Wigan Road and the bus stop, taking us to the bottom of Cannon Street, then another long trek back home.
Once I was afraid to go home because my youngest brother had fallen into a cow pat while walking across a forbidden field. I think we must have walked home that day too, and spent our bus fare on toffees!
D Thornley
Redcar Road
Bolton
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