When Lenna Bickerton left school in Northwich, Cheshire, England, at the age of 14, any plans for her future were dashed when her father lost his job and struggled to set up his own greengrocery round. Financial pressures frustrated her hopes of becoming an art student and like scores before her, she had to take what work was available with no prospect of training or bettering herself.
It was not until the early 1980s that she was able to combine her twin loves of writing and social history by penning her early memoirs, spending hours discussing the old times with her late mother, then nearly ninety.
Extracts were published in the now-defunct "Northwich World" and the librarians at Northwich were so impressed that they arranged to have two copies of the manuscript typed up and bound. Lenna kept one and the other was placed in the reference library. It was read by many local history enthusiasts and used by Northwich schools as a source for projects.
More than a dozen years later, in 1996, the book was published by Léonie Press as a paperback called "Memories of a Cheshire Childhood". It has been reprinted many times and made the now elderly writer a local celebrity. A special memorial edition was brought out in 2000 after her death the previous year.
It tells how Lenna spent her early years during the First World War living with her grandparents in the close-knit community of Lostock Gralam. Her mother, a young war widow, worked in the nearby ammunition factory and afterwards in domestic service in Manchester, travelling home on the Sunday afternoon "dripping train" to see her daughter.
When Lenna's mother married again, the small family eventually moved into one of the first council houses to be built at Rudheath - a piece of good fortune they regarded as little short of a miracle. Lenna lived on the same estate for the rest of her life.
In her book Lenna described life in those far-off days through the sharp senses of a child. Her memories were vivid: duck eggs for breakfast, dancing to Granddad's gramophone, a near-tragedy at Hesketh's watermill, her schooldays, the sights and sounds of old Northwich, the smells of wild flowers, busy boat traffic on the Trent and Mersey Canal - and the menacing "Ginny Greenteeth."
The young Lenna roamed the fields, woods and flashes around Lostock Gralam and Rudheath in a carefree way any modern child would envy. She wrote: "Boredom was a word we never used in our childhood. Our imagination came into play to make up for the lack of material things and, most of all, we had freedom to wander at will in the countryside."
The book is illustrated with Lenna's family photographs and with old photographs from the archives at Northwich Library and Weaver Hall Museum in Northwich.
It was not until the early 1980s that she was able to combine her twin loves of writing and social history by penning her early memoirs, spending hours discussing the old times with her late mother, then nearly ninety.
Extracts were published in the now-defunct "Northwich World" and the librarians at Northwich were so impressed that they arranged to have two copies of the manuscript typed up and bound. Lenna kept one and the other was placed in the reference library. It was read by many local history enthusiasts and used by Northwich schools as a source for projects.
More than a dozen years later, in 1996, the book was published by Léonie Press as a paperback called "Memories of a Cheshire Childhood". It has been reprinted many times and made the now elderly writer a local celebrity. A special memorial edition was brought out in 2000 after her death the previous year.
It tells how Lenna spent her early years during the First World War living with her grandparents in the close-knit community of Lostock Gralam. Her mother, a young war widow, worked in the nearby ammunition factory and afterwards in domestic service in Manchester, travelling home on the Sunday afternoon "dripping train" to see her daughter.
When Lenna's mother married again, the small family eventually moved into one of the first council houses to be built at Rudheath - a piece of good fortune they regarded as little short of a miracle. Lenna lived on the same estate for the rest of her life.
In her book Lenna described life in those far-off days through the sharp senses of a child. Her memories were vivid: duck eggs for breakfast, dancing to Granddad's gramophone, a near-tragedy at Hesketh's watermill, her schooldays, the sights and sounds of old Northwich, the smells of wild flowers, busy boat traffic on the Trent and Mersey Canal - and the menacing "Ginny Greenteeth."
The young Lenna roamed the fields, woods and flashes around Lostock Gralam and Rudheath in a carefree way any modern child would envy. She wrote: "Boredom was a word we never used in our childhood. Our imagination came into play to make up for the lack of material things and, most of all, we had freedom to wander at will in the countryside."
The book is illustrated with Lenna's family photographs and with old photographs from the archives at Northwich Library and Weaver Hall Museum in Northwich.
