From Alan Cooper...
My maternal grandmother Sarah Norris, née Paterson (1881-1956), lived in a small cottage at the top of Alty's Lane, Bickerstaffe. Here she raised three children - Henry ("Nolly", 1916-2006), Campbell (1917-1999), and my mother, Edith (1921-2004) - as a single parent following the early death of her husband, Henry Norris (1885-1926). I was born there in 1945, though we moved later that year to Manchester when my father, Charles Cooper (1913-1989) was demobbed. I remember the cottage from the late-40s/early-50s as having no gas or electricity, lit by oil lamps, and with an outdoor earth closet (toilet) in the back yard next to the old pigsty. The cottage is still there, across the fields from Edge Hill University, presumably now with updated facilities.
Sarah Norris with grandchildren Alan & Jean Cooper, in Alty's Lane ca. 1948
Sarah Norris (on right) with daughter Edith and A.N. Other. Date unknown, but probably late-1920s?
Edith Norris - late '20s?
Henry ("Harry") Norris ca. 1920, with sons Henry & Campbell (possibly) on right.
Henry Sr. died 1926, in Bickerstaffe
Edith Norris, in domestic service, 1930s
Edith Norris - undated, but probably early 1940s. Note the wartime blackout slits fitted to the motorbike headlamp.
Edge Hill College in wartime - requisitioned for use as a military hospital in WW2, where my father trained as an RAMC medical orderly.
