Scenes from an Edwardian childhood

By Shirley Smith

The writer and poet Phoebe Hesketh is perhaps best known for her biography of her aunt, Edith Rigby the Preston suffragette. Less well known is her autobiography which breathes life into the Edwardian residents of Winckley Square and its surrounding streets. What follows is a summarised account I made of those lives as detailed in her book.

Here is the first instalment, more will follow over the next few days:

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You might be forgiven for walking down Preston’s Ribblesdale Place today giving no regard to the fine architecture, after all the buildings have had well over a century to settle comfortably into their space.

But pause. You might still conjure the sights and sounds of a hundred years ago and fancy that the laughter of children drifts over from the back gardens of the grand houses, teacups tinkle behind lace curtains and the skirts of busy nursemaids rustle yet.

These long-lost sights and sounds are brought vividly to life by Phoebe Hesketh in her book What Can the Matter Be? which is about as near to traveling back to Edwardian life in Preston as it’s possible to do. Her autobiographical account charts the ups and downs of lives lived there and closes with the death of her father in 1963 and as she writes in her poem The Ghost of Ribblesdale Place, Preston “Among the living – it’s I who am the ghost.”

Of course, Phoebe didn’t begin her relationship with Ribblesdale Place as a ghost but as a baby born in 1909 at No 1 where her father had his medical practice.

The family moved to No 9 when Phoebe was three, a few months before the birth of her sister Elaine. She remembers holding her mother’s hand and walking in the rain from the old house to the new, a journey which she describes as moving up the street and also as moving up in the world because their new home was much bigger with grand windows, large gardens and views over Avenham Park.

Phoebe was allowed to skip or run in the park but must never to do so along Ribblesdale Place, here she should walk never forgetting to pick up her feet.

The garden at No 9 boasted a copper-beech on the upper lawn and a cherry on the lower level as well as views of the River Ribble sweeping beyond the green of the park.

At that time, the old tram bridge was still standing and Phoebe delighted in its wooden planks which were supple enough for bouncing games. The noise of trains only half a mile away could be heard clearly from their garden, a sound Phoebe loved – their smoke and sparks suggesting adventure and providing a comforting lullaby at bedtime.

She notes that by 1910 about 20 trains per day ran between Preston and London, the express journey taking under 4.5 hours. Perhaps every passenger got a seat?

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The next instalment describes the elaborate funeral customs observed by the residents of Ribblesdale Place at the time.