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The following memory was posted on the message board by Sue Thompson in answering a request by another user for any stories about Mow Cop.
I was sent to an area by Mow Cop (Mount Pleasant?) in 1983 by Crewe Social Services -- being a single homeless mother. We lived in a 3-bedroomed end-terraced council house in Clare Street for about six months.
I remember the area being in Staffordshire. Most of the people there were unemployed, working in the 'black'. They had a distinctive Staffordshire dialect and called one another 'ducks'.
They all seemed to congregate in the local working men's club at the top of the street at the weekends -- the rest of the week was spent planning schemes to get out of one scrape or another.
They meant to be friendly, but 'nosy' could also be applied to them. I remember arriving home one day to find a neighbour cleaning my living room window (or so she said).
There was a pub -- The Crown?, and a butcher's shop and a small fabric factory with a factory shop attached. There was also a primary school and a church just up the hill from us.
I remember visiting the church one lonely Sunday with my three-year old son. Everyone turned round to stare at me -- I felt like an outcast. No-one welcomed me, my son started fidgeting and I ran out in tears never to return.
The nearest town was Kidsgrove with a thriving Benefits office and no estate agents. I remember asking the Benefits office to just help me with a nursery place for my son so that I could get out of the benefit trap and find full-time work.
But they looked at me askance! I was offered two half-days a week at a council nursery in Congleton!
Eventually I got out and bought my own house on a 100% mortgage in Crewe and paid for full-time care for my son out of my wages. Hard times -- but it was interesting seeing how the other half live.
Actually, when I moved I left my carpets there overnight in order to collect them on another trip the next day. Guess what -- somehow someone had managed to get into the house and steal them. Probably some of the same people are still there in Clare Street today .....
Sue Thompson, Greater Manchester, 2001
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