CHICKENED OUT Jim Jarratt October 2920

CHICKENED OUT
Back in the 1960s, Mytholmroyd, despite the recent decline of the textile mills, was still managing
to be a prosperous little urban community with a busy local high street boasting four banks, two bakers and confectioners, two newsagents, a Post Office, three fisheries, four public houses, a church and two methodist chapels, a cafe, two greengrocers, at least five 'corner shops', two butchers, an ironmongers, an electrical shop, a working mens club, a public library, a plumbers, a furniture shop, (then - and now Russell Deans), a dress shop, a launderette, hairdressers, chemists, and a host of ancillary businesses on the edge of town.
At the centre of this busy little community was its fully fitted Victorian railway station, with its unusual ‘stair tower’ access and its nearby goods yard, consisting of signal boxes, sidings, a milk train platform, cranes and sheds all raised up high above the roofs of the village, still serving Mytholmroyds main surviving industry and source of local prosperity - for a while, a global monopoly - sexing chickens!
When I moved here in 1983, most of these things were still here, but the chickens had gone, along with the railway sidings, which Beeching had weighed in for scrap years ago, and left to be swallowed up by jungle! The station was still open, but within two years it too, had been boarded up and left to the graffiti and vandals, standing sadly alongside the 'new' station, consisting of a draughty 'bus shelter' with a cold iron seat and no toilets!
The 80's, 90's and Millenium saw further decline in Mytholmroyd, with the decline of its local demographic, its largely elderly population dying out, and their properties 'gentrified' to attract ‘offcumdens’, pricing local kids out to Halifax, and slowly turning 'The Royd' into a dormer village for commuters.
One by one, the things that made Mytholmroyd slowly began to disappear, starting with the banks and then, little by little, the shops. Around 2010 the village was recovering again - St Michaels Square, The New Memorial Garden - even a tourist gift shop! But the disastrous flooding of recent years, followed by the incredibly disruptive Flood Alleviation Schemes, today have sent many small businesses to the wall. And now we have Covid lockdown!
But we still have a classy (and restored) railway station building. We ain’t beat yet!
Jim Jarratt 2020,

[@HeatherWoodhead]

Really enjoyed this and thanks for sharing with Folk at the Grove x

[@dianejennings561]

Brilliant as usual Jim, You never fail to amaze us with your knowledge, songs are great too. x

[@jimjarratt1]

Glad you like it love. Just noticed your post. Hopefully we will all be gettin' together when all this covid crap is over. Jimx

[@CasperTheRamKnight]

Nice

[@strathtales]

Lovely, Jim. Is that really you and Betty Crabtree?

[@jimjarratt1]

Hi Bob. Actually its Trish and her two brothers! The shunter and the chipshop man are also of interest.Gotta do my casting somehow!. "Les and Ron" however were real story characters. Les was my neighbour's dad who was the signalman at Mytholmroyd East Box. And Ronnie (the shunter -and later council gully man) now owns the moorings in Hebden Bridge! (None of them are actually depicted in the video though! I needed younger faces.)
All the best to you and yours, hope you are keeping secure in these awful times,
Jim and Betty.