Mexborough and Swinton Times October 7, 1938
Snow at Melton Feast
Wombwell Couple’s Recollections
Golden Wedding
A West Melton feast” when there was ankle deep is recalled by the Golden Wedding of Mr. James Boldy (72), and his wife, Eliza (68), of 90, Wath Road, Wombwell Junction. The couple were married on September 30th, 1888, at the Parish Church of Brampton Bierlow, and Mrs. Boldy was one of the happy brides that the sun shone on.
“It was a fine day with brilliant sunshine,” Mrs. Boldy told a “Times” reporter. “Everybody was remarking that it was “grand for the feast.” But the weather clerk changed his mind. “The next day (Monday) there was a blizzard and we looked out of our windows to see snow ankle deep. Everybody remarked that they had never known anything like it before.”
The gale of last Sunday night seemed to Mrs. Boldy like history repeating itself. But in spite of the rain and the high wind she made her pilgrimage to West Melton—the first time she had re-visited it for many years—and renewed happy acquaintances with a number of old friends. Many have gone but a few still remain, including Mary Smith (now South), of Princess Street. West Melton. who was her bridesmaid and Arthur Mangham of Mexborough, who was the best man.
Family of Seventeen. .
Mrs. Boldy was born at Shude Hill. Wath Town End, her father being Charles Mangham, who had his spine fractured at Cortonwood Colliery two years after she was married. She was one of a family of seventeen children, including “twins twice,” and therefore had to go out to work almost as soon as she could walk. For the same reason she never had any schooling and has gone through life without being able to read or write. Yet she is a bright and intelligent woman, well equipped with all those qualifications which make for the successful management of a working man’s home. Of their nine children six (four sons and two daughters) are living.Two sons served in the York and Lancasters in the Great War and one of them, George, found a soldier’s grave in France.
As a girl, Mrs. Boldy worked on the land for a farmer in Coley Lane, Wentworth, and it was there that she met her life’s Partner who was born at Norton, near Doncaster, and came into the district as a farm worker. After they had planned marriage, Mr. Boldy went to work at Darfield Main, where he could earn sufficient money to keep a home going, and he remained there to the end of his working days well over forty years.
Mrs. Boldy —told our reporter that her husband earned no more than 5s. a day when they had seven children. “Neither of us could afford to go out after we had bought food for the children,” she said. “Many’s the times we have sat in the house on Sunday night with a gill of beer between us.”
Same House 49 Years.
Shortly after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Boldy went to live at New Wombwell and have remained in the same house 49 years, seeing many comings and goings in that time. They recall the days when Wombwell Junction was less law-abiding than it is now, and when there were “rum-doings” every week-end. “But New Wombwellers have always been a good lot at heart,” she said, “and we have been thankful for some good neighbours. We have always forgotten our little quarrels in times of hardship and need.”
It has indeed been a hard life for Mrs. Boldy. Even in her childhood she had to go out washing after she had finished a day in the turnip fields. She has always had a hearthful of children and in recent years has survived three serious operations. But I would not mind if I had to live it all over again,” she said, smiling “We have had the smooth as well as the rough and have always been blessed with good children.” She remarked that if she could go back fifty years she would “pick the same man again,” and Mr Boldy, feeling proud at that warm compliment, said he would do the same.
Celebration Wine.
But Mr. Boldy was getting impatient of platitudes, “Have we owt?” he queried, giving the interview a practical turn: upon which Mrs. Boldy asked what did he think they had got. Did he think she could get bottles of champagne on their meagre pensions? But in the tone of her voice there was a note of evasion which did not escape James’s notice. “Bring it art,” he commanded, and Mrs. Boldy went to the top cupboard for a bottle of homemade wine which she had saved for two years with her mind on the big event. It was indeed the “real stuff.”
And then the old couple fell to talking over old times. What sort of conveyances did they have to go to church in when the Rev. Dr. Cheesman, Vicar of Brampton, married them? “Conveyances,” rejoined Mr & BoIdy. “Bless your life we walked. It wouldn’t run to cabs.”
The old couple enjoy good health, but Mr. Boldy suffers the affliction of almost total blindness. Nothing gives them greater joy than to be able to join with all the other veterans of Wombwell on the old folk’s outings.