Sarah Stewart

Cadishead and Irlam Guardian 1977, at Irlam Library.

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Sarah Stewart

 

WHEN Mrs Sarah Alice Stewart tunes in her television to "Upstairs, Downstairs," it is not without a sense of nostalgia.

 

For from leaving school at 14, until she married in 1922, she was housemaid in a doctor's household. And her years in service taught Mrs Stewart, of Marlborough Road, Higher Irlam, a dedication to people which has continued through her life "upstairs" in her home.

 

"It was hard work getting used to service but once you are used to waiting on people it never leaves you. All my life I have waited on people, my family, husband, children, brothers and sisters. Right from leaving school I have waited on them and it is no trouble.

 

Mrs Stewart's first glimpse of Irlam was from the windows of Roby's Bus, a charabanc which used to run from Peel Green to the Ship Hotel. She was travelling to Cadishead from Hyde, Cheshire where she was in service, to see her husband-to-be, Wallace.

 

She met Wallace at a dance while he was in the army and moved to his Victory Road lodgings while the bans were being called for their wedding, which took place at Irlam Church at 8am on December 4, 1922.

 

There were only four guests at the wedding, including the bride and groom and the wedding party walked from Victory Road along Liverpool Road to the church.

 

After only three years marriage, the General Strike was called and Irlam's industry ground to a halt. "We had soup kitchens in Irlam, one of which was at the Ship Hotel Market Hall. The moss farmers used to give the vegetables and the butchers would give meat."

 

To help keep his young family, Mrs Stewart's husband took work on board cargo ships, often away from home for five weeks at a time. "I knew when he was going but I never knew when he would be back." On one occasion he was away for 12 weeks in Canada.

 

Mrs Stewart recalls a time when he sent a note back with a tug telling her he had left with a ship and she later received £5 from the shipping company to keep her family in food, warmth, and shelter until his return.

 

FIRST HAND

 

In the meantime the strike ended and when he returned from sea, Mr Stewart returned to the steelworks, where he worked his way up from third hand, to second and eventually to first before he retired in 1964.

 

Whilw she was waiting to be married Mrs Stewart tried to find work at the C.W.S. Margarine Works at Irlam but was told only women born in the district were being taken on.

 

In the 1930s many men at the steelworks were only working three days a week. Mrs Stewart used to dress dolls and offer them as competition prizes to raise money for the men out of work.

 

During the Second World War incendiary bombs were dropped on the steelworks and a nursing department, A.R.P. and St. John Ambulance depot was started at the old Irlam Hall. Mrs Stewart joined what was then the Women's Voluntary Service and helped to deliver babies throughout the district when qualified staff were not available.

 

Irlam Hall will always remain a beautiful place in her mind, despite its delapidation in its last years. "With me being a housemaid I loved big, old houses. It was dreadful to pull it down. I know it was not up to standard, but it was part of Irlam's history."

 

Another memory which will remain with her forever is of an open fruit and vegitable market held in the 1920s outside the George Hotel, Cadishead each Friday evening after the steelworks men had been paid.

 

Mrs Stewart has lived in her present home for almost 50 years. "We had some happy times and some struggles. Like all steelworkers' wives I have known hard times, But we have been happy."

 

"I remember what it was like in the 1920s and 1930s. Now they have social security and benefits. We had to go through the means test and say if we had a penny in our pockets. Then we would get a shilling or a half-crown voucher to spend at Seymour Meads' in Cadishead."

 

Mrs Stewart has five daughters, Alice, Grace, Yvonne, Ivy and Margery and six grandchildren.

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