Pte. John Joseph Hague

 Pte. John Joseph Hague

32 Mottram Road
Gee Cross

I have been contacted by one our our regular contributors 'Eric', who contacted me this week and asked if there was any chance of posting some information on the blog. After reading Eric's message and what it was about I had little choice in the matter. Thanks for the nudge Eric.

Eric has been researching a relation who was killed at Ypres in February 1916. Upon

contacting the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Eric found that his relation is listed on the Menin Gate which his son and himself are visiting very soon.

However the main thing he wanted to see mentioned on the blog, was the name of the chap next to his relation on the Gate, a Pte John Joseph Hague No. 28582 15th Bn Royal Welch Fusiliers, who Died 31st July 1917, age 38.

Husband of Alice Maud Prestwich (formerly Hague) of 32 Mottram Old Road, Gee Cross, Hyde.  Eric was hoping   I wondered if anyone could throw a light on this man's family. 

Frank Wortley Pinkerton (Sergeant Pilot)

Frank Wortley Pinkerton was a Hyde man, born in 1913. Before WW11 he was working at the Leathercloth Division of I.C.I. Newton.

During the war he was a Sergeant Pilot with 12 Squadron RAF at Wickenby. On the night of 29th/30th March 1943 he was the pilot of Lancaster Bomber W4858, coded PH-A, on an attack on Berlin. The aircraft was hit by flak over the target, and on the homeward leg both starboard engines failed while they were over Holland. Sgt Pinkerton gave the order to abandon the aircraft, and he kept the crippled bomber steady while his crew baled out, being the last one to jump when they were all clear.

Of the seven crew, two were killed,  and four were taken prisoner, leaving only Sgt Pinkerton to evade capture. He was helped by the Dutch resistance movement to get to Belgium, and from there a network of people guided him, mainly on foot, through Belgium, France, across the Pyrenees into neutral Spain, and home via Gibraltar.

On his return to Britain he took up his duties with the RAF again, and gained a Commission in October 1944. After the war he took up a career in civil aviation with British European Airways. He was married in 1945, and they had their first child, Robert, the following year.

On August 19th 1949, Captain Pinkerton was flying ex-RAF  BEA Dakota G-AHCY  From Belfast to Ringway, Manchester, with 2 other crewmembers and 29 passengers. Due to a navigational error, they descended  through cloud on their approach to Ringway and crashed into Wimberry Stones Brow, Dovestones, Saddleworth. 

The crew of 3 and 21 of the 29 passengers were killed as the aircraft disintegrated and caught fire. Workers from the nearby Greenfield paper mill were amongst the first to arrive at the scene to assist the injured. 

An undercarriage leg at the bottom of the slope and a few small scraps higher up at the crash site is the only remaining evidence of the terrible accident today. 

Looking Down from the crash site

Looking up to the crash site

At the time of the crash, Mrs Pinkerton was expecting their 2nd son, Richard. Their home was at Wallasey. In his pre war days, Frank was a keen hiker, and by coincidence the area where he crashed was one of his favourite walks.

Thank you to David Hamilton  for this excellent post.

Remembrance Day song and video

A very poignant song and video written and sung by Terry Kelly from Canada.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kX_3y3u5Uo

ROGER V. CHADWICK Memories of Hyde part 1

Below are some memories of Roger Chadwick who very kindly sent them in to the blog. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did !!

MEMORIES OF GROWING UP IN HYDE: 1939 – 1945 

Born in May 1939, I grew up at 247 Mottram Road. Formerly the servants quarters of the adjacent property then known as “The Hollies”, it was a large and interesting house for a child – with cellars and an attic, the back room replete with six “servants” bells only one of which was in use being the front door bell which would clank and swing every time it was “pulled” from the front door! The kitchen was situate down two huge steps and had a black leaded grate and a hot fire! There was a washhouse, a coal house down the yard and a pleasant garden overlooking Gee’s Brook and the allotments sloping up the hill to a view of the old Godley Vicarage, Godley School and the tower of St John Baptist poking through the houses. We had a ginnel in a tunnel from the back door to the front pavement and the iron railings had not yet been taken down for the war effort. Just over the garden wall you could see the crenellated “castle” now called Brookbank Folly and three enormous trees. Brookbank House then belonged to Dr Grau who had a surgery in one of the front rooms of the house. He and his family could often be seen pottering around his huge garden.

Early memories of life at “247” was an earth tremor in 1944 , which shook the house for a moment: the distant glow of Manchester on fire during the blitz and the terrifying noise of a V1/2 Flying Bomb over the house as we hastened down to the cellar for safety. With all the fields and woods around, that bomb fatefully exploded on the farm buildings only a mile to the east of our house and very near to the The New Inn at Matley.

SHMD trams hurtled past our house across the cobbles and every fifteen minutes, the local “Joint Board” and North Western buses bound for Mottram and Glossop. This was the then infamously busy A57 trunk road with endless processions of traffic and the tar boiler was perpetually on duty with a man pouring liquid pitch between the setts and throwing to us little boys small globules of the stuff to sniff!!

Towards the end of the war a convoy passed through and stopped on our road. Soldiers got off the vehicles and lay across the pavements waiting for the order to move. Some of the women came out with beans on toast for the men, regardless of their own shortages. We cycled up and down our tricycles talking to them. The noise, smell and smoke of the diesel coming from the tanks was a memory for life.

The view from “247” across Mottram Road at that time was of the land belonging to the Ashbrook family. They lived in the end terrace house and at the end of the garden adjoining was their large shop which opened and closed a few times during my childhood. The shop afforded some shelter from the rain while waiting at our Glen Wood bus stop for buses into Hyde. By the side of the shop was Green Lane, from where, by way of the back of Ashbrooke’s garage, we could collect frog spawn from the water from the side of the bomb craters in the field above.

I was allowed across this road if I used common sense and being an only child looking for things to do, would often, with permission, saunter up Green Lane towards the railway bridge and Dove Holes Farm. The land was rough, boggy in parts, with reed beds, cotton grass and May flowers in the spring. Lying in the grass and looking up to the blue skies, I could often hear skylarks. Green Lane marked the end of the town and the start of the country and I loved it. Werneth Low seemed a long way away and would be an adventure later on.

The Bridge that leads from Green Lane. 

The Iron Bridge

Dad was an unknown figure for he had been at war from my birth until I was nearly 6. He was “demobbed” in 1945 and came home in a smart suit. The war was over. A new chapter was opening.

ROGER V. CHADWICK

Many thanks, Roger !! :)