"Northmoor Chapel and Sunday School 1950 to 1964"

A review of Northmoor Methodist Church by Marie Bennett Schofield Wilson written on Sunday 21st of August 2016

What wonderful memories of Northmoor. Although I had been christened At All Saints C of E on Chadderton Road I started going to Northmoor because my best friend Sandra Dickinson was in the Brownies and so I joined and then the Girl Guides 22a for the next few years (forget me not patrol and I didn't ) Gladys Farrow was the Guide Captain and Freda Millett nee Godfrey second in command. I later became Guide Captain until I moved to Wimbledon. So many events went on at the Sunday School on featherstall rd. What a great building it was with its scouts den ladies room guides room etc. I think that on Thurs which was Scout and Guide night we had to clear up because it was used as the Labour Exchange in the day. The Entertainment Society put on great pantos My first memory being in the line of young chorus girls in red and white spotted skirts singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer with snow (bits of paper ) falling down. Freda Godfrey was Cinderella and off to the Ball I thought she was beautiful. Austen Fenton was always a terrific panto dame. Wednesday was the Youth Club where I learned to play Table Tennis. Later on the Sunday School had to be given up which was a pity and a new one built next to the Chapel. I started going to the chapel more when I was in my teens with my gang?Dorothy Rhodes Anne Barratt Sandra Dickinson Jack Simpson Errol Flynn (yes really) Raymond Wood (my jiving partner rock and roll had just started) Brian Soar.(We all used to go dancing at Eddie Cookes on Featherstall Road). At Chapel we always sat in the back corner and I'm sorry to say often whispered during the sermons. I remember once a young lady Joyce something who was a nurse came storming down from the choir to tell us off. For a time we used to go to the manse on Sunday Evenings. The minister was a bachelor called Clifford Hindley and he got the young people from the circuit round for a discussion. He went off to India to be a missionary I think. The new minister was a rev Frank something. We had local preachers including our own Tom Gillespie who was also the Scoutmaster and SundaySchool Superintendant. All the Gillespies came including Harold and Marian plus Lilian Fletcher and Jack,the Farrows the Foxes the Cleggs. I did a spell as Sunday school teacher and later spent the Sunday School time counting the collection and the Ship half pennies with Jack Fox. One year I think it was 1953 a group of young Christians called Witness 53 came to speak in the circuit and they were so good that three of the young men went off to be ministers Derek Bedford for one and I think Roland Bamforth for another. Mention should be made of our great pianist and organist Geoff Balson. He could certainly rattle out those hymns and also at the time the Dam Busters March. Mentions should be made of the Saturday Night Socials -the potato pie suppers the black peas suppers the Beatle Drives the Dances the Concerts. All good entertainment before TV came along. One Sunday at Chapel I became a Methodist church member and although I never belonged to another church after I left Oldham with my husband Geoff Schofield in1964 if asked about my religion I still say I am a Methodist..

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