Memories of  Middlewich Civic Hall

By Dave Roberts

Adapted from ‘Middlewich Civic Hall – the first twenty five years’ as published in the Middlewich Heritage Society Newsletter, October 1994.

MIDDLEWICH CIVIC HALL - Photo CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL

Author’s note:

When this article first appeared in the Heritage Society Newsletter I gave it the title ‘Middlewich Civic Hall – the first twenty-five years’, which might well have led people to expect a detailed account of EVERYTHING which happened there between September 1969 and October 1994.

 Although people have, as we have proved with the ‘Middlewich Diary’. a high tolerance for Middlewich trivia, that would have been too much for even the most avid Middlewich fan to take.

 The article was really just a first-hand eye-witness account of the Hall’s opening on September 12^th 1969 with a few details of the slightly fraught pre-opening period (kindly supplied by Albert Robinson, by the way) and a couple of other memories of occasions when I was there as MC of a rock concert and the first Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival, and so I have edited and re-written it accordingly.

The Civic Hall will be in the news again during 2012 as the Town Council gets involved in taking over its running from Cheshire East, and I thought it would be appropriate, for our last Middlewich Diary entry of 2011, to go back to the beginning.

The article is also appropriate for New Year’s Eve because it mentions the fight between the Young Farmers and the Cerebos Foods Transport Social Club (won, as you’ll see, by the Cerebos faction) for the honour of hosting the very first New Year Party at Middlewich Civic Hall forty-two years ago tonight on the 31^st December 1969.

I was at the Civic Hall on the day it opened in 1969, and twenty-one years later, in 1990, had the privilege of presenting the main concert at the town’s brand-new Folk & Boat Festival at the same venue.

Even before it opened, Middlewich’s new ‘showpiece’ was causing controversy.

Cerebos Foods Transport Social Club was at daggers drawn with the Young Farmer’s Club over the booking of the Hall for New Year’s Eve 1969.

The Cerebos faction were insisting that Clerk to the Council, Mr Joseph Alcock, had confirmed the booking, whereas the Establishment Committee were determined that the Hall should be let to the YFC who intended to hold a public dance.

Eventually, Cerebos won the day. They had, after all, splashed out £40 to hire a band, and this was ‘not refundable’.

And as if all this were not enough the sink unit chosen for the hall was the subject of heated debate.

Councillor Fred Stallard described the sink as ‘paltry’ and implied that, as council surveyor Donald Stubbs, who had ordered the sink, was a bachelor, he was ‘not well-versed in the field of washing up’.

Mr Stubbs retorted that even a bachelor could be interested in cooking.

Acting Deputy Clerk Terry Fitton was instructed to advertise the fact that the MUDC was offering free use of the hall to local organisations during its first week.

Meanwhile, probably oblivious to all the small town politics surrounding the Civic Hall, contractors Lanner Ltd of Wakefield were putting the finishing touches to the building and Charlesworths of Crewe were installing the sound system and stage lighting.

A firm of signwriters were asked to make a commemorative plaque to be unveiled by Council Chairman Wilfrid Faulkner – a plaque which, as it turned out, contained an unfortunate spelling error which was to cause red faces at the opening ceremony.

In what would nowadays be called the ‘run up’ to the opening of the hall, fresh controversy erupted.
Why, asked the Chamber of Trade & Commerce, had local shopkeepers not been asked to tender for the equipping and decorating of the hall? Even the flowers for the opening ceremony had been obtained from Winsford.

The Council replied that local traders had been asked to supply flowers and had been unable to do so – a reply which could have been predicted.

Despite all this wrangling, plans went ahead for the grand opening, which was to take place on Friday September 12^th 1969.

I was working in the Rates Office at Middlewich UDC at the time (starting salary at 16 £330 per annum) and I have good reason to remember the day the Civic Hall opened.. It was my 17^th birthday, and this meant I was in line for a pay rise (salary at 17 £380 per annum in accordance with Clerical Division Grade 1).

We were all given the afternoon off  to attend the grand opening. There were plates of ham and salmon sandwiches and some little puff pastry things which, we were assured, were ‘vol-au-vents’.

Small glasses of sherry were proffered, and we all stood around eagerly awaiting the opening ceremony.

I have been unable to find any written evidence for this, but I am pretty sure that the music in the afternoon was supplied by Percy Bailey and His Band, in what must have been one of their last appearances. Contemporary reports say that the afternoon music was provided by the Secondary School Band, but I don’t remember them, just the Percy Bailey Band. I even remember talking to Percy and one of the councillors patting him on the back and saying, ‘well done. Percy!’

Bailey’s Band was the mainstay of Middlewich music for many years and Percy himself was famous for his habit of propping his copy of the Evening Sentinel on the music stand of his piano and reading it intently throughout every dance session.

As we know, our minds can play tricks as we get older, but this is such a vivid memory that there’s no doubt in my mind that Percy and his Band were there and, if that fact is not recorded elsewhere, I’m glad to do it here.

When it came to the unveiling of the commemorative plaque, to the consternation of council officials and the amusement of Mr Faulkner, his name had been spelt WILFRED instead of WILFRID, something that, he said, had happened to him all his life.

A council spokesman said later that the mistake had been noticed but it had been too late to get the wording altered in time.

Update (October 2019) A recent inspection of that very same commemorative plaque fifty years on shows that the correction promised at the time is still yet to be done!

Mr Malcolm Bowden, chairman of the Establishment Committee, paid tribute to Councillor Clarence Costello who, he said, had fathered the whole project.

The new Civic Hall was now well and truly open and, in the evening, there was a special Celebration Dance featuring ‘the Ray Douglas Music’ (tickets fifteen shillings including refreshments).

This was, remember, September 1969.

By February 1970 Mr Bowden was accusing the public of ‘letting the council down’.

The Hall had been let on only a ‘tiny’ number of occasions and this was ‘heartbreaking’.

Perhaps the high charges were to blame? To hire the Hall for a whole day on a Friday or a Saturday would set you back £20.

A series of ‘beat dances’ came to an abrupt halt in January 1970 after ‘rowdyism’ and, for most of its first twenty-five years of existence the Hall was under-used, though Middlewich's representative on the old Cheshire County Council, Derek Millington, organised a series of under-18s discos at the hall in the late seventies/early eighties.
Kevin Birchall writes: 'I will always remember the under-18s discos, late 70s early 80s. Always packed, thanks to Derek'
And Julie-Ann Goryl says, 'I remember (probably prompted more by photos) a Silver Jubilee Party in 1977 where the children all dressed up. Then many happy memories of the youth club there, followed by the Friday night disco in the 1980s, which was a 'must attend' event every week.'

Over that twenty-five years I made several appearances at the Civic Hall, as disc-jockey, compere and MC.

One memorable occasion was the night I introduced a Rock Concert in aid of the CND, featuring a band with the cheerful name of Death Wish.

The highlight of this strange (and deafening) evening came when the band decided to let off a ‘thunderflash’ – a kind of detonator affair which made a terrifyingly loud band, a bright blue flash and a vast amount of smoke.

I was about six inches  away from the thing at the time and, although I had been warned about it, I was still very nearly thrown off the stage by the explosion.

And when the first Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival took place in 1990 I was there, along with Bernard Wrigley to present the first of many mainstage concerts for a festival which helped  kick off the long, slow and laborious process of putting our town back on the map.

© Dave Roberts/Salt Town Productions 2011/2026

31^st December 2011

UPDATE - 19th March 2013: Ownership of the Middlewich Civic Hall passed into the hands of Congleton Borough Council on the 1st April 1974. Thirty-five years later, on the 1st April 2009, it became the property of Cheshire East Council. Finally (we hope) it was taken over by Middlewich Town Council, successor council to the Middlewich UDC which had had it built in 1969. This was in March 2013 and  rather fittingly, the 'Civic Hall' then became the Town Hall Function Suite. At the same time the Victoria Building, home for many years to Middlewich's council offices was officially given the name it should have had for all those years, the Town Hall. 

UPDATE - 12TH October 2016: By 2016 the running of the hall had been taken over by the Middlewich Community Trust* and the hall was renamed the Victoria Hall, a pleasing reference to its links with the Victoria Building and the former Victoria Square, the name given to the land between the building and Lewin Street.

*not 'Middlewich Heritage Trust' as we erroneously said earlier. Many thanks to Ken
Kingston for pointing this out.

First published New Years Eve 2011
Re-published New Years Eve 2014
Re-formatted and updated 12th October 2016
Re-published New Years Eve 2017, New Years Eve 2018
12th September 2019 (the hall's fiftieth anniversary)
Updated and re-published 14th July 2026

DAD AT WORK AT CEREBOS (LATE 40s/EARLY 50s)

by Dave Roberts


This photo first appeared on Facebook, not as part of the regular 'Middlewich' series, but on Father's Day 2011 as a tribute to my Dad, Arthur Roberts, who was a foreman electrician at Cerebos Salt Ltd (later to become part of RHM Foods) from the late 30s until his retirement through ill health around 1969. Dad is pictured here in the generator room at Cerebos in (we think) the late 40s/early 50s. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the generator plant and its controls and, when he had to retire, was retained as a consultant and driven up to the works at weekends by Percy Wrench in the works van to check that everything was OK. The Cerebos generating plant was very efficient for its day, as the steam used to run the generators was not released into the atmosphere but recycled to provide heating and hot water for the whole factory, as well as for a very unusual salt pan which can best be described as a giant 'electric kettle'. The steam heated a giant element in the pan which, unlike the coal fired pans at Seddons and Murgatroyds, could be kept going for days and weeks on end, making it far more productive than most salt pans. A lot of the power produced, went to run the vacuum salt plant, fore-runner of the one now in use at British Salt which produces the over half  of the country's salt requirements.

Salt plants and electrical generators are, of course, run with the help of computers these days, but in Dad's day, all the knowledge was, literally, in his head. He taught himself electrical engineering in his spare time by correspondence course.




see also QUEEN MUM


First published on Facebook, Father's Day, July 11th 2011

Republished June 15th (Fathers Day) 2014

Republished June 19th (Fathers Day) 2016

Republished June 18th (Fathers Day) 2017

Also June 17th (Father's Day) 2018

June 16th (Father's Day) 2019

June 21st (Father's Day) 2020

June 20th (Father's Day) 2021

June 19th (Father's Day) 2022

June 18th (Father's Day) 2023

June 16th (Father's Day) 2024

June 14th (Father's Day) 2025

June 21st (Father's Day) 2026

FESTIVAL MEMORIES 1

 

by Dave Roberts

In the run up to the very first MIDSUMMER MIDDLEWICH FESTIVAL over the weekend of June 18th - 21st, we thought it might be nice to take a look back at some  of the classic Folk & Boat Festival photos taken over the years by photographers such as the late and still much-missed CLIFF ASTLES.

We start with this justly famous shot by Cliff from 2011 showing  the Town Wharf and Salinae Field at Festival time.

Sadly the Wharf can no longer be used on such occasions because of Health & Safety concerns, but the Salinae Field will be very much a part of the weekend.

And that bird, so enthusiastically joining in the festivities, wasn't photoshopped, but took the opportunity to get in the picture just as Cliff pressed the shutter release.

What may come as a surprise in this well-known photo is the amount of greenery on the field, which is now .given over mostly to lawns.

An even bigger surprise, to those relatively new to the town at least, is this view of the area as it was before the old Seddons Wych House Lane Works closed in 1967.

The salt pans looming over the Trent & Mersey Canal to the right are situated where the lush greenery of Salinae is in Cliff's 2011 photo.

On the skyline, beyond the canal lock, is one of two other works (the third being Pepper Street) belonging to Henry Seddon & Sons. All three closed in 1967. 
Close to the Brooks Lane works was a fourth open pan works belonging to Murgatroyd's. The associated brine pump has now been preserved by Middlewich Heritage Trust, which is currently in the process of restoring the pumps to working order and also building a medieval salt hearth to demonstrate the ancient craft of open pan salt making.

To the right, on the waste ground between the lock and the end of the salt works, where Wych House Lane (formerly Wych House Street) runs down to the canal from Lewin Street, is Andersen's Boatyard.

This photo will feature in a future edition of GO LOCAL as part of 'Middlewich Memories'.

Find out more about MIDSUMMER MIDDLEWICH here.

WHY MIDSUMMER MIDDLEWICH?

 

18th - 21st JUNE 2026

This was originally a reply to a post on the Middlewich Community Facebook Group. I thought it might deserve a wider audience, as it explains just why Midsummer Middlewich came about and fills in a lot of gaps. DGR

To begin with, the Folk & Boat Festival has NOT changed its name. MIDSUMMER MIDDLEWICH is completely independent of the Folk & Boat Festival, which has been cancelled for this year. The name was chosen very deliberately to make sure there was no confusion with the Folk & Boat Festival, and particularly with the current organisers of that event.

 I was one of the founders of the Folk & Boat Festival, I was its first publicity officer and I was its first MC. In fact I've always been inordinately and inexplicably proud of the fact that I spoke the very first words at the very first Festival:

'Hello! Welcome to the first Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival!' 

Not exactly Shakespeare, but what else would you say? I also founded the Salt Town Poets, who were an integral part of the Folk & Boat Festival for many years and also ran Poets & Pints and Open Mike nights at the Bore's Yed for many years.

Like all Festivals the Folk & Boat struggled for years. It never made any money and was very reliant on grants and sponsorship, neither of which were always forthcoming. Eventually, in 2011, after bailing the Festival out twice, Middlewich Town Council took over its running and continued to run it at a loss - this time to the council tax payers of Middlewich. These losses were brushed under the carpet for many years.The event was cancelled because of Covid in 2020 and 2021. And then, in 2022, having made its Events Manager redundant, MTC made the disastrous decision to 'go it alone' and tried to run 'the FAB Festival' itself, with help from 'contractors'. The final losses have yet to be calculated, but a reliable source tells me the total is approaching £250,000. The Festival went bankrupt and so, very nearly, did the council. Then, in 2023 a group of people claimed to have 'registered' the name 'Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival', thus gaining 'exclusive' rights to use the name. In fact, what they had done is create a limited company, 'Middlewich FAB Festival Ltd'.

This is where, being a 'silly old man' I fell for the lies and deception. I was told that the company's aim was to 'save' the Folk & Boat for the people of Middlewich and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker! No matter that there was little or no actual folk music any more. At least the festival was 'saved'. 

I had a muddled idea that we could re-introduce the folk music later.

There were token attempts to run the festival in 2023 and 2024 (the limited company was dissolved in the latter year after one of the partners, realising what was happening, bailed out).

I'm not immune to making disastrous mistakes myself and I tried to produce a version of the long-running 'Cheshire Folk Radio Show' including some of the tribute bands and rock and pop bands at the 2024 Festival.
Bad mistake. Arthur Marshall, and others, picked up on it straight away and, quite rightly, gave me hell for even trying it.

The same year I did try to convince the 'organisers' that they should have a folk stage at what was, after all, called the 'Folk & Boat' Festival. What saved us that year was the management and staff of Middlewich Town Football Club, where the John McAteer Folk Stage was located. They made us welcome and did everything they could to help. Also the enthusiasm and sheer persistence of The Leaping Frogs (making their debut), Kissing the Flint, Jasmine Allen Estate and others, triumphing over an inadequate PA and a basically unsuitable venue helped us a lot.

No such luck in 2025, after the infamous 'move to Kinderton' (which I enthusiastically promoted, after being told another lot of lies by 'organisers'). 

Our 'stage' was even smaller than the year before, placed right next to the already excessively loud main stage, and had an even worse PA system.

Again, our gallant perforrmers came to our rescue, fiddling about with cheap mikes and clapped out cables on a stage no bigger than the proverbial postage stamp.

I'd had enough. I informed the organisers that my involvement with their festival was now at an end. This was after they presented me with an inscribed glass tankard naming me as a 'patron' of the festival. They're not getting it back, either. A tankard is a tankard.

So this year, I decided that, as the FAB organisers had declared that they were 'not interested' in what used to be the festival fringe, it might be an idea to put the Johnny Mac Folk Stage at the Newton Brewery Inn in Webbs Lane.

We couldn't, and didn't want to, use the name 'Folk & Boat Festival (well, actually, we could have, but I don't think we would have even if we'd realised this).

The Newton readily agreed to the idea and soon word got around. The Kings Lock expressed an interest in getting involved and, in no time, nearly every  pub and club in Middlewich wanted to be a part of what we're calling 'Midsummer Middlewich'.

The rest of the story can be picked up by reading the  posts on various Facebook groups, in particular the MIDSUMMER MIDDLEWICH and MIDDLEWICH COMMUNITY groups.

But let me make this crystal clear. MsM is NOT the Folk & Boat Festival under another name

In fact we've tried to make it very clear indeed  that we have no connection whatsoever with the now discredited organisers of that event.

Of course people will make comparisons and assumptions. It would be too much to hope for that they wouldn't. But I sincerely hope that no one doubts our sincerity.

Our aim is to bring back just a little bit of the magic that used to be Middlewich in June. We may not succeed, but it won't be because we haven't put our hearts and souls into it.

No one can bring back the Folk & Boat Festival the way it used to be. 

But I'd like to think that, if we only come close, it will have been worthwhile.

We welcome corrections and amendments to this Diary entry.

Dave Roberts

Midsummer Middlewich
11th May 2026

QUEEN MUM 1936

by Dave Roberts
I'm sure most people won't object to a little self-indulgence today of all days. 
This picture first appeared on the Middlewich Diary on Mother's Day 2012 and has appeared every Mother's Day since.

Dad, incidentally, made his first appearance here on Father's Day 2011. 

DAD AT WORK

And Mum, like Dad, played her part in Middlewich history at the height of our salt town days.
Mum was born in 1919 in neighbouring Moston and went to school in Elworth which she always said was  'a lovely place until Fodens ruined it'.
Her Mother, our Grandma Hodgkinson, was at one time in service with the Foden family.
Mum lived all her adult life in Middlewich and, like so many young women in the town, worked at Cerebos.
In 1936, when she was 17, she was crowned 'Salt Queen of Cheshire'* and our picture shows her wearing the beautiful dress which was specially made for the occasion and which, amazingly, still survives in the possession of the family.

* That was the title we were always told Mum held all those years ago, although there do not seem to be any records of any 'Cheshire Salt Queen' event. The 'Salt Queen of Middlewich' has proved equally elusive, although the local press has carried reports about a proposed revival of the 'Salt Queen of Winsford' title. Could that be the title that Mum held all those years ago?.

Whatever the truth of the matter, and whatever her actual Regal title was all those years ago, Mum, like all Mums, was a true Queen.

Mum passed away on Easter Sunday, April 16th 2006.


Mothers Day 2012


First published Mothers Day 2012. Republished Mothers Day 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

SALT TOWNS RADIO October 30th 2025

 

Listen to YOUR local radio station!
Click on the link and then on LISTEN LIVE!

www.salttownsradio.online

Your Thursday programmes:

This afternoon  2pm - 4pm

THE DUKE!

NON-STOP SUPERSONIC 70s SHOW

Local radio for Local People!

A tribute to the little train which ran between Crewe and Northwich via Sandbach and Middlewich from 2011 until 1960. 

Words by Dave Roberts, Music by Eamon Myles and Albert Inchcape

THE DODGER

NOW AVAILABLE!

MUSIC MEMORIES, first broadcast

 23rd October 2025

 CHESHIRE FOLK, first broadcast 

26th October 2025

go to 

LISTEN AGAIN
then scroll down to MUSIC MEMORIES

or CHESHIRE FOLK and click on the show you want to hear!

Click on COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT on the website and then on the feature you want to listen to.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT 

can be heard at 12 noon and 6pm every day and also throughout local programmes on STR

www.salttownsradio.online

This also appears on THE QUEEN STREET COLLECTION

SALT TOWNS RADIO 29th October 2025

Listen to YOUR local radio station!
Click on the link and then on LISTEN LIVE!

www.salttownsradio.online

Your Wednesday programmes:

A tribute to the little train which ran between Crewe and Northwich via Sandbach and Middlewich from 2011 until 1960. 

Words by Dave Roberts, Music by Eamon Myles and Albert Inchcape

THE DODGER

NOW AVAILABLE!

MUSIC MEMORIES, first broadcast

 23rd October 2025

 CHESHIRE FOLK, first broadcast 

26th October 2025

go to 

LISTEN AGAIN
then scroll down to MUSIC MEMORIES

or CHESHIRE FOLK and click on the show you want to hear!

Click on COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT on the website and then on the feature you want to listen to.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT 

can be heard at 12 noon and 6pm every day and also throughout local programmes on STR

www.salttownsradio.online

This also appears on THE QUEEN STREET COLLECTION

MIDDLEWICH STATION: 'THE DODGER' 1959

By Dave Roberts

On its way to Crewe the legendary 'Northwich Dodger' makes a stop at Middlewich station to pick up passengers, including the stylish 50s Mum and her baby on the right. The date is 14th March 1959 and the by now much reduced passenger service on the Middlewich line has less than a year to run. The service ended on the 2nd January 1960. Although, to the uninitiated, this looks at first glance like an old fashioned diesel train, closer inspection will show the steam locomotive (no 41229, for those who like to know these things) at the far end, opposite the water tower. The 'Dodger' was a push-pull or 'motor' train which ran loco-first in the Northwich direction and then simply reversed for the trip back to Crewe, the driver sitting in a compartment in the leading coach, while the fireman stayed on the footplate. Rumour has it that, on occasion, the driver stayed on the locomotive, rather than sit  in his cosy little cab in the train. Other rumours told of the fireman driving the train from his end, while the driver had a quick nap at the front but whether or not these scandalous accusations can be proved, we can't say. All water under the bridge now, of course, and no one came to any harm, however the crew decided to handle things. Motor trains began on this line in 1911.
By 1959 the only passenger services available were four trains a day in each direction between Northwich and Crewe (however, as members of the Rail Link Campaign committee will tell you, if you're looking for a local destination to run trains to, what station could be better than Crewe, for connections to the entire country?). Previously there had been services from Crewe to Liverpool and Warrington and, until 1931, a through coach to London on a service from Manchester Oxford Road. At one time, also, trains ran from Kidsgrove and Nantwich to Northwich via Middlewich
Although the 'Dodger' terminated at Northwich, certain services reversed at that Station and ran up to Acton Bridge, via the connection to the West Coast main line at Hartford.
I'm particularly fond of this photograph because it shows our station as it must have been on that long-ago day in 1959 when my Dad and I took one of the last 'Dodgers' to Crewe for a Royal occasion of some sort, the memory of which time has obscured. The reference in the late Geraldine Williams' comment (below) to going to Crewe 'to see the Queen' has turned into a red herring, as subsequent research shows no Royal visit to Crewe in 1959 (or anytime in the late 50s) by the Queen or any other Royal.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Dad and I did travel on The Dodger to Crewe in the train's last days. The seats in the compartment had been slashed (by Teddy Boys, Dad said) and the stuffing was all over the place.
This black and white print was passed to me by Allan Earl (it appears in his book 'Middlewich 1900-1950') but it has also been featured many times in the local press and in  many books about railways.
I'm indebted to Alan Wilkinson, formerly of Middlewich, for some of the information included here. His book 'Railways Across Mid-Cheshire' (Foxline Publications) contains a section on the history of the Middlewich Branch, illustrated with many photographs including this one.
The 'Dodger' could get you from Middlewich to Northwich in just seven minutes. It remains to be seen how long it will take with modern diesel traction. Let's hope it won't be too long before we get the chance to find out.

Originally published 20th July 2011
Revised and re-published 28th October 2025

(100)

See also: MIDDLEWICH STATION TODAY

                 THE DODGER AT CREWE STATION 1955

                  THE DODGER (SONG) by Eamon Myles

Facebook Feedback (20th July 2011):

Geraldine Williams Ah! - the trusty old Dodger. It conveyed me to work in Northwich and provided a connection to the Chester train for my sister and others who attended the Ursuline Convent School. The only slight downside to the Dodger was in the winter when the heating system belted out dusty, hot air from under the seats which gave ladies a grimy hem to the backs of dresses and underskirts and played havoc with chilblain suffers like me!

Dave Roberts Excellent, Geraldine. That's exactly the kind of everyday detail we like to hear about. I wonder if it would be possible to recreate the 'Dodger'? Certainly several of the tank locos used still exist and there are push-pull coaches on preserved railways...I wonder. Just a pipedream, really, which will have to wait until the new station is built and open.

Geraldine Williams Re: your comments about the Dodger and going to see The Queen at Crewe, have you any recollections of when The Queen opened Leighton Hospital? I was working at St Mary's at the time and we had a phone call, I think from Mac Telfer, saying that the Royal Train would be passing through Middlewich Station just after lunch. We dug out every flag we could find from a drawer in the Presbytery and trooped the children down to the station. A train did pass through but all the windows seemed to be blanked off. The children dutifully waved their flags and then we trooped forlornly back to school, not knowing whether it had been The Queen's train or not!!

Dave Roberts I have heard the story before, about the Royal Train passing through with the blanked out windows, but I don't have any recollections myself about it.

MDR 170520