"My father's father, Fred Midgley, was born in East Keswick, but on the 1901 Census he was a butcher in Southport.  His wife-to-be, Ellen Monk was then living with her family somewhere else in Southport.  At the moment, I guess they married in Southport, and came to Burley in the year or two after the 1901 Census.  By 1910 my father Frank was born at 40 Lawn Avenue in Burley, and was their third child. My grandfather had a butcher's shop, a small single storey building (probably rented) on the Main Street. The shop is now known as The World of Beds at number 79.  My proof is the photograph which shows his elder son, Sydney proudly holding a prize bullock outside the shop.

This photograph would have been taken about 1911.  Fred also slaughtered animals at a couple of different locations, one being at a farm on the Otley side of the village, and the other just off Hill Top heading towards Victoria Road. At some stage he bought the house and shop at number 76, just across the road.  Frank married Hilda Sykes in January 1935 and took over the shop and house at number 76.  His father Fred and brother Sydney went to live in Leeds where they had other butchers shops. 

 

Victor Thackeray and Dick Hargrave both worked for Frank, until they were called up after war was declared.  Frank, my father was also called up, which meant his father Fred had to come out of retirement and run the shop with help from my mother.

 

This is where I spent the first 11+ years of my life -- 1937 to 1949.  We moved to Cleethorpes, having 'exchanged' butchers shops with a Mr Anderson.  Vic Thackeray, who had returned to the shop after demob continued to work for Mr Anderson, and eventually bought the shop from him.  Dick Hargrave did not leave butchering behind, and eventually owned the butchers shop at the bottom of Station Road, where he worked for many years.  He was also particularly involved with the Community Council.

 

My mother's parents although Yorkshire, were not born in Burley, but must have settled in the area, almost certainly before the 1911 Census. They were Arthur Sykes and Beatrice Eleanor Burtoft.  I am unsure where they married.  At his death in 1943 my mother's father was steward of the Rifle Club at Hill Top."