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David Wood’s story this time discusses the landscape of Goldenhill and how it stands high overlooking the Cheshire Plain.

David goes on to say,

During 1961 the slag heap at the top of Kidsgrove Bank, Starvation Banks, was landscaped with the promise that it would be turned into a park with all sorts of facilities, yeah right. The area was actually more fun when it was wild and rugged and accessible.

If you sat at the very top you could see all over the Cheshire plain. The highlight was in 1957, when they had finished building the Jodrell Bank radio telescope near to Holmes Chapel, we could actually see it with a pair of binoculars, borrowed from my dad.

The snowdrifts at the top of Kidsgrove bank were fantastic; they used to be several feet high and easily covered any vehicles which had been abandoned there. When it snowed the favourite pastime was making ice slides, the slides could be as long as 25 feet and were usually made in the middle of a pavement in a street with a downward slope to it.

The trouble is with projects like these was, the grownups didn’t like them and saw it as their civil duty to spoil them. A child doesn’t see the danger that an adult sees, so consequently, thanks to the age of the coal fire, ashes got thrown onto them to make them safe for the adults to walk over.