Better coverage is required

Fill in more dates

Extra hits please

Please can you fill in gap and add 1898 which was missed too.

More dates please

I was born in the same year as the Queen. This was the year of the General Strike and the start of the depression of the 1930s.
When I was eleven, in 1937, it was decided I was now too old to be cadging my statutory Saturday penny from my parents and it would be beneficial to learn the value of money by earning my own. The official age for part-time work after or before school was twelve but that had only just become law so was blinked at a little bit.

My aunt, who lived on the very outskirts of the town, had had her bread delivered until recently by a boy on a bike but that boy was now working full time in some sweatshop of a shoe manufacturer so she knew the job was vacant. She had a word with Miss Walpole Smith, the bakers shop owner and before you could say knife I was gainfully employed.

My duty was to report for work at noon when I was given a bread-basket of loaves to deliver 'on your way home' as it was put, and again at 4.30 pm to deliver a 'long round' of bread to the outlying districts of the town. This long round took about an hour and the empty basket was then returned to the shop. Saturday morning found me there at some unearthly hour to start deliveries. These were to all those people I had served through the week but double the quantity and collecting, from some of them, payment for the previous week's supplies. There were also some Saturday only deliveries that the senior bakers called on during the week but had no time for on the double baking day.

For these services I received a weekly wage of 3/6d. I was rich. I had never had so much money before in my life. But, alas! my bike fell over outside the shop and was crushed beyond repair by a passing vehicle. I had to have a new one straight away and was able to buy one on the 'never-never' from Mr. Espin whose business was in Queen Street. The bike was a shop-soiled (a credit sale that had not gone on to maturity) Coventry Eagle which cost £3.17.6 but was reduced to £3.10.0 because of its condition. I paid 2/6d (12.5p) a week for 28 weeks so for about 12 hours work I got a shilling (5p) a week. I was still able to feel a bit independent earning my own money and was quite well off when my pay was upped to 5/-. Then I could go to the cinema, as a junior, for 4d.

This was my start in working for a living but I didn't stay in that job because I changed schools and it was no longer practical. I took another less demanding (and lower paid) job at T. Swindall & Sons, the builders & undertakers, delivering accounts to 'The Executors of Mr So & So (deceased), with simply the name of the road. This was completely worrying for a small boy too shy to ask the way and not even knowing who or what an executor was.

American Forces in the Rushden district may be provided with a canteen, if suggestions made at a meeting of Rushden Ministers' Fellowship with representatives of town's organisations on Monday afternoon are carried out.
Hall suggested for the canteen was the British Women's Temperance Association building in Newton Road. Last December the same representatives agreed to open the Y.M.C.A. on Sunday evenings on a similar venture. This fell through only two weeks afterwards, when members of churches in the town, who volunteered to serve the servicemen, found that their chief work was with Rushden young people.

I am doing some research on local mines and quarries and wonder if anyone has any information to share please. The particular areas of interest are around the villages of Spratton and Brixworth 6 miles north of Northampton.

Northampton has a rich history please add more

Deserves a place on here

Can we have more please

Add more editions

Great choice for having a full run on here plenty of history here to be told

More backdated copies please

In need of an upgrade please

Suitable paper for add serves the local community adequately

This would make for a great addition

|Being a daily paper, this would be extremely handy for those of us with family past in the circulation area of Northamptonshire

This would be handy as it covered only the town up to about 1922 When The Chronicle was merged with The Daily Echo to become The Chronicle & Echo

Northampton Chronicle