Sending boy on a man's errand, Teesdale Mercury

Sending boy on a man's errand

Nov 13, 2007

THERE is more than a suspicion that attitudes towards children and childhood have undergone a profound change since Victorian times.

Thomas Todd, who was the blacksmith at Middleton during the second half of the 19th century, tells a story in his memoirs that illustrates vividly some of these differences.

Thomas Todd's memories were collected together and published by George Reginald Parkin in 1935 when Todd was 81.

Thomas describes in detail what he calls ‘an unpleasant experience' that took place when he was eight. The fact that Thomas remembered this event from his childhood shows the long lasting effect it had on him. The story also shows the extraordinary tasks children could be asked to do that wouldn't be dreamed of today.  

Thomas recalls how a Mrs Sherwood, the proprietor of The Rose and Crown, in Middleton, often asked him to do odd jobs and run errands.

On this particular occasion, Thomas was called on by Charlie Taylor, the ostler at the Rose and Crown, and told that Mrs Sherwood wanted him to go on what he called ‘an errand'.

Mrs Sherwood needed a horse so that she could collect her winter coal from Woodland. Her brother had left a horse for this purpose at Stangfoot Public house.

Charlie Taylor was supposed to have collected this horse but had returned without it. Furthermore, he had refused to go back for it, citing the bugs in the Stangfoot Pub as the problem.

Young Thomas was given the task of walking to Stangfoot and riding the horse back to Middleton.

He was given directions: "Gan tha ways threw Barney, an keep ont Yorkshire side ad Tees all'd way tad Stangfoot."

The problem was that Stangfoot was about 18 miles from Middleton - by Thomas's own estimation.

Stang Foot is still there on modern maps. It lies on the road leading from the A66 to Arkengarthdale through Stang Forest at a point where the road crosses Scargill Beck and where the road from Hope joins the main road. From Stang Foot, the road rises steeply through what is now Stang Forest to Stang Top - at 515 metres, over 1,500ft. I don't think Stang Foot is still a public house.

For a young lad of eight, who hadn't been as far as Barney before, it must have seemed another country.

Nevertheless, Thomas set off on his errand after telling his mother he was going. She gave him a few cakes for the journey.

Did Thomas tell his mother where he was going and if not, why didn't she ask? And why did Mrs Sherwood think this was an appropriate errand for an eight-year-old? People must have thought differently in those days.

Thomas had eaten all his cakes by the time he reached Lonton, which was as far as he had ever been before from Middleton.

He ‘plodded' through Mickleton, Romaldkirk, Cotherstone and Lartington and, after many a long hour, came to Barney. That's an awful long way for a child to walk all by himself.

When he eventually reached Barney, he gazed in wonder at Barney's Woollen Mills. They made strange loud clanking noises and Thomas wrote that he began to feel lonely - and hungry as well. He wrote that he ‘felt a stranger in a far off country'.

He asked for directions at Rutter's Blacksmith's Shop. He was probably attracted to it because a blacksmith's would be familiar to him, bearing in mind that his father was a blacksmith.

The blacksmith remarked: ‘Thou hes a lang way ta gan yit lad." Thomas must have travelled south through Startforth, past the church along what is now the B6277, reaching the Street at Cross Lanes. Here Thomas found yet another blacksmith's. There must have been lots of them in those days when horses were the main means of transport.

Thomas was put on the right road but night was drawing in and the road was long. He went past a farmhouse on the left of the road. A woman was driving in her geese for the night.

"Keep gannan on lad. It's a good bit further up," she encouraged him. But Thomas had reached the end of his tether.

He nearly gave up and began to wander from the road because he was so tired. He realised he couldn't turn back but he was cold and hungry and he began to cry as he stumbled up the moor. Then, joy of joys. he saw a building and heard voices.

The building contained roadmen who had finished their day's work. They didn't offer to help him - I wonder why that was? Instead they said: "Just gan on, lad to that bit hill top an thou'll see Stangfoot Public."

With this good news, Thomas found an extra ounce of strength and reaching the top saw the public house ahead.

And then his tears flowed. The landlady saw him coming and went to meet him, took him in and gave him a drink, and at last Thomas fell asleep. He doesn't mention if there were any bugs!

Although the landlady and those in the house expressed their disapproval that a young child should have been sent on such a long journey by himself they didn't offer any assistance.

Instead, the master of the house produced a chestnut horse for him to take back to Middleton. So, sitting astride the chestnut, Thomas rode back to Middleton a hero - absent from school on a man's errand. Thomas was given one shilling for his journey to Stangfoot.

Can you imagine such a set of circumstances happening today?

First published in the Teesdale Mercury, November 7, 2007