WHEN the Mirehouse housing estate was first thought of, way back in the early 1950s, there was an intention to provide those who lived there with their own cinema.

It was to have been on Meadow Road, near to the shops. But sadly, it was never built, and televisions would soon answer everyone’s viewing needs.

Recollections of what life was like on the south Whitehaven estate in the early days have been gathered for a recent booklet entitled Mirehouse Memories compiled by Mirehouse Residents Group with the aid of Sue Donnelly, who works for Age UK.

The estate currently has a population of 4,500 and many families have lived there all their lives.

As Sue says: “For many of us, our sense of personal identity is shaped by our experience of being rooted in a place and community.

“For West Cumbrians, whose families may have been long established within a small area, this feeling can be particularly strong.”

The Mirehouse estate was created – in two distinct halves either side of the railway line – to answer an increasing demand for homes as the local nuclear industry burgeoned and there was clearance of sub-standard housing in the middle of town.

People were thrilled about the improvements to family life when they moved onto the Valley. They had proper kitchens and bathrooms, inside toilets they didn’t have to share, a garden and bright, airy environs, though some missed the close-knit sense of community of cheek-by-jowl town-centre living. The summers seemed longer and warmer then but with so many coal fires burning during the winter there were soon problems with air pollution and ultimately the estate became a smokeless-zone.

The two areas came to be referred to as the O9 side and the O6 side, taken from the numbers of the bus routes that served them. There was a village atmosphere. Mirehouse had an identity, with its own shops, churches, school, social clubs and sense of community. Hundreds of young families grew up together and many of the original inhabitants are still there.

Several of those who participated in the book Mirehouse Memories were among the first residents to move into Mirehouse, an estate that grew and grew to become quickly populated with people of warmth, character and friendship.

One of the book’s contributors, Jenny Doran, tells how her family hailed from Blennerhasset but came to live in Whitehaven when dad got work at the Whitehaven Brick and Tile Company. Jenny herself had worked at Edgard’s when she was 17, when it was then at Barracks Mill, employed making uniforms for the forces. The girls used to put little notes in the coat pockets for servicemen to find and several struck up relationships as a result!

Her first council house as a married woman was on Skiddaw Road. That was in 1950 when there was no bridge across the railway, so you couldn’t get from one side to the other without going through the cattle arch. The nearest telephone box, when Jenny went into labour with her second child, was at Greenbank.

Mirehouse Pond was popular, developed its own Angling Club, and so were the tea dances held in the workmen’s hut. Prior to the building of St Andrew’s Church, services were held in the school and then there was the ever-popular Calder Club, brilliant for a Saturday night out. After a spell as pub landlords, the Dorans returned to Mirehouse in 1957 to live on Link Road.

Laura Reed came from County Durham and arrived in Ashness Close in 1953 after marrying a man from Maryport who got a job with the Gas Board at Whitehaven. He later went to Sellafield. People had come from all over the country to work there. Their new council house was so new they couldn’t paint the fresh plastered walls for a whole year, and the rent was 19 shillings and tuppence.

Many of the residents were young married couples and the women would sit outside chatting and drinking tea on summer nights.

When Elizabeth Armstrong moved onto Grisedale Close, houses were still going up on Whinlatter Road. She and her family remained there for almost 50 years. Her husband was a miner but Elizabeth worked at Cleator Fasteners, at Smith’s, and cleaned at the Globe, Hensingham, and Whitehaven college. Born in Preston, she’d worked during the war on building planes at Dick Kerr’s engineering, near the Preston docks.

Sadie Nicholson lived on Croasdale Road for 50 years, moving in in 1952, and she worked at Edgard’s for 32 years, mainly as a machinist and hand-sewer. She made three rag rugs for her new home and she liked her new neighbours. There were just two shops – Josie Todd’s grocers and a fish shop – but mobile shops would become regular visitors, Masons with milk and Maypole’s with butter and cheese. Before fridges, a pantry with a big stone slab off the kitchen helped keep food cool. Other callers were the insurance man and the rag-man on his horse and cart, giving out toys and balloons in exchange for rags. The estate roads were still rough and most folk walked everywhere.

Behind the houses was an area of waste ground called the Back Field and there would sometimes be bingo sessions there on Friday afternoons.

Betty Burney has lived on Newlands Avenue for 61 years, previously she lived in with her mother on Greystone Road. Her husband was a scaffolder who helped build the estate and like many other men he too went on to work at Sellafield. Betty, like many of her neighbours, worked at Edgard’s.

The area of Mirehouse was just countryside, a field with cows and Leece’s farm, as Moira Nesbitt remembers it. She is 70 and has lived on Copeland Avenue for 28 years, prior to that she was at Greenbank. She recalls playing in her house while it was partially built. She too worked at Edgard’s and later, for 25 years at Mardon and Lawson’s (Smurfits).

Roger Wynne lives on Newlands Avenue and remembers there were plenty of opportunities for a night out, including the Legion on the bridge, and a large hut dubbed the Ponderosa after the TV western (because there were often fights). There was a youth club too, run by volunteers. And his wife Janet remembers carnivals, street parties, a men v women rugby match and a Young Wives’ Club, abandoned in the 90s as times changed and many mothers began to go out to work.

She recalls the avenue at one time had a butchers, a grocers and a chip shop and mobile shop visits from Eric Parkin, Thomas Herdman, Pip’s and Handycash, from the lemonade car and the fresh fish van.

n Mirehouse Memories is available, priced £6.99, from the Age UK shop on Lowther Street, Whitehaven, or from the Old Customs House at West Strand; and from Haig Mining Museum and Mirehouse Community Centre.