MANY people dream of spending their retirement years in a cosy cottage set in an idyllic spot and surrounded by its own productive kitchen garden.

But there are sometimes hidden penalties to be paid for craving 'the good life', as reader Sue Yates points out in a welcome response to my earlier plea for details about the vanishing countryside dwellings of St Helens and district.

She has first-hand knowledge of the old cottage which once stood down Sandy Lane, Moss Bank, and about which a middle-aged customer of this column had inquired (May 27).

Sue, now 80 and of Lorton Avenue, Moss Bank, writes: "When my father-in-law retired as sexton and head gardener at the local cemetery, he and his wife sought somewhere quiet to live." Their quest ended, in 1943, down the public footpath leading from the built-up section of Sandy Lane.

Just one year later Sue's father-in-law died.

His widow had been left alone with an eight-year-old granddaughter she was raising in that lovely, though rather remote spot. So Sue and her hubby moved in to keep them company.

"It may have looked idyllic," she says, "but it was, in fact, very inconvenient."

There were no modern amenities . . . "no gas, electricity or running water, and with only an earth toilet which needed constant emptying."

The water supply came via a pipe, leading from the surrounding fields which fed a well behind the garden greenhouse. "This all had to be carried in buckets, so you can imagine what it was like on bath night when the family took turns with an old tin bath until a modern one was purchased later."

And washing days were a nightmare.

"We had a big old black-iron fireplace. Everything had to be cooked on the fire, but I must admit that the oven was very good."

Oil lamps and candles were the only means of lighting and the radio was run on accumulator batteries which had to be taken into town for re-charging.

"One hot summer, our water supply dried up," recalls Sue, "so our landlords found an old map which showed that there was a well in the field behind the house."

This was opened up. "But, of course, it was harder to use," she adds, "as we had to draw the water with a bucket on a long rope."

The uneven flagged floors of the house couldn't accommodate carpets, so the family had to make feet-warming peg rugs (made from scraps of cloth material weaved into a hessian backing).

The bedroom ceilings were open to the slates. "This made it very cold in winter, so we had a stock of pottery hot-water bottles to tuck into our beds."

Touching on our earlier correspondent's quest for information about the the cottage's last occupants and its demolition date, Sue explains: "I tried to find out more about the cottage a few years ago and learned that we did not appear on this list of known tenants, as the house was supposedly derelict from 1935 until 1956 when it was demolished.

"How it came about that we didn't seem to exist is a mystery to me!"

She has a map of the old homestead's location. "We just called it The Cottage," says Sue, "but officially it was Little Fennybank Farmhouse."

SELDOM have I received such a clear and detailed reply to a request for old-time information. Many thanks, Sue, for filling in all those gaps.

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