Mum was in fancy dress

In the Star Retro, Tuesday, February 19, you featured a group photographed in fancy dress at Attercliffe Unitarian Church in the 1920s.The middle teenager of the three, kneeling on the front row with arms folded, is my mother, Mabel Green, (nee Hobson).
Attercliffe Unitarian sale of work 1920'sAttercliffe Unitarian sale of work 1920's
Attercliffe Unitarian sale of work 1920's

The group were dressed in the traditional costumes of many countries, with the three in question supposedly dressed as Japanese geishas. Well, that was the general idea but, clearly, no authentic dresses were available!

In Attercliffe, as elsewhere, the social life of many residents revolved around local nonconformist churches. In my mother’s case, she already had her eye on my father, Hughie Green, who attended the “Units” so, naturally, that’s where she followed, although, for similar reasons, her brothers and sisters gravitated to other churches.

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Mabel was born in 1908 on Oakes Green at the heart of Attercliffe and, as a young adult, became a supervisor at the new local branch of Woolworth’s which opened in the 1920s.

Later, she took over a local grocers shop on Brompton Road, which had passed down through three generations of her family.

Later still, Mabel bought a hardware shop in Hillsborough from where she retired in the late 1960s.

She spent a long and happy retirement in Worksop with my father Hughie and eventually “ceased trading” in 2002 at the age of 93. Happy days!

Stuart Green

Worksop, S80