IN THE 1920s, my Grandad Askew from Natland would take a horse and farm cart and one of his children to Kendal Saturday Market with produce from his vegetable garden.

It occupied a corner of a field near Natland Parks farm.

One day my dad arrived to take me home from school and said; “Natland Parks is on fire”.

We rushed to see the spectacle but by then the firemen had reduced the flames to steam.

Natland Road had overhead telephone wires and we schoolchildren enjoyed the wonder of putting our ears to the telegraph poles and listening to the wind’s eerie, mournful song.

There were probably not more than about ten wires.

I never remember grandad having a cart, or a horse, which were probably borrowed from Abbey Farm, adjacent to the cottage where my grandparents lived.

They had brought up seven of their eight children there, my Uncle Arthur having died aged seven, long before I was born.

The only pictorial evidence of these market trips came to light one day when I was showing off a book of picture post card litho prints of Kendal Views.

I had probably obtained it in a schoolboy ‘swap’.

One picture was Kirkland. The school, if built, was hidden by trees.

Opposite stood a small garage, next to ‘The Garage Temperance Hotel’.

My mother excitedly said; “Look! There’s Grandad and Uncle Edward.” They were in the centre of the picture, returning home, grandad leading the horse.

My Uncle Edward, then about 10, had years before suffered mild infantile paralysis (later known as polio) and had a distinctive walk, throwing one foot and holding the opposite arm as if in a sling.