GROVETOWN PONTEFRACT

ADDED 21 OCTOBER 2006

I was very interested in your article in last month's issue of the Pontefract Digest magazine about Grovetown, Pontefract, especially as my late mum lived at 13 Oak Street as a young girl. She was born in Northumberland in 1911 but came to Pontefract with her parents, brother and younger sister, when her Dad, Benjemin Burnley, came to live in Pontefract at 13 Oak Street, to work in the coal mines. Her dad joined the army in 1914 and became a Company Sergeant Major in the 8th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment, but was killed on Saturday 1st July 1916 in the Battle of the Somme. He is buried in Blighy Valley Cemetery, Authvile Woodsomme, France.

My mum, later when grown up, before she married my Dad, went to live with her brother and his wife in Anderson Street, Pontefract, and then came to live in Knottingley when she married my dad. She dies eleven years ago at the age of 84. The last ten years of her life she suffered from Alzheimers and although she lived in Knottingley for 50 years - 45 of them in the same house - and 5 years in an old peoples bungalow, she could not remember living in either place. The only place she could remember was 13 Oak Street, Pontefract. It was a coincidence the writer of your article in The Digest, also lived at 13 Oak Street.

Mrs June Norton

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