A Bat's Eye View — Stop 6
Bugler at Annaville Terrace
Bugler Bat had been hanging out in a big terraced house in Annaville Terrace. It had been empty but recently Mossley folk had been to’ing and fro’ing, painting the walls, bringing in furniture and making it generally very cosy.
Illustration by children of St George’s School
Then suddenly three families moved in. They looked thin, scared and tired - one lady was holding a tiny baby, and they had very few belongings. They didn’t speak any English but they seemed very relieved that they had reached Annaville Terrace. Bugler gradually learned that they were refugees who had fled from war torn Belgium.
The people from Mossley made the refugees very welcome, even putting up Belgian Flags in the garden to make them feel more at home.
One evening Bugler had just gone out to catch his first flies of the evening when he saw a weary figure making her way up Stamford Road accompanied by Councillor Albert Buckley.
Her head was stooped so when she reached Annaville Terrace Bugler swept down to catch her eye, then flew up to the Belgian flag. The girl looked up and saw the flag and started to cry with joy.
It turned out that the girl, Maria Decorte, had travelled all the way from Belgium on her own to help nurse her brother, Evariste, who she had learned had been wounded and brought to Mossley. She was soon reunited with her brother who was being looked after at the hospital in the Mechanics Institute.
The Mechanics Institute
As well as being a temporary hospital in WWI The Mechanics Institute was where the evacuees of the WWII went to be ‘sorted’. It was demolished in 1971.