A Horse's Tale — Stop 7
Hannah Goes To The Soup Kitchen
Hannah and her cart were waiting outside the Soldiers and Sailors Recreation Room. There was an open sack of carrots leaning up against the wall outside. Hannah couldn’t resist and started nibbling at a carrot and before she knew it she had eaten the whole sack!
Illustration by children of Livingstone School
Suddenly she noticed that there were several men queuing up next to her. One was on crutches, one was missing an arm, two had eye patches and another couldn’t stop shaking. They were talking to each other about how much they were looking forward to a nice hot bowl of carrot soup.
Hannah started to feel horribly guilty as she realised she had eaten all the carrots for the soup. She quickly trotted over to the Co-op that sold vegetables where the grocer’s boy absentmindedly loaded her cart with a sack of turnips. As she pulled up back at the soup kitchen she really hoped the men liked turnip soup even better than carrot soup.
By the 1920s Mossley’s mills were in decline with unemployment reaching 56%.
Long queues formed outside the labour exchange. By 1926 Mossley was a desperately poor town.