Staying on Coldweather, let's have a look at the Moorcock, still open as a wayside pub and restaurant. When I knew it in the 1950s it was run as a public house by an elderly couple helped by their son who was also involved with Civil Defence, there was always a CD signals van parked in the car park. I delivered their groceries weekly and also did the same for an old lady who lived in a small bungalow in the yard of the nearby Admergill Pasture Farm. This was owned and run by John Hanson and the lady was his mother, universally known as Old Mother Hanson.
Mother Hanson fascinated me. I don't mean this unkindly but she looked like a woman from the days of the Pendle witches. She dressed in old-fashioned long skirts to the ground and her lifestyle was exactly as it would have been four centuries before. I later found that she was also a wise woman and a healer! I say this because her brain was sharp as a razor and she always sat me down with a cup of tea laced with whisky and talked to me about days long gone, I think she enjoyed it and I certainly enjoyed her company.
The healer bit came when she found I had a very old-fashioned complaint, a carbuncle in my right arm pit that was defying all the resources of modern medicine and making my life a misery! You don't see them today but a carbuncle is a nest of boils and is very painful. She ordered me to strip to the waist and had a look at it. While she did this she questioned me about my life style and told me that my blood was too rich and that I should stop partaking of my favourite tipple, a Black and Tan. This was a Massey's Extra Stout topped up to a pint with best bitter. She told me to ditch the stout and put a King's Ale in instead.
Then she applied her treatment which she assured me would do the trick. She rooted in a drawer and produced what looked like a white candle encased in paper, she told me it was 'Diathrum'. Then she brought out an old cotton slip and tore a strip off right round the bottom, formed it into a pad, heated the 'Diathrum' in front of the coal fire until it was melting and smeared a liberal amount on the cotton pad which she then clapped into my armpit while it was hot and held it there until I calmed down a bit. It was as painful as anything I have experienced before or since.
Once I was still she tore off more cotton from the slip and made an expert job of bandaging the pad in place. She told me not to disturb it, she would have a look the following week when I visited her again. I shall have to leave you in suspense!
The Moorcock as it is today extended to add a restaurant.
