The Primitive Methodist Chapel

The Primitive Methodist Church and alley that led to Thrift Cottages

Memories

I was born in 1918 in Thrift Cottages – now part of the Duck Street car park. The entry to Fitzwilliam Street ran alongside the Primitive Methodist Chapel and I went to the Sunday school there when I was about 6 years old.

When I was about 8 or 9 I started piano lessons and in a little while as I got more proficient I was persuaded to play in the Sunday school for the hymns. I used to have the numbers of next week’s hymns to practice for a while until I was good enough to play what was chosen on the day.

This went on until I was 11 years old when the organist, a Mrs Eyres, of Glassbrook Road died rather suddenly and I remember quite clearly my mother saying to me “you know what you’ve got to do now boy”; and so I did. I tried the organ. It was a rather big instrument and you had to pedal with your feet to provide the wind for the bellows, which I could just about reach and as my mother was the chapel caretaker I used to go with her on chapel cleaning days to practice.

I remember as a small boy, the Sunday school treat day which was a Thursday afternoon in early July. Every Sunday school met in the Spencer Park about 2 o’clock and with the huge banners leading each group, we marched up the High Street behind the band. Each of the four bands took it in turns to lead the parade and at the Church we all parted and went to our own Sunday school for tea and then off to a field or park for games and races. We children looked forward to this as we had a day off school!

As we were quite a small Sunday school the teachers found that as we were different ages it was difficult to keep us amused so in 1928 they decided to have an outing by coach to Skegness and we had a great day out. But the following year we went to Bedford and a chapel there supplied the tea and we amused ourselves in the park by the river. This big day, which was a tradition in Rushden, seems to have disappeared with the war and the attendance at Sunday schools has shrunk alarmingly, which is a great pity.

In 1931 the three Methodist denominations amalgamated, the Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists and United Methodists, so we at the Primitive Methodists had to leave the Wellingborough Circuit and joined Park Road, coming under their Minister. We were welcomed at the mid week Young Peoples events there, so I joined the Boys Brigade and I immediately got the job of playing the piano for the two hymns we had at each meeting.

The little “Prims” chapel kept going for about 3 years; then the Sunday school and church was closed down and sold so I went to the Park Road Bible Class on a Sunday afternoon playing the piano again until I was called up in 1940 for War service.

In 1937 I met my future wife and we were married in September 1939, three weeks after the War started and I was called up in March 1940. She was already a member of Wymington chapel when I met her so I attended the chapel there with her.

I came home in July 1946 and we regularly went to Wymington chapel again. I think it was 1948 or 1949 when the young lady organist got married and left Wymington, so guess what! I took over, biking over to Wymington twice on a Sunday until we could afford a motor car so we could all three come to chapel, for by that time our daughter Mollie was 8 or 9 years old.

I kept on playing until a young lad who lived next door expressed a desire to play the organ, so for 3 years he did while I went to Park Road. When he went to college to become a Minister I went back to Wymington until August 2006 when I had a stroke after which, I’m sorry to say, I no longer felt efficient enough to play in public and to lead the worship, but I can still amuse myself on the piano at home.

P.S. I have learned since writing this that the "Prims" started in a barn on the Green before the chapel in Fitzwilliam Street was built in 1890. Also I remember the Labour Exchange started up in the Sunday school room at the back of the chapel; one day a week before they moved to their own base in Brookfield Road.

[Extract from Rushden Mission Band: (about 1910 the band played) .... the Primitive Methodist annual camp meetings at Wollaston]

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