GROVETOWN GOSPEL MISSION

ADDED 14 NOVEMBER 2006

As a Pontefract lass born and bred, I love to read the Pontefract Digest each month.

In the November issue, Margaret Green asked if anyone remembered the Grovetown Gospel Mission. Yes, I do remember it with great affection. It was a wonderful place, and we children knew it as “Sunshine Corner”.

I lived on Tanshelf Drive and some friends and I would walk down Blue-Bell steps and across a field into Grovetown, taking carrots for the blind pit ponies that grazed in an adjoining field to the Mission Hut.

It was a very plain wooden hut by the side of the railway bridge, but it always had a very warm, welcoming, feeling. We children would sit in rows on long wooden benches and sing lovely cheerful songs - the opening song would be “Sunshine Corner”.

“Sunshine Corner - Oh it’s jolly fine,
It’s for children under ninety-nine
All are welcome, seats are given free
Pontefract Sunshine Corner, is the place for me.”

The closing song would be “We are travelling to the mansion on the Happy Day Express” - Oh! Happy days!

Mrs J. Egan

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