Youngest and Oldest Inhabitants

Rolleston’s first baby for the year 2000 is Harry William Gopsill who arrived on 23rd January weighing 6lb 8oz (2.95kg for future generations!) He is the third son of Paul and Sue Gopsill of 27, Twentylands and brother to Samuel (8) and Oliver (6). Paul is a Burtonian, but Sue is Rolleston born and bred being a member of the Hartshorn family of Walford Road.

Mrs Sarah Dangerfield will be 99 on the 29th September this year. She hails from Bermondsey, before moving to Carshalton for 65 years. Just to prove that people can come new to the village at any age she arrived to live here with her daughter’s family in Glebe Close just seven years ago.

Mrs Elsie Marsh of Alderbrook Close has lived here a little longer, coming all the way from Stapenhill in 1966 and she will be 97 on 13th July this year.

In contrast, Mrs Phyllis Allen (94) has lived in the area all her life. She was born on 25th January 1906 when her parents lived in a cottage along Longhedge Lane, near where the brickworks used to be, on the way from Rolleston to Anslow. She went to school locally. Her working life was spent in the retail drapery business in Burton, working in what were to become the well known and respected shops of Hilton’s, Mercer’s and Ordish and Hall’s. In 1935 she and her husband moved to Knowles Hill where she brought up her family and where she still lives.

Phyllis is probably the oldest full time resident of the village and coincidentally her youngest sister is married to the gentleman who is probably the oldest male Rollestonian. Arthur Edward Bentley was 92 on 2nd February this year. He was born in the Mosley cottages along Church Road, and in 1934 his parents moved to the semi-detached houses on Station Road by the jitty through to Meadow View. When Edna and Arthur married in St Mary’s he grabbed the opportunity to rent a cottage on Brookside from the Mosley estate, this is still his and Edna’s home, although they now own the pretty little cottage. In all the time he has lived there the brook flood water has never entered his house. As a boy Arthur went to school in Rolleston, sang in St. Mary’s church choir, shopped in "Royal’s" little front room shop on Station Road, bought pop from "Miss Windridge" (now Black and White Cottage) next to "Richard’s" butcher’s in Chapel Lane and buns from Ma Whetton’s baker’s shop next to today’s post office.

For the first year, after he left school at 14, he worked in the glass factory at Tutbury. The rest of his working life he cycled to the Corporation Engineering Department at the Clay-mills pumping station where, although being denied an apprenticeship, he undertook every job in the place.