Horace Hatton-A story of North Crawley 1934

I remember strolling leisurely across the home pasture one Sunday evening in early June in the year nineteen thirty-four. It had been an almost perfect day, the sun shining brightly out of a cloudless sky, the twenty five cows, which comprised our dairy herd, the young shorthorn bull and the farms three work horses grazed peacefully at the lush green grass which adorned the many pastures so typical of early June and decorating all the countryside in those days. Many fine trees mostly elm but a few oaks and ash as well, all now in full leaf graced the land all around me, you could in fact stand outside the back door of Tapps Green Farm House and count a hundred magnificent specimens around and in the two home pastures alone.

 

Today a picture of vastly different nature would confront one standing now in the same spot, the trees, hedges and livestock have all long gone, a sad reflection I fear on the changing times and man’s scant regard for the beauty of nature that once surrounded one.

 

However, no thought of any such changes crossed my mind on that far off Sunday evening. It is indeed a merciful thing that a knowledge of the future has been withheld from us all. The rest of the Harris family had as usual all gone to evening service at the village chapel that evening, the family, apart from myself, comprising of my father, mother, Aunt Polly, my two sisters and elder brother. Those of you who have read my previous book will remember that the Harris’s had been staunch chapel goers for several generations, and it was almost unthinkable for a service to be held there without the family being present. My brother and sisters were some ten years my senior and being brought up in the era when almost everyone went to either church or chapel three and often four  times every Sunday naturally I suppose continued the practise  from force of habit alone, us as kids though were force put. Although I always had and in fact still do have the utmost love and respect for religion, from a very early age I had always hated what to me was nothing much better than drudgery and having arrived at that ripe old age of twenty one  I was determined that from them on I would only attend chapel when I felt like it, hence the reason for my solitary stroll across the fields on the particular Sabbath evening referred to.

 

Now had dear old John Goodfellow still been alive things might have been different, I have no doubt that I should have gone to chapel if only afterwards to sample the old man’s exquisite company, taste his cold Yorkshire pudding or some nick nack or other out of his wonderful garden.

 

With the passing of my dear old friend the previous February’ marked the sad end of my links with the real old fashioned farm workers and the few younger men still following in the old peoples footsteps could in no way hold a candle to them either on the quality of their work or even local standing. Take for instance the man who my father now employed to look after and work the horses, apart from some three years in the army during the first world war, he had worked for my grandfather and father for more than thirty years and during that time he had gradually taken over from old John Goodfellow as the old man began to fail. But there any similarity between the two ended. It is true that like old John he was a staunch chapelman but for me he was too sanctimonious and narrow minded, forever looking around for any misdemeanour on anyone’s part to report to my father and I am sure thoroughly enjoying the ensuing row that he got them into. I know that in the days of my youth I had received many a rating from my old man owing to this man’s mischievous tale telling. I was, therefore, not altogether sorry that the man referred to, left my father’s employment before I took over the reins, as otherwise I know that sparks would soon have begun to fly.

 

However, to return to my Sunday evenings ramble. As I ambled slowly across the field, my old collie dog following gently at my heels, my mind began to wander back to my boyhood days and the people and happenings that I would well remember.

 

I did not start at the village school at North Crawley until I was six years old owing to several severe illnesses, and I cannot describe my first two or three years as anything short of misery. I was, at that age, a very nervous type of child and, living on the farm, which was situated nearly two miles distant from school, I never really mixed with the village children at all and knew hardly any of them. Being so far away from the school I could not obviously walk home to midday dinner, so I had to take sandwiches and go to John Goodfellow’s cottage to eat them.  I had usually finished and left John’s cottage by twelve thirty at latest and was forced to mess about in the village for an hour and a quarter. I must explain that all the village children had their dinners at one o’clock and therefore in most cases did not come out of their houses until nearly a quarter to two which was the time when afternoon school commenced. We did not come out of school then until four o’clock and so I was away from home soon after eight in the morning ‘til nearly five in the evening.

 

Being, as I have said, reserved and nervous, I was teased and bullied unmercifully by some of the older children and my life was only made bearable by the kindness and protection afforded to me by the Head Boy of the school named Jim Richards. Now Jim I shall always remember with great affection and gratitude. He was the son of Frank Richards who previous readers will remember was Sexton Verger, bell ringer and grave digger for the Parish church and one of Jim’s daily duties was to ring the one o clock dinner bell. This was an ancient custom at North Crawley and was rung to let the workers in the fields know when it was time for them to knock off for their midday meal, at that time of day many of these workers did not possess a pocket watch and it was therefore a great convenience to all such.

 

Now Jim always used to let me go to the church with him to ring this bell and to this day I can remember the thrill that it gave to me on entering the belfry and seeing the six bell ropes hanging there with the brilliant red and white striped sallies attached.

 

Jim always used to ring No 2 bell and I can see him now, short sleeked (no one by the way ever reckons to ring a bell for however short a period with their coat on) waiting for the church clock to strike one on the big tenor bell, when he would at once grasp the rope of no. 2 and ring it smartly for four or five minutes nearly always having a swing on the rope as he was ringing her down. Sometimes, as a special favour, he would let me have the first two or three pulls on the rope until the bell began to speak overhead, when he would take over the rope himself immediately so that no accident occurred.

Funnily enough from that time I was completely hooked on bell ringing and throughout my life I always longed to learn. Strange to say I never had the chance until I retired at the age of sixty six when the village, being short of ringers, advertised for learners and in great trepidation I offered my services and was accepted. With infinite patience and understanding two very dear friends instructed me in the art of ringing and I am glad to say that I am now able to take my place most Sundays and on any other special occasion. It is indeed strange in life how certain things work out as the old big tenor bell which, as a small boy, used to send shivers down my back when old Frank Richards used to toll her for deaths and funerals, is now mostly my bell and am glad to say that she holds no terrors for me now. Indeed, I am proud and happy to ring her although I fear that I should never be able to handle her with the same skill and dexterity as the old man did many years ago.

 

But to return to Jim, apart from his bell ringing he was head of sport at the village school and was responsible for looking after the cricket and football gear which was always kept at schoolmaster’s house. In the summer, when we used to play cricket in a field near the school, Jim always sent me to fetch the gear and as a reward for this I was allowed to have the first knock. This was honour indeed as most o the younger boys were expected to field without any innings at all.

 

As time went on the other boys accepted me as one of them so to speak and the teasing and bullying gradually ceased, but throughout my life I have always looked back with grateful thanks and affection to dear old Jim for helping me through the slough of despond which enveloped me during that difficult time.

 

After Jim left school he worked for a time at an ironmongers at Newton Pogess, afterwards taking up the occupation as a bricklayer. He also became the best fast bowler that North Crawley ever had and most of the opposing batsmen from the surrounding villages used to go in to face him in fear and trembling. I remember once, in a very important local derby match, seeing Jim take eight wickets for ten runs and all clean bowled at that. There is no doubt in my mind that today anyone being as good as he was would soon be bowling in County matches and even possibly for his country.

Poor Jim, I wish that I had a happier tale to tell. He unfortunately contracted a serious illness and passed away somewhere in his late thirties leaving his wife and three young daughters, a tragedy that shocked the whole village to its very core. I am glad to say that Jim’s wife outlived him by a good many years and brought up their three young daughters on her own, which must have taken quite a bit of doing, but country girls of that era were made of real good stuff and would survive on what would kill a good many townies today.

 

After Jim Richards left the village school the organising of sport was the responsibility of a boy named Frank Jackson who happened to be a cousin of my wife as is now. Frank was the illegitimate son of one of the daughters of old William Jackson who farmed at North Crawley for most of his life. I can remember him as a stern old Victorian gentleman and he had the reputation of being a first class farmer, but one who ruled over his wife and family with a rod of iron, he was a very strict chapel man almost puritanical in all his beliefs and I have heard it said that when he found out his daughter was pregnant he gave her absolute hell and for a long time his family always maintained that he was hardly fit to live with.

 

It was, and does seem to me am incredible fact, that all through the Victorian era there existed so many parents who were so sanctimonious and narrow  minded and, there is no doubt whatsoever that a good many chapel goers were the worst of the lot, and even I can remember many children of such parents who were almost afraid to breath.

 

However, at the time of when I write, William Jackson was very old and had been retired from farming for some years. With the passing of time the old man had mellowed somewhat, although he could still be a cantankerous old devil at times. He lived with one of his sons Frank and his mother who looked after them all, it seemed almost like poetic justice that the old man who had treated his daughter so harshly should be forced to turn to her in his declining years for help and sustenance, although it was generally known that the atmosphere in the home between father and daughter was extremely strained, as well it might be.

But to return to Frank, he was a brilliant scholar in fact in the top standard at school when he was only twelve. He shone at any sport that he cared to take up. He was a regular member of both village cricket and football teams when he was only fourteen, something that was almost unheard of at that time, but he had the good fortune to be extremely well built and must have weighed at least twelve stone by the time he was sixteen.  He had a terrific shot in either foot and, as a centre forward, the goals that he scored was absolutely phenomenal.

 

Being so good it was not long before he was the target for other and better clubs and, soon, he was first choice at centre forward for Waverly Town who at that time were members of a well-known amateur league. Whilst playing for them he had trials for several English league clubs, one actually in the first division, but alas Frank had little or no ambition and at the tender age of around seventeen he refused to leave the village and preferred to stay working on the farm where he started when he first left school.

 

It may seem very strange in this day and age when travel is made so easy, that boys and girls take hardly any notice of leaving home at a very early age, how anyone in Frank’s position should turn down such a golden opportunity, but I can assure readers that in the late twenties and early thirties it was a vastly different kettle of fish. However, when Frank was some twenty years old, he did join and play for a famous amateur club down the South of the county, who found him a good position with a well-known firm in the town.

 

Alas, for poor Frank, tragedy was only just around the corner. In February nineteen thirty-four he contracted the dreaded disease of meningitis and died when he was only twenty one. He was laid to rest in North Crawley village churchyard, his coffin being carried by six members of the football club that he played for, each one wearing in his buttonhole flowers of a colour the same as the club.

 

Frank’s funeral was the biggest that I ever saw, the village church being packed and many people even having to stand in the aisles.

I always maintain that Frank, as a footballer, was far and away the best prospect that I have ever seen and I have watched football at all levels throughout my life and there is no doubt that, had he gone to a good club when he first had the chance, he could well have been an English International.

 

During my early years at the village school, as well as playing cricket and football, there were other games which we used to play, of course, in their proper seasons. One would arrive at school on a particular morning and there would be a shout marbles are in and tops are out or perhaps hoops are in and jack stones are out as the case might be.

 

When either tops or hoops were in season we all used to play with these in the village street which was then perfectly safe, as apart from heavy farm horses and carts and the odd pony and traps, there was hardly any through traffic at all. It is true to say that in the latter twenties one was occasionally disturbed by the odd steam wagon or private car, but these were not then numerous enough to cause hardly any inconvenience at all.

 

Whilst us boys were engaged in any of the above-mentioned pastimes the girls were usually either skipping or playing hopscotch and, when it was the latter, the village streets used to be decorated from end to end with the different coloured chalked squares.

 

When tops were in season there were three main types that we used to spin, namely carrot, sparrow or peg. The pegs were coneal in shape with a metal shaped pin in the end and they were used to be spun by winding a long length of string around them, placing them and holding them firmly on the ground with one hand and giving the string a smart tug with the other hand, they would then spin in the same spot until the momentum died down, consequently they were nothing like as much fun as the carrot and sparrow types which would carry on spinning for as long as one cared to whip them.

 

For whips we used a stick about two feet long with a length of boot lace tied on one end and with the old sparrow tops you had to watch out as if you hit them too hard they would fly an incredible distance, as one day young Ted Benson  the local builders son found out to his cost. Ted was spinning his sparrow happily in the street when on giving her too hard a clout, crash, bang, wallop she sailed straight through old Quack Brimstones window. “Run, run like hell shouted one lad, if the old bugger comes out, she’ll kill all the lot on us”. In about two seconds flat I should say the whole street was clear of boys whips and tops but alas we were too late the old lady had seen us and had spotted the culprit, and when poor Ted arrived home he found that his father had been notified and he received a good hiding and his pocket money suspended until the window was paid for.

 

I should explain that the lady I have referred to as old Quack was in reality Miss Caroline Brimstone an elderly maiden lady who lived alone in a fairly large house in the middle of the village. She had earned the nickname of Old Quack on account of having a very harsh voice and the fact that she was usually rating somebody, at any rate she used to put the fear of God into all us small boys.

 

My father used to say that, in her younger days, she kept the village store and was quite well to do. She was a staunch free church woman and did an awful lot for the local Congregational Church. Just before the first world war however, the local countryside was invaded by a red-hot sanctimonious group of revivalist preachers of what sect I forget, but the locals always referred to them as go preachers. They went round all the villages in the neighbourhood ranting and raving from morning till night and although perhaps in their own way were well meaning, there is no doubt that they succeeded in upsetting an awful lot of people, Miss Caroline Brimstone and her sister Liz being two of them. Liz in particular being turned into what can only be described as a religious maniac going about the village carrying on as bad as the go preachers had themselves, and at the finish she started to write texts and dire prophesise on peoples walls and doors. One such was on old Dragon Peace the Thatchers house was, “vengeance is mine I will repay” saith the Lord. She did this because she lost her cat and swore blind that the old man had been responsible for its disappearance, although he himself always maintained that he knew nothing about it.

Miss Caroline, although not as badly affected as her sister, was never the same again. She gave up her village store and retired to live  by herself in the house where Ted put his top through the window, her only activity so far as I know, was to deliver tracts periodically to all and sundry and these were always of a depressing character such as “Prepare for the wrath to come” and “Beware the world will end and the Lord will come a week next Tuesday”, and although as everyone not knows, it never came to pass, at the time it used to frighten us kids to death.

 

I always thought that old Joe Conway, the engine driver who used to live near Miss Caroline, summed the situation up well when he used to say “They bloody ole goo preachers aint alf got a lot to answer afore, hey buggers got old on er an now look she dint know whether she be foot er horse back and she bloody well aint neither bum ner dirty pudden”.

 

When hops were in season we used to bowl these up and down the village street either with short piece of wood or with an iron hook, these were the best as all you had to do was hold the hook on the back of the hoop and just run along with it. I was lucky enough to possess one of these as Grandfather had bought one for my elder brother and it had been saved and handed down to me.

 

In different parts of the country I believe that there were several different ways of playing jackstones and marbles. In our village, jackstones was played by chalking a circle about a foot in diameter near the playground wall and placing five stones therein. The one playing would stand two or three yards back and with a tennis ball throw so that the ball bounced within the circle, from thence on to the wall and then caught by the thrower on return, the idea being to knock as many stones out of the circle with so many throws. If you failed to catch the ball on its return off the wall you were out and the winner being the one who succeeded in knocking out the most stones after so many throws.

 

When the time came to play marbles, we used to scoop out a small hollow against the school wall down what was known as Church Walk, on account of its running alongside the Churchyard and cemetery. The walk was asphalted at the top end but by the school it was only gravel which had long since almost disappeared, it was therefore easy to scoop out a suitable hollow therein, and to play one used to stand back against the churchyard railings, which was a distance of some six feet or so, and see who could get the most marbles into the hole after so many throws. We used to play this game as if our lives depended on the result and, sometimes, one would go home at the end of the day with a pocketful of marbles and, at other times, completely skint. In the latter, eventually one could play no more until the odd copper came one’s way and a further supply was purchased from the local village store.

 

In my school days the village shop was kept by Mrs Hinkins the village blacksmiths wife and for some years was the only general store in the village. Afterwards a Co-op shop was erected in the middle of the village, but the younger generation never patronised this very much as Mrs Hinkins shop was so much more exciting in every way. The villagers always used to maintain jokingly that anything from a pin to a tractor engine could be purchased there which, though of course exaggerated somewhat, certainly had a large element of truth about it. Apart from all grocery supplies, Mrs Hinkins used to do a large trade in pigs’ liver, chiterlings, home cured lard, faggots and brawn or collard head as it is sometimes called. This was all made possible as Mr Walter Hinkins, apart from being the village blacksmith, used to kill about a dozen pigs weekly which he used to purchase over a wide area. The carcasses of which he sent to London every week to supply his brother who was a pork butcher, leaving all the insides to be sold in the village shop.

 

The pigs killed in Walters slaughterhouse weighed only about five or six score as that was considered the right weight for London pork. The offal, or insides out of pigs of that weight, was absolutely superb, nearly all farmers at that time of day used to feed their pigs on skimmed or separated milk and barley meal and, there is no doubt, that pigs fed in this manner produced pork or bacon that has never and will never again be equalled. I know that my mother used to buy some liver and fat, or pigs fry as it is usually called, from Mrs Hinkins shop nearly every week and this, done in the oven with onions, potatoes and dumplings, used to make us a dinner that I can taste even now making my mouth water at the same time.

Nearly all farmers and village cottagers then used to keep a pig for killing for their winters bacon, but these were always kept until they weighed best part of twenty score and the bacon used to have fat on it about six inches thick. I well remember helping my mother to cut up the leaf which was then rendered down to make many basins of lard which was spread thickly on bread or toast. It was absolutely delicious and used to last the family for several months.

 

To return however to Mrs Hinkins shop, apart from groceries, she used to keep a wonderful selection of sweets, one of my favourites being gob stoppers, they were large and round then one used to get four for a penny, they used to last for ages and used to change colour as you sucked them.  Sherbert dabs were another favourite, two for a penny they were. Triangular in shape and used to have a stick of Spanish or liquorice in one corner and a toffee on a stick in the other. Sherbert of several different colours could also be purchased loose and kids used to come to school with their tongues all the colours of the rainbow.

 

When November the fifth came along, fireworks of every shape and size were available, usually a fortnight or so beforehand. Most of us used to purchase a few at a time so that there was usually enough for a goodly showing on the fifth itself.

 

Fireworks in those days were far more powerful than that they are now. When the final explosion is no better than a second-rate pop gun. What were called “Little Demons” then were the most powerful and, after spouting fire for about ten seconds after lighting, went off with a bang like the veritable crack of doom. I have, myself, many times lit one held it for a couple of seconds and then threw it in the air to explode when the result was much more spectacular, this however was a dangerous practise and although I never heard of anybody being hurt then I would certainly not recommend anyone try it now.

 

I do remember one lad putting a demon lighted in a tin can quickly jamming on the lid and then sitting on it, but luckily the resultant explosion, part from warming up his backside, did not do him much harm although it made rather a mess of the seat of his trousers and when he got home his mother warmed his backside with a stick for more than what the firework had done.

 

One other prank I remember playing with a little demon, was down on the school garden where there were twenty or so good sized plots which the elder boys used to cultivate, some cabbages were growing on each plot, but by far the biggest one grew on the plot belonging to my pal Mick Millar. Now, Mick was never in the top bracket as a gardener and how he ever came to grow a cabbage like it I shall never know. Anyway, grow it he did, and he certainly never let the rest of us forget the fact. One morning, two or three of us happening to get to school some ten minutes early, I said to the others “look I’ve got a little demon lets go and blow up ole Micks bloody cabbage, I’m sick to death of hearing about the damn thing”. After some deliberation as to the adjustability as to such a proceeding, we decided to go ahead. I made a hole in Mick’s prize cabbage and pushed the lighted firework therein. The resultant explosion made a sad end to the prize cabbage, blowing it in fact all to pieces. The bang however was so loud that Mr Jervis, the headmaster, came tearing out to see what was going on and on finding out the cause gave us merry hell and we had no play for a week, having to stay in and write out “I must not destroy good foodstuffs in the future”. I was not very popular with my mates for a while and old Mick positively gloated, but my goodness it was well worth it, and I can see that bloody cabbage flying all to pieces now.

 

The firework season having finished, the next thing that the kids used to look forward to was when Mrs Hinkins used to decorate her shop out for Christmas. This used to happen in early December and when the word got around we used to tear up the street as soon as possible and stand with our noses pressed hard against the shop window in order to view the scene which to us then was wonderful. I remember that these used to be Christmas stockings of all sizes, boxes of crackers, sugar animals and extra chocolates and sweets of all sorts, coloured streamers and other paper decorations would be hanging all around the shop, there would also be hanging old fashioned Chinese lanterns which I have not seen now for many years.

 

None of the shops in our area used to deck their shops with Christmas goods until early December, as in those days there was very little money about and any little extra that people had to spare they always hung on to it until a few days before the twenty fifth actually arrived. There was none of this modern trend of filling the shops with Christmas cards and goods soon after mid-summer and there is no doubt that much of the joy and spirit have been lost to the occasion as a result.

 

The pleasant thoughts of those bygone days flooded thick and fast through my mind as I wandered around the fields on that far off Sunday evening, and on returning home, I resolved to return to my memories on more frequent occasions as on looking back to those days I found them very good indeed and hence the continuation of this tale.

 

All villages in those days were closely knit communities and were more or less self-supporting. For instance, should a farm implement or machine break down, you took it to either Mr Walter Hinkins, the blacksmith or Mr Joe Cornish the village fitter and engineer. Joe Cornish, as well as his engineering activities, kept one of the village pubs and when Dr Bosworth, the Squire, purchased his first motor car, Joe was for some time chauffeur to him as well so what the good man did in his spare time, if he had any that is, must for ever remain a mystery. His main job for the local farmers was the maintenance of binders, grass mowers and the odd petrol engine. He also used to solder kettles, saucepans and any other kitchen utensil for the village housewives and as more people took to cycling, he became a bicycle engineer as well.

 

When Joe’s eldest son Ralph left school, he was apprenticed to a firm of motor car, motorcycle and cycle engineers at Newton Pogess and on completing his time returned to take over his father’s business at North Crawley. Ralph was a much cleverer engineer than his father, and it was always maintained that he could have repaired anything from a sewing machine to a battleship which I can well believe to be true. There is no doubt that he possessed the initiative he could have gone far, but that was not Ralph’s way. He was content to soldier on in his own small way and as there is no doubt that he enjoyed life to the full who could blame him.

Just to show readers how particular in those days everyone was over the standard of their work, I will tell a tale that I have heard Ralph say many times. When he was serving his apprenticeship at Newton, the Manager gave him a bicycle wheel to fit all new spokes with, when he had completed the task he took the wheel to the manager and said “Please sir I have finished the wheel will it do”? “God boy” bellowed the Manager at the same time giving Ralph an almighty kick up the backside, “nothing wunt bloody well do here it’s got to be just right”.

 

Thus, in that era did one certainly learn the correct and hard way.

 

Walter Hinkins, the blacksmith, was just as much a craftsman in his own line as Joe Cormish was in his. There were some seventeen farms in North Crawley then and when I could just remember, apart from some cultivation of the arable land by hired steam ploughing engines, all the work on the various farms in the area was done by horses and I suppose counting big farms and small there was an average of ten to twelve horses on each farm. To add to this there were quite a number of ponies and driving horses kept by the ordinary people plus many hunters kept by the Squire. It will therefore be seen that old Walter and his son were kept highly busy shoeing all this lot, as in addition to the Cowley forge, he owned and ran the smithy at Ashford as well.

 

We school kids were never tired of watching old Walter and his son at work and so long as we kept quiet the old man never minded however many of us stood in the doorway, to see all the varied and interesting jobs being tackled. There was a tremendous pair of bellows that blew the forge, and these were worked by a long handle fixed to the wall.

 

When I was on holiday from school I nearly always used to accompany John Goodfellow when he took any of our horses to be shod and old Walter used to let me work the bellow when the bars of iron was required to be heated to make the horse shoes. I used to love watching him heat a length of iron and take it from the fire, absolutely white hot, and skilfully bend and manipulate it on his anvil with a hammer, making a perfect shoe in a very few minutes.  The shoes were then fitted onto the horses feet so as to get them just the right size, making a very strong and not unpleasant smell as the steam rose from horses feet when the hot shoe came into contact with the hard and horny hoof.

 

When the shoes had been moulded to the right size and shape, they were cooled by plunging them in a cold water tank and then nailed to the horses hoof with specially made horse studs which had square heads which fitted flush into the holes punched into the shoes when hot. The studs were kept in position by being bent over on the outside of the hoof and the whole job finished off by the skilful handling of a rasp which was, in reality, a large coarse file and left the horses foot and the nails so smooth that you could hardly see where the nails were at all. In very frosty weather and there was ice on the roads, the horses used to have to visit the smithy to be what was termed ruffed to prevent them from slipping and hurting themselves. This meant taking out the ordinary shoe nails and fitting what were called frost nails which had large coarse heads, and these were left in for as long as the frosty weather lasted.

 

Apart from the work of shoeing horses, Walter and his son used to do a lot of repair work to those now ancient farm implements. Many were the times that I have watched them weld two pieces of metal together, not like the acetylene or electric weld of today, the two pieces of metal to be joined were heated in the forge until they were white hot and as malleable as a piece of putty, and were then placed on the big anvil and beaten together either with a big fourteen or seven pound sledge hammer, smaller pieces being dealt with by an ordinary lump hammer, and when the job was finished and the metal cold, you could hardly see where the join had been made. When the metal was being beaten white hot sparks used to fly everywhere to the accompaniment of a really merry tattoo being beaten on the metal and anvil as the job progressed.

 

Like all blacksmiths then both old Walter Hinkins and his son were enormously strong and had muscles like iron. I have seen both of them many times pick up a fourteen pound sledgehammer and hold it out at arm’s length, gripping it with only one hand right at the end of the stale. If anyone should doubt this, I strongly recommend them to try, that is if they could now find a sledge to try with. I can guarantee they will soon find out the strength required.

 

All blacksmiths then were similarly attired, they wore stout leather aprons with a loop at the top which went round the neck and fastened round the waist with two thick leather thongs shaped in fact very like a present day ladies overall apron, which is worn in the kitchen when cooking is in progress.

 

There was always one distinctive feature though about a blacksmiths apron and that was it always had a fringe round the bottom where the leather had been cut into strips. I presume this must have been for show as I can think of no other use, but in those days, I never saw a smithys apron without one.

 

Another great character who plied his trade in the village at that time was Ebenezer Pointer the chimney sweep who was always known as ole Ebin. Ebin lived in one of the two pod thatched cottages that stood  in a narrow road by one end of the village and not even his best friend, if he had one that is, would ever have described him as either a very good or even a very clean sweep.

 

If Ebin had a reputation at all it was that he was a champion chimney pot loosener and knocker and whenever he had done a day’s sweeping in the village most of the pots on the houses stood at rakish angles and quite a few lay smashed to pieces in the village street.

 

My mother employed Ebin to sweep the farm chimneys for several years, suffering his amateurish efforts with only minor grumblings, but on the last occasion, when he had finished sweeping the kitchen chimney, he actually shook his sack in the kitchen itself and black soot flew literally all over the house.

 

“That does it” said my Mother, “I will never have that dirty old man in my house again”. She kept her word too and ever after that a man from Newton Pogess was employed to do the job.

 

To look at, Ebin was a fearsome looking little man, standing no more than about five foot three in height, he wore a bushy black beard reaching nearly down to his waist and I don’t remember ever seeing him  but what his face or what you could see of it was black with soot and his hands and clothes were not much better. If he ever did wash, which I imagine was extremely doubtful, he certainly could have done no more than what used to be termed a lick and a promise. Ebin’s wife was a little midget of a woman, certainly no more than five feet in height and it can certainly never be said that her life was a bed of roses as although I never heard of the old man actually laying his hands on her or ill-treating her physically, he used to rule her with a rod of iron. The ladies name was Ruth but Ebin, who had a slight impediment in his speech, always referred to her as “my ole ooman” or “my ole Roof”.

 

When Ebin went home from the pub, which was usually every night, as soon as he opened his cottage door he used to bellow out Kennel Roof Kennel and the poor woman used to have to dive under the table until the old devil had eaten his supper and was ready for bed, when he would mutter “Right Roof. If you’re a good gal now yer ken come oot”.

 

Being the oddity that he was, it was no wonder that Ebin came in for a good many pranks and annoyances from the younger element in the village, although it became extremely dangerous to rag the old devil too far, for instance, at one period it was the practise of the male population , age around sixteen, to rag certain houses and occupant during the dark and long winter evenings.  I remember on one occasion they tied a wet sack over ole Joe Conway’s chimney and smoked him and his poor old wife out of the house and home and, another time, they took everyone’s front garden gate off hinges and stacked all the lot on the waste ground in the middle of the village, causing a right old hiatus. Next morning everyone had to repair to the waste ground to sort out whose gate was whose which they all did in high dudgeon and in a very bad temper I can tell you.

 

The favourite tricks on Ebin was either to kick his front door and run away or to suspend a button on a string. From the top of his windows, tie a long length of string or cotton on to the suspended button on string and sit in the ditch on the other side of the road and pull, thus ensuing a continuous and very annoying rat a tat tat on the window. Ebin stood this for so long and one night the lads heard him bellow to his wife to “Fetch the blooda gun Roof and I’ll shoot these badders”.

 

Knowing that the old man possessed an ancient double barrelled gun (which incidentally he used to do quite a lot of poaching on the side with) and which he would in no way hesitate to use, the lads tore up the road as fast as their legs would carry them. I cannot better than finish by repeating the finale as told to me by one of the lads some years later.

 

“Bugger me boy” he said, “we aint got far up the road when the ole devil let drive wi both barrels an the shot stung y arse, like being spiked wi bloody needles,  it were a good job as how we had got a fair way off afore the ole sod let drive else we might a some ou us a bai killed, but as it were there were only two er three on us as ad er odd shot stick in is arse an we soon got they out wi a pin” “But I can tell you as though we none on us ever went near ole Chris house agin”.

 

The only time I ever remember any of my age group playing a trick on Ebin was one lunch-time and several of us boys were playing something or other in the street when the ole man happened along carrying his sack and sweeping tackle slung across his shoulder, we could see by the way he swayed as he walked along that he had consumed a fair skinful, he had in fact only just come out of the pub. “Ah boy” he said as he came abreast of us “ Ah just got ter sweep er chimney up top o street, just come and tell us when me ol brush coms out at top”

 

We waited outside while Ebin went in and got busy and it weren’t long afore his old bush made its appearance, accompanied by a shower of soot. “I know” said Tubby Warton who was always game for mischief “let the ole devil keep on shoving rods and see what happens”. So, on went Ebin screwing on rod after rod and the length soon bent over and began to hang down the roof. Ebin came to the window periodically to enquire if she were up yit? But “No Ebin” we shouted “there aint no sign of her yet”, “bloody funny that ish” hiccoughed the old man, “must be sodden long chimney oon thish housh”.  At last the brush slid down the roof and into the front garden and we proceeded to tie it securely to the garden fence and at last Ebin, getting suspicious and rapidly running out of rods, lurched out of the front door and into the garden one of his last rods clutched firmly in his hand. On seeing what happened, he let out a bellow like an outraged bull and, half tight though he was, proceeded to give chase after us as we one and all tore down the road. “You badders” he thundered brandishing wildly his sweeping rod. “If I catch he I’ll knock two er three o yer bloody eads orf that I will”. The beer however proved too much and Ebin collapsed in an undignified heap in the road and none of us dare stop to see what happened at the finish. Needless to say, we all gave the old man very wide berth for long after that.

 

When Ebin got too old to continue his chimney sweeping, he took to spending more and more time at the pub and even in retirement he still looked as black as ever. The old man’s sight began to fail as he got older and he used to  wander up to the pub in daylight always carrying an old lantern with him to light his way home in the dark, and he used to put pieces of newspaper every little way in the hedge in order to ensure that he could find the way to his cottage in the dark and when half fuddled. Needless to say, the younger element in the village used to shift the old man’s papers, so that the poor old devil had to walk about twice as far to get home.

 

Funnily enough, when poor old Ebin died, my pal Mick Millar who had joined his father in undertaking business has laughed and told me many times that, when they put the old man in the coffin, it was the first time that anyone had even seen him looking so clean, tidy and respectable like he did then.

 

An old lady coming into mind was old Mrs Bostock who owned and lived in a fair-sized cottage, just a bit further down the by road to old Ebin the Sweep. The old lady lived all on her own, her husband having died some years before. She obviously was the possessor of some private means as she never did any wok other than attending to her cottage and garden, which was always kept in perfect condition. I should imagine that the inside of her cottage was exactly the same, although no one knew for sure as she was a complete recluse and no one that I know of was ever allowed in. She was known throughout the village as old Granny Bostock and used to frighten all the kids to death when she came by the school and up Church Walk, which she did about once a week, to do her bit of shopping and it was really  no wonder we were afraid of her for she was a fearsome looking object indeed.

 

Totally enveloped in a long flowing skirt and  numerous old woollen cardigans, the collars of which were always pulled up to cover up most of her face and all that was to be seen was a very long pointed nose and a pair of very thick steel rimmed glasses and, to cap all, an old pointed woollen hat pulled well down on her head. The old dear used to stride along in a stooping shambling gait with the aid of a long thick ash stick which she never hesitated to use to good effect on anyone who upset her in any way.

 

If any of us happened to be playing out in Church Walk and the old lady hove in sight, someone would be sure to shout “For God’s sake look out here comes old granny”, when there would be a concerted rush of kids to the safety of the school playground until all danger was passed. Most of us kids at school then were firmly convinced that the old lady was a witch and would turn us into toads or something more revolting if she got us into her clutches.

 

One amazing story concerning old Granny, I remember, that an old farmer in the village used to tell. His name was Len Rogers and he was very fond of playing practical jokes on all and sundry whenever he got the chance. One day the local pig dealer, Jack Hillson, called on Len to see if he had any pigs for sale. Now Jack was a huge fat man who must have weighed at least twenty stones, in fact, when he sat in his trap, which he seemed almost to fill, his little old pony used to look as If she could hardly pull him along.

 

On the day when old Jack called on old Len to see whether he had any pigs to sell, he was met with a firm refusal. “No” said Len “I aint go not pigs to sell yer today, but there’s an old ooman what lives up Folly Road what keeps a few an I’m sure as she’d sell yer some. “Now she’s a funny ole bugger an keeps her front garden gate locked so thee’d had to climb over the top”.

 

No  more to do and suspecting nothing, Jack drove down Folly Road and pulled up outside Grannie’s house, making matters worse by letting the wheels of his trap encroach on grannies grass that bordered the front of her house before the garden fence. Proceeding to climb over the garden gate, according to Len’s instructions, Jack had just got astride the top when out rushed Grannie like a young tornado, ash plant and all. “What the hell do you think your at” screamed the old woman brandishing her stick “I’ll teach you to molest a poor old widder woman you bad scamp an run your old cart over me grass an all”. “Mercy mam mercy” shouted Jack, “I only came ter try an buy some o yer pigs” “Pigs” yelled grannie, “I aint got na pigs an I wunt sell em ter you even if I had you insulting wretch”.

 

The first strike of the old woman’s stick sent Jacks bowler hat flying down the road and blows rained in plenty on his shoulders and back until at last he succeeded in removing his ample form from off the gate. Poor Jack then scrambled up fat belly and all and, retrieving his battered bowler hat, quickly scrambled onto his trap and drove furiously away leaving grannie still shouting and waving her stick furiously in the garden.

 

When Jack saw Len Rogers again he, of course, gave him a right royal rollicking for the trick he had played on him, but Len’s tricks were well known all over the village and nobody was ever known to be really angry with him for long, so the breach was healed and the pair had many a laugh over the incident afterwards.

 

There was about the same time a tradesman in the village who I will call Fred, who was in the habit of having occasional drinking bouts. He never, as a rule, went near the pubs for weeks on end and then should something occur to upset him he would go in on the booze for perhaps three or four days nonstop.

 

At that time there was an iron post outside one of the pubs used as a rule for customers to their horses to. One day, when Fred was in the pub getting well and truly oiled, Len Rogers draped an old coat around the post and placed a bowler hat on the top, on entering the Tap room and seeing that Fred was well away he touched him on the shoulder and said “Lord bugger me Fred, there’s a rough ole feller out front a swearing about and insulting you summat terrible I shunt stand for that if I were you”. “No I w w w wont “stuttered Fred “you jisht show me w w where the bugger ish an I’ll shoon bloody well short him out”. So saying, Len caught hold of Fred and led him outside in great glee saying “there he is man goo for im”. Fred swayed and lurched himself and the coat and hat draped post punching away with both fists as hard as he could. Of course, it was not long before the skin was gone from both his knuckles and they were pouring with blood. The pain soon made the old fool aware of the trick that had been played on him, but by that time Len had made himself scarce and had gone  home chuckling and Fred was left to mourn his damaged fits, no doubt realising his own stupidity.

 

Throughout his farming life though, no one ever managed to quell either Len Rogers tricks or his so often witty actions or remarks, for instance there as an old lady who lived at the top end of the village named Emily Waite who was famed in the village for being a nosey parker and a confirmed gossip, in fact nothing happened or went on at all that what she had all the facts at her finger tips. The old girl spent much of the daylight hours standing like a sentinel at her front garden gate an old sack apron tied round her middle and absolutely nothing escaped her eagle eye.

 

On one particular morning, Len Rogers proceeded up the village street leading a horse which was drawing a heavy farm cart and, on drawing level with old Mrs Waite who, as usual, adorned her front garden gate, he shouted to his horse “whoa there” pulling his watch from his waistcoat pocket he marched up to the old lady and stated boldly “Now you look ere Mrs Waite,  I be just a gooin up to East End to parsons wood to fetch a load o faggots, and I shall be gone for about an hour an twenty minutes”. “God Bless the man” stuttered the old lady thoroughly taken aback “I don’t want to know where yer be a gooin”. “Now now” gushed Len “that aint right an well yer knows it. So, I thought as ow I’d stop an tell yer so as ow yer never ad the trouble a bloody well finding out”. So, saying, Len shouted “Gee up” to his horse and continued on his way.

 

Len was never able to stem his appetite for having people on, as he used to put it, for long and one market day  as he was driving in his pony and trap to Blandford market, on passing by a farm road which led up to a nearby neighbours farm in the next village, he thought, ah I know old Jones will be gone to market, I’ll have the ole feller one today.

 

Now Mr Jones was a Welshman and a very neat and sturdy one at that and, although the long farm road  which led to his farm was old and full of ruts and potholes, he would never allow any vehicle or tractor engine of any sort to trespass on to his adjoining grand fields, no matter whatever or how bad conditions on the roads might be, and even when any of his men happened to be thistle pecking in any of those grass fields, woe betide any man who pecked out a piece of turf as well. Should he catch any unfortunate culprit so doing, he would stamp his feet, shake the ash plant that he always carried angrily in the air and rave “I’ll sack ee yer bad seam, I’ll sack ee yee’ll ruin me, yee’ll ruin me” and away the old man would stamp to put the fear of God into somebody else.

 

Now Len knew that the old man was expecting the thrashing engine as he had been thrashing himself a few days before and old Joe Conway, the engine driver, had told him that “He had ter goo an thrash for that stingy ole bugger of a Jones” as he put it “afore long”.

 

When Len got to the market, after putting his horse and trap up at a nearby pub, the first man he happened to run into was farmer Jones. “Jist the man as I wanted to see” said Len “Gore blimey Master Jones, when I come by your place a while back, ole Joe Conway wore a goin up yer grass fields wi is thrashing tackle an ee worm alf a makin a bloody mess”, “cutting all that beautiful grass a yourn all to ell ee wore”. “If I wore you, I should get orf oom as quick as yer can”, “I will Len, I will” screamed the old man, “and when I get there, I’ll have that man’s guts for garters you see if I don’t”.

 

I often wondered what were the old man’s thoughts as he whipped up his pony and drove furiously home, being a big Chapel man he could not swear to relieve his feelings, so perhaps he prayed, who knows, one thing is certain, when he did get home and found out the trick that had been played on him his rage knew no bounds and I have often heard it said that it was not safe for anyone to go near the old fellow for the next week.

 

A few days afterwards, Mr Jones made it his business to drive over the Lens and give him a severe rating for the joke that had been played upon him, at the same time threatening legal proceedings for waste of time and his everlasting bleat that he would be ruined man, ruined. However, nothing became of the old man’s threats and, in time, the affair was forgotten and, I think, forgiven as well.

 

The last time that I can write of old Lens practical joking actually concerned myself. It was years later, and Len was then very old and had been retired from farming for some years. One Saturday morning I was going out for the day to some function or other I forget what now but anyway, I was all dressed up, new blazer, oxford bags posh collar and tie, in fact the lot. It was before we had a car, so I was going to travel in the local bus which ran from North Cowley to Blandford. On entering the bus which, incidentally, was three parts full of passengers, the first person I saw sitting just inside was Len. With the usual mischievous grin on his face, the old man scrambled to his feet as quickly as his rheumatism would allow, swept off his cap and bowing low said in a loud voice “Ah good morning sir, pray take a seat and I have dusted it all ready for you” this of course to roars of laughter from all on board the bus. I am and always have been rather slow on the uptake but for some reason on this occasion, I answered on the instant “Well thank you so much Roger, you are most kind. I am so sorry however, that I have no coppers on me at the moment”. This of course caused another laugh, and no one laughed louder than old Len who thoroughly enjoyed the joke against himself, something, in spite of all his practical joking through life, he had always been quite ready to do.

 

One thing that happened to me during the nineteen thirties, which gave me time for much reminiscing, was something that I could well have done without. I suffered a serious illness which affected my heart and for some months was unable to do any work at all. I was, however, able to stroll around the farm with my gun and dog, hence I had plenty of time to let my mind wander to tales and happenings of past days.

I remember thinking, for instance, of the many peddlers and tradesmen who were in the habit of toting their wares around the village, in fact there was never a day went by but what several of them could be seen around.

 

There was an old man named Allis for instance, who used to visit the village every Friday, he used to push a fairly large two wheeled truck all the way from Newton Pogess and used to sell reels of cotton, skeins of wool, boot and shoe laces, brushes, pots and pans of all sorts, washing soap, soda and, of course, bags which all the ladies used to make the weekly wash attain what was termed a perfect whiteness. Mr Allis was a gentle loveable old man who had a cheery word for everyone. I have heard him say that he had a serious illness as a young man and was told by the doctor that if he continued to work indoors, which he was then doing, he would not live more than six months at the most. It was then that the idea of pushing his truck and selling his wares round the neighbouring villages, and so being in the open all day, came into his mind.

 

There he was then rain or shine, frost or snow, to be seen in one village or another contently peddling his few wares every day except Sunday. I don’t suppose he made a fortune, but he had no doubt that he made enough to live happily and in comfort. When I knew the old man, he must have been over seventy so at any rate he never died young as no doubt he would have done but for his own indomitable courage and initiative.

 

There was another old fellow who used to come round from a neighbouring village every Tuesday, like Mr Allis, he pushed a two wheel truck and indeed used to tout much the same wares, but there all similarity ended, for old Mummer Bell, as we used to call him, was as rough and untidy as Mr Allis was clean and neat. Also, likewise, he was as sullen and miserable as Mr Allis was always polite and cheerful to everybody. It was indeed so very noticeable that we kids at that time always used to stop and have a friendly word with old Mr Allis, who would often show us what he had for sale and sometimes give us the odd sweet. We all completely ignored Mummer Bell and indeed gave him as wide a berth as possible.

At that time of day there were numerous characters who used to come round buying old rag and bones and rabbit skins, which they would shout out loudly for as they passed along the street. They were nearly always accompanied by a lean shaggy and unclipped pony which was drawing an extremely dilapidated old cart on which were carried the rags, bones and skins. Most of these, always rough and dirty old men, coming either from the village of Cranwell or the town of Newton Pogess and we kids had what we thought was a very apt saying which we used to shout after them (from a very safe distance of course) “Cranwell bull dogs and Newton stags come to Cowley to buy old rags to make their mother’s pudden bags”.

 

There was an old fellow when we used to call Spotty who used to come round the village with a pony and cart periodically. He came from the town of Blandford and used to sell fish in the winter and fruit in the summer. In fact, in season he used to sell some of the finest strawberries that I have ever seen. The fish that he sold in the winter was not always as fresh as it might have been, of course in those  days there were no methods of refrigeration like what there is today and this made things very difficult for people selling fish, but his bloaters and kippers were nearly always good and I remember how, as a small boy, I used to love them.

 

There were several family butchers who came into the village every week, in fact, at one time, there was always one and indeed sometimes two every day except Mondays. When I can first remember they all came with horse and cart, but after the early twenties they switched to motor transport, this meant motor vans with the owner’s name and trade printed gayly on each side of the vehicle.

 

Although the farming community over the years have always tended to scorn the retail traders, thinking themselves superior in every way, they would, had they been honest enough to admit it, been in a very poor way had for some reason the said scorned traders ceased to exist. There wouldn’t at that time, never have been the time for either man or wife to spend visiting a local Town several times a week to do the family shopping and the fact that there was ample deliveries of every commodity needed right to one’s door, was a real convenience and on which everyone at that time of day just took absolutely for granted.

 

I have heard many of the old farm workers say that at one time there were four bakers who plied their trade in Cowley village, but from the time when I can first remember there was only one, a Mr Eady, whose house and bakery were situated in the middle of the village. Both house and bakery were adjoining, and both had thatched roofs. All the work connected with the business was done by Mr Eady, his wife and family and by work I mean work, which entailed starting at about four thirty in the morning and what with dough punching, baking, delivering and selling the sponge in the evening, ensured that the family were on the go until nine or ten o’clock at night.

 

All the deliveries done in the village, out ends and various outlaying farms, were done by pony’s and carts so, in addition to the baking side of the business, the horsed had to be fed, watered, groomed, harnessed and unharnessed and I must add that, I never once in all the years I knew them, did I see a horse but that it was groomed to perfection and looking, as they say, sleek as a mole.

 

Old Mr Eady passed on sometime in the middle of the twenties but the business was carried on for many years by his widow, son and daughters and neither the quality of the bread, cakes or willing service given to their customers, was in any way affected. The dough, cakes and hot cross buns made by this family were certainly the best by far that I have ever tasted and the hot cross buns were always delivered still warm ready for everyone’s breakfast that was by about 8am at the latest.

 

In addition to all their weekday activities, the Eady’s always kept the bakery open on Sunday mornings for the cooking of Sunday dinners. At that time, many of the farm workers cottages only possessed very small ovens which were quite incapable of cooking a large Sunday roast which, at that time of day, nearly everyone consumed at about one o’clock.

 

I well remember, as a small boy waiting for Sunday School on a Sunday morning, seeing the villagers hurrying to the bakehouse carrying a huge square tin with a joint of beef therein, usually covered with a tea cloth and also in one hand a large can of batter which would be poured round the joint at the appropriate time so that the meat and Yorkshire pudding would be cooked to a turn by about one o’clock. Having, as a small boy, many times tasted the Yorkshire pudding in old John Goodfellows cottage on a Sunday evening, I can vouch for the fact that cooked round a joint of beef like that it was absolutely superb and makes my mouth water when I think about it now.

 

Since I first started looking back and musing on past happenings on that far off Sunday evening, I have continued, throughout my life, to let my mind wander through the past and though I am aware that we are warned by the Scriptures that He who looketh back is unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven, I am afraid that, in my case, the happy times far outweigh the unhappy so I shall continue the habit and take the risk.

 

Continuing therefore to dwell on bygone days, it occurs to me that so far as I can remember, although nearly every village in this area possessed either a shop to supply its every need and a tradesman or handyman ready and able to perform any services necessary for the smooth running of the whole community from day to day, the village of Cowley never had a butchers shop. I have heard older folks say at that at one time there were two, one of which had been closed for some years owing to the family who ran it dying out and the other one came to a sad and unnecessary finish, owing to the foolishness and folly of the then present owner.

 

The shop in question had been owned and run by the Russel family for a good many years and had been a steady and thriving business, but sad to relate this all came to an abrupt end owing to the foolish behaviour of the then owner whose name was Gordon Russel.

 

For some unknown reason, shortly after his marriage to one of the smartest girls in the village whose name was Jenny, Gordon fell in with a crowd of wild and very doubtful companions and he began to drink and gamble very heavily. As time went on the worse things became and his business severely suffered as a result. I have heard many old people say that at the finish his deliveries of weekend joints of meat became later and later on a Saturday night until sometimes it was nearly midnight before he called which was, of course, after the pubs were shut. The end came when it was Sunday morning before many of his deliveries were completed and at that time not many customers would stand for that, so bang went Gordon’s business. The butcher’s shop was sold, afterwards being turned into a private house and which it remains to this day.

 

Gordon afterwards got into severe trouble with the police when one night, after a drunken spree, he attached and injured the village bobby who tried to arrest him.

 

For this he was locked up and afterwards heavily fined. For a good many years, as I can remember, Gordon scratched a precarious living in a variety of ways. During the winter months he used to do a lot of pig killing both in North Cowley and the surrounding area.  At that time all the farmers, and indeed many of the villagers, kept and killed a pig for the family’s’ winter bacon so there was always a job for the man who was then known as the local pig sticker.

 

For a good many years Gordon and his family lived in a tumbled down cottage in Folly Road with sacks hung in the windows and most of the doors hanging on only one hinge. A grass paddock went with this old house  in which Gordon kept several horses and ponies, and for a good many years he could be seen going about the village dressed mostly in rags emptying ash bins in his ramshackled old cart and the horses harness tied together with string. Once every week he used to go round the village to empty the village lavatory’s which then were all of the bucket type. This job always had to be performed at night and with a special sanitary cart which was supplied by the local Parish Council. This at any rate was one of Gordon’s contraptions which was always kept in good repair.

 

To supplement his precarious ways of making a living, Gordon used to drive a pony and a very ancient landau from North Cowley to Newton Pogess every Wednesday afternoon, when he used to collect some half dozen passengers from whom he collected one shilling each return. He would also hire this conveyance out to anyone who wished to make a private journey to anywhere local during the remainder of the week.

 

I well remember on one occasion my mother hiring Gordon’s ramshackle conveyance in order to attend a family funeral in a nearby village. My father happened to require our own pony and trap in order to attend a local market on this particular day, otherwise I doubt if mother would have risked her safety with such a doubtful equipage anyway. I shall always remember the look of scornful disapproval on my mother’s face when Gordon arrived to pick her up, the pony was dirty, probably never been groomed for weeks, the harness, or what was left of it, was held together with sack string and, to cap all , there were stains on the floor of the old landau which indicated that a number of fleas had roosted there the night before.

 

When my mother returned home, which she did incidentally quite safely, I remembered her saying to my father “Now look here James, I absolutely refuse ever to ride in that man’s contraption again. The looks and remarks of the company at the funeral when they saw me arrive were dreadful. I have never felt so embarrassed in all my life and if ever I want to go anywhere again you will have to take me yourself and your market business will just have to wait”.

 

When Mrs Bosworth, the old squires widow, got rid of the carriages harness and so on which had been used down at the grange in bygone times, she presented Gordon with one of the broughams and a set of tip top harness, a suit of coachman’s livery, complete with top hat, Gordon respectfully refused, he did however accept the brougham and harness which did enable him to conduct his hire business with some degree of respectability for some considerable time.

 

In later years, Gordon completely discarded his doubtful manner of living and, in fact, refused ever to touch a drop of alcohol at all and, one thing that must be said in his favour, was that at no time did he ever ill-treat his wife or his family and, in his later years, he used to rate himself severely for his previous wild behaviour.

 

As the years went by, the old man became more and more bent, in fact he used to go about ragged like a tramp and when his wife died, he was absolutely heartbroken. I can see him now with huge tears rolling down his wrinkled face and, in fact, hear him saying “Ah my boy I loved my little old Jenny and when I were a wicked man I never went home but what she always met me with a smile on her lovely little old face and now that she be gone, life ain’t got nothing left for me”.

 

From the day that his Jenny died, the old man, for as long as he was able, always went into the nearby Churchyard at night to mourn over her grave and to wish the old lady goodnight.

 

This, I fear, is a rather sad tale of things that might have been. Reggie Parrish first came to North Cowley in the early twenties, he was a young man who lived with an old Aunt in a nearby town, both his parents had been dead for some years but had left him with sufficient money that absolved him from the necessity of working for a living.

 

This, I fear, was Reggie’s undoing for the principal ways whereby he squandered his inheritance was on whiskey, slow horses and fast women. These were the main reasons for his coming to the village in the first place as it enabled him to indulge his fancies without the knowledge of his old Aunt who would certainly have severely frowned on such frivolities.

 

Reggie bought an old cottage in Folly Road and here he proceeded to entertain his various lady friends for as long as they were able to stay. In addition to this, he way a very popular visitor in the local pubs as, when well-oiled, he would buy rounds of drinks for all and sundry, chucking a pound note on the bar and never caring whether he picked up any change or not. Unfortunately for Reggie, nemesis descended upon him and he became seriously ill with consumption, the dreaded disease, which was so prevalent in that era, although he happened to be one of the luckier ones who managed to survive.

 

I heard Reg say some years later that, on visiting a specialist in the town where his old Aunt lived, he certainly feared the worst and, after examining him, the good Doctor confirmed his worst suspicions, “Young man” he said looking extremely wise and serious “You must give up drinking and smoking at once, otherwise, I can assure you, that you cannot possible live more than another six months”. “That”, construed Reg, “was certainly a shaker and I wandered about the town all that day feeling about knackered wondering what the hell I should do next”. “Come evening, I couldn’t stick the bugger any longer so I lit one of my prohibited fags and stalked into the saloon bar of the nearest pub and ordered the biggest whiskey that the landlord could produce, thinking at the same time, ah well that bloody ole doctor wunt know anything about it”

 

At this point in his story Reg paused to let the facts sink in and then continued “Lord man whats think? I took a long drink o me whisky and turned round at a table near where I were a standing, there the old bugger sat”. “Young man” the old sod shouted getting very red in the face “I thought I told you this morning not to drink anymore whisky” “So yer did” retorted Reg “ but your drinkin in the bugger aint yer”. “If it don’t hurt you it bloody wunt hurt me”. “God almighty” exclaimed the old man “You’re a bloody hopeless case so you’d better sit down and join me”. “We had a bloody good night” ended Reg “and when the pub shut, I don’t know which on us were the most drunk him or me”.

 

As I have already stated, in spite of everything Reg recovered and in fact sometime later he got one of his old aunt’s servant girls into trouble and had to get married. The old lady was so mad that she turned Reg out and placed all his money and inheritance into a Trust whereby from then on all he could get his hands on was so much per week, including a certain sum to be handled only by his wife. In this way of course nobody ever went short but for a good many years. Reg used to supplement his income by doing days threshing and any other odd jobs that came his way. Thus, he was able to continue his smoking and drinking throughout his life, although I have heard him say that he was forced to switch from whisky to beer.

After he was married, I should add Reg forsook his old Aunt and the town of his birth and settled in North Cowley where he lived with his family until the end of his days and, in spite of all his failings, it can be stated that, when sober, he was a first class worker and my father always employed him whenever he had any part time work available. I shall have more to tell readers concerning Reg a bit later on.

 

At the East End of the village, where our farm was situated, there were four other farms and a dozen or so other houses and cottages. Before my time there had been quite a few more cottages, also a shop and a pub, but the cottages had been pulled down and the shop and pub closed for some years that, of course, was when I can first remember.

 

However, during the summer of nineteen twenty four, when I was ten years old, a lady named Ada Kirby opened a shop in the end house of what was known as Pantile Row. Ada was then, I suppose, somewhere about thirty five years of age and, for most of her life, had been in the employ of old Freddie Thomas who had been Schoolmaster, farmer, horse dealer and, in addition, was generally known as a likeable old rogue.  True he had been bankrupt on several occasions, but he was also famed in his younger days for being a local womaniser and, indeed, I have heard many of the locals refer to him as being a bloody ole ram.

 

However, in the days of her youth Ada had been made pregnant by old Freddie and had given birth to a daughter. That I was told happened when she was working on his farm as a land girl, so I suppose the old scamp had many chances to pursue his nefarious activities.

 

Ada could never be described as the tidiest of persons, usually attired in an ancient faded overall and an old sack apron. In addition to looking after old Freddie and his wife, she used to go about charring to all and sundry whenever she got the chance.

 

When Ada opened her shop, she sold groceries, mineral waters, tobacco and cigarettes, she also did a good trade in chocolates and sweets. In fact, although the shop was small, she kept the finest selection of chocolate and goodies that I have ever seen. I always remember the very first time that I entered her shop one Saturday morning. My Mother had been down the road the evening before to visit an old invalid lady and when she came home and informed us that Ada had opened a shop, my excitement knew no bounds and I could hardly wait for next morning to get my Saturday’s penny and pay a visit to the new shop.

 

I can remember, to this day, that first penny I ever spent in that little shop, I bought a penny bar of Fry’s chocolate cream which I believe is still available today, although I sadly fear that you would be charged considerably more than one old penny now.

 

Two or three years after opening her shop, Ada got married to Henry Goodfellow who was head cowman for one of the local farmers, but later on Henry took a small holding of some twenty odd acres where he kept two or three cows, a few calves, a horse and some pigs and hens, he used to supplement his income by doing odd jobs for the local farmers.

 

In fact, my father died and I took over the farm, Henry, or Ned as we always called, spent most of his spare time working for me especially at hay time and harvest and in return I used to help him by lending men or implements to him as required in the cultivation of his own small holding. This arrangement worked out extremely well for us both.

 

In later years, Ada and Henry bought a cottage nearer to the village in which they opened a second shop selling tobacco, cigarettes, minerals, sweets and chocolates. They did, I think, quite well here for a time but the cottage, which was situated on the main road, suffered a series of break-ins which resulted in their suffering quite a considerable loss.

 

After a time, Ada lived in the shop at East End and Henry lived in the cottage hearer the village which ensured that neither was ever left unguarded.

 

As the years passed away, Ada became more and more untidy and the shop was very often none too clean which, of course,  resulted in a corresponding loss of custom and the last I can remember of her, was seeing her scavenging about the fields collecting firewood and looking very little better than a scarecrow.

 

In the years before the second world war, and in fact I am told before the first one, there were quite a number of village characters who used to supplement their incomes by doing a lot of poaching. Of course, should they suffer the indignity of getting caught, they were hauled before the Magistrates and either given a hefty fine or maybe a short period in the nick.

 

There were, in fact, quite a number of well-known poachers in our village but funnily enough I can never remember hardy any getting caught. They were, I am sure, much too artful and in any case unless they were caught by either of the Squires gamekeeper’s red handed, there was not very likely that much would be said. The countryside at that time was absolutely seething with rabbits and most of the local farmers were only too grateful for a few to be caught and, in fact, I often heard my father say that if he caught anyone poaching he would take a spade and go and help them.

 

An old fellow that I used to know, once told me an amusing story of how when once he was working as a groom for Dr. Bosworth and, as groom, he was ordered to take on the duties as gamekeeper for a spell owing to the regular man being indisposed.

 

The Squire could not have chosen a more unsuitable substitute as Bert was an undersized old fellow and was known locally as “Kibbler” on account of his having bad feet.

 

One night, early on when pursuing his rounds as Deputy Keeper, Kibbler came across two men busily poaching rabbits in one of the Squire’s woods.

 

Now, these two men who lived in the adjoining village of Cranwell were about two of the roughest characters in the area and in fact were very aptly named Bull and Butcher, both had frequently been in trouble with both police and gamekeepers in the past.

 

To continue in Kibbler’s own words oft repeated “I catched the buggers red handed and said what the bloody ell be at” they said as ow they wor a mushroomin. A course I bloody well knowed better in that at I cocked me old gun as I ad under me arm an I bellered as loud as I knowed how, “I know both on yer yer buggers an yer’ll both be fer the bloody chop”. To end this tale Kibbler used to draw himself up to his full five foot three inches and growl. The buggers said as how they wor a gooin ter fight, but they never showed no bloody signs a fight wal I wore there. I have always thought that for Kibbler that was just as well.

 

The biggest and most notorious poacher known for many years in our village was Albert Salmons who lived down Folly Road. Alby, as he was always called, pursued his nefarious activities over  a much wider area and on much bigger scales than any of the other locals who were usually content to limit their catches to a few rabbits or pheasants to assist the family menu or to sell for beer or tobacco money.

 

Alby used to catch both pheasants and rabbits by the sackful and in the season managed to make quite half happy living by so doing. I have heard many of the older men say that he would dump his catch at different points during the night and then collect and dispose of them with his pony and cart in the daytime. It said a very great deal for his artfulness and cleverness that for a good many years he never once got caught, However, at the finish he must have been driven into a very tight corner by the police for he disappeared from the village one night leaving his wife and family to fare for themselves and was never seen or heard of again.

As well as being the champion poacher in his time, Alby was also local nacker man who used to collect the farmers dead sheep over a wide area. The casualty mutton thus procured was fed raw to a lot of pigs which he used to keep. I have heard it said many times that the animal thus fed became so savage, that no one dared to enter the sty’s in which they were kept and when the time came for them to be slaughtered the local butchers were forced to shoot and bleed them on the premises and take them away dead.

 

In spite of all his poaching and devil may care attitude to life, Alby had one weakness and that was he was absolutely terrified of thunderstorms. He used to tell of one particular experience that he encountered when, one night he was out on the job, a particular vicious and heavy thunder storm blew up “God almighty” said Alby “I wore a ferretin in ole parson Goodwrites spinney together side o Ashford Grange and it kep on a getting wussan wen a sudden it come a flash an a bang clean over the top an rain an all fell down like ell”. “That done it, I just left me nets an ferrets an run like buggery ter Ashford bridge, yer know where the ole brook runs under the road and up ter me shoe tops in water, and there worn’t none too much over ead room nether”. “Christ almighty” added Alby, “I wore frit ter bloody death an at the finish I even prayed ter the good God to save me, which I reckon as ow wore the first time I ever prayed in me life”.

 

I have always thought, how strange it is that abject terror forces most of us to seek the protection of a higher power, however ungodly we may be.

 

It is often stated how the olden days were good old days and for some that was no doubt true, but for many, and I mean many, they were hard and difficult for instance, cowmen or dairymen as they were sometimes called, said their life consisted of nothing but work and bed.

 

There was one old fellow named Edwin Mead who I can well remember who lived in North Cowley all his life and was a cowman all his life until he reached the ripe old age of seventy when he retired, receiving the old age pension on the then princely sum of ten shilling per week, helping out even then by doing the odd days threshing.

In a good many counties, similar to Wiltshire and Hampshire, the farms were large, many adding up to a thousand acres or more and all had farm cottages close by which meant that the workers were always right on the job and saved them a long walk every morning and evening. In our County of Bucks, the farms were much smaller being somewhere in the region of one hundred to three hundred acres and many had no cottages attached to them at all.

 

This was true in Edwin Meads case and old Edio, as he was always called, worked on a farm in the next parish which was fully two miles away from the cottage in which he lived. The farmer in question used to send his milk by rail to London, which meant that it was necessary to catch the train by eight o’clock and the local station was at least three miles distant from the farm. All this necessitated that poor old Edio and his assistant milkers had to start milking by five a.m. at the latest, meaning that he had to leave his cottage by four thirty.

 

On Sunday mornings no train called at the local railway station and the milk had to be taken to Waverly, which was eight miles distant, worse still the milk train left by seven a.m.so I will leave it to the readers imagination at what ungodly hour it was necessary for Edio to rise.

 

During the period of which I write, the cowmen, stockmen and horse keepers always reckoned to have a few hours off in the middle of the day on Sundays, so in Edio’s case, when the mornings milking was finished, the milk taken off to the station, the cows fed and the cow house cleaned out, the old fellow would be free to walk home at somewhere around 10 o’clock and then after a pint or two in the local from twelve to one, he would sit down to his Sunday dinner and then off back to work again to milk and tend the cows once more, finishing, I suppose, by about five p.m. when, after walking home once more, he presumably had an hour or two for himself and family.

 

Old George Seabrook, who lived in Cowley and I suppose would have been about Edio’s age, worked for Mrs Black who farmed her late husband’s farm in the nearby village of Ashford. There were, in reality, two holdings here although no one there were only stockyards and buildings with no house attached and here George was in charge. No cows were kept but there were a lot of store cattle plus pigs and poultry which meant that he was forced to put in nearly a many hours as Edio. Although, he of course, didn’t have any milking to do.

 

However, seven days every week for more than fifty years old George walked the two miles from his cottage in North Cowley to his work in Ashford and for many years after the old man’s retirement and death the worn marks of the footpath could be seen where he had trod on his many journeys to and fro. One of the most amazing duties which George was forced to perform, was that during the summer months when it was daylight, until nine or ten at night, he even had to make an extra journey to and fro in order to shut up the poultry. The name of the farm where he spent all his working life was so ingrained into the old man’s mind that, after his retirement, he always began any conversation with the words “When I wor a workin up at Bean Hill Barn”

 

Men of the calibre of our old John Goodfellow, Edio and George could be found in the old days in every village in England and to their credit be it said that they seldom grumbled, harried or worried, they just gloried in the numerous and often arduous tasks which they daily were forced to  perform and nearly always with a song or a whistle on their lips in spite of the fact that, until the advent of the first world war, they would have received no more than fifteen or sixteen shillings a week with perhaps fifty shilling or three pounds extra as a lump sum for haytime and harvesting

 

It made me feel extremely sick the other day when I heard some trade unionist bemoaning the fact that he and his fellow car workers were only to receive a twenty seven pound a week rise for some forty hours. Think of that readers and compare it with the doings and attitude of the men of whom I have written with pride, These at least were real men and the latter one to my mind be only a monkey and not a particularly good un at that.

 

Lizzie Waite was the daughter of old Harry and Emily Waite who lived for most of their lives in a cottage situated at the north end of North Cowley High Street. Old Harry was a farm worker all his life and, for a good many years, he worked for a Mrs Hewlett who owned and ran a small holding of some thirty odd acres known as Broadmead Meadows. Here she kept some half a dozen cows, a few sheep and some hens. She used to make and sell butter also eggs and milk at the door.

 

Old Harry’s job was to look after and milk the cows, tend and feed the sheep and hens and, during his spare time, keep the hedges and ditches of the meadows in a trim and orderly state. This he did in no uncertain manner and, in addition, finding time to see that none of the younger element of the village were ever caught trespassing in or near the land of which he was in charge.

 

In addition to keeping a strict eye on Mrs Hewlett’s domain, Harry found time to keep an extremely sharp eye on his roadside gardens of which he owned several in various areas of the village.

 

It was a very brave lad who dared to venture very near to any of Harry’s preserves, either to hunt for birds’ nests or in the Autumn to gather nuts, for he was the possessor of a stout ash plant which he never hesitated to use to effect and many a lad had his backside severely warmed as a result of the old man’s administration.

 

After old Mrs Hewlett’s death, her meadows were purchased by Dr Bosworth and mixed in with another farm on his estate and Harry went to work as odd job man for the doctor where he remained until his retirement some years later. As stated before, Emily Waite, Harry’s wife, was best known in the village as being the best, or the worst (whichever you prefer), gossip and scandal monger. There was never anything happening in the village but what the old girl knew about and every small detail at that. She is best remembered as standing at her front gate for most of the day wearing an old sack apron, tied round the middle and her eagle eye missing nothing. Alas, for the last few years of her life, the old lady was bedridden and her knowledge of the goings on in the village were, consequently, severely curtailed.

 

Lizzie Waite was the youngest of Harry and Emily’s children and, for some years, was an assistant mistress at the village school, but when I can remember her, she was postwoman delivering letters to the furthest out-ends of the village. At that time there were no bicycles available for this kind of postal delivery and so for many years Lizzie carried on her long and solitary  trawl through rain, hail, snow or frost every day except Sundays, starting at a few houses just outside the village on to several forms for a mile or so along the Cranwell Road and on up an old stony lane which led to Myrtle Farm when from there she had to retrace her steps and proceeds along East End Road commencing to deliver to some half dozen cottages at what was termed Broadmead and calling at the farms and cottages situated at intervals along the road until she came to our Tapps Green farm at the end of the road, a distance from the village of one and a half miles.

 

Apart from her letters and parcels, Lizzie always carried in her post bag two oval bottles each capable of holding a quart of liquid. One of these bottles she used to fill with muck juice which drained from the muck heaps which the farmers used to stack on the wide grass verges to mature and rot ready for ploughing in on the arable land in the Autumn. The muck juice thus procured, Lizzie used to take home and sprinkle round the flowers and vegetables of which her garden was full.

 

The other quart bottles my mother used every morning to fill up with separated milk and/or which Lizzie used to pay one half penny per day. I have heard my mother say many times “You know Lizzie you never need to pay anything at all for this drop o milk” but this the old girl would never have “No Mrs Harris, Ma’am” she would say “If I had it for nothing that would be charity summatt as how no man or woman with their salt could ever abide”. However, my mother used to give her a couple of rabbits at Christmas and, as this was termed a Christmas box, was quite in order and not regarded as charity in country districts at that time.

 

When Lizzie left our house, she used to have to tramp about a mile or so across the fields to make her last delivery to the Globe farm which never had any proper road to it at all and, apart from field footpaths, the only access to it was a right of way for pony and trap across the fields to the village of Ashford. Her final delivery completed, the only way back to the post office in North Cowley was a further trek across the fields, which must have been at least another mile and only then the time would have been somewhere around twelve o’clock mid-day by which time Lizzie would be able to say that her postal round was finished for the day. Now all this meant that the old dear must have walked at least five miles every week day in all weathers and I don’t suppose that she would have received more than fifteen shillings a week for so doing, and all through the years I never remember her being ill or having a day off.

 

North Cowley was, and is, a long and straggling parish with six out-ends which branch out in all directions roughly about a mile and a half to the end of each and while I can first remember all the roads and gravel walks were tended by only two full time roadmen, these being for a good many years Charlie Bell and John Goodfellow who only had one eye. Here I must add, although having the same name, was no relation to John who served our family for so many years.

 

The two roadmen mentioned, were a pair who had a very pleasant nature who always had a cheery word with everyone who passed by, and most of the farmers and farm workers used to moan and say that it was no wonder the buggers were so happy as they ant got nothing to do. No, I am fully aware that farm work at that time was no doubt the hardest and most unpleasant of all, but considering the area that Charlie and John had to cover, I do not think that they ever had a bed of roses either. All the roadsides were kept chopped back and reasonably tidy and all the gravel walks were kept in like condition. In the spring and summer all the road and walk verges had to be kept mown by hand and every Saturday morning the village High Street was swept and tidied from end to end, a sad reflection I am afraid in the rough and shabby untidiness that prevails today.

 

There was one thing that always worried and saddened me as a lad and which, thank goodness hardly exists today, and that was the hatred and bigotry that was all too common between Church and Chapel goers. My father, I am glad to say, never had any time for this and, although our family were always strict Chapel goers, the church Parson was always as welcome to call at our house as was anyone either belonging to or connected with the church or chapel either for that matter.

 

There was, however, one farming family in the village who carried on their spirit of bigotry to a ridiculous degree. On one occasion, one of their daughters fell in love with and became engaged to a young man who came to the village from somewhere up North to a large farm in a nearby parish to learn farming. This young man’s family were well to do and very wealthy, but when the young ladies family found out that her fiancé’s family were all strict chapel people, they quashed the poor girls romance at once and refused to allow her to have anything else to do with him. This, I am sorry to say, had a sad and sorry ending. During the following winter, the young lady in question contracted a serious illness from which she never recovered and passed away in the Spring of that year, being laid to rest in the village churchyard. One cannot, of course, say that this was a direct result of her families narrow minded action, but it is certain that it never helped matters, as the girl was never the same happy, lovely and lively person that she had been before.

 

Another incident of this appalling bigotry which I should relate, happened to one of my own family. My younger sister who was, incidentally, some seven years my senior, was the fortunate possessor of a magnificent soprano voice. She was so good that my father persuaded her to have professional training after which she had many invitations to sing at special functions over a fairly wide area and when the villagers knew that she was going to give a performance at our local chapel, the congregation would certainly be extra-large.

 

The then Rector of the parish church was the Rev J.L. Love (a lovely man if ever I knew one) thought it would be nice if my sister would give a performance in the village church on one of their special occasions and, after consultation with my father and sister, she agreed that she would be delighted to do so. Alas, when it became known that the Rector had invited my sister to sing in the parish church, there was the devil and all to pay. Many of the strictest church families threatened to boycott the performance altogether including, of course, the family already alluded to and members of the church were prepared to leave altogether.

Of course, as a result of all this, the whole idea had to be abandoned, the poor Rector was terribly upset and there were tears in the old man’s eyes. When he came to our house to explain and apologise to my father and sister for such a narrow minded and uncharitable attitude, that so many of his so-called Christian flock had adopted. My father, however, was too fair a man to allow such a happening to upset him unduly and he assured Rev Love that, having lived in a rural community all his life, he quite understood the position and that he knew the rector was not in any way to blame. I am glad to say the friendship of the pair continued as before and was not impaired in any way at all.

 

Several years afterwards, my sister was forced to give up her singing as, being a schoolteacher and having to do so much talking, threw too much strain on her voice causing her throat problems of much severity.

 

There is no doubt at all in my mind that  with the opportunities that exist today my sister, with a voice like she had, would have gone right to the top of the tree but, like Jim Richards with his cricket and Frank Jackson with his football, in those days they were forced to remain as is stated in that well known poem that ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air’.

 

There is no doubt that over the years peoples religious observances have fallen away to a tremendous extent as I have heard many old folks say that when they could first remember there were three chapels and a church in the village, namely the Parish Church, a Baptist Chapel, a Wesleyan Chapel and a Congregational Chapel and that they were mostly all full every Sunday. Now there is only one church left and usually no more than twenty or thirty are in attendance there except, of course, for harvest festivals or other special occasions.

 

In the days before the second world war, no one in country districts ever did any more than was absolutely necessary on a Sunday, although it is true to say that during the thirties things did begin to alter quite a bit, for instance with the ever widening popularity of the motor car, many ordinary people took to joy riding on Sunday’s instead of regular attendance at a place of worship and in some of the larger establishments, Sunday tennis and other Cowley games were indulged in without too much adverse comments. Prior to this, the only tasks that were performed on a Sunday were absolute necessities, such as milking the cows and tending and feeding the livestock on all the local farms and even then everything that could be prepared beforehand was done so on Saturday afternoons.

 

On our own farm for instance, the mangolds were all pulped and mixed up with chaff, which was left in a large heap in the barn and the crushed oats and barley, which went with the chaff and mangolds, was mixed and left in containers (usually old tin baths or scuttles) all just ready to hand. Sometimes, for the milking cows, my father would purchase from a corn merchant a quantity of oil cake, either linseed or cotton seed, which came in slabs about two foot wide and three foot long and this had to be put through a machine called a cake breaker which had on one side a large wheel with a handle on it and had to be operated by hand. I have, as a boy, helped one of the farm men perform this task on a Saturday afternoon and devilish hard work it was an all, especially the cotton seed cake which was as tough as leather.

 

The farm horses usually had crushed beans mixed with chaff for their feed and these had to be crushed by putting them through a bean mill which operated by hand in much the same way as the cake breaker. The chaff was usually cut when threshing the corn, either wheat or oats, I have, on rare occasions, known my father to have bean straw chaffed, but this was from necessity and neither the cowman or horse keeper cared much for it. As already stated, most of the straw was cut into chaff when threshing, the chaff cutter being set at the mouth of the threshing drum and driven by a belt from one to the other, both of course powered by a steam traction engine, the straw having been threshed clean by the drum, was fed straight into the chaff cutter by one of the two men who were in charge of the tackle. We did, in fact, have an old chaff cutter which was operated by hand and used between threshings and terrible hard work it was an all. I have helped do it sometimes, so I knew most of the men used to describe having to do this as being a fair bugger.

 

Sometimes, in the winter, if we happened to run short of mangolds, my father would buy a barrel of black treacle, this came in large quantities usually a barrel containing 36 gallons. The treacle was very thick and sticky and was thinned down by mixing with hot water in a large water container with a rose attached and was then sprinkled over a heap of chaff and mixed in.

 

Before the advent of hay and straw bales, all the hay and straw was built in huge ricks containing anything from twenty to thirty tons which were thatched to keep out the rain. When required for use, the hay or straw was cut from the ricks in squares about a yard square and two foot thick by a huge blade called a hay knife which was kept sharp by a whetstone.  The square of hay, or straw, when cut loose was transfixed by a four tined fork and then carried on the shoulder of the cutter to wherever it was required, this again was very hard work and I, in my time, have carried some hundreds of thousands and can therefore speak, or write, with some authority.

 

Again, harking back to my tale of Saturday and Sunday labour, from which I seem to have strayed, all the cake of hay and straw required for Sundays feeding were cut on Saturday afternoon and stacked in the big barn and could be picked up and transferred to the various hay wracks in the buildings and yards ready for the livestock to pull out and eat, thus the labour time was considerably shortened.

 

Apart from farmers and farm works no one employed in other industries ever reckoned to perform any task at all on a Sunday, not even the most ungodly, and the cottage gardens and allotments remained untouched, it was even unheard of for any clothes to be hung out on a line.

 

In the case of children, all books, balls and any other toys had to be put away on Saturday evening and remain untouched until Monday morning. For most of them it meant attendance at either church or chapel, usually three times at least. My father was never quite so strict as some and he never minded us reading a book provided we were quiet and orderly, but in many homes, nothing was allowed to be read other than the bible or any Christian paper or book.

I remember one farming family, who moved into the village soon after the first world war and they had in fact two daughters who were both round about my age, they being strict chapel goers we naturally became quite friendly with them after a time, but I could never accept, myself, the length that they took their religion to, neither of the girls were allowed to go to the village feast or the nearby town fair, the local cinema was also banned and they would not even allow them to either attend or take part in a concert which was arranged by the chapel band of hope to collect funds for their summer outing.

 

I had no doubt that James Standish, who was also a lay preacher, had all the best motives at heart and, so long as you could keep him off too much religion, he was a very interesting man to talk to having been in his younger days a blacksmith, in fact after he came to the farm at North Cowley he converted one of his outbuildings into a smithy where he used to shoe his own horses and do any other iron work required for his farm. As a small boy, I have watched him at work many times and to see him perform and mould ornamental ironwork was indeed a revelation.

 

Most of the farm men in the village used to sum James as follows “He be a nice enough man most times tha knows even though ee be a bible banger, but when he starts rantin and ravin about religion, I can’t abide ee, in fact I reckons as ow the length ee do goo be bloody ridiculous”.

 

As a matter of fact, the family lived in the village for a good many years and, to be fair, both James and his wife did mellow considerably with the changing times and the advance of old age.

 

In the early twenties, when there were many who dwelled in the rural areas, who were equally as narrow minded and so called religious as James Standish and his wife we then, as children, had to mind our ‘ps’ and ‘qs’, especially on a Sunday.  If we were caught committing any trifling misdemeanours by these locally called bible bangers, we were sure in for a severe rating. I remember on one occasion being caught gathering sticks myself on Sunday and, after receiving a thorough telling off, I was consigned to being either placed on the moon or, when I reached the next world, being cast into the bottomless pit, whatever that may mean. However, there is no doubt that I was guilty as charged so I suppose I must look forward to the worst.

 

However, kids of my generation fared considerably better than many who had gone before, and I well remember the older farm workers telling me stories of some of those who had gone before. Now it will be remembered that Gipsy Lodge Farm was situated next to our own Tapps Green and was, at one time, farmed by an old fellow named George Folks and, apparently, he was a holy terror both to his own family and all the farm workers who were unfortunate enough to be forced to work under him. That im wore a “fair bugger” is the best description I have eard him called and one old fellow always used to say “I wunt a peed on ee if the ole bugger ad a bin a fire”.

Young boys, I believe, suffered the worst under him, and for any trifling offence they either received a severe kick up the arse with his hobnailed boot or a tanning with a horse whip, after which they were chained to a chopping block until they had chopped so many sticks.

 

Should any lad, who was driving his horses at plough, be unfortunate enough to be suffering from a bad back, it was said that he would lay them face downwards in the furrow and then tread on them to “straighten the buggers out” as he used to remark.

 

His wife and family, I was told, also suffered under him accordingly, their standard of living being of the utmost meagre, he even used to slice up the loaves of bread and lay then out on the window sills for the sun to dry, making the bread so unpalatable that they would not eat so much and, on occasions, would give each child a penny to go to bed without any supper and then, after they had gone upstairs, he used to pinch the coppers out of each money box, so the poor little souls were the worse off in every way. However, according to hearsay, George Folks’ mean ways and ill treatment of everybody never did him much good in the long run and he was to pay dearly for his harsh cruel ways.

 

Many years before Gypsy Lodge Farm had belonged to the Quakers, who as everyone will know, have always been noted for their strict and religious principals, the farm house was, in fact, a meeting place and part of it was used as a kind of chapel. They even had their own burial ground in the corner of a field down Tapps Green Lane and, in fact, the field goes by the name of Grave Yard even to this day.

 

In George Folks day though, although the farm had long gone out of the hands of the Quakers and there had been no burials for some years, there was still a hedge round the little grave yard in the corner of the field that I have already mentioned. George, in his usual greedy and callous nature, hated to see this piece of ground going to waste, as he put it, so he set to and removed the moulder in the gravestones, stocked up the hedge and ploughed the graveyard in with the rest of the field. At that time of day when country folk were all naturally very superstitious, stark horror spread through the village on the wake of so barbarous a deed, the old folk shook their heads and prophesised that many and dire punishment would follow and that a curse would remain on the farm for many years to come.

 

I cannot, of course, claim to know whether the after happenings were caused by George’s actions or not, but the tale is that from that time on the farm began to go downhill, livestock refused to thrive, crops were poor and serious debts began to mount up. To make matters worse, as they began to grow up, the old man’s children turned against him and refused to help him in any way which, of course, was in no way to be wondered at in view of the harsh and cruel manner in which they had always been treated.  Finally, the worry began to tell and George sort of just withered away and died. No money was left and everything had to be sold in order to, as far as possible, pay the huge debts which had been run up, after which the family moved away from the parish and there is little doubt that they were relieved and glad to do so.

 

It may be of interest to readers to know, however, that the old man was buried in the village churchyard and it is still possible to read his name on an old and mouldering gravestone therein.

All the village wisecracks, I am told, said “There I told ee so I allus knowed as ow no good ould ever come to ee for doin away wi they graves in the corner o that field”

 

Whether it was coincidence or not I do not know, but a curse did seem to hand on that farm for a good long time as it is a fact that, during the next seventy five years five different families more or less went bust there, but since the early thirties, no unforeseen happenings have occurred there, so maybe, with the passing of time, the curse or whatever it was, has finally been lifted.

 

Continuing to look back as for most of my life, I have always been very fond of doing, I remembered two particular traits that stood out in the character of many of the old farm workers and they were their deep rooted superstition and fondness for telling tall stories, for instance, I remember one old fellow, called Jack, telling of a farmer who farmed at Gypsy Lodge before old George Folks “That there bloody ole Bill Mardlin” he referred to him as and then, a continuing, “a sodden too fussy as ter who er what ee shot at”, “one day there wore a flock o rooks a sittin in some great elm trees what stood out the back o is ouse , an findin he wore out o buck shot ee loaded is ole blunder bus up wi gun powder an nails instead an whats think? Ee let fly at they bloody rooks an nailed em all to the trees an they buggers flew up an took trees away we em”. “Ay an that worn’t all” old Jack would continue “I reckon as ow ole Bill were out of buck shot most o the time cause once ee loaded the ole gal up wi gunpowder, an shoved a ram rod down the barrel on top o the powder, an ee went out an let drive at a flock o wood pigeons as wore o playin ell wi is spring barley, an the old devil all us swore blind as ow ee speared ninety nine pigeons on that there ram rod. “Say a hundred dad” said is ole boy “when ee hear about it”. “What” shouted ole Bill giving the lad a damn good clip o the ear “I’ll teach tha ter tell a girl a lie over one bloody pigeon”.

 

On another occasion when again Bill was minus shot, which seems to be most of the time, he was said to have shot at an old hare running down a furrow with a ball of bees wax hitting the hare smack on the forehead and another hare running in the opposite direction collided with the first one stuck em together, so he had the two.

The tallest of all Jack’s tales, however, was one day when Bill was trying to shoot an old tom cat which had been pinching his chickens and the cat, in order to escape, kept dodging round a hay stack, and the old man bent the barrel of his old blunder bus so he could shoot round the corner and, on firing the shot, flew clean round the hay stack and hit him up the arse. That, I fear, must cap the lot.

 

Most of the older country people that I can remember who would have been born in the middle Victorian era, were extremely superstitious as I have already stated, and there can be no doubt that this was largely due to the narrow life that they were compelled to lead, many could not read at all and for the vast majority their lives consisted of little more than work and bed.

 

To break or crack a mirror meant that you were certain to be in for seven years bad luck, and to either burn elder wood on the fire or to have bunches of lilac indoors, would inevitably mean that there would be a death in the family before very long, and if you knocked over a salt pot and spilled the salt, you must throw a pinch of salt over your left shoulder pretty quick or bad luck would be sure to follow. To see one crow on its own meant sorrow, but if this should happen, if you shut your eyes and county twenty, everything would be alright.

 

I can remember many of the old farm workers who, should they happen to see one magpie flying about on its own early in the morning, they would stand smartly to attention, salute and say “Good morning Sir”, should they omit to do so, bad luck would be sure to follow.

 

A good deal of local superstition was always countered round the owl, largely I think owing to its being a bird of the night and the fact of it having an extremely harsh and mournful cry. However, be that as it may, all the locals simply hated it if an owl sat on the roof of their house persistently and emitted its mournful cry in the night. All they use to say “You mark my words, that’ll mean death for some poor sod afore long”

 

There is an old country custom that however I have always respected and that is on attending a funeral, once the service is over and the coffin has been lowered into the grave, on leaving one should never, on any account, walk back through the church.  Many years ago, I remember attending a villager’s funeral and, when it was over, all the family mourners walked straight back through the church. “Jist you look at that” exclaimed old Sally Harbuckle, a grand old village character who several of us were having a word with “they never ought to ha done that, there’ll be ill fortune fer that lot, you mark my words”. Whether Sally’s words of prophecy were just a coincidence or not I would not like to say, but the fact was that there was a suicide and two untimely deaths in that family within the next twelve months and for myself, I have took good care never to walk back through the church when attending a funeral ever since.

 

My father was one of the least superstitious of men that I have ever known, but there was one thing that he would never do and that was he would never, in any circumstances, start a new job on a Friday. This was well illustrated when my elder brother took a farm and started out on his own. He had bought a new tractor and plough which was delivered late on Thursday evening. He, therefore, planned to start ploughing early on the Friday morning. I remember that my father was most unhappy about this and, although it was nearly dark on that far off Thursday evening, he persuaded my brother to take out his tractor and plough a few furrows there and then so that the dreaded start on a Friday was avoided.

 

In those far off days, every farmer kept a certain number of hens, mostly about a hundred or so, and these were usually kept in one of the outbuildings and allowed to run about where they liked, in no way were any kept intensively, like they are now, and I don’t suppose they were very profitable. Running around loose like they did obviously picked up most of their own living themselves but were usually thrown  some tailing corn and household scraps about twice a day and, kept in this rough and ready fashion, it was amazing the amount of eggs they produced and the taste of those eggs was really superb, with rich dark yellow yolks, certainly very different to the anaemic looking things that mostly pass for eggs today.

Mostly in those days, villagers kept a few hens either in their back gardens or on allotments and, sometimes, it would happen that a hen would start to crow just like a cockerel. Everybody hated this and I remember once this occurring when I was talking in his garden to one of my father’s workers, “God almighty” the old chap said “Did yer ear that boy a crowin en, I shall at ter kill that ole bugger termorrer mornin”. “Why, whatever for Joe” I said, “the old gal is only trying to imitate your cockerel”. “That’s as maybe” replied Joe “but I shall kill er jist the same ye see yer mind what allus a bin said as ow a whistling woman an a crowing en be nether fit fer God nor men, so yer see if I wore to keep she I would be a flying in the face o God almighty, an I aint a doin that fer no man”.

 

I have no doubt that Joe carried out his threat at the earliest possible moment, but I can assure readers that, whatever his superstitions might have been, the old hen would certainly not be wasted and that she would end up cooked to a turn in some form or other on the old man’s dinner table.

 

It always struck me extremely forcibly as a lad, the respect and awe that, no matter what their religion, all country people had for death for instance as soon as a death in the village was reported, the village Church Sexton would ring out what was termed the death knell on the church bells. The method of this varied from parish to parish, as some sextons always reckoned to ring out the age of the deceased, while others merely tolled the bell for a certain length of time. But one rule was always adhered to, and that was that the sex of the dead person was indicated at the start and finish of the knell by striking on each bell of three strokes for a man, two for a woman and one for a child. On the day fixed for the funeral one bell, usually the tenor, was tolled very slowly and mournfully for a good half hour before the cortege arrived at the church.

 

In any house, where a death occurred, every blind would be pulled down and the curtains drawn and, in no circumstances, be lifted until the coffin had been removed and on the day of the funeral, every neighbours window would be darkened until the cortege had passed by and, men and boys alike passing by, always stood to attention and removed their hats as a mark of respect.

It always struck me as strange in those far off days the amount of superstition that existed in the minds of most people over the death of a female. When they heard the sound of the death knell and the bells striking twice, the old folks used to look mournful, shake their heads and say “Ah yer knows that to be a bad sign, I can’t bear ter ear that you mark my words, if they ring for a she they be sure ter ring for three”, meaning of course, that two more people would pass on before long. It is strange however, that though the death knell has long since ceased to ring, I have noticed, and many other villages will confirm, that the old, saying unfortunately certainly has a certain amount of truth in it

 

In modern times nearly everyone would laugh to scorn the sayings and customs of those that have gone before, but in the old days they meant a lot to everyone for instance, you were supposed to reap much finer crops if you sowed the seed when the moon was on the wane and shallots in the garden should be planted on the shortest day (December 21^st) and pulled on the longest day (June 21st). In those days North Cowley folks never used to reckon to dig new potatoes or pick green peas ’til Cranwell feast, this being the first weekend in July and on no account should main crop or late potatoes ‘til Cowley feast which meant the second week in October.

 

In early June, when farmers used to say, “more rain more grass, more butter, more brass”. On a very wet day one young farmhand said, in the hearing of his employer, “more rain, more rest” whereupon the good man bellowed “What did you say you bugger”, the young lad, fortunately for him, replied quickly. “Please sir, I said more rain more grass for the orse”.

 

They used to say that red sky at night meant shepherds delight, but that red sky in the morning mean shepherds warning and bad weather and rain would surely be due because the wind wore a gooin back agen the sun. Many of the old sayings, although they may have had an element of truth in them, were no doubt said because they happened to rhyme, for instance it was maintained that “if the sun do shine through the apple trees on Christmas Day, there’ll be plenty a grass but no good hay”. Another one was, “February fill the dyke and March will come and empty it quite” after a very hard frost when perhaps the ground had been iron hard for weeks, at the first sign of a mole throwing up a heap of soil they used to mutter with a knowing shake of the head “Ah when they moles be on the move, the weather will improve”, meaning that it would not be long before a thaw set in.

 

Old George Woodcock, who lived in an old thatched cottage up Berry Meadows Lane, was a great one for old country law sayings an customs, for instance he always kept an old book which explained the meanings of dreams that one experiences in the night and many times on meeting him, he would be sure to say “Ah boy, I wore that there dreamed last night an cordin to me ole book, what I dreamed about wore awful bad luck an I ain’t at all appy in me mind, no good wunt ow it you mark my words”.

 

It was a funny thing however, but the old man would very rarely tell of what he had dreamed that caused him so much foreboding, and in any case he lived a good many years without anything too dreadful happening to him.

 

In those far off days, a good deal of superstition centred around rooks, I do not know whether it was the fact that a rook was, and is, a jet black bird and the fact that black is a colour that has always been connected with funerals, or not, but the fact remains that they were always regarded with a certain amount of awe.

 

The difference between a rook and a carrion crow is that on top of the beak the crow has a bunch of white feathery hairs whereas on as rook these hairs are all black. Rooks always exist in large flocks whereas crows usually fly around in pairs, they also nest on their own in one tree, whereas you find perhaps a hundred or more rooks nests in a wood or spinney and which is therefore known as a rookery.

 

I well remember in the old days, as it was considered very lucky and you were supposed to be especially fortunate if the rooks built nests in large numbers in woods or spinneys on one’s farm, although they were often cursed to all eternity for the damage that they did to ones crops at seeding time. My father used to get into quite a rare old paddy when this happened, and I remember the first time that I ever fired a shot gun was due to father’s temper and the rooks. It was when I was about fourteen years of age and, on returning from school one spring evening, I entered the kitchen to find the old man in a furious temper. He was having his tea and could see a distant field which had recently been drilled with spring barley, through the kitchen window and it was simply black with rooks digging up the seed. “Boy” he shouted “for God’s sake take my gun and scare them bloody rooks else we shan’t have half a crop come harvest. Im bin down that there field near a dozen times today to scare the damn things, an I’m fair sick o it”.

 

Thus bid, I took my father’s twelve bore down from the gun rack and a handful of cartridges, from the box that always stood on the kitchen windowsill , I sallied forth in some trepidation I can tell you as I had never before fired a shotgun and I knew that they were liable to kick viciously on occasion and, in any case, by the time that I reached the field in question, the rooks had all flown away. I hid in the hedge for some time in case they should return, but nothing happened so I decided to return home. On crossing the home pasture, a rabbit jumped out of a farm at my feet and, without thinking, I quickly put the gun to my shoulder and fired at once. Talk about beginner’s luck, the rabbit rolled arse over head as dead as mutton and I carried it home in triumph. From that time on I was absolutely potty about shooting and have indulged in it regularly from that time on, although I must confess to not always being so successful as on that far off first occasion.

 

Continuing however my story with regards to the rooks, although most farmers considered them the be a damn nuisance and, during early May used to organise parties of guns to shoot the young rooks in order to ensure that they did not become too plentiful, no-one would in any way interfere with the old birds’ nests or nesting places as if the rooks, for any reason forsook their usual haunts bad luck or some ill fortune would be sure to follow.

 

I well remember an old labourer telling the tale of a farmer who, many years before, had farmed at Frogs Castle farm which was situated on the North Cowley estate and at the far end of the parish. A very large rookery was situated on this farm and most seasons contained anything up to a hundred or more nests. One spring the birds seemed to be more numerous and a greater pest than usual doing a great deal of damage to the old man’s spring sown crops. In desperation and, also a furious temper, he climbed up a long ladder and hung several storm lanterns in the treetops among the rooks nests. The birds, of course, frightened by the glare of the lanterns at night, promptly forsook the rookery and, in fact, never returned.

 

I feel that I cannot do better than relate the sequel in my old friend’s own words “Ah” he said “I knowed as ow no good outa a come ter ole George fer doin a bloody fools thing like interfering wi they rooks an ee never done no good arter it neither.  Is ole woman dropped down dead soon arter an ee went bust an were sold up a couple o years later. You look to it boy as ow you never do nothin to upset they bloody rooks, terrible bad luck that are allus a bin ter do that”.

 

North Cowley Grange, which was the home of the Squire of the parish for many generations, is reached by a drive  some quarter mile long with a lodge at the entrance gate and, for many years, the drive was lined on both sides with an avenue of magnificent trees, mostly elm, beech and chestnut, and were so close together that the tops interlocked that in the summer, when they were in full leaf, to walk down there was like passing down the aisle of some great church with a magnificent roof overhead. Now I fear the last Squire has sadly departed and most of the trees that once graced that beautiful drive, are long dead or falling into decay. True, some effort has at last been made to improve matters by planting a few young trees but, sadly, I fear that never again will the glorious beauty that once existed be in evidence again.

 

My main reason for referring to the lined drive in the last paragraph, was to bring the story back to the rooks which, if readers will bear with me, they will find that all I am writing is indeed quite relevant.

 

Bert Bingley, who was for many years Head Gamekeeper on the Cowley estate, told me that when Doctor Bosworth bought it in the eighteen nineties, although there were then several large rookeries on the estate, the birds had never nested anywhere down or near the drive. Some years afterwards however, for some unknown reason several nests began to appear to the Doctor’s great delight for, like most country people at that time, high or low they considered this to be a sign of good luck. Very soon, in the springtime of the years which followed, the trees down the drive held a series of rooks nests from end to end and the rounds which had been planted at some period in the front and back parks, held many nests as well.

 

All this meant that with the other rookeries which were scattered in different areas on the Cowley Estate, some thousands of young rooks were hatched out in the spring of every year and, as long as he was alive, the Doctor held many large rook shooting parties and I remember, as a small boy, accompanying my father and elder brother and having some wonderful and exciting evenings as a result. Some of the party, armed with .22 rifles, used to patrol inside the spinneys to shoot the sitting rooks while those armed with shot guns were stationed outside to shoot the stronger rooks or flyers as they were then called. In company with several other boys of my own age, we picked up the dead rooks and tied them up by the head in bundles of six and they were afterwards given away to the villagers to be made into rook pies.

 

To prepare rooks for the oven, they have to be skinned and only the breasts and thighs are used. Mixed with hard boiled eggs and a rasher or two of home cured bacon, all seasoned to taste, makes a pie fit for a king to eat and, if left to get cold, they are a mass of jelly tasting better than any pork pie that has ever been made.

 

As soon as I was old enough to shoot, and for many years after the good Doctor and his wife had passed on, I and other farmers on the estate used to enjoy the yearly rook shoots and even my wife, who used to enjoy some shooting in her younger days, very often accompanied us on these pleasant jaunts. During the second world war, the legs had to be removed from the young rooks and inspected by the War Ag so as to prove a goodly number had been shot. Food at that period was so short that starvation was only just around the corner and the authorities were afraid that, unless the rook population was controlled, a serious loss of grain would be eaten by them. I should add, that wood pigeons, rats and rabbits were supposed to be kept own also.

To end my tale of the rooks which I fear has extended to a greater length than intended, I shall relate a happening which, I think, proves the point as to why the rook has always been regarded with a certain amount of awe.

 

Some years after the war, all the rooks began to leave their old haunts and, in many cases, disappeared altogether. Trees that had held nests for as long as folks could remember were suddenly vacated. Many of the older folks shook their heads and one old farm worker said to me “Ah Master, they rooks a goin to be a tarble bad sign, they buggers know as summat bad be a cumin, else they want never a bloody well cleared orf like that”.

 

Unfortunately, the old man’s words were only too true. A year or two later most of the trees in this area began to die, all the elms, which had mostly predominated in this area, were stricken with Dutch Elm Disease and many Oak and Ash were affected by some sort of pollution as well. Within a couple of years most of the trees in this area had to be felled and burnt, leaving the countryside looking but a pale shadow of its former glory. It can, however, be seen that the old sayings and superstitions with regard to the doings and habits of the rooks was certainly not altogether a load of poppycock after all.

 

Continuing as I have done for most of my life to think and look back on the past, I feel that, though life is so much easier and less strenuous for most people today, many things have changed and not always for the better. For instance, there is now very little morality left and by that, I mean neither sex wise, businesswise or, for that matter, hardly any wise at all.

 

In country areas especially, woe betide (as the old folks used to say) anyone who was guilty of doing a neighbour down or performing any particularly mean or underhand trick for that matter, and they were branded and looked upon with suspicion  for good an all.

 

To illustrate my point, there was an old fellow who I can just remember and who I will call John Smith. John was a horse dealer who carried on his business in his own parish and over a wide area of the surrounding district. The old fellow had never been to school and, therefore, could neither read, write or figure. If you sold him a horse, he would hand you his cheque book and you made out the cheque for the agreed price and he would just scribble a cross where the bank had showed him. If you bought a horse from him, he just shoved your cheque in his pocket without looking at it which, however, never mattered because he could not have understood it any way. But the point was, he always said that the deal was for then and everlasting. The old fellow carried on like manner all his life and died a rich man in spite of his simple and rudimentary methods.

 

Any business carried on in like manner today would, of course, be doomed to failure and there was no doubt that, during the later twenties and early thirties when records of business and increased paperwork became the order of the day, many of the sayings and doings of the real old country people began to fade away.

 

Joseph Long was a bricklayer and, indeed, a first-class bricklayer at that. He lived with his wife and family in an ivy-covered cottage which stood on its own near the corner leading from the main road to the East End of the village. Being a man of very uncertain temper, he never took a regular job with any one building firm but just took on the brickwork or concreting on his own for any firms doing construction work within reasonable distance of the area. He always kept a pony and trap so that the journeys to and from his work were no problem to him. In addition to his building activities, Joe owned a smallholding of some eight or nine acres of which half was grass and half arable. On the grass he kept a cow, a few head of cattle or sheep, a horse and his pony, also a few pigs which were housed in some ramshackle buildings which stood just inside the gated entrance to the grass field.

 

On his few acres of arable which, like all holdings big or small in those days was kept in tip top condition, he grew various crops according to the then custom of the district in order that the land was kept in apple pie order and the guts were never dragged out of it. In those days nearly all countrymen in charge of land treated it as a sacred rite cropping it in proper rotation, a popular saying being “All the ,mistakes that thee makes on this ere bit o ground, just can’t be id and twill be there ter speak for or against thee as the case may be, thee mind what parson be allus a sayin be sure thee sins ull find ee out”.

 

To get back, however, to old Joe Long, when I said at the beginning that he was a man of uncertain temper was, in fact, putting it mildly, some days. If you happened to meet him, he would stop and chat quite friendly and on another he would stalk by in silence with a face as black as thunder. For some reason or other the old man took a particular dislike to the then Rector of the parish, the Rev Mr Love, and one day on his meeting the padre, who greeted him in his usual cheerie manner with “Ah good morning Long and pray how are you my good man”, Joe who was in one his blackest moods replied with a snarl “I taint your good man an I ates thee thou bugger and I’m a bloody good mind to drop into yer” and, so saying, he proceeded to throw off his coat and the brown bowler hat, which he always wore at the same time, taking up a belligerent and fighting attitude.

 

Now, in the days of his youth, Rev Mr Love had done a lot of boxing and had, in fact, been an amateur middle weight champion and the amiable cleric the light of battle in his eyes bellowed “Long, if I was not in Holy Orders I should call you a bloody fool . However, I assure you that I shall be delighted to accommodate you” and, taking off his coat and laying down his walking stick remarked “Now then man, do you begin or shall I” and Joe, taking one look at the Rectors rippling muscles and the eager light of battle in his eyes, was suddenly made to feel very unsure of the result and so he dropped his eyes, picked up his coat and bowler hat and, shamefaced, shambled off. From then on it was well known throughout the village, that ever after then old Joe gave the rector a very wide berth.

 

In nearly all country areas, when I can first remember, there existed a man who used to manufacture all sorts of medicines and ointments which were supposed to cure any ailment anyone suffered from. Needless to say, some did, and some did not. However, to be fair these men known as herbalists, possessed a world of knowledge concerning all country plants, herbs and berries and must have had some success with their various potions, as they all managed to make a living through their particular trade.

The particular one that I can remember was named Harry Lord. He lived in the nearby town of Newton Pogess and could be often seen in the surrounding fields and lanes over a wide area of the district gathering the plants and herbs which were necessary for the making of his cure alls.

 

In those days, it was very rare for the male population in any of the surrounding areas to refer to Harry by his proper title of herbalist and he was always known locally as that bloody old quack.

 

I can see old Harry now, though sixty odd years have passed, riding slowly along the roads on his old three wheeled tricycle with a box tied on the back in which he used to keep his various specimens. He always sported a long white beard which was clipped neat and tidy and usually wore a black frockcoat and bowler hat.  The old man was also of an extremely varied temper and some days, if you happened to meet him, he would stop and talk all friendly like whereas on another occasion he would almost ignore you and in answer to a greeting give only a surly grunt in reply.

 

We children were always a bit afraid of Harry and mostly used to give him a fairly wide berth, but on one occasion, when three or four of us were playing at something or other on the outskirts of the village, we spied his old tricycle standing under a farmers shed right by the side of the road. One of our number, named Harry Salmon who was always a bit of a devil, at once declared “As how he wore a goin ter av a ride”, we all tried to stop him but to no purpose he mounted the tricycle and pedalled away down the road. Alas, for Harry, he soon found that riding a tricycle was not quite so easy as it looked and, after travelling some distance down the road, he tried to make a quick turn round and, to put it in simple country language, Harry, tricycle and all, tipped arse overhead.

 

To make matters worse, the old herbalist was in the ditch close by gathering herbs and had seen all that was going on. Of course, all us others bolted at once from the scene and, alas, young Harry was caught by old Harry and, once again reverting to country language, received an almighty kick up the arse and was threatened to be reported to the policeman, which at that time of day was frightening to all of us younger generation.

 

Since I began to look back in the past in those far off days of nineteen thirty four, it is amazing the things that come to mind and the differences that have existed between the old days and now, for instance, in those early days, just after the first world war, there was no means of transport from village to town other than by horse drawn vehicles. My father, like most other farmers, used to drive a pony and trap and we often used to go to either Newton market on a Wednesday or Blandford market on a Saturday, but most other people in the village used to rely on a local carrier to convey them to and from the nearby towns. There used to be, in most villages at that time, at least one man who scratched a living by doing odd jobs, driving a horse and some sort of carriage to town on one afternoon each week and also keeping a horse and trap for hire on special occasions.

 

Such a man was John Anson who lived in the nearby village of Cranwell. John was a man who must have possessed a good deal of foresight, because in the early twenties and no doubt tired of the uncomfortable job of driving horses in all weathers, he purchased several second-hand motor buses which had been in use in London for several years and started a regular daily service from Cranwell to Blandford. This venture proved such a success that he was soon able to expand, and it was not long before more motor buses were purchased, and a service was thriving in and through many of its surrounding villages.

 

All John’s family were soon involved in the business, his two sons acting as bus drivers and his two daughters being conductresses, collecting the fares as the vehicles moved along from place to place.

 

Most of those early vehicles lacked most of the comfort of their modern counterparts, being double-deckers, the top deck being uncovered, the seats all wooden with no springs and the tyres made of solid rubber, but few people cared as this new form of transport was, at least, twice as fast and so much less trouble than most of the former horse travel had been.

By nineteen twenty-two, many of the double decker buses had been replaced by what was called charabangs. These were modelled in the fashion of the ordinary open touring motor car which were fitted with a folding waterproof hood and see through celluloid side windows for use in bad weather. These vehicles were also fitted with spring seats and blown up pneumatic tyres and the last word for comfort in those far off days.

 

The old double-deckers were still used for some years for regular local every day runs, picking up and setting down people in the places on the journey as when required. The charabangs were used more for private hire and especially for longer journeys such as to the seaside or to London.  The charabangs were made to carry round about thirty people and, consequently, local people who with most forms of horse travel were limited to journeys of from twelve to fifteen miles on day outings to beauty spots in their immediate area, were now able to visit places as far as one hundred to one hundred and thirty miles away in perfect ease and comfort.

 

In the spring of nineteen twenty three, the great Empire Exhibition was opened at Wembley and, all through the spring, summer and autumn of that year and the year after, day trips were organised from all parts of the country, and most owners of charabangs and motor buses were able to coin a small fortune.

 

Nineteen twenty-three was also the year when the great Wembley Empire Stadium was built, and I well remember the first big event to be held there was the F.A. cup final between West Ham and Bolton Wanderers. A near tragedy occurred on this occasion, the huge crowd which had gathered outside to watch the game, rushed and burst open the entrance gates and a stadium, which was built to hold some hundred thousand people, was bursting at the seams and,  by kick off time at three o’clock, they always reckon that at least double the number were crammed inside, the pitch being covered as well. I am told, by people who were present that day and it is, of course, a well-known fact, that the situation was saved by a single policeman on a white horse who managed, somehow, to shepherd the crowd back to the touch lines and the match was able to be played after all. Since that time, cup finals at Wembley Stadium have always been all ticket and so a near tragedy like the one I have mentioned, has fortunately never been on the cards again.

 

John Anson and his family were among the fortunate ones who benefitted so much by the business of transporting people to and from the great Wembley Exhibition, as they purchased several charabangs before the start and every day, during those two seasons, these vehicles were in demand. As a result of their foresight, two or three years afterwards, they sold out their business to the Eastern National Bus Company and were, more or less, able to retire upon the proceeds.

 

All through the nineteen twenties, changes on a previous unheard-of scale began to take shape all over the world, the biggest being, of course, the large and extensive use of the internal combustion engine. Many different firms began to turn out cars and tractors on a mass production scale, each firm, of course, trying to undercut the other in price for the finished article.

 

The one of course to manufacture the cheapest and capture the lion’s share of the worlds markets, both for cars and agriculture tractors was, of course, Henry Ford the great American manufacturer, and from the middle twenties onwards, his cars and tractors sold new for only £120, both cars and tractors had the same twenty horse power engine fitted to them, the only difference being that the cars ran on petrol whilst the tractors were fitted with a vaporiser and were run on paraffin. Mind you, you had to start the tractors on petrol from an extra tank fitted to them and then switch over to paraffin from the main tank as soon as the engine was hot enough to vaporise the fuel. This then was the beginning of the end of the driving horse on the road and the heavier horses, which had been used for nearly all the work on the farms

 

When I finished school in ninety twenty nine, my father was still sticking to his policy of doing nearly all the work on our farm with his horses, but the fact that many of his neighbours had, by now, purchased a fordson tractor and the continual pleadings of my brother and myself, persuaded him at last it was now time for a change. In the year nineteen thirty he purchased a nearly new fordson tractor and a brand new two furrow oliver plough.

 

He was very fortunate in his purchase from the Ford Motor Company at Blandford in that they had shortly bought before a lot of tack from the sale of a large farmer who had recently gone bankrupt and, therefore, he only gave £100 for the tractor and plough as well.

 

Though sixty years have passed since the day the new implements were delivered, I can still vividly remember the excitement their advent caused and my brother and I were as pleased as cats with two tails, though jealous as to which of us was going to be allowed to drive it first. However, my brother was some ten years older than me, so I had and of course, rightly so, to bow to superior influence and take second place.

 

The first job that the new toy was given, was to plough in six acres of green mustard on a field which had been fallow that year and, keeping the equipment going through most of the daylight hours, my brother and I were able to complete the job in little more than a day. When you come to consider that doing the job with horses, it would have taken the best part of a week, readers will realise what a difference the coming of the tractor made and what a tremendous help it afforded the farmers at that time.

 

Some of the agricultural workers of that period however hated the change, especially the horse keepers who no doubt feared that they would be put out of a job. Such a one was my father’s horse keeper of that date, and he never seemed to be able to say anything bad enough about the change, but he tended to be a morose individual anyway and not a patch on old John Goodfellow who had gone before him.  John, who by this time had semi-retired, still came up to the farm most days and was still very handy for doing numerous odd jobs, took a completely different view. When my father asked him for his opinion of the change his opinion was “It be like this ere Master James, I be too old to eve anything ter do wi these ere new-fangled contraptions, but you wunt never stop changes, an I taint a gooin ter say as anything be no good till I’ve a seed un tried. We shall all eve ter wait an see, time be a wonderful indicator yer know, an in a few years we shall all a find out whether tis right er wrong”.

 

Sadly, poor John never lived long enough to see the real result of his prophecy, but his successor need not have worried over the loss of his job, as my father continued to keep three or four horses for doing all sorts of odd jobs on the farm and the man continued to work on the farm for another ten years from that time.

 

There was no doubt however, that with the advent of the internal combustion engine, farming was, definitely going downhill. This, I hasten to add, was nothing at all to do with the tractor itself or indeed any other of the fast increasing mechanical tackle, the fault lay firstly with the alarming decline in agricultural prices and, secondly, due to the fact that most of the older farm workers were fast dying out and the few who were taking their places were nothing like as efficient and, in any case, had nothing like the pride in their work like those who had gone before.

 

In our district for instance, most of the farms were not all that big mostly being from one hundred and fifty to two hundred acres, consequently they were mostly worked by the farmer and his family perhaps, at most, employing only one man besides.

 

The sight of all farms during the thirties deteriorated alarmingly, hedges were left untrimmed, ditches were not kept cleaned out and hay and corn stocks were built in a higgledy piggledy fashion and the thatch was more or less put on anyhow, never being clipped along the top or the eaves as had been done in the days that had gone before. The village allotments, which had been cultivated and tendered so lovingly for generations, were just let to go and became infested with couch, thistles, nettles and, indeed, every other weed that flourished at that time.

 

The woods and coverts, which the landlords had always been in the habit of keeping in apple pie order, tending the trees and cutting the hazel once every so many years as is required to keep it healthy and in order, now became overgrown with brambles and every other sorts of undergrowth imaginable.

 

The result of this was that the countryside became over-run with rabbits and every wood and hedgerow became alive with them. Thousands of acres all over the country were let to go to waste as it became impossible to keep the pests in check as every crop tried was eaten and never came to harvest at all.

 

There was one twelve acre field on our farm which had a wood on one side and a fir belt along the top which even defeated my father who, as I have said before, was an arable farmer second to none. After cropping the said field with cereals for several years and receiving practically nothing in return, eventually sowed the field down with lucern and letting sheep graze on what little it grew.

 

There was, however in my case, one redeeming feature at that time and, in company with my old pal Mick Miller, I have netted, snared and shot thousands of rabbits which we were able to sell for ninepence or one shilling each. The sport we had then I have never enjoyed so much since and at that time of the day, apart from the sport of catching or shooting them, the rabbit used to supply a wonderful meal. My dear old Mum used to serve them up stewed with carrots, onions and wonderful herbs, stuffed and baked, stuffed and boiled and wonderful rabbit pies, it makes my mouth water even now to think of them.

 

I have to say, however, that since the rabbits contracted the disease of myxomatosis, I have never fancied them and, in fact, have never eaten one since.

 

During the latter thirties many things, besides farming, were changing rapidly, for instance many ordinary people from all walks of life were beginning to acquire a motor car. At that time, it was possible to buy almost any make of car from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. This meant that you could buy a second-hand car say, from two to three years old, for anything from thirty to forty pounds.

 

The first car that I ever had I bought from a friend of mine for only five pounds, admittedly it was ten years old and had been used mainly for hire work, but my friend, who was a motor engineer, had kept it in a superb condition and the all red leather upholstery of the inside was as good as it had been when the car was new and, I should imagine, would have lasted for ever.

 

The fact that I was able to buy it so cheaply, was that the car was much too large for most people and also was very heavy on fuel. However, I was able to buy petrol wholesale from the firm which supplied us with the tractor, for only one shilling per gallon this being some three or four pence less than that which was sold at the pumps.

 

For readers who are interested, the car in question was an Angus Sanderson only made during the early twenties and not all that many either, had it been possible or had anyone possessed the foresight to have preserved such a vehicle till the present day, it would have been worth a small fortune. I am afraid that I never received much tuition when I first started to drive. The friend, from whom I bought the car said “Don’t you worry mate, I’ve got to go to Blandford one day next week and if you come along with me, I can teach you how to drive then”.

 

Sure enough, on the day appointed, my friend arrived to pick me up from the farm soon after breakfast and, having taken my seat beside him, was told to watch very carefully and to pay special attention to everything that he did. He showed me the position of the gears, three forward and one reverse, the position of the clutch, brakes and accelerator also how to change gear, both up and down. There were no synchromesh gears like there are today and one could only change down by what was termed double clutching which meant, if in top gear you had to put your left foot on the clutch, pull the gear lever into neutral, rev up the engine, pull the lever into a lower gear and so away again. I am afraid, like most learners then, it took me some time to get it right and I made an awful grating noise on many occasions. However, like everyone else, I mastered it at the finish and can still do it perfectly today although, of course, there is now no necessity to do so.

 

To go back however to my own first driving lesson, which proved to be the only one I was ever destined to receive, when we got to Blandford, which was some ten miles away from home, my friend, who was always a happy go lucky  and devil may care nature, pulled up the car in the street, switched off the engine and said to me, “Well there you are young Ted, I’ve got to stay here and pick up another vehicle, she’s your car now, so you can take her home yourself, I’ve a showed you all what’s what so you should be alright”. “What the bloody hell” I spluttered “I don’t know how to drive yet”, “no” said my friend laughing uproariously, “but you bloody well will be the time you get home” and so saying he turned on his heel and walked away. To this day, I can remember every detail of that horrific drive home and the near disasters that could have occurred. However, I managed to get home all in one piece at last and, as my friend had prophesised, I did know how to drive from then on, but there was never any doubt that it was a bloody silly thing to do and even if it were possible, it would never do to act such a silly trick today.

 

The best and cheapest car that I ever bought, was a Rover for which I paid the modest sum of thirty-five pounds. This car was all black in colour with dark blue and leather upholstery and was in superb condition, only having done some twenty odd thousand miles. Many of the cars at that time of day (I mean around nineteen thirty-six) were fitted with only a six volt battery, but my rover was fitted with a twelve volt battery and had two enormous head lamps. I remember the first time that I took it out at night and switched on the lights, I thought that I possessed two veritable search lights and you could have seen to have picked a pin up on the road. It was a good job that the car was fitted with a good dip switch as, otherwise, oncoming traffic would have had a sorry time

 

The driving test became compulsory in about nineteen thirty five, but I am glad to say that I never had to face this as I had held a driving licence prior to nineteen thirty one, having possessed a motor cycle and, no matter what sort of driving licence one had possessed, you were automatically excused a driving test of any sort.

I well remember teaching my younger sister, my brother and my girlfriend to drive in that old rover, and all of them managed to pass first time when they came to take their test, however. I don’t suppose that the test then was anything like as difficult as what it is today.

 

With the advent of the relatively cheap second-hand cars, the amount of traffic on the roads increased enormously and many ordinary families were able to afford one. This meant that many, who were fortunate enough to have the weekend off, used to go out on picnics to various beauty spots and trips to the seaside on many and frequent occasions.

 

All this meant that, games such as tennis, golf, cricket and football, were beginning to take place on Sundays’ and the gradual falling off of many peoples’ religious observance was the inevitable result. Places of worship both, Church and Chapel, began to be sparsely attended all over the country and the Parsons began to preach sermons condemning the whole practise and issuing dire prophesies as to the fate of all who were indulging in such serious immoralities. However, no-one will be certain of whether they were right or not until we all reach the other side.

 

As the end of the nineteen thirties began to draw near, another more serious danger began to raise its ugly head and that was the threat of war.

 

In Germany the rapid rise of Hitler and, to a lesser extent Mussolini in Italy, to dictatorial power and the powerful re-arming with new and powerful weapons by both, began to cause alarm and despondency to many of us and, the fact that both began to threaten, and even to annex, smaller and weaker neighbouring countries should have warned the government of the day that something very serious was afoot. Instead, however, a programme of appeasement was adopted and in nineteen thirty-eight was only narrowly averted, as many of us can well remember.

 

By the Spring of nineteen thirty-nine, Hitler had over-run both Austria and Czechoslovakia and Mussolini had done the same to Ethiopa and Albania. The serious situation could, therefore, no longer be ignored and, at long last, the Government began to re-arm and conscription was introduced to all young men between the age of eighteen and nineteen were called up.

 

The following events of that summer are historically recorded and known by us all and, therefore, there is no need for me to repeat them and from now on all that need concern us are the facts that affected our own village and the area that surrounds it.

 

In the latter days of that August, it became plain to us all that a great war was only just around the corner and all those in the village, who had for some time received air raid wardens in the village and special constable duty, received orders to stand by, also all the evacuees due to be sent from London to our area arrived at North Cowley and were billeted in various peoples’ houses as agreed beforehand. I remember that my mother had agreed to accept two girls and we were very lucky in that the two girls, when they arrived, were from a decent home, clean and very well behaved, quite a number were not so fortunate, some came from slum areas, were dirty, nit ridden and very badly behaved.

 

Our two girls, names Helen and Iris were fourteen and eleven years of age respectively and both were very attractive, though altogether different in appearance. Helen was tall, slim and possessed a head of gorgeous red hair whilst Iris was dark haired though still quite and an attractive little girl.

 

When they arrived at the farm, I can remember that they were naturally very tearful and afraid, but they very soon got over this and gloried in living on a farm with the large open spaces, green grass fields, trees and wonderful country fresh air. It was very noticeable to soon note the improvement healthwise, as on arrival they tended to be pale faced, but in a very short time they were tanned and brown like the rest of us and very soon adjusted to the difference in town and farm life. Those children, that were fortunate enough to be billeted on a farm, also received a great benefit diet wise as, no matter how tight rationing became, one always had one’s own fresh milk and eggs. Also, in most cases, home cured bacon as well.

 

I am glad to say that, though fifty years have passed since that time, my wife and I have kept in touch with those two girls and both have been to visit us on several occasions and, although they are both married with grown up families, we always write and exchange Christmas cards every year.

 

On the first of September nineteen thirty-nine, we were carting spring oats from a field called lower Monks Wood, when the local Miller arrived on horseback for his fortnightly orders. The old man, who must at that time been well over seventy and a keen member of the local hunt, always called at the farm about the same time in the morning, the same as he had done for most of his life and, even though he was a tall fine built man, upright as a dart, his flowing moustache like his horse faultlessly groomed, his riding clothes of the then latest fashion and I never saw him but what he was sporting a fawn coloured bowler hat.

 

I think that to this day, I could take anyone to the exact spot in that field where I was engaged in pitching a shock of spring oats up to the lad who was loading the horse and cart that stood there, then the old man riding up and saying “Good morning my lads, I have some serious news for you, this morning that bloody old Hitler and the Germans have invaded Poland and so that means we also shall ourselves be at war within the next few days, as you very well know”. That then, was how I personally received the news which was to herald the outbreak of a war and which was destined to rule all our lives for the following six years, although not many realised this at the time.

 

After mid-day dinner on that fateful September day, I had to hurry to the nearby town of Newton Poges in order to purchase blackout material, as the order had been broadcast on the one o’clock news, that all windows had to be darkened that very evening in case of premature air raids and one could sense, on all sides, an air of expectancy, just as though some frightful unknown beast of prey was about to attack us on all sides. Luckily, our fears were unfounded however, as nothing occurred over that weekend to disturb our peace of mind.

At eleven o’clock on the Sunday morning of September the third, the then Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, broadcast the now historic message informing the nation that we were at war with Germany as from that hour. Apparently, an ultimatum had been delivered, twelve hours earlier, warning Hitler that, unless word was received that he was prepared to stop the invasion of Poland, war would be declared as from eleven o’clock on that Sunday morning.

 

I can well remember that fateful broadcast and seeing my father being most emotionally affected as a result and, with tears in his eyes, saying to my mother “Well my dear, we came through the first world war together and I can’t help wondering if we shall both be spared to see the end of this one”.

 

We had quite a crowd for Sunday dinner on that day as my fiancée and two cousins were staying with us and there were the parents of our two little girl evacuees turned up to see that they were both alright. However, my mother managed to feed us all without any particular fuss or bother. As I have said before, we nearly always did have one or two relatives unexpectedly turn up for Sunday dinner, so I suppose she was well used to it. To this day, however, it remains a mystery to me however she coped and without ever a grouse or a grumble. If any modern lady was confronted with such a situation, I am sure that they would have a bloody fit.

 

I well remember that it was my Sunday off on that particular day. My father and elder brother used to do the milking and feed the stock on one Sunday and myself and an employee used to do it on the other, thus giving us all just a mite of free time, which I can assure readers was a very rare thing to occur at that time.

 

My fiancée and myself went to tea at one of her Aunt’s that Sunday afternoon. The family at that time lived close to the old R.A.F. station at Cardington, where at one time all the old airships were constructed. It had then become a station for barrage balloons, and it was very interesting to see the many balloons that were being tried and tested on that now very far off Sunday afternoon.

Contrary to expectations, nothing much happened during the following six months and it became, as what was known, at that time, as the phoney war. Of course, we were all subject to many new rules and regulations, most things were rationed, as even then many of our ships were being sunk at sea as a result of German U boat attacks, and we on all farms were controlled by War Agricultural Committees, with the threat of being turned out if we did not farm up to standard.

 

There was very little chance of this happening to us however, as it now meant that much old pasture had to be ploughed up to grow much extra corn and my father was one of the best arable farmers that I have ever seen, although one could not help but notice that with advancing years the old man was not quite as keen as he had been in bygone days.

 

In the spring of nineteen forty the phoney war, as it had been called, came to an abrupt halt, as in April the Germans invaded and very quickly overran Denmark and Norway and, in spite of at that time our very small efforts to contain them came to nothing and our fighting forces were very soon forced to evacuate and return to this country having, I regret to say, achieved very little indeed.

 

The only small comfort that began to be felt in these islands, was the rapid rise to the front of the then First Lord of the Admiralty Mr Winston Churchill. Not many people had much faith in Mr Chamberlain, the then Prime Minister, and most of us thought that it could not be very long before Mr Churchill would take his place. I well remember that, at that time, Mr Churchill used to speak to the nation on a Sunday evening, after the nine o’clock news, on the wireless and everyone taking the usual Sunday evening stroll and stopping to have a chat with a neighbour, would inevitably finish up by saying “Ah well, we shall have to hurry home now so as not to miss Winnie on the wireless tonight”. The old man’s brilliant speeches at that time were, indeed, a great comfort and revelation to us all.

 

The situation, however, was soon to take on a much greater and more serious turn for the worse, as on May the tenth the Germans invaded France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Tory Government, under Mr Chamberlain, fell and a National Government, under the premiership of Mr Winston Churchill, was rapidly formed. The threat of invasion hung like a fetted pall over us all and, when one went to bed at night, one felt an overhanging feeling of depression and feared that God only knows what would happen before morning.

 

On the evening of May the fourteenth however, Mr Anthony Eden, the then Minister of State for War, broadcast an appeal for men between the ages of seventeen and sixty five to register at any police station to form a force to be known as the Local Defence Volunteers. These were to be uniformed and armed and would be used mainly to keep watch over the entire countryside and deal with any attempted airborne landing by enemy, especially during the hours of darkness. Within a very few days, more than a million men had registered and stood ready for action, although for some time they were woefully short of suitable weapons. From now on I feel that, to interest readers, I can do no better than describe the experiences of my own and the North Cowley troop of the local defence volunteers, afterwards, of course, known as the Home Guard.

 

On hearing the broadcast on that far off May evening, then I rapidly got in touch with my elder brother and suggested that we should join the force as soon as possible and, as the time that evening was getting on, we decided to go to our nearest police station, which was at Newton Poges, first thing in the morning. On registering, we were told that a mass meeting of all who had registered was to be held in the Town Hall that evening to sort out Officers to be in charge of the various platoons that would be formed over the entire area.

 

It was decided at the meeting to appoint a Major Smith, a retired Officer from the first world war, to be in command of the forces in our area and a very popular choice,  second in command was to be Leslie Cole, the local Miller, who was given the rank of Captain.

 

A force had to be formed at once in every town and village to watch out and patrol all areas every night as paratroopers were liable to be dropped by the enemy at any time or place. When the volunteers from each area came to be counted, it was discovered that only seven men from our village had registered for duty which, I am sure, was not from any lack of willingness for duty, but owing to the fact that our village was nearly all agricultural and so probably the evening before, when the request for volunteers was broadcast, many of the men would have been at work either on the farms or toiling their considerable allotments and never heard the broadcast, or more likely the fact that the nearest police station was over five miles away and transport for many was difficult.

 

In any case, for whatever reason, as there were only seven men from our village registered, the Major decided that we should all meet at our house (by that I mean Tapps Green Farm) to plan our course of action. So, I have always been proud of the fact that the North Cowley platoon of the LDV, later of course re-named the Home Guard, was formed in our front room. A small piece of history was made on that now far off evening.

 

As there was only one of our number, apart of course from the Major, who had any knowledge of military matters, it was naturally decided that he should be asked to take charge and was given the rank of 1^st Lieutenant, his name, in fact, was Arnold Mills and he was Farm Manager to Mr Ian Bosworth, who owned the village estate.

 

Although on that evening we were only seven in number, the Major decided that, as the situation was so serious and the whole country in dire peril, our area had to be patrolled every night and so we seven had to meet as soon as darkness fell and patrol the area until the following day dawned. We had no proper weapons at that time, so we each provided ourselves with a good ash plant, apart that was from young Hoddle as he was known locally and our youngest recruit, he turned up with a huge carving knife, in addition to his cudgel, and when we ribbed him about this, said that when the enemy came if he failed to knock their bloody heads off with his stick, he would certainly knife the buggers. However, nothing happened on that far off warm and pleasant spring night and we all came off duty at daylight and took up our various duties, tired but happy.

We could not, of course, carry on for long with such a weak force and the Major went round the village next day and let it be known that a meeting would be held next evening at the local village hall and all volunteers between the age of seventeen and seventy would be welcomed and enrolled in the force. I shall never forget that evening at the village hall, well over one hundred turned up, all of them eager and willing to face whatever was necessary to help the old country in her hour of need, even to the fact of laying down their lives.

 

For a start everyone had to fill in and sign a form in order to become a recruit in the new force and we seven, who had previously joined up, were given the job of helping and witnessing the completing of these forms by one and all. When all had been completed the Major picked out the men who were to be in charge of the various sections to be on guard every night from then on and, of course, those selected were old soldiers, veterans who had served with the colours during the first world war, they then being given the rank of Sergeant.

 

For a start, it was decided that sixteen men, plus Sergeant in Charge, should be on duty every night. This meant that we had to be on duty all night every fourth night but, afterwards, it was decided to reduce the number to eight, which meant we were all required to be on duty all night just under one night a week, which I can assure readers was much easier and better for everyone concerned.

 

There was considerable argument at the meeting about our method of procedure in the event of enemy parachutists landing in our area, and the Major was adamant that, if this occurred, we were on no account to attempt to engage them on our own but were to contact the Military Authorities at once and a force of professional soldiers would always be on standby, ready to deal with whatever situation arose immediately.

 

Many of the old soldiers present at that meeting did not agree with this method of procedure at all and Charles Chase, who had been a crack shot and, incidentally, a sniper in the first world war, voiced the general disapproval in no uncertain manner, “What the bloody hell” he roared “You let me have a service rifle and plenty of ammo and if there were a hundred of the buggers landed in a field within any sight and range, I’d guarantee to kill every bugger afore they could get to the nearest hedge” “That’s all very well Chase” said the Major smiling “but you see, we don’t all possess such skill with a rifle as you appear to do and, as you might not be in the vicinity of the landing, I’m afraid that we shall be obliged to stick to the orders that have officially been issued”. Poor Charles was, therefore, obliged to accept the Major’s ruling, which he did with much grumbling and cursing under his breath.

 

As I have already stated, sixteen men and a Sergeant went on duty every night for a start, but after, this was reduced to eight, we took up headquarters at Major Caisters, who owned a large house in the village. This house, incidentally, had once been the village rectory and stood in about forty acres of beautiful park land and possessed stables and other outbuildings for livestock. The Major was called up for military duty as soon as war was declared and had disposed of all his animals for the duration.

 

The Home Guard, as it was then called, were allotted the harness room and stables in which to spend their nights of duty, and those not on actual guard, had to sleep in a quantity of wheat straw littered thickly on the cobbled floor for all the world like a lot of bloody ole ugs as one old fellow put it, he further swore blind that he had pigged during the night and had produced a dozen real good little uns for morning.

 

Before going on duty, which was mostly ten o’clock at night or, as we were supposed to say, 22 hundred hours, most of us used to spend a couple of hours at one of the local pubs, of which there were then three in the village, and though the supply of beer was then limited, at least one of them usually had some.

 

At that period, the price of beer had not risen and mostly was only four pence or six pence a pint and, therefore, most especially the sergeants, could afford to get well oiled. The old sergeant in charge of our section, named Goodfellow had soldiered right through the first world war and, incidentally, had what he used to term a bloody rough time being a short thick set man. I have heard him say that, before a charge, he had stood in the trenches very nearly up to his neck in water and mud.

 

Anyway, dear old Henry, or Ned as we always called him, had an infinite capacity for beer and never reckoned to go on duty without at least a gallon inside him, when he used to say that he wore bloody near fit for anything. On entering the harness room at the headquarters, to take up his duties for the night, Ned would slump in an armchair, reserved for the Sergeant in Charge, and proceed to eat his supper. This usually consisted of a huge lump of cheese about half a loaf and half a dozen raw onions. On the completion of his considerable repast, he would sit back contentedly in his chair and proceed to belch and fart all night. I well remember that the harness room was small and, being heated with a smelly old oil stove, was very warm also, the ventilation was nil, few of us could stand it for long and, when not on guard, were glad to go and lay down in the straw in order not to be poisoned.

 

Before many weeks had passed however, the straw in which we had to sleep, became lousy and we were then issued with camp beds, which was a definite improvement, only they were not very strong and you had to be careful when erecting them as they were apt to collapse during the night and deposit one on to the cobbled floor.

 

I remember on one particular night a lad, not on duty and well known as a randy young bugger, brought a girl into the stable when we were all asleep and proceeded to involve in a kiss and a cuddle and, no doubt, other performances as well, on a camp bed nearby. All at once, I suppose through being a bit too active in his performance, the bed collapsed and the pair of them were deposited to finish whatever they were up to on a very hard and stony floor. The noise, of course, woke everyone up including Ned who voiced his disapproval in no uncertain manner shouting “Look er Jo, I aint got no objection to your getting up to yer tricks in the right place, but yer aint a avin none o your oats in ere. If I catches either on yer in ere agen, I shall boot the pair on yer up the bloody arse, so you mind that”.

 

Of course, most of us had no previous knowledge of military matters at all and so several regular army Sergeants were sent out to instruct us in the arts of drill and rifle shooting, it being felt at headquarters that our own Sergeants and Commanders, having been out of the Army for many years, had not sufficient knowledge of modern methods of warfare which, of course, had or, at any rate, should have changed considerably over the years. But, considering the mess that the old country found itself in at that time, most of us began to wonder if that really was the case.

 

In any event, rightly or wrongly, the powers that were in charge decided we were to have so called proper military instruction and so we had to submit to method and language unfamiliar to us all and quite a few in our own company, who were somewhat religiously minded, were disgusted at the crude, and, sometimes, vulgar terms many of our lecturers thought fit to use.

 

I remember one army Sergeant in particular, giving us our first lesson in the use and firing of a service rifle. We had to lie down on our tummies, rifle held over a pillar or bulster in front, and fire at a target some twenty five yards away and, when we were manoeuvred into what we thought was more or less the correct position, the sergeant exploded “God almighty, you look like a bloody lot of ole boys sent out by a farmer to fright the sodding crows. For Christs sake, cuddle your rifle as though it were yer best gal, and lay wi yer legs wide open, all the lot o yer remind me of a young gel got the rag on fer the first time and frit ter death, thinking that yer guts are a goin to fall out”.

 

There were not many of us, except one or two old soldiers, who were not used to being shouted at, using language like that but, in any case, we had no choice but to comply and, in time, most of us became more or less used to the crudeness and unfamiliar form of address.

 

Most of our company of Home Guards had never fired out of any sort of rifle before and, therefore, it took many a considerable time to do any good at firing with a rifle at any sort of target. But, in my own case, I had been used for much of my life to shooting with shotguns, air rifles and .22 rook rifles and, therefore, shooting with a 300 or 303 service rifle was very little different. The only exception being that the caller had considerably more kick. When it came to firing on the longer ranges at 200 yards, after fixing the first shot you were informed as to the exact position on the target where your first shot struck and the aim was then to fire your remaining rounds at the same spot in order to form a group. Most of the members in our group, although they did manage to get most of their shots on the target, their groups were never all that close, but myself and two other members, who had been used to firing with smaller rifles, could usually manage a six or eight inch group which, though I say it myself, was not too bad at 200 yards range.

 

However, we could never compete with Charlie Chase, and our second in command Toby Danby, who had both been snipers in the first world war and could always be relied upon to secure a group of never more than four inches which, at 200 yards, was indeed somewhat remarkable.

 

There was one man in our company, who I will call just Reg, who was hopeless and I don’t think that he could have hit a stationary hay rick at five yards, was never known to even get a shot on the whole target and once, when we were firing at 200 yards into the side of a hill, he sent a shot clean over the top and smashed a bedroom window in a house in the next village, a mile or so away. Poor old Reg, he always came on duty at night and, without fail, three parts cut and usually muttering “It ain’t no good chaps, if the buggers come tonight, we shall have ter fight them on the retreat”.

 

We used to have many exciting times, usually Sunday mornings, when we had to mock battles against other local villages and the nearby two of Newton Pogess.

 

Toby Danby, our second in command, was a brilliant field commander, always managing uncannily to have us in the right place at the right time and he was always a thorn in the flesh of Major Cole who was the commander of the Newton Pogess Town group and was supposed to be the big shot of all the district, but of all the exercises that took place between us Toby always managed to bring us out on top.

 

I remember one Sunday morning in particular, when we were supposed to attack Newton and get right into the town we, of course, were armed for battle with tin helmets, rifles, bayonets, the rifles only loaded with blanks of course, and we also carried some fire crackers and some small paper bags filled with soot, which were supposed to represent hand grenades. The exercise began by Toby sending a small part of our company to attack across the fields, more or less opposite Cowley and Newton, and our main body a long way round the other side of the town, where it was possible to cross the river over a shallow ford and enter the town via some peoples back gardens, the idea being, of course, to draw the enemy forces by the frontal attack while to quote Toby’s words, “Our main force will hit the buggers up the arse hard from the rear”.

 

The plan worked to perfection and I well remember our main force entering the town practically unopposed, Toby in the lead roaring and shouting, firecrackers and rifles making one hell of a noise. I remember, at the finish, Toby hurling a soot bomb at Major Cole covering him in soot from head to foot. The Major, understandably, was not amused shouting at Toby that he was taking things too far. Toby, however, was unrepentant saying “It ain’t no good sir, we are got you lot be the knackers an if that had bin a real bomb, you would a bin all bloody bits be now”. Soon, however, all was forgiven and forgotten, and we all congregated in the local pub, where we all enjoyed a good old booze up and returned in right good humour to our Sunday dinners.

 

All through that summer of 1940 however, matters for the country got worse and worse and the enemy began to terrorise the population with a series of heavy bombing raids, both by day and night finishing one Sunday in September with a series of heavy daylight raids over the southern part of the country with hundreds of heavy bombers and we were all convinced that an invasion of our island was about to take place, but we were saved by the magnificence of our own small fighter aircraft, consisting as it did with hurricane and spitfire planes manned by brave and heroic young men who, that day, shot down 185 of Hitler’s heavy bombers and well might Mr Churchill say that ‘Never was so much owed by so many to so few’. We members of the Home Guard were stood to and had to be in uniform all day that Sunday so we should have been ready to do our duty if the worst had happened.

 

Apart from all that summer threat from the air, our land forces never faired any better, the German Army overran and defeated all France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg and our army was trapped and surrounded at Dunkirk and was only saved by every ship and boat that was sailable, being sent across the English Channel to fetch the defeated army home and this they succeeded in doing, in spite if merciless enemy air attacks and many many casualties. There is no doubt that this brave and magnificent act saved the country and, in the finish, won the war.

 

Meanwhile, all that summer we, as civilians, experienced many exciting and thrilling times and I well remember, one night, being on Home Guard duty and standing on the waste ground with Fred Bingley, it was a bright moonlit night and everywhere was absolutely silent, when all at once there was one of the loudest explosions that I have ever heard. The enemy had dropped a land mine on a parachute just the other side of Cranwell Village. “Bloody F—ing ell” shouted Fred “the buggers are here” and there followed such excitement that I shall never forget every bedroom window, that had not been damaged by the force of the explosion, flew open as well as front doors and ladies, in all manner of night attire, surged forth into the street and I never expect to witness such a revealing experience again.

 

Harvest time was now upon us again and a more important harvest was never experienced in this country before, many of our food ships were being sunk by the enemy U boats thereby losing us vital food stuffs and the lack of vital equipment, labour and all other suppliers were making farming extremely difficult. I was helped that year by managing to secure the services of a grand elderly fellow named Arthur Hedge. Hedgy, as he was always known, was a threshing engine driver by profession, who has an extremely interesting and eventful life. He was called up early and served right through the first world war, being wounded three times. He had one rifle bullet through his head and another through his arse and then, part of his left shoulder was blown away by a near bursting shell which, of course, finished his army career. On being invalided out of the army he met and married a nurse who had looked after him in hospital up in Yorkshire. Ill fortune, however, dogged him again as his wife died a few weeks later in that dreadful flu epidemic that swept across Europe in March 1918.

 

After a period of mourning and dejection however, he returned to his native village of North Cowley where he met and married a lady who was a widow of one of his old pals who, unfortunately, was killed in the first world war. They lived happily together here for a good many years, bringing up four children, three boys and one girl. Hedgy then carried on his former work as threshing engine driver, also being a church bell ringer which he did, in spite of his handicap, mainly controlling his bell with his tight arm only and always ringing the treble which is light and easy to manage.

 

To return, however, to the harvest, we progressed well Hedgy building all the corn ricks and generally keeping us all in order and on the move, he could never abide to see anyone idle or “bloody well mucking about” as he termed it “come on yer buggers” he would shout “we ain’t got all bloody day”. It always amazed me, the old man could do almost any job on the farm in spite of his severe handicap and he would certainly set a wonderful example to many moaning minnies, who call themselves workers today.

 

Another old fellow who helped us that harvest was Ned Goodfellow, who I have mentioned before and, although he was now getting old, could still be extremely useful. Ned used to chew a big lump of twist tobacco all day and you had to look out when working anywhere near him as he would spit out a great black gob very frequently and continuously belch and fart like a trooper all day long.

 

Meanwhile, the war situation became more serious as the autumn advanced as the enemy began a series of night raids, using hundreds of heavy bombers and bombs. I well remember one particular bright moonlit night in November when they were backwards and forwards all night it bloody set cart, as my father remarked, when all the family lie on the floor in the sitting room. It was impossible to go to bed owing to the continual droning noise of the planes and being almost at fever pitch and wondering what and where the damage was taking place. Next morning, we were all to know that it was the city of Coventry that had suffered as the whole place was practically blown to pieces and literally hundreds of people were killed.