Memories Of An Early Childhood In Clutton (1931–1942)
by Lena Church (2009)
There was a playing field at Maynard as well. It was east of the single rank of houses and lots of the big boys played there. It was known as The Rec. and belonged to Mr Alf Maggs who farmed at Churchlands on the comer of Venus Lane. I was always half afraid to go over there.
There were one or two treats which we rarely missed Out on. We always went to the pantomime around Christmas time, and for the following four or five weeks my ambition was to be a chorus girl. Later, when I was 9 or 10, I simply wanted to work in a shoe shop!
We didn't miss out on Sunday School Outings either. Weston super Mare was the usual with afternoon tea at Browns Restaurant Pre-war railway excursions were taken advantage of as well. "Specials" to Weymouth from Clutton station via Frome; what a treat. Winifred Taviner quite often came with us on these trips. Perhaps her parents couldn't afford to come as well. We were the same age and in the same class at school, and Winifred came to Methodist Sunday School. Esme and her family were "church"
Sometimes Winifred and I would play together, and I recall that we had fictitious friends called Audrey and Pamela, who played with us. The Taviners always had cats. One particular tabby was called Crongie. Thinking about it now, I reckon it must really have been Kronje, after a south African military man, but only ever having seen it written the correct pronunciation was unknown.
Winifred had an Auntie Jessie who lived in a cottage at Bendall's Bridge. Auntie Jessie was somewhat deaf and took no notice when we knocked all hell out of an old harmonium that she had. We would push and shove to be next to have a go, and what a challenge to co-ordinate pedalling to make it work, reading the music and actually playing the thing.
We had cats as well. An early memory is of Granny Bush wiggling her finger through the mesh of the fire guard, and the cat pouncing to join in the game. Tim is the first cat I remember, he was black and white.
Granny Bush died in 1938. Mother's cousin Alfie lodged with her at number 41, and he found her dead in bed. I can see my mum now, wiping her eyes with her pinny as Alfie came with the news. Mother was vexed because the other cousins living nearby removed Grannies wedding ring. This was the second ring that Granny had, as apparently her first one came off and was lost, only to be found at a later date. So there were two rings and in 1957, my sister had them made into a wedding ring for herself. That is a nice little provenance.
I think I must have been left in the care of Mrs Light next door, on the day of the funeral; remember I was 7. However, when the mourners came back to the house, it was to find that George Light and I had cut each others hair. It must have lightened an otherwise sombre day!
I always wanted to have a four wheeler trolley to ride on. A long plank of timber with a fixed axle at the back and one on the front that swivelled as it was guided with the feet placed on the axle, between the wheels and the plank. Then a long piece of rope was added to help with the steering. But I never had any wheels, Some kids always seemed able to get hold of an old pram chassis, but not me, I did play with the Selway boys though, they had a trolley and we rode it down Church Lane until it tipped over. I reckon the three of us were going a pretty good lick and the accident caused some piece of' metal to go into Bernard's ankle. The blood flowed. Bernard cried and the three of us rushed home to their house, Maurice got a good hiding for not looking after his little brother better, Bernard cried even louder when it was mentioned that the doctor would be sure to put iodine on the wound, and I ran home. Crying as well I expect. But I was deterred - I still wanted a trolley, so I went to the rubbish tip with Esme to see if we could find some wheels. This was out of bounds but we went never-the-less.
The tip was at Bendall's Bridge. There is a bungalow built there now. The scavengers, as they were known in those days, came every week and collected everything from ashes to broken china, cans, bottles and hopefully wheels. And this is where it was dumped. The tip sloped like screes down to the stream and if you got yourself at the right angle you could slide from top to bottom and almost land in the brook. It all went wrong on this occasion as my leg went down into the ashes and a hot cinder got inside my shoe an burnt my foot. So time to go home, show my mother and plead ignorance as to what had brought it about. "Oh," said my mum, "It looks almost like a burns what can it be?" don't know," I said, lying through my teeth.
Esme called later and innocently remarked, "We mustn't go there again. … I never did have a trolley!
I played on the railway line with Maurice and Bernard. Maurice had a ha'penny and had this theory that if he put it on the rail for the engine to run over, it would be flattened to the size of a penny and he would have doubled his money. Well of course, the squashed coin looked nothing like a penny, and then somebody told him he would be in trouble with the police for doing this to money, and Maurice was very frightened. The expression “defacing the coin of the realm” wasn't one with which we were familiar.
When Maurice was a little boy he would drive his imaginary lorry in his Granny's garden, double-de-clutching on pretend pedals and changing gear with old fire irons pushed into the earth. Brrrmm Brrrmm ! Another little boy called John Church drove his lorry by running around the street steering with a little wheel in his hands. Do children still know how to pretend?
With Esme and Glenys I picked and ate the sweet wild strawberries which grew on the lower disused line by Station Wood. We would sit on the style by the footpath which ran along in front of Dawson's bungalow and wave to the engine driver. On other occasions we would go on along the line and climb up the steep embankment at the side of King Lane Bridge. Here we would scramble over the wall, wait for a train and hang over the parapet, to be engulfed in smoke and steam as the engine came bursting from beneath. Oh, the smell ..! I can still capture it
Along the line in the other direction from Clutton station, there was a shallow cutting before the track went under Marsh Lane Bridge. Here there were two or three natural little ponds that had evolved in the rock cavities left from when the cutting had been excavated. This was a really good place to look for frog spawn and newts. We didn't venture further down the line beyond the bridge.
If we were going to Bristol with my mother, then we went on the train to Temple Meads. To get to the shops, it would be a walk along Victoria Street into Temple Street, over Ha'penny Bridge and around Tower Hill. It was always a puzzle to me how we could go into Woolworth's from one street, go up interior stairs and still come out at street level. Magic!
Coming home from Bristol on the train was the nightmare. The engine on the return journey stopped level with the signal box at Clutton, and to cross the line to leave the station meant walking along this narrow gap between the snorting monster of an engine and the high wall of the signal box. All the way home I would plague my' mother, " You won't cross the line until the train has gone, will you?" "You won't cross the line until the train has gone?" Sometimes she would wait and sometimes she would not and haul me past the engine. It terrified me.
We all went to Bristol once, all the family, some neighbours as well I think. We were taken to the circus, Bertram Mills's circus. It was on Horfield Common. We went on the train to Temple Meads and then we walked, and walked, and walked, all the way there. I was only about 7. It must have been about three miles. I can remember the circus girls standing on the backs of the horses and galloping around the ring. I also remember being totally bored watching trapeze artists doing their stuff high up in the roof of the big top. That was the entertainment while the big bars were being assemble around the ring ready for the lions act. I never did laugh at clowns - still don't. Then remember, we had to walk all the way back
Going to the bake house was another distraction if no one was about. Ralphie Dando was the baker - he came from a family of bakers, they had bake houses in Pensford and Chew Magna - his wife ran the grocery shop next door. Working for Ralphie was Mr Sealey, he had a big bushy grey moustache and to me, as a child, he seemed to be totally white. Partly I think from the flour, but mostly from being incarcerated in the bake house from the wee small hours and rarely seeing the light of day. The bread was delivered soon after breakfast, so they must have been up half the night baking it. And the hot cross buns came on Good Friday morning.
Ralph was a wag; a great leg puller but if things got too hilarious and Mrs Dando heard, she was out of the shop and into the bake house like a shot, to send us all packing.
Once when I was the only kid there, Ralph sent me round to the shop to ask for some "elbow grease". I went in all innocence and when Mrs Dando gave me the bone from a ham joint, I really believed that was what it was. It became quite a joke as my mother happened to be in the shop at the time.
The Dando’s had a smooth haired terrier called Toby. He used to run in the field at the back and we didn't like him. In my mind now, I see him looking like Bill Syke's dog "Bulls Eye". Esme, Glenys and me were going for a picnic one day, planning to go across to Red Haze and the Dumps but when we reached the top of The Avenue, just a hundred yards from home, Toby was in the path. He stared at us and we stared at him and we wouldn't pass him. When he stayed there, and stayed there and wouldn't go away, we sat in the wicket gate by the road, ate our jam sandwiches and then went home. The whole expedition lasting all of 20 minutes.
There was another little dog of which we were all afraid. He was Pandy Mansfield and belonged to the Rector's wife. He was a nippy little thing and the blighter had me twice, although Mrs Mansfield wouldn't believe it. Esme, Glenys and I were doing an errand one day for their mother. We had to take a tea chest to the Rectory. How Mrs Brimble had come by a tea chest I have no idea, but to the Rectory it had to go. It was tradesman's entrance for us kids, around to the right from the main gate and through the trees. This brought us to what we called a "barton". It was a sort of yard with flagstones, a high wall around and shaded by trees. It had a funny smell, damp and boiled cabbage. The back door was two steps high and it always took an age for Mrs Mansfield to answer. On this occasion we didn't get as far as that. We got inside the grounds and out carne Pandy, snapping and growling, so with great inspiration Esme shouted "Get in the box! Get in the box" We all three scrambled into the tea chest and there we were - The dog was running around yapping, we were shrieking like the silly little girls we were. Until Mrs Mansfield came out to see what all the fuss was about. Well of course, she told us not to be so silly, took possession of the tea chest and we three scampered off "Pandy" was named after the giant panda bear which was new at Regent's park zoo in the 1930's. On a school trip to London I just recall standing by the panda cage waiting to see him, but being the shy creature that he was, it was waste of time as he never appeared.
On this trip, we went by train to Paddington, and I was intrigued with the taxi- cabs being right on the station platform. And it was a dead end! The word Terminus would not have been known to me. I thought it very strange! We all piled into coaches and one child was told off for throwing a toffee paper out of the window. This was LONDON where the streets were swept clean! What a joke now! We were taken to the Houses of Parliament, presumably to be met by our MP: who was I believe a Mrs Mavis Tate.
Then we waited and waited and waited for what seemed to we children like hours and hours. We were all inside Westminster Hall which for me, decades later was another of those 'deva vu' occasions. It must have been a lovely day, because one thing which stuck in my mind was seeing a blue River Thames from the balcony of the House.
Esme seemed to have lots of cousins and on a couple of occasions she was a bridesmaid . Oh, how envious I was. I longed to be a bridesmaid. An image that doesn't fit well with the trolley loving tomboy. I was a bridesmaid eventually but not until I was in my mid-teens.
When there was a village wedding it was tradition for the children to tie the church gates together and after the ceremony the bridegroom had to throw money to have the gates untied. It was a rugby scrum, scrambling around in the dirt for ha'pennies and pennies. However, there was one occasion when the bridegroom had made the mistake of not having a pocketful of coppers and he tossed half-a-crown over the gate. Well, it wasn't a rugby scrum that day, it was full blown fisticuffs. One lad got hold of the coin and another one laid into him. Wham. Bam. The second boy's father was prepared to make an issue of it and it was some time before
hostilities ceased. In this instance I must say, "No names, No pack drill"
Our closest relations were my aunt and uncle who lived at Keynsham. Now that was a trek to go visiting. It would be train to Brislington, walk down into Brislington village and then catch a bus to Keynsham. It would all have been arranged by letter and frequently, my Auntie Lottie, who was my father's sister, would be at the bus stop to meet us. Auntie Lottie and Uncle Fred were great favourites, and they lived in a new house with a BATHROOM. What luxury. They had a daughter Peggy, our cousin who was about seven years older than me and seemed very grown up. Sometimes they would come to visit us, and I remember all of us going to pick bluebells in Tynemore Wood. As I was growing up, Peggy was the one who never forgot birthdays, always had good ideas for Christmas presents, and used the most expensive wrapping paper.
Red Haze is the field with the dumps and on the top pan of the field is a wide flat area where in the 1930's Clutton Football Club played their matches . There was a small changing hut nearby.
Playing out the dumps was great fun; a really good place for a gang to play cowboys and Indians. At one time it had been a small quarry, long enough ago to have totally grassed over.
Out the dumps you could run "Wheeee" down into the bottom and the momentum would carry you up the other side, Then around the tops, arms stretched wide, whining and banking like an aeroplane. We used to shout "Amy Johnson" each time we saw a plane, which wasn't very often. I am not even sure we knew who Amy Johnson was.
The brook ran between the Red Haze and Cholwell field, then fell over a dear little waterfall. Below the waterfall was a good place to paddle, although Esme always insisted that if your feet got too cold then you would get ear ache.
On the slopes of the dumps could be found trembling little harebells and Tom Thumbs their clovey smell. They aren't there now, I looked quite recently. To find the first early primroses, the best place was the south side of the hedge between Gastons and Parks. Or to go a bit further afield, then up to Frankie Dando's field. To get there we went up the flat and along the footpath between Windy Ridge and Ivelhurst_ I wonder if primroses still grow there?
My dad would take us primrosing over towards Stowey. He also knew where to find the very best flowers, and showed us the bank where the orchids grew. And mushrooms - in season he could walk behind me and pick mushrooms.
If we were all out for a Sunday night walk, Dad would cut a length of stick from the hedgerow, I think it was ash, then after making it wet with a bit of spit, he would tap and tap and tap at the bark with the handle of his pen knife until all the bark loosened, then he would ease it away to slide right off. Next, he would make a groove in the stick, make a smaller hole in the bark, replace it, and low and behold. I had whistle. Magic.
One summer we went blackberrying with Esme's mother, and I think her Granny Perry came as well. She took us to Paul Wood where there were lots of cultivated blackberry bushes, They belonged to Fletcher Rees-Mogg and he paid to have the blackberries harvested. I remember it being a particularly good summer, but looking back to childhood, weren't they all? We went for the whole day armed with food for dinner and tea, and it seemed such a long drag from Cholwell. We had to go through the farm yard, up the track past the pig sties and finally into the blackberrying area. It wasn't really a wood, for there were little grassy glades and here and there Scots pines. We would select a good spot to make our base and then get on with the serious stuff of climbing the trees and eating more berries than went in the punnets. At the end of the day, the crop was weighed and your amount put on your tally ready for payment at the
end of the week. I expect Mrs Brimble did it to earn a few bob, but I dare say payment was but a pittance.
Another errand that came round on a regular basis was going to get the accumulator changed. This was to make the wireless work, and Fred Bourton at Temple Cloud offered this service. The expended accumulator was exchanged for a charged one for the cost of a shilling. All the people who had wirelesses had wireless poles in their gardens with the aerial wire from the top of the pole to the house. These poles were usually about thirty feet high.
Father cut out silhouettes of a cat and a mouse from tin and put on top of our pole to act as a weather vane. It painted blue. That was our Dad! Full of ideas.
At school, in Mrs Seymour's class, I was struggling with reading. Sewing all right and embroidery, and Mrs Seymour would trace a simple design onto material through carbon paper for us to stitch with coloured thread. Watching her do that was a fascination She was an excellent teacher and must have despaired of me.
On Monday dinner times about ten minutes before the bell due to go, she would give an exercise in mental arithmetic. She would write a series of numbers - single digits upon the blackboard, one beneath the other and first to add them up correctly was to go early. She would continue this until the bell rang - I always one of the last, waiting for the bell.
It on Mondays that had cold meat and bubble and squeak. cooked by my dad Mother would have all the morning doing the washing out in the house, so dad got the dinner. Then at about ten past one he would bike off to Broad Oak Pit for the afternoon shift.
Mrs Seymour lived in Bristol, and caught the bus home each afternoon. Some times I would walk up the hill with her and once she did a little fart and then made the handle our her case squeak to make me think she hadn't done it. My mother laughed when I told her.
When the weather was good, Dad would take us bike riding on Sunday mornings; always down around the Chew Valley In the days before I had a bike of my I would ride on dad's cross bar where I had a little leather saddle and stirrups for my feet. Sometimes we would call on the Hoddinott family who had a small farm in Stowey.
Dad had lodged with this family when he came home from the war and his own family home was no more. I was fascinated by the two extra mini fingers Mrs Hoddinott had on her hands, Where ever we went we would see people father knew. I was once known to say when we got home, "Our dad knows everybody"
When I became too big to ride on Father's crossbar, I had a 'fairy cycle". It really was quite small, and after that a middle size bike. Then he bought a drop handle-bar bike for Sylv, which he called "a racer". Our Sylv's Racer. No such luck for me - he made me one from spare parts. I was very put out. She gets a new bike and I get a home-made one! So, if Sylv wasn't about, then I would borrow the "racer" and she would be most irate when she discovered what I had done.
Sylv made up for this in later years; she borrowed my umbrella - left it on the bus, borrowed some gloves - lost them; and the one that really got me was when she was setting up home, borrowed my embroidery scissors, these I had won in a competition, and she cut linoleum with them. I never forgave her that one.
I remember Esme and me going on our bikes down Fry's Bottom to get tomatoes at Dobsons, and eating half of them on the way home. A hellish ride which ever way you were going. All that up hill drag around King Lane from Northend, until the steep drop down to the market garden, and that awful up hill climb coming back .
Thinking about it, wherever we rode in Clutton the journey in one direction or the other
was up hill.
Games and past times went in fads as they probably do with children now. Conkers came in the autumn of course and with the avenue close by collecting them was no problem. Then marbles in the spring. I wasn't so keen on that as I never wanted to play for "keeps". Then there was skipping. Such fun in the school playground with a long rope and lots of girls skipping to a rhyming jingle and running in and out of the rope at the appropriate moment. The timing had to be just right.
Playing ball against Jimmy Riggs's garage door was a game you could do on your own. The forecourt of was good level concrete. The game was to bounce the ball at an angle into the ground, to rebound up against the garage door and back to you to catch. After lots of practice you could do this game with two balls. Bounce and catch, under one leg then the other, next through your legs and finally right around behind your back. Then, to increase the difficulty, the pattern was repeated with a clap in between.
Five stones was good as well. We just scratched around in the gutter until we found five stones of similar size and weight. Nowadays the children call them 'jacks' and buy a set in a toy shop One stone was thrown in the air and the others picked up using just one hand, First one at a time, then in twos After that it was one and three, then all four The game advanced by making arches with the finger of your free hand. and still tossing one stone in the air, now the others had to be knocked through each arch made by the fingers. It just needed a nice flat place to play and the bonding stone at the blacksmith's shop was ideal.
There was Cat's Cradle with string. and complicated patterns which we taught each other. There were Winter Warmers made from an old cocoa tins with holes at each end and smouldering rag inside. Blowing air into the holes kept the material burning and really good fun was burning your initials on the lavatory door. This was done with a magnifying glass, heat generated by the sun and concentration on one spot until the wood started to smoke. The magnifying glass had come from one of the crane slot machines on Weston Pier That was a first, as those machines were really a bit of a con. The claws of the grab would pick up an object, swing around to release the item and drop it just before it reached the chute. On that one occasion it worked for us and out came this little magnifying glass.
A really good bit of vandalism was throwing stones at the advertising sign which was fastened to the wall of the Blacksmith Shop It was a big enamelled sign about five feet across and four feet high, It read, "Cole and Pottow, Gentlemans’ Outfitters, Bedminster Parade" A well aimed stone created a resounding clang. A well aimed sharp stone chipped the enamel. This was not a game to play when Mr Tiley was on the premises I daresay he received some payment for the site.
As children we had the run of the village and surrounding fields. There was no danger of abduction or road accident. I can only remember about five people having cars, Mr Lewis Pritchard had a fleet of sentinel wagons and of course Arthur Maggs had his lorries. These he kept on the site of the old brewery. Two reservoirs of water are still there and beside one of them was a huge walnut tree. Mr and Mrs Mages lived in the old Brewery House.
Mr Salman brought the school milk in a van, but milk deliveries around Clutton were by horse and cart. The milk was in churns and was dished out a dipper, probably holding a pint. The dipper had a long handle which curved over at the top and allowed it to hang down into the churn. Customers put their milk jugs on the wall by their gate and the horse knew exactly where to stop, Mr Charlie Parfitt came down Clutton hill and Charlie Sage delivered for Alf Mages but his horse would bite, so it was steer clear of him. If either of them happened to empty it's bladder in the road. What a stink!
Clara Stock came from Temple Cloud with a few deliveries up through The Flat, and on some Sunday mornings she would give me ride up and back. Once she gave me the reins to hold whilst she sorted out the churns and I hadn't a clue. We were all over the wrong side of the road just below the corner of Windy Ridge. As I mentioned, there wasn't much traffic about in those days.
The only strangers ever saw were gypsies and other hawkers, From time to time there would be an Indian gentleman wearing a turban, He sold things from a suitcase and we would hide around the corner and giggle. The only black person we had ever seen. Another man who dragged around with a case full of haberdashery was called Slippery Brimble. He was from one of the local villages and came on a bike.
Anyway, there was always someone watching what was going on. The women liked to stand outside their front doors to watch the world go by. Mrs Light, next door liked to do that then passers-by would stop, lean on the railings and tell her the latest news. Mrs Light always knew the latest gossip. She was a short dumpy woman with a cackle of a laugh that was infectious and rosy red cheeks that shone like a polished apple.
Memories Of An Early Childhood In Clutton (1931–1942). (Part 3) Click here