CHAPTER 6 – May 2002
2nd May – Thursday
Last evening we watched the television coverage of the first day of the Queen's Jubilee visits which began in the South West and later in the evening the first of four programmes charting the last fifty years covering the reign of Queen Elizabeth 2nd. Many memories were evoked of the Coronation celebrations of June 2nd 1953 of which more on 2nd June.
What I was reminded of in particular was the need on Coronation Day to keep the cows at home in order that the village playing field and road up to it would be free for various races and free to be decorated with flags and bunting.
Up until I was about nine or ten we had a herd of milking cows that had to be sold after certain regulations were brought in regarding the milking sheds and dairy. Although ours were clean they didn't have everything required of a modern dairy.
In the winter the cows were kept at home in the back field where they could get into a large shed built onto the fold when the weather was bad. As soon as the Spring weather arrived the cows were walked down the village, over the railway and down Station Lane to the 'playing field' on the right.
There is nothing unusual in the above other than it was our job to take the cows to the field on our way to school and pick them up again afterwards. I never got to do it by myself but I do remember having to help John.
School started at 8.45 a.m. so at about 8.20 a.m. we would open the large, red fold doors which opened on to the lane at the back of the house. Most of the cows needed no encouragement to move but there was usually one that needed a switch on the backside. The cows knew exactly where to go but nevertheless I would dash to the road blocking the road leading to Cliffe Common looking very threatening with a long willowy twig. If any of the cows had turned towards me I'm sure that after a quick flick of my stick I would have run a mile rather than confront the cow.
Occasionally a car or a tractor would want to go through the cows so we would wield our sticks as they nudged themselves through. It was usually someone we knew as back then the road up to the Common was rarely used besides which there were few cars. Sandy Jacques in his Morris Oxford went little faster than the cows anyway but we were not so sure of P.C. Hogg who we felt was checking up on us. When we didn't take the cows on the way to school, John would mostly give me a croggy on his bike and we would ride along the footpath. Countless times P.C. Hogg would drive along, stop, and tell us he wouldn't warn us again. I don't know what he intended to do to us but after a few days without seeing him we would start again.
As the cows turned into Station Lane I would run ahead to open the gate into the field and to stop the cows from carrying on up the lane passed the Durham's. When the last one was through we would hide our sticks just inside the field and dash back to school. John didn't have the problems that I had to endure as the boy's cloakroom opened onto the lane just before the playground. He could dash in and give his hands a quick wash and generally tidy himself up whereas I had to go straight into the playground, often a bit late as the lines for inspection were already formed. It was no wonder that after all the other children had marched in I was left standing with dirty hands and old grey kneesocks round my ankles.
The thing that I remember most about taking the cows to their field on our way to school was the status that I gained by being a Holman, the family who let the village use their field for cricket, sports and games. Whenever the school wanted to use the field I would be asked to check with Granddad whether it would be convenient and whether the cows could be kept at home on that day.
May was the month when we really started preparing for the various sports, a time that made me feel that any 'telling off' was worth it just to be able to play.
6th May – Bank Holiday Monday
Now that John has retired Bank Holidays are nothing special. In fact now that we live at a seaside resort we tend to stay in as the village and the road become very busy. The family often visit for the longer holidays but it's just that bit too far for the May Day Holiday and not worth getting snarled up in all the holiday traffic.
As a child there were no May Day celebrations and no May Day Bank Holiday. It was school as usual.
This was the best time to be at school. I'm sure we did do schoolwork during the summer but this was overshadowed by the amount of games that we played. Even though netball was supposedly a winter game that was still played in the playground along with rounders, stoolball and skipping. The best time of the week though was when the whole of the Juniors and Seniors would spend the afternoon at the school's playing fields, without cows for that day.
Immediately we had finished lunch all the sports equipment would be got out and the various jobs allocated. The bigger boys would carry the two large mats for the high-jump, the girls would carry skipping ropes, eggs and spoons, hoops, and red, yellow and blue bands. The boys would carry sacks, two sets of high jumps and canes, bean bags and baskets. It was only a short walk of about 500 yards but in spite of all the excitement I'm sure we were well behaved as most of us were afraid of the headmaster's temper.
I was in the yellow team as was Gerry before me. I can't remember what colour Margaret was as she had left the village school by the time I started. John was in the blue team. There was nothing light-hearted about competing. We might have been few in numbers but we all wanted to represent the school in the regional sports. Although I pretended to be stoical when I missed out on a place to run at the Derwent Sports I was, in fact, heartbroken. I used to be put in the age group just above me and that made it difficult for me to compete in the regional sports. The rules for our own School Sports were different though, so many paces 'start' were given depending on age difference. When I was at school there were few trophies but later, by the time Andrew was at school, there seemed to be a trophy for almost every pupil.
I could hardly cope with the excitement of our own Sport's Day. All the parents came to cheer us on. My Dad was a starter along with George Durham. The three coloured teams were all kept separately and there was a big blackboard on which Miss Rawson wrote the results for each team. In my last year at Cliffe School I managed to win the running, skipping, high jump, egg and spoon and obstacle race. This was the highlight of my time at the village school. Even better, the photograph taken of me as the best girl and Raymond Massey as the best boy, shows me as tidy and reasonably turned out. Gerry had permed my hair more successfully than earlier and I believe I had been bought a proper pair of gym-shoes. Of course, on this my last year at school, we were probably a little better off. Granddad had died the September before so the farm was now ours and both Margaret and Gerry were now at work and even though John was still at school his heart was in farming and he was worth as much as a full-time worker.
It was good to have got through my wild and dirty stage. I had always felt self-conscious about wearing cast-offs all the time and being singled out at school for my dirtiness. The change in our home circumstances was quite marked. Suddenly I was a child no longer and had to learn to work hard on the farm. The more we worked the less had to be spent on labour. Looking back it's easy to think that those few years between being eleven and sixteen lasted forever. That last summer at Cliffe School certainly marked a big change in both my life and that of the family.
10th May – Friday
John nudged me awake just after 8 a.m. to remind me that I wanted to ring Kelly before she left for school. Today she is seven and it hardly seems a minute since we went to see Andy, Wendy and the new baby at the hospital in Derby. Even at five Kelly seemed to have a certain sophistication and taste for good clothes which in some ways is lovely but in others quite worrying as to what she will be by the time she is ten and looks more like a teenager.
Of course she was excited and pleased to have received some lovely present plus plenty of money to go and buy more. Tomorrow they will be going to Drayton Manor Park taking Sammy, Kelly's best friend.
I felt we were just a bit mean sending only £20 for her to spend but I keep hearing myself saying all those things that grandparents have said through the ages. When I was seven, £20 would be all that my father earned over a three week period. Of course there is no comparison between the value of money then and the value now but it is hard to keep up with present day trends. I remember being seven and it being a very good but wild year. It seemed to be the age when independent memories kicked in, a year when I made judgements about adults and began to develop a distinct personality. It will be interesting to chat with Kelly and learn whether she feels the same.
In some ways I retain the same desire to be out of doors when the weather is good although now I need to keep out of the sun to stay relatively well. It becomes increasingly difficult to get memories down onto the laptop as I can't use it outside, the light being too bright to see the screen. In many respects I am the same undisciplined character as I was at seven years old.
There are so many memories of summer and the joy of living on a farm when the sun shone. Even school days took on a lighter mood. Often I would be sitting at my desk but looking out of the window. The first two years of school were spent in the Infant Class, in a classroom that had windows looking out onto the station's platform. It would be about this time of the year when I would see several boxes being taken from the guards-van then loaded onto the station trolley. It was difficult to concentrate for the rest of that day as I knew that our 'day-old chicks' had arrived and that Gerry, John and me would have to carry the boxes home.
We would rush out of school and round to the ticket office where the boxes would be waiting for us to collect. It wasn't easy carrying them as the boxes were tightly bound and the string cut into our fingers. As we went home we would be constantly changing hands, putting the boxes down for a while, picking them up and carrying on for a few paces. It was certainly a long walk home but all the time the little yellow chicks would be twittering away and the brave ones would be trying to get out through the small air holes.
Once home we would rush into the kitchen where old newspapers would be put down and a safe space secured near the fire protecting the tiny chicks from both the fire and from escaping and frightening themselves to death. Each box would be opened one by one and the yellow chicks counted. Usually there would be the odd dead chick but it was surprising how we seemed unmoved by this at the time. We were far too interested in the ones that were alive. They would be allowed to stay there until Dad came in from work after which they would be put back into the boxes and carried out to an empty pig sty that was kept warm with a special light. I can't remember how long they stayed in the sty but I do remember how I continued to look forward to getting home from school each day to go and see the chicks. We were always told to treat them gently as too much excitement might kill them. Most children know day-old chicks only from pictures on Easter and birthday cards but I appreciate having known the joy of a hundred day-old chicks being welcomed into our house. They were incredibly like the pictures we now see of them but far more lovely in real life. Sadly they didn't stay as yellow chicks for long and I certainly had a different relationship with them once they became hens that roamed freely about the grass field at the back of the house.
Dad would sometimes insist that I go with him to collect the eggs from the hen-house. I had bad dreams about this job. He thought that by taking me I would become used to collecting the eggs by myself but I just became more and more fearful of the hens flying about my head and brushing passed my legs.
We would go through the big gate near the 'lav down the yard', push through the cows who might often spend time with their heads hanging over the gate, continue passed the cockerel who was amazingly well behaved when Dad was with me, then onto the hen-house. First we would check the nests with their small openings to the outside which allowed us to put our hands through to collect the eggs. How I hated pushing my hand through a hole to find a hen sitting there. As we went into the hut through a door at the end I would cling to Dad as various hens flew off their perches in a hurry to get outside and away from us. Then we collected eggs from the higher nests. This must have been the worst task I could have been given. It certainly triggered off my asthma attacks but our family weren't given to sympathizing and I can't remember the number of times I was told off for being a baby. When I was thought to be old enough to collect the eggs alone, about seven, I would worry and worry about it. I didn't care either that everyone thought me a baby just so long as I didn't have to do it. Of course no notice was taken of my fears other than I was just told off more than ever.
Perhaps Kelly and Amy would have been better suited to egg collecting. They seem to have no worries taking out their Guinnea Pigs, Charley Farley and Mo-Joe. So in life not only have I been berated for my squeemishness by grandparents and parents but also by sons and granddaughters.
16th May – Thursday
John is out playing golf with a friend on this beautiful day albeit a little breezy. Although this present health problem has sent me back to my books and to the enjoyment of study nothing can make up for the loss of actually playing games.
As a child anything that kept me away from playing games I rebelled against, even if it was no more than playing cricket in the stackyard with John. We liked nothing better than when Dad would take either the ball or the bat and join in. I can't remember exactly when we started playing tennis in the stackyard but I suspect it was after I had already been playing for some while with Dinah and Mrs Jacques, a time when we could afford to buy rackets and tennis balls even though only cheap ones.
Dinah's mum really treated me so very well. When I was about nine she decided that she would take me along with her and Dinah to play tennis on a proper lawn tennis court at Osgodby, a couple of mile cycle ride along the Cliffe Common Road. We usually went once a week after tea when the evenings stayed light. The problem I had was the ongoing summer job of 'singling'. How I hated that dull, boring job. It was bad enough when I had to follow dad who, with his hoe, would proceed along the sugar-beet rows striking out both seeds and weeds at regular intervals leaving clumps at twelve-inch intervals. I would follow weeding out everything but one seedling. The rows were long, the job back-breaking but worst of all was the boredom and the knowledge that I could be playing with Dinah.
After school I would dash home and be told that I could go and play after tea if I went out and singled for an hour. If memory serves me correctly I think that there were probably a few tantrums but I do know that there was no way that I could go and play until I had done the daily quota. However many times I said that I would make up for it the next day it made no difference. It's incredible to think that nowadays there is no need for hoeing let along singling since the mono-germ seed has been developed. The job didn't even stop as the sugar-beet grew big as there were always 'fat-ends' to pull up. I don't know the correct name for 'fat-ends' but I do remember it being a tall weed with yellow flowers on top of a thick stalk which was very difficult to pull up but did give a certain sense of satisfaction when it came out of the ground clean.
The tennis evenings were well-earned. Six o'clock would see the three of us set off down the common on our bicycles, rackets in our hands and balls in our saddle-bags. The Jacques's always had good equipment and although I used an old racket with some broken strings it was much superior to anything we ever had at home and the tennis balls we had were like new. I can't remember meeting any other members there but the one court was always well marked out and the surface and net were in good condition. I suppose it was at this point in my tennis playing days that I picked up all those bad habits which were later laughed at when I actually joined a tennis club. However, even at that young age I was a winner albeit though an unorthodox one. When Chris Evert came on the Wimbledon tennis scene I was delighted to see her lethal two-handed back-hand shot. I often wondered whether I could have become a first-class tennis player if Mrs Jacques had been my mum and I had been born in a later generation.
Later when at the High School in Selby I became the youngest ever school tennis champion at thirteen and used my own racket that was one meant for beach play. It seemed that I was destined to go through life being laughed at for my unorthodox play and cheap equipment. Thank goodness I met John who knew the importance of buying good equipment. We might find it difficult to buy the groceries but we always had very good quality tennis rackets. In fact by the time I stopped playing I was using a metal racket instead of the old wooden ones that we all used when I was young. The metal rackets must have become fashionable about the time we got married in 1967. It was much later when I bought mine. We had both given up playing tennis by the time the big-headed metal rackets were introduced.
Writing of tennis reminds me just how much enjoyment it has given me over the years. We can't but be a bit sorry that our sons, who showed great promise, never continued with the game. At eleven months Andy had perfect coordination in hitting a tennis ball with the baby 'moullet' (baby food mincer) which he used as a racket. Perhaps the time is running out for me to suggest to him that he really must get playing tennis with Kelly and Amy. I would hate to think of them missing out on what is a wonderful game.
19th – Sunday
As a child we celebrated neither May Day nor Spring Bank Holiday but instead had the original Whitsuntide Holiday. A week or so before 'Whit Sunday' was the highlight of the Sunday School year, the Sunday School Anniversary.
This was the one day of the year when I might have new clothes of my own to wear instead of the usual cast-offs from Margaret and Gerry. I must have been about four or five when Mam made a grey skirt with grey straps under which I wore a pretty, frilly blouse. The best school photograph I ever had shows me wearing the outfit and one could be persuaded that I wasn't a wild child after all but a rather pretty little girl with blonde, curly hair in which a ribbon was neatly tied in a bow.
Wearing the new clothes would give me confidence to stand in front of the congregation and sing my solo or recite my poem. It seemed as if we spent the first half of the year preparing for this special occasion and it also seemed as if we would never learn those lines.
There was much anticipation leading up to the event itself. On the Friday evening most of the dads would go up to the Chapel to erect 'the stage'. It never failed to amaze me that there were never any accidents as the whole structure seemed very fragile and we were always warned to walk slowly without jumping up and down. The large, heavy benches were set out in rows to the right of the pulpit with one row directly in front of it where the bigger boys sat. Added to this was the organ that took several strong men to lift and even if it might wobble when Minnie or Margaret energetically thumped out the most rousing of hymns, never did it descend through the floor as we all expected it to. I'm sure that every year there must have been great relief that all had passed off well and without accident.
Saturday was the final rehearsal as we were all shown where we would be sitting. Not only did we run through the order of the service but practised several times walking to and from our particular seats. Normally we would never be allowed to walk up into the pulpit but on this special occasion we walked up the pulpit steps in single file, through the most sacred of spaces onto the stage. The older girls sat on the back row and the older boys on the bench in front of the pulpit. The younger children sat on the front two rows with Granny sitting right next to the spot where we all took it in turns to recite our poems and sing our hymns. Knowing that she was there gave us some confidence as she was ready to prompt us when we forgot our lines.
Brother John had a beautiful singing voice and although he was the most irreligious child one could imagine he looked like an angel with his scrubbed face and sounded like an angel with a singing voice good enough for the best cathedral choir. By the time I was seven or eight I too would be given a solo to sing or at least a verse of a hymn. I mostly remember the Anniversaries for the long 'recitations' that I had to learn, probably four different poems, two in the afternoon and two in the evening. I hated learning poetry and it meant little to me at the time. The only one I do remember having to learn was The Daffodils by Wordsworth. Remembering all the verses was bad enough but Margaret and Minnie spent hours trying to get me to put some feeling into it. In the end it always went off very well.
Assembling in the Sunday School Room well before 2 o'clock when the service was due to start we would excitedly line up trying to peep through a crack in the door every time Granny or Granddad went through to the Chapel to check up. Was it full? Who had come? Where were our Mams and Dads sitting? Granny, what's the last line of the second verse? Nerves stretched to the limit as we were made to wait quietly listening to the hum of the congregation. This was the only time in the year that the Chapel was full to bursting.
As we filed in trying not to look at what seemed to be the hundreds of people in the congregation the hum continued. In fact the noise continued until we had all finally found our place and the preacher announced the first hymn which was usually Awake, awake to love and work. The Lark is in the sky, number 299 in the Sunday School Hymn Book. As Minnie came to the end of the introduction on the organ there would be a general rustling of skirts and scuffling of shoes as everyone rose to sing, and sing we all did with as much energy and enthusiasm as the Methodists in the days of John Wesley.
The various 'performances' were got through with various degrees of success but it didn't matter as any mistakes were glossed over by a congregation who willed us all to do well, a prompter who kept us going and a preacher who would find just the right words to make us feel that everything had been done just right.
There was much excitement after the afternoon performance as congregation and Sunday School members mingled together outside. After all we were all going home to a special tea with various visitors who had come especially to see us perform.
We had to be back at the Chapel well before 6 o'clock but everything seemed so much easier the second time around. The congregation wasn't quite so big but most of the parents would be back to hear the same thing for a second time. The hymns were different but in general it was the same service. By the time we came to the last hymn we were all ready for it to be over but sorry when the preacher asked the congregation to stand for the last hymn which was usually, The day thou gavest Lord is ended. The sun sets over the silver sea. The fathers had all been asked to help on the Monday evening to take down the stage and that was the end of the Anniversary for another year. Saying our good-byes afterwards it would be easy to think that we would not be seeing each other for another year whereas Cliffe was only a small village at that time and we saw most of the congregation almost every day of our lives. It was always declared to have been the best Anniversary ever although as the years progressed there were fewer and fewer children going to Sunday School and the congregations became smaller and smaller.
Perhaps Kelly and Amy in fifty years time will remember their school concerts in the same way as I remember the Sunday School Anniversaries. Whereas I have to hold the memories in my head they will take out the videos taken of their special days and show them to their grandchildren. The memories will be no more vivid than mine for all that.
24th May – Friday
Kelly and Amy could not be more different than I was as a child. They are always spotlessly clean and well turned out. Amy's hair might be a little unruly as mine was but hers is always clean. As for Kelly, her hair is a rich brown, silky and long. In spite of this they do have problems in that they catch head-lice from the other children at school.
In the 1950s much of our care was supervised by the local authority provision sent into the schools. How I hated it when the 'Dick Nurse' turned up. She would stand in the canteen and work her way through the long queue of children scrutinising closely every bit of our hair. I can't remember anyone ever having caught head-lice but the threat of one being found was that our hair would be shaved off. It's incredible to think that the dreaded head-lice never found its way into our village. The 'Dick Nurse' would descend without warning and her arrival would throw us all into a panic. Not only did she look for head-lice but tore us of a strip if our hair was not clean, and of course mine rarely was.
Worse than the 'Dick Nurse' was the travelling dentist - little was said about his visit until he actually arrived in his caravan, parking in the lane by the school. At my first visit for a check-up he declared that I needed eight extractions. Imagine my anxiety at the thought of having to have gas and be put to sleep whilst he pulled my teeth out. Of course it would only be my milk-teeth and in hindsight I realise that it was no big deal but at the time it robbed me of sleep during the two nights and days before the extractions were to be done. My friends would come out of the caravan with all sorts of horror stories and later I understood why. Of course nobody believed me afterwards when I said that I had felt him take out the last two teeth. Why was it that back then nobody believed children whereas now the pendulum has swung too far the other way and life can be treacherous for teachers and other adults involved with the care of young children?
Worse, much worse than the 'Dick Nurse' and the dentist was the full examination where we had to strip down to our knickers. A few weeks before the 'school doctor' was due to arrive at the school we would be given a consent form to take home for our parents to sign. Our parents were supposed to accompany us to the examination. I can't remember whether mam came every time but I can remember her coming once. It was so undignified being examined in front of mam and the nurse who came with the doctor. This sort of health care is now carried out at health-care centres that were unheard of back in the early days of the National Health Service. Rarely do we now find a doctor's surgery without a 'Practice Nurse' and various other facilities. Added to this, mothers of young children these days are far more health conscious and take full advantage of the medical help which is available. This must be a good thing as Kelly does not have to suffer asthma attacks without the help of an inhalor.
