Eleven Plus!

I was part of the last generation for whom the Eleven Plus Exam was a traditional part of childhood.

One spring day, aged ten and a half, I trotted apprehensively up Dickleburgh Street to my primary school, along with my peers, to sit the exam which would decide, if not my future, at least where I would spend the rest of my school life. Mum’s parting words echo down the years as one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received: ‘Just do your best – no one can ask more of you than that.’

Wise words indeed, but it didn’t help my nerves at the time. I knew I was expected to pass – by my parents and teachers, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

For those who have never sat the exam, it was a prescient forerunner of modern CAT (Cognitive Ability Tests) which are now, ironically in these days of common education for all, administered and used to assess child’s potential.

There was a language reasoning test – which word belongs in this group and so on; a maths test and a ‘logic’ test – what would now be called a reasoning test, using shapes to allow those with dyslexic tendencies to show their abilities.

After what seemed like an interminable wait but was probably about four weeks, a brown envelope arrived announcing that I had passed and offering me a place at the local grammar school.

I hardly had time to assimilate this delightful but scary news before the preparations began. The letter specified exactly what equipment I would need to have in order to survive at Diss Grammar School, and it was a formidable list.

First of course was the uniform. No vague requirement for a navy skirt and white top – the list included everything from a navy gaberdine raincoat to brown gym knickers, and it all had to be bought from the recognised supplier, Joshua Taylor of Norwich.

A shopping trip was duly undertaken, and with my parents’ bank balance severely shrunk – a detail I of course overlooked at the time – I arrived home with five blouses, blue and white check; navy skirt, fawn jumper, navy blazer with the school emblem; navy gaberdine coat; white PE tops; white skirt for tennis and brown for hockey and of course the gym knickers.

The school thought itself very modern for not requiring girls to wear ties. I seem to recall that there was a school beret but we were assured, correctly as I discovered, that no one wore it, and about four years later, in the seventies, the school populace voted in favour of changing to a ‘Donovan cap’ – which again no one wore.

Add to the above new socks, shoes, plimsolls and hockey boots, along with a hockey stick and tennis racquet, and my parents’ pockets must have been almost empty.

But it didn’t end there – oh no. I also needed a school satchel – brown leather of the kind now sold for about £250 as handbags – which had to contain fountain pen, pencil, ruler, rubber and a Maths Set which came in a tin marked “Oxford’ – the brand name, but I always wondered whether it was a subliminal message about where we were expected to be heading. The tin contained another ruler, set square, protractor, compasses and divider – all packed so neatly that once taken out it was a puzzle rivalling Rubiks Cube to get them all back in and the lid shut.

There was no chance, as there is nowadays, of seeing your prospective school before entry, much less attending for a couple of familiarisation days in the summer term as is routine now: so it was that at the start of September 1969 I put on the brand new, slightly too big uniform and for the every first time boarded the school coach taking me to the school I would be attending for the next seven years.

Beryl Winnifred Russell, nee Blyth

Or just Auntie Winnie as she was to us.

The eldest child and only daughter of Frederick and Beatrice Blyth, Winnie was born on September 21 1909, not long after her parents’ marriage – but we’ll skate quickly over that….

The family were farming at Gissing, where Frederick appears to have taken over from Winnie’s grandfather Edward Blyth when he died in 1907. A couple of years after Winnie’s birth, her brother Maurice arrived, but there was then a long gap before the family was completed by the birth of Charlie in 1921 and Cyril in 1924, by which time the family had moved to Dickleburgh Hall.

Winnie talked little about her early life, although one tale was oft related: as was customary at the time, as a girl Winnie wore hair in two long braids. She had asked her mother’s permission to have it cut, but had been refused.

Nothing daunted, Winnie concealed herself beneath the kitchen table armed with a large pair of scissors, and sheared off each plait in turn. However furious Beatrice may have been at her daughter’s action, there was nothing she could do but allow Winnie’s hair to be cut short as she had wished.

As Winnie grew older, and with the arrival of the two younger ones, she took on a lot of household responsibilities, for Beatrice was far more a farmer’s wife by nature than a domestic goddess. Indeed, Winnie took such a major role in the upbringing of Charlie and Cyril that as she reached the age when she wished to go out for the evening she could not leave the house until she had put her two brothers to bed and read them their bedtime story – no one else would do.

Her responsibilities increased after her mother’s early death in 1935, and it may be that she remained single longer than she might have done because of her usefulness to her family. There is also a family story that she lost her first love, her cousin Joe, when he married elsewhere – ironically, to another Winnie.

Whatever the reason though, when she did marry it was understandably to a farmer, Stanley Russell. Together they kept Manor Farm in Weybread for many years: it was here that Frederick ended his days, and here where Cyril came to live when he was demobbed after World War II – sadly Charlie never made it through the war or he would no doubt have come to live with his sister too.

It was also at Manor Farm that I first knew Auntie Winnie and Uncle Stanley. I visited regularly with my parents, and remember Honey, the huge Great Dane, slobbering all over the couch while I, aged no more than four, sat at the kitchen table with Uncle Stanley and rolled his cigarettes for him. A skill I no longer have, but a habit which sadly contributed to his early death in 1964, after which Auntie Winnie had to leave Manor Farm.

Much as she loved the farm, Auntie Winnie’s great and enduring love was for her dogs. There were always, apart from Honey, a pack of dogs in and around the farm, most of them Clumber Spaniels. A relatively little- known breed, Winnie became very well known in the doggy world for the Clumbers she bred. Gundogs, they tend to be shaggy and white-haired, rather clumsy in appearance but gentle – traditionally they were used to fetch the kill at hunts and would carry a dead or injured animal in their mouths to this master. Winnie owned a Clumber ( or two or three) almost all her adult life, though she never hunted to my knowledge, and they were some of the most loyal, good-tempered dogs I ever knew.

So when her widowhood forced her to move to a caravan in Weybread, as long as she had her dogs and a large garden to tend, she was happy.

Her other love was for her family, and though she never had children, her nephews and nieces adored her – she was more than an aunt to us – more like an extra doting gran! She would drive over to Dickleburgh every Saturday afternoon and take us kids off our parents’ hands while they were busy in the shop.

These afternoons were spent doing whatever we wanted – shopping for the latest records in Diss (as a lifelong Queen fan, I remember fondly that it was Auntie Winnie who ordered and gave me several of their LPs as soon as they were released); standing at Diss Station watching the trains – that was my brother’s idea, not mine! Playing in the quarry pits at Weybread – unlike Mum, Auntie Winnie seemed not to worry about the possibility of us breaking our necks climbing around; walking the dogs and scouring the hedgerows for primroses or blackberries according to the season.

We would then go back to her caravan for tea where the first challenge was to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t full of old newspapers or dog – Winnie must have inherited her domestic skills from her mother. We ate watching the shows of the day – Mary Tyler Moore and Dr Who were favourites I recall – on her small black and white TV before she took us home: we never really wanted to go home and always looked forwards to our Saturdays with Auntie Winnie.

Auntie Winnie was also an integral part of Christmas – she always spent the day with us and relished Christmas lunch, especially my Dad’s own recipe for rum butter, which basically he saw as a challenge to see how much rum he could beat into the mixture – it was pretty heady stuff!

After allowing him – under token protest – to ladle the butter on to her pudding, we all waited, every year, to see if she would be drunk enough to talk about her rich relations…… she never did, but the family joke was repeated every year without fail.

Only once did Auntie Winnie deviate from her devotion to her Clumbers: this was well into her middle years, after her reputation as a Clumber breeder had been rewarded by her appointment as the President of the Clumber Club of Crufts.

After her sole remaining Clumber died, she decided she would go for variety and have a different breed this time. Hence the appearance of Benji the basenji. Smooth haired where Clumbers are shaggy, fleet of foot where they are clumsy and highly strung where they tend to be placid, a more different dog would be hard to find.

You never took Benji for a walk – he took you. And if he saw or heard something that spooked him, he took you for a run. And boy was he strong, despite his small stature.

About the only time I saw Benji not in charge was one afternoon when he had been turned out into our garden during one of Winnie’s visits. Benji wasn’t sure about finding himself in a strange garden so he ran – and since it was a small garden he ran in circles.

Suddenly our cat Susie appeared on the garden wall. She was clearly about to jump down into her territory but stopped short at the sight of this brown whirling dervish. For a minute or two she crouched as still as only a cat can and watched.

Then, seizing her moment, she leapt from the wall as Benji passed, landed square on his back and dug in all four claws. Poor Benji didn’t know what this thing was, or what to do, so he continued more and more frantically to run round and round trying to dislodge his rider, who only held on more firmly, until we took pity on him and opened the door to shoo her off.
Needless to say, within a few weeks Benji had been found a new home and Auntie Winnie had another Clumber.

In later years age and failing health meant Winnine had to give up her caravan and her independence, much as she baulked against it, and after living with Ruby, her brother Maurice’s widow, for a short time she moved into her own small bungalow in a sheltered housing development. Cosy as her new home was, with no animals allowed and only a small strip of garden it was not her natural habitat.

By now in her late eighties, Winnie knew that her mind was failing and her independence gone, but her strong body kept her going and looked likely to do so for some time, until she suffered a fall and broke her hip. Even then, she came through the operation well, but shortly afterwards a blood clot, probably formed during surgery, switched her off. It was the best way for her to go – painless, dignified and quick.

She was greatly mourned and we still miss her indomitable spirit, strong personality, good advice and wicked sense of humour, as well as her quaint turns of phrase. What the writingpaperblottingpaperpenandinkandsealingwax would she think of this article I wonder?

William George Warnes 1904 – 1963

My maternal grandfather was born on 20 May 1904, and therefore would have been 111 today.

He sadly died when I was a small child, but I have very strong memories of him, many of which I have recorded elsewhere – see ‘Visiting Nan and Grandad’; ‘The Warnes Side’ and the post on his wife, Rose May Warnes.

I don’t know how they met, although living in the same tiny rural village and attending the same school meant they would have been aware of each other from an early age – I do know they had a Boxing Day wedding which I found intriguing – getting married just after Christmas Day sounded so romantic. However, the benefit of adult logic tells me the likely reason was that this was one of the few days of the year on which an agricultural worker would have been free to marry.

My grandad was, as I have said elsewhere, the eldest of five children born to William and Bessie Warnes, in Withersdale, Suffolk, a tiny hamlet adjoining the village of Mendham. The family was solidly working class and rural, William working as a farm labourer, like most of his forebears.

Grandad was an only child for nearly six years, being joined in 1911 by his brother Edward, or Ted as he was always known. By this time – probably following the work available – the family had moved into Mendham itself and were living, according to the Census, in a three roomed dwelling.

Although christened William George, Grandad is entered on the Census form as George, presumably to distinguish him from the father after whom he was named. In later years however, he was for some reason always known a Dick – it seems to have been a common rural practice to be known by a completely different name to your birth name!

My great grandparents later moved back to Withersdale, where they are both buried, but Grandad spent his adult life in Mendham: after starting married life in a small house down by Mendham Bridge, they moved to a semi-detached house of which he was very proud.

Domestic arrangements: child rearing, cooking and keeping house was very much Nan’s province but the garden was Grandad’s, and one of my earliest memories is ‘helping’ him in the garden – which usually meant picking pea pods and eating the contents, gathering strawberries – many of which also made the short journey into my mouth – and digging with my child-sized spade. And getting covered in mud of course!

Grandad moved from farm work to employment in the local Rotary Howes factory in Harleston – moving with the times I guess. I know from Nan that he had what she called ‘nerves’ but the symptoms sound as if today he would be diagnosed as bipolar. Back then however, treatment was simply admission to hospital whenever the symptoms became acute. What treatment he underwent there I have never wanted to ask – this was a side to my Grandad I was never aware of in his lifetime.

He was only 59 when he died – like his siblings, from a heart attack. I missed him greatly, and Nan mourned him for the rest of her life. He rests in Mendham churchyard, and I still visit and remember him to this day.
Happy 111th birthday Grandad!

Grandad on the seafront at Great Yarmouth.

Mark Wynter

Last Saturday morning I heard, for the first time in years, a Mark Wynter song in the radio. Anyone younger than me – and many the same age – will ask ‘Who???’ Nothing gives away your age like confessing to your first crush.

Mark Wynter was a singer in the early and mid 1960’s and in my defence I should say I was about five at the time when I had a cheap heart shaped photo of him – free with Typhoo Tea coupons as I remember – by my bed.

Better still, I had my own Mark Wynter – at least at the time I thought that the Lyons bakery delivery man who called at Dad’s shop each week was the dead spit of my idol. I used to adore being allowed to go into his van and help choose the cakes and pastries he was delivering for Dad to sell in the shop, loading them on to big pallets which Mark (or rather Ron, for that was more prosaically his real name) carried single-hand rely into the shop. What a hero!

And what different days – for what parent now would allow a man they knew but slightly to take their five year old daughter by the hand and take her out of their sight into a dark delivery lorry? I am however happy to report that my hero was the perfect gentleman and looking back he was probably quite amused that a small girl had a crush on him!

Rose May Warnes, nee Betts

Or should that be May Rose Betts? That was what was on her birth certificate (see The Bermondsey Connection, below). But she was always known as Rose to her family and friends – and to me she was just Nan. Not Gran, Grandma – she rejected those as sounding old and frumpy: bear in mind this was in the 1950’s when her first two grandchildren, my cousin Tony and myself, arrived.

I have written elsewhere about our regular visits to Nan and Grandad in Mendham, and how this idyllic time was sadly cut short by my cherished Grandad’s death in 1963. My childhood memory of my grandparents is of a devoted couple and indeed, everything Nan always said in later years served to confirm that William George Warnes was the love of her life. They had, I believe, lived briefly with his parents at the start of their marriage but by the time their children were born they had moved to the council house in South View, Mendham where I remember visiting them.

In the aftermath of losing Grandad, Nan couldn’t face living alone in the house in which they had lived together and brought up their family, so she gave up the house and moved in – temporarily at first –with her elder daughter Peggy who at the time lived in St Margaret’s, South Elmham.

She lived with Peggy for the rest of her life, moving with the family when they bought their bungalow in Bungay. There were times when she regretted her hasty decision, especially when she saw her best friend, Daisy Thurston (Aunt Daisy to us children) allocated a small retirement bungalow in the centre of Mendham, where Nan’s heart still was. She had to make do with a weekly trip into Harleston or Mendham to meet up with her friends and sisters, and enjoy a ‘good old natter’.

Although she lived with Peggy, Nan spent time with us too – not only did we see her when Mum and her sister visited each other, but Nan would come and stay with us in Dickleburgh a few times a year, especially when she was particularly needed, such as when my little sister and brother arrived.

She also always spent Christmas with us, arriving a couple of weeks before ‘the day’ to help out – it was the busiest time for Mum and Dad in the shop, so having her to look after us children and contribute to the preparations was, I’m sure, invaluable.

One of my treasured memories is ‘helping’ Nan with the Christmas baking. I’m not sure how much help I was, but while Mum was often in a rush when making cakes and I just got in the way, Nan had plenty of time to let me play with bits of dough, putting currants in them and cheerfully popping the grey dough into the oven to be later proudly presented to Dad to eat with his afternoon cuppa – and as far as I remember he always obliged by consuming whatever was offered.

Aside from my puny efforts, a day’s baking would result in mountains of home made mince pies, sausage rolls, fairy cakes, Suffolk rusks and other treats to be carefully boxed up and not touched until Christmas Day.

In later years, Nan’s role in both our and Auntie Peggy’s house gradually moved from being the domestic support and rock for her busy daughters to relying on them for her own care, and at times this led to cross words – like many people as they grow older, she could be difficult. But she never had any doubt that she was loved by her devoted children and grandchildren, and one of the highlights of her later years was her 80^th birthday party, when she was surrounded by family and friends.

I was able to provide her with a great-grandson and remember well the day I first took my newborn up to Norfolk: Nan had been in a care home for respite care for a few weeks and Mum was due to pick her up to take her home – Nan had no idea I was visiting until I walked into the dayroom behind Mum with my baby in my arms – and I’ll never forget the look on her face. Delighted didn’t cover it.

She insisted on taking us round to everyone in the room, introducing us with: ‘And this is my little great-grandson who’s come all the way from Hertfordshire to see me.’ In his turn, Joe adored his ‘Great Nanny’ too, so when she died, aged 84, I worried about telling him. With typical two year old matter-of-factness he asked if Jesus would make her foot better – in later years she had suffered gangrenous toes which were very painful, as she had explained to Joe when he asked why she was wearing her slippers outside. When I assured him that Great Nanny was not in any more pain, he was quite satisfied – he could cope with not seeing her again if her pain was gone. Why aren’t adults as empathetic as that??

Sadly, although she knew my second child was on the way, she never got to meet my younger two, but we did ensure that Caroline bore her name, while Joe’s third name is George, in honour of Nan’s adored husband, next to whom she now rests in Mendham churchyard.

Peggy Eileen Warnes

Peggy Eileen arrived in this world on 10 January 1932, the middle child and elder daughter of Rose and Dick Warnes. She was born at home in Mendham, where she grew up.

After a happy childhood, illustrated by some lovely photos of her enjoying a day at the seaside, paddling in the water with her younger sister Pam, and on Sunday School outings, she left Mendham School at 14 and went to work in the village shop in nearby Withersdale, which was owned by her Dad’s brother Charlie. Another of her Uncle Charlie’s assistants was Cyril Blyth who would later become her brother in law when he married Pam.

By the time she was 16 Peggy had met the love of her life. A local farmer’s son, Jack Debenham was one of ten children so she acquired a large new family to add to her own when they married on 18 July 1953.

A lively, friendly person, Peggy loved being surrounded by her new in laws, which was just as well as Jack worked on the family farm, which he later ran with three of his brothers.

They moved to a pretty cottage by the farm in St Margaret’s South Elmham. Pretty as it was, typically for a rural house in the 50s, there were no modern amenities – the loo was outside and the bath was tin!

In 1956 Peggy gave birth to her adored son Anthony, and never one to sit and do nothing, she integrated motherhood into her busy life.

This meant walking, pushing the pram, into Mendham to visit her parents, and then home again to St Margaret’s, going fruit picking at Hamilton’s farm, taking Anthony along with colouring books and pencils to keep him amused while she worked.

Alongside this, her family and friends were welcome to pop in to her house at any time where they would invariably be greeted by a big smile, a hug, a cup of tea and a huge selection of home made cakes.

One of Peggy’s great talents was baking, which she loved. Whist drives were another hobby – sometimes she managed to pack in four in a week!

When her beloved Dad died in 1963 Peggy had no hesitation in inviting her widowed Mum to live with her, where she stayed for the rest of her life.

In 1972 Jack and his brothers decided the time had come to give up the farming life, so the family moved to Bungay. The furniture was moved by Jack’s brother Roly, in his farm lorry!

The larger, modern bungalow gave Peggy the opportunity to entertain friends and family, who all remember her fantastic parties and barbecues, to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries – or just because she felt like it!

The main thing she loved about the new house – apart from the indoor loo and bathroom! – was the garden. Jack took care of the vegetables while Peggy grew the flowers and made it look so beautiful that she won a prize for the Best Garden in Bungay!

As Anthony grew up she went back to work at Norvic Shoe Factory in Bungay and later Crooks Meat Factory in Harleston.

It wasn’t all work however – as well as her social life Peggy found time for holidays in Switzerland, Austria and Canada among other places.

Sadly, Jack fell ill in 1998 and Peggy cared for him devotedly until he died. Peggy had lost her soul mate and was devastated, but typically she carried on until she sadly died on 19 February 2014, without complaint and learned to enjoy life with the family and friends she loved.

In return, we all loved her, and will always remember her lovely beaming smile, her laugh, her sense of humour and her kindness.

Pamela Rose Blyth, nee Warnes

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Pamela Warnes

My mother was born in the village on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk, right on the Waveney River, which had been the home of her family for many years: her mother Rose was brought up there by her great grandparents, Daniel and Matilda Betts, and many relatives lived nearby.

Mum was Rose’s the third and last child, who had all been born in what would now be seen as very quick succession: the eldest, Reggie, was less than three years old when Pamela arrived on March 27th 1933. She was born at home – 8, South View, Mendham.

It was a difficult birth, and both mother and child were lucky to survive: Pamela spent several of her first few hours of life in a makeshift oxygen tent on the kitchen table. As a result of her weakened state, Rose was persuaded to allow her eldest child to be looked after by his aunt and uncle, a decision which later led to a family rift, which sadly could not have been foreseen at the time.

However, as babies are wont to do, Pamela not only survived but grew into a healthy little girl, attending the village school along with her elder brother and sister Peggy. Family photos record seaside trips and Sunday School outings – her teachers there were her own Aunt Annie, her father’s sister, and Winnie Blyth, who was years later to become her sister-in-law. Her future husband was also a pupil at the school, albeit nine years ahead of her.

The school is still there and I remember being taken past it as a child: Mum would reminisce about her schooldays, and to me the separate entrances clearly labelled ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’ was a testament to another era.

When Pamela was just six years old, World War II started: her memories of the war from the viewpoint of a schoolgirl in a rural East Anglian village was more of land girls appearing to help on the farms than of the Blitz. She did recall the doodlebugs though – and recounted how they would hear them going over and pray that the droning noise they made would continue – because the moment the noise stopped, they knew it was about to come down.

At ten years old, Pamela had a bout of rheumatic fever, which left her with a damaged heart: not that this made any difference to her life at that point, but sadly it was the main cause of her relatively early death.

After school, Pamela worked in a few different jobs – we have a lovely photograph of her at work in a sewing factory, and she showed a particular aptitude for cookery – her jugged hare was apparently very popular.

Her life was leading her away from Mendham however, as her relationship with my father developed towards marriage. Not that it was all hearts and roses: my Nan always told the story of Cyril trying to teach his girlfriend to drive in his car. She was not a natural, and after one heated exchange during a driving lesson Pam got out of the car in fury, slammed the door and walked home. Cyril leaped into the driving seat and proceeded to follow her at walking pace all the way, clearly finding the whole situation very amusing. The funnier he found it, the angrier she got, and she strode into her mother’s kitchen, picked up the bread knife and slammed it into the loaf – probably imagining it was her boyfriend’s head. A moment later, Cyril walked in laughing.

They must have made it up because they married in October 1955 and after a few months staying with Pam’s parents they moved into their own home in Dickleburgh. Not just a home, it was their shared workplace too, as I have detailed elsewhere in this blog. For Pamela, in the coming years it meant juggling the demands of the shop alongside her children and the housework. Understandably she found it most irritating at times to be called to the shop because there were lots of customers to serve when she was halfway through hoovering the bedrooms, but she maintained a regular routine which ensured all the jobs got done and her family – the centre of her life – were looked after.

As the three of us grew up, Mum was the lynchpin of the family, and home meant her wonderful cooking and care. She knew exactly what foods each of her offspring favoured, and even when we all departed to college and our own lives, she made sure that when we visited our favourite dish would appear for dinner.

After retirement, Pamela devoted herself to looking after her husband and enjoying her grandchildren, her home and garden. It wasn’t a great surprise that having cared for Cyril through his last illness, it was only after he died that she felt the effects of her own poor health. She missed him a great deal and when she followed him to their shared grave only eighteen months after his death, however much we mourned, we felt that she was where she wanted to be – back with her lifelong partner.

And all through the house….

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Christmas, Sullivan family

Nowadays, most families put up their Christmas tree and decorations earlier and earlier, it seems to me. It is not unusual to see fairy lights twinkling from a living room window in late November, and many of those who put up outdoor displays do so even earlier.

This must surely mean that the run up to Chrismas is even longer and therefore more stressful for those with small children. I remember waiting impatiently for the magical night on which Santa would descend via the chimney to bring me the toys I had been good enough to deserve. Years later I spent this period of the year warning my own children that if they weren't good, Santa would not visit them. In how many homes is this dire warning held above innocent childish heads? I always vowed I would never bribe or threaten my children…yet we all do it – don't we?

I can't imagine getting through December – let alone the two or three months before it – without some negotiations with the junior members of the household. Unless you do something to prevent it, Christmas lists of wants can appear in September and demands for trees and baubles could kick in by October.

So there was an agreement with my children that the C word was not to be mentioned until Firework Night was over. Only then could the Argos catalogues be scanned intently and annotated carefully: 'Want'…'Want'….'Really want'….'Need'…

My children came up with the idea of leaving a small gap in the curtains when they were closed each evening against the winter darkness, so that if one of Santa's elves happened to be passing he could look in the house to see how good they were being.

An annual tradition grew up of visiting the Bluebell Railway to sample the delights of their Santa Specials each year. On an early trip, my eldest son realised on the way home that he would be out way past his bedtime and, mindful of my assertion that Santa would only visit good boys who went to bed at the proper time, he became quite concerned, until a solution came to him.

Of course, the Man in the Moon was up there and could see him – and surely the Man in the Moon knew Santa – everyone did, so the answer was simple.

Winding down the car window, he called out: 'Man in the Moon, can you tell Father Christmas please that I have been to the Bluebell Railway to see him and that's why I'm still out after bedtime. But I promise to go straight to bed when I get home'. And he did!

Another family tradition was the baking of the Christmas biscuits. This was originally devised as a means of keeping the children busy after the end of the school term but they demanded that the tradition continued through their years at university. I baked a batch of shortbread biscuits, piercing a which the children then decorated with writing icing. There were circular biscuits on which Santa faces could be piped, and tree and star shapes which could be decorated in bright colours. Or, as they moved into their teenage years, with darker humour and jibes at their siblings.

These biscuits were then put in the freezer until the day before Christmas Eve, when they were defrosted on a tray ready for the next morning. On December 24th the first job after breakfast woudl be to put the biscuits, along with the chocolate tree decorations, on the tree. For very good reasons – that they would have long gone before the big day – these items were not hung on the tree as soon as it was put up.

Even then, the tree was never in our household acquired and put up more than a couple of weeks before Christmas, and usually the weekend before. The first time we celebrated Christmas in our own home (and thereby hangs another tale…) my husband actually asked whether or not I wanted a tree! As if I would consider not having one! His only stipulation though, was that if we were to have a tree at all it had to be a real one, dropped pine needles and all, because he disliked artificial trees. I was more than happy to go along with that so for each year following, it was the male members of the family who help the responsibility for finding the perfect tree, and while they were out buying it the females started decorating the house. Once home, the men put the tree in place and we all contributed to decorating. Which some years meant the children decorated it and then once their backs were turned we stripped and re-decorated it so that the tinsel was not all lumped together on one branch and the baubles were evenly distributed on the branches.

Christmas preparations have always been a delight and a chore for me – I spend the month of December ruing the fact that yet again I have not been as organised as I intended to be and as the last posting date approaches the cards still lie there unwritten and unposted, and I risk having to use Amazon's Premium service to ensure all presents arrive on time and no one is disappointed on the day.

At least my family have now grown past the stage where they simply must have the latest toy. In years past I have scoured the shops in the manner of Arnold Schwartzeneger in 'Jingle All The Way' in search of Buzz Lightyears, Woodys, Barbie cars and so on.

The most challenging was definitely Thunderbird's Tracy Island…

‘Twas the month before Christmas….

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Christmas, Maureen Blyth

Well, this blog seems to have been neglected for a while – busy doing other things, the latest of which was celebrating Christmas and new Year with my family and friends.

And the Festive Season always brings to mind Christmasses of my childhood – at some point in late December I usually find myself reminiscing about the way my family spent Christmas when I was a little girl. Not quite in the way my parents used to reminisce about their own childhoods – we were regularly told that they woke up on Christmas Day to find a walnut and a satsuma in their stocking and felt lucky to have that – children today have it all, etc etc. The same speech millions of parents make to their offspring every year, even today!

No, my memories of Christmas Past centre round the four weeks or so – always felt like far longer, but when you’re a child waiting for Santa time does seem to elongate itself – before Christmas, when Dad’s Christmas market was in place.

As I’ve said before, Dad kept the local grocer’s in Dickleburgh, providing the provisions for the village as it were. And in December, that included anything they might want for their Christmas preparations. This involved such a large intake of extra stock that the shop could not cope so he expanded the premises temporarily – by utilising our front room!

In those days there was a passageway between the shop and the front room, so it was easy for customers to walk through and sample the delights of boxes of chocolates and sweets, toys, cards, wrapping paper and so on.

It was a big operation to turn a sitting room into a showroom, and typically Dad approached it with precision and care. First, most of the furniture was pushed against the wall – settee, two armchairs, pouffe, coffee table – the sideboard was already against the wall of course.

The dining table was brought in and placed in the centre of the room, opened out as far as it would extend. The television was taken into the ;Little Room’ as we called the back room, usually used as a dining / morning room but for that period our sole living room.

Next, a framework of brackets and supports was put up to hold in place a series of shelves which would run in a staircase arrangement from about three feet off the ground and three feet from the wall up to the wall, where they would rise to five or six feet high. The shelves were covered in fabric, and more fabric was draped from the lowest shelf, thus providing an effective covering for the furniture.

The dining table was covered in the same fabric, and now Dad had his showroom ready – all that was needed now were the wares to be set out to sell – and the customers of course. Soon, the room was buzzing with villagers discussing the coming season and how they were preparing for it.

Our preparations woudld have already started in October, when Mum woudl have gone to Wilbys’ Butchers to order the turkey. Now when I order my turkey I simply give the shop assistant my requirements in weight, and pay. Back then, Mum would be taken out to the back yard where twenty or so fat turkeys would be strutting around like they owned the place – which they virtually did until it all came to an abrupt stop on December 24.

She would state the size of bird she wanted and with a practised eye, Mr Wilby would advise her which of the turkeys would be that size in a couple of months’ time. She woudl then point out the one she wanted, a label with her name on would be attached to the bird’s leg and that was our Christmas turkey – it would be slaughtered and dressed on Christmas Eve and on the table the next day.

The last few weeks of the Christmas term at school then was remarkable not just for the hopes and dreams of playing Mary in the school nativity (no chance – my blonde friend got that part – I was the Angel of the Lord) or participating in the carol service (I always got asked to read as I had – OK, have – a loud voice. They never asked me to sing a solo though – can’t think why!!). It was also the time when I came home from school and sneaked into the front room, secreting myself under the curtain and, lying on the settee, eavesdropped on the customers’ conversations without anyone knowing I was there.

Well, the simple childhood pleasures are the best!

Dickleburgh Primary School

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Dickleburgh, Maureen Blyth, school

Schooldays.

The best days of your life, they say.

I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that – so far the best days of my life have been my wedding day and the births of my children, and the happiest period of my life? So many ,and still ongoing thankfully.
However, I did enjoy my schooldays, dated as so much of what happened seems now.

I started at Dickleburgh Primary School at the age of 5 – the building is now the Community Centre for the village, but at that time the long, low white school was nestled against the church – very suitably, as it is a Cof E school.

There were three classes among which about 90 children were divided: Miss Register (the appropriateness of her name did not, ahem, register with me as a five year old!) taught the top class (aged 8 – 11); Miss Green the middle one (6-8) and I first entered Miss Orriss’s Infant Class.

Each morning my Mum would walk me to school, not along the main road but down to her friend Rita’s, and we would all – Mum, me, Rita and her son Melvin who was the same age as me, walk down ‘The Drift’, a footpath through the local allotments which led to the Town Meadow on which we were allowed to play at lunchtimes in the summer.

From the Meadow there was a green painted metal gate usually known as a kissing gate – though we never referred to it as such –giving access to the playground, which itself was surrounded by green metal railings – as Roger McGough says:

All around, the railings.
Are they to keep out wolves and monsters?
Things that carry off and eat children?
Things you don’t take sweets from?
Perhaps they’re to stop us getting out
Running away from the lessins. Lessin.
What does a lessin look like?
Sounds small and slimy.
They keep them in the glassrooms.
Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.

As you came through the gate, at the far right side of the playground were the toilets. Yes, outdoor ones. A single storey block: boys to the left, girls to the right.

On the left was the school itself, and there was a back entrance to the Infant Class, but the main door faced into the playground, and when the bell rang we all had to line up in our class lines and file in neatly.

Geographically, the Infants were separate from the rest of the school: our classroom was on the left as you entered the door from the playground, past the row of three handbasins; a door on the right and a step up took you into the middle section of what was essentially one long room, which had been split into three: the back section was divided off with a glass – and wood partition, behind which Miss Register ruled.

A curtain – dark red if I remember correctly – shut off Miss Green’s classroom, and the middle section into which the door led contained the piano and was the area used for indoor PE and music lessons.

The front door, leading out of the top class end of the school straight on to the church path, was very rarely if ever used, even though we frequently filed into the church itself for Harvest, Carol and Easter services which punctuated the school year, and my pride knew no bounds on the occasions I was given a lesson to read on such occasions.