URGENT |
Tom Brown was a member of one of the largest Glemsford families. Apart from a few years away working, and a few more important years as a prisoner of war, he lived in Glemsford from his birth in 1916. He died in 2002.
These are extracts from an unpublished text. Tom gave me written permission to publish them here, but any further reproduction, other than for research or personal interest purposes is forbidden without permission from his estate. I would, in any case, be grateful to be told of any use to which these extracts are put.
I started school at three years of age in 1919. My brother Basil, who was 18 months older than me, started at the same time as it was thought to be more convenient for us to remain together, and in fact we remained very close pals for the whole of our lives, or until he died. I started in the infants, but in a special class called the 'Babies' which I was, of course. Other members of my family were attending school at this time, but they were in the 'Big-uns' as the adult section of the school was called.
Obviously I am not too clear about the first few years at school and can only vaguely remember the teachers. Miss Egglington was the Head Mistress of the infants, one of the other teachers was a Miss Middleditch; two others were Miss Watkinson and Miss Dora Bruce. There was also Miss Pettit, Kittie. It is also difficult to remember the exact sequence of events, and the events recorded in the first 6 or 7 years may not be in strict chronological order. Some of these happenings occurred 50 or 60 years ago and I have to rely on my own memory without the aid of any notes.
The school was built in 1871 or thereabouts, Victorian, and is still in use today. When I attended it was termed an 'Elementary' school, but it has since been enlarged and modernised and is now used only as a Primary school, the children now going on to Clare after finishing their primary education. In my time we remained at the one school for the whole of our school life unless one passed a scholarship to Sudbury Grammar or High School, and not many did that. Some of the better off children went to Sudbury school as their parents were in a position to pay the necessary fees.
My first few years at school were spent in playing with the usual nursery toys, plasticine etc. We did not have many toys at home as my parents were bringing up a large family on very little income which barely bought sufficient food of the most basic kind, and things like toys were out of the question.
I gradually worked up out of the nursery class and into the infants where I learned the very simple counting of beads, learning the alphabet and other very elementary things.
I did not have far to walk to school, but some of the children walked as far as two miles each way, and I particularly remember the Pearsons, Spencer and his family, who had to walk right from Finstead End. They would have to bring their food with them as there were no school dinners, milk or anything else at that time.
When we were about to break up for the Christmas holidays the school-teacher of each individual class or 'standards' as we called them, would organise a breaking-up party. The classroom would be decorated with paper chains which we had made, a few balloons and some greenery. The afternoon would be devoted to fun and games. In the lower standards we would all receive a quarter or sometimes half an orange to start with and then the games would commence. Just before we had the last game we would have the most exciting game of the afternoon called 'Scrambles'. The teacher would scatter a lot of nuts on the floor and at the word 'GO' we would make a mad scramble to see how many nuts we could collect. All the nuts we gathered we kept, and as the excitement flagged another couple of handfuls would be thrown. It was great fun. Of course we would get splinters in hands and knees but the teacher would come prepared and would soon have them out. I suppose in these modern days this would be thought too undignified and authority would probably forbid it but it was certainly one way of breaking down the class barriers and everyone, boys and girls, better off or poor, would thoroughly enjoy it. As we were about to go home the teacher usually gave us a silver threepenny bit each. Unfortunately even these little treasures have disappeared.
There would be quite a lot of excitement when the photographer would come to take our photographs. We would all be specially dressed for the occasion and we would all be lined up, some standing, some seated, with the school forming the background, facing the old-fashioned camera which used plates and was activated by a rubber bulb. The photographer would hide his head under a black sheet and fiddle about, then he would reappear, give the order 'Smile please, watch the birdie' and squeeze the rubber bulb which activated the shutter. My father, in all his 80 odd years never referred to them as cameras, photographs, snaps or photographers. To him they were 'likenesses' and 'likeness-takers'. Quite an apt description too.
As we left the infants classes we were admitted to Standard One in the adult section (The Big-Uns), and would normally work our way through the standards and finish in Standard Seven. If anyone was not too good they would miss 'going up' and would finish in Standard Five, or if they were particularly bright they would skip a Standard and finish in Ex Seven. This standard was taught exclusively by the headmaster, Mr Wilson. Standard Four could not be skipped as this was the point where one left the more elementary learning and really began advanced schooling in earnest.
The bell on the school clock struck the hours, the half-hours and the quarters but this has been silent for many a year. The bell or canopy still remains and as far as I am aware the clock is still the original one. For the clock at least time stands still, forever silent, its tongue no longer proclaiming the hours, its hands stilled and frozen in time at two minutes past ten.
The school is surrounded by a brick wall with pillars which are capped with cement. This is still the original wall and is about four feet high, built in the 1870's. The cement on the pillars is well worn down by the sharpening of knives and pieces of iron hooping which we made into knives. Generations of boys used these pillars as a carborundum, but the present generations have not followed in our footsteps as the cement capping is now overgrown with moss and lichens.
From about seven to ten years of age (probably), there are a few things I vividly recall. At about this age I particularly remember the flocks of sheep which used to be driven by the shepherd and his dog through the village street, leaving plenty of traces of their travels behind them. A horse would pull the shepherd's hut from one place to another, and a horse or maybe two would pull a whole string of iron hurdles from one grazing ground to another.
The hurdles would each have four iron wheels which were unoiled, and the screeching of those wheels could be heard a very long way off. This sound would be a signal for all us boys to rush out for a ride standing on the hurdles. The chap in charge would drive us off but the column would be very long and he couldn't keep control of both ends at once, and as he chased u; off one end the boys would get on the other and vice versa. He usually gave up after a time. Wooden hurdles would be used as well and some of these were made by a man named Mr Adams. His yard was at the top of Windmill Hill, Long Melford, and we would often watch him at work. The wagons were steel shod, but they would grind their way along without the screeching as they all had well-fitting grease caps on the wheel hubs.
If, as happened on several occasions, someone was very ill, waste coconut fibre would be laid on the road for about fifty yards or so to deaden the sound of the iron tyres. A huge heap of this fibre was piled up in the yard at the back of us, and we would always be pulling this heap down and re-building it. Sometimes straw would be used on the road instead of fibre.
We never had a great deal of meat to eat in our house, a bit of pudding beef or sometimes a rabbit were our main meat. Beef bones would be bought very cheaply and boiled up to make a stew. The marrow from the bones would make the stew quite rich, so with hard dumplings and plenty of potatoes we were able to have a good meal. Hard dumplings are made with just flour, water and salt, no suet and they stuck by you. One family equally as hard up as ours, Jim Johnson, father of 'Hally' (Herbert) Johnson would have what we called 'Dutty Dumplings'. They also were hard dumplings, but as the family had no meat or bones to make a stew they would be boiled in a saucepan with broad beans. This water would be black and make the dumplings look dirty, or in our dialect 'dutty'. We did not throw a piece of dirt over a hedge, we copped a bit of dut over the hidge'.
On one occasion my father acquired a young goat or kid, which was slaughtered and prepared for the table by a neighbour, Tom Wifflum, or Pig Killer Brown. His real name was Tom Brown. We lived well while the goat meat lasted.
Bread was often baked at home once or twice a week. This was done much more just before my time. We got ours from Mr Malyon of Brook Street and it was kept in a big earthenware pot which was ideal for the purpose. We children called it 'The Ali Baba Pot'.
When materials were available mother would bake a cake. The cake most popular with my father but not with us, would be 'sid' cake. That is seed cake, the seed being caraway. 1 didn't like biting into those seeds.
When a certain amount of stale bread had accumulated mother would also make a 'brid pudden' (bread pudding), stale bread soaked with water, the addition of a little flour, spice and a few currants and baked it to a hard stodgy mass. We loved it, and still do. It was very filling and certainly stood by you.
Milk was delivered straight from the farms, and the gleaming bright churns on the specially constructed milk float drawn by a pony sometimes came round twice a day. The milkman would bring his bucket of milk to the door, measuring out what you wanted and tipping it into a jug or basin. One man I remember who delivered the milk was 'Tricker Brown' and it was said that he could eat a whole rabbit and a 21b loaf of bread for his dinner.
We were mainly dressed in hand-me-downs, as when the elder brothers' clothes were outgrown they would be passed down, or, if too badly worn would be cut up and remade by my mother into something else. Woollen garments would be unravelled and re-knitted. I remember that every Christmas we would receive a parcel from relatives in London which would include a cake, pudding, various goodies, and invariably a length of red striped flannel. This would be cut up and mother would make it up into shirts for us, probably the only time we had really new clothes. This parcel would be very keenly looked forward to.
Our boots would have to last a very long time. The soles would be reinforced by knocking in blakeys (steel pronged studs) and they would have iron toe tips, hobnails and heel-irons which made them very heavy. When they needed repairing my father would find an old piece of rubber, or later on a piece of motor tyre, which he would cut up and nail on.
At Christmas time we would hang up our stockings in the same way as is done today. There is one great difference, however. We slept three or four to a bed in an iron bedstead, and we would peg our stockings out on the bedrail, just as you sometimes see depicted in children's books. The stocking would be one of mothers black stockings and it would be filled with the traditional things, an orange, an apple, a few nuts, and a penny and a few small toys, a tin whistle, a picture book, and few other things. The girls would probably get a rag doll in their stocking. That was the total of our Christmas presents and gave us far more pleasure than do today's expensive toys demanded by children. There was no point in us hanging up pillowcases or special socks, as it put our parents at full stretch to fill up an ordinary stocking.