A short time back I got an email, not
sure of the date but it was just before I went in for the
last heart games. It was from somebody who had seen some
of my stories in the TMC site (not a member) just somebody
passing through and from seeing the link had read The Mucky
Ducks. She wanted to know why, after everything that had
happened, I was delving back into childhood.
Strangely I had another along the same lines only yesterday.
This person had read the book, and she was surprised that
‘A person like me’ (not sure how to take that) could be
involved in revisiting the past.
OK, to set the record straight, I am not
really reverting to the past; any sane person knows that
it’s a pointless exercise. For me the reason is quite different,
it’s called curiosity and probably a bit of healthy fear.
Curious as to what happened, fear knowing that every day
is a bit wobbly and perhaps soon even these memories will
become untouchable. Each day the proverbial pen flies faster
over the paper, there is still so much to set down so that
later generations (or a very small portion of them) know
of my world and the wonderful people it contained. That
is not being egotistical, I am trying to have others remembered,
people who did nothing except exist for a short time, without
fanfare, without fuss, without recognition of their existence.
The same people that, wherever in the world you were, you
grew up with, people are, for the most part, simply people,
location only makes a surface difference.
By setting things on paper I can make Mrs
Wolton from the greengrocer again cross the road to sneak
into the Hoskins Arms (pub) for a heart starter at 10am,
just as she did 50 years ago. Mr Turner the cobbler can
sit just inside his shop doorway and puff on his pipe, sending
smoke half way across the road. Little Carol Kingsley can
stand staring at the posters in the foyer of the cinema;
she so much wanted to get into ‘films’ but rheumatic fever
destined her not to see her 18th birthday. Dear little Carol
she did so much love to show everybody her new party frocks,
new shoes, new anything that she thought made her look more
like the people in the ‘Filums’
Old Miss Blunt from Boots the chemist can again glare at
the back of the lovely Maud as the latter walked out with
another man. ‘Blunty’ was made a widow in 1943 and men were
never to again seek her hand, there were just too many ‘Mauds’
around.
Mr Blake and Mr Page from the little hardware shop can load
up their van with lino to be delivered and laid (lino was
a big thing after the war). A sign would go into the window
‘Out on deliveries. Take what you need and pay us later"
how naive that now sounds.
Constable Bonney can prop his bike against the war memorial
on the village green and sit down to enjoy the lunch his
wife had sent him off to work with.
Then there was the place itself. Winter saw a frozen little
hamlet set at the foot of the North Downs. Winds from the
Arctic would sweep down the hills and buff against the village
walls. Livestock either huddled in groups or got sent to
the large winter barns to shelter out the night. People
did rather the same thing; streets saw little movement once
darkness fell, except that is to get home from work or school
as it did get dark at about 3.45pm. Those that did venture
out tended to stay in groups as if something in the winter
dark made them afraid. How welcome were the intermittent
lights from heavily curtained windows. Each light was a
beacon, a lighthouse pointing the way home.
Spring saw lighter days and was heralded by a weak sun determined
to again make its presence known. Soft breezes from the
south east brought the first hint of warmth to temper winter
chills. Streams large and small started to flow again as
the last of the snow was banished from newly budding trees.
Hedgehogs and squirrels appeared in doorways as if asking
for warm milk and something to eat (which they always received).
Wildflowers such as bluebells, primroses and buttercups
made colourful carpets of ground which not long past had
been white and barren. The sky again echoed to the sound
of birds and in the woods you could hear the call of the
badger and fox. In the village people emerged from their
winter sloth, shop windows heralded the arrival of new and
exciting products. Village women attacked the small ladies
clothing shop, determined to ‘get something new for the
summer’. On the village green volunteers spent hours every
non work day getting the cricket pitch back into order,
ready for the summer season. This usually also entailed
the consumption of much ale and cider, it was part of the
tradition. However, nobody held a candle to the bell ringers
when it came to drinking. For some reason, throughout the
kingdom, bell ringers had the reputation for being large
consumers of the amber liquid - in other words they were
a bunch of acceptable social drunks.
Then one morning it was summer
School holidays, for some train trips to
the seaside for others a few weeks in the south of France.
We usually only went to the continent for a couple of weeks
as both my parents loved the local countryside in the summer.
Their passion was riding and the two of them took off across
the Downs every day. Plus the days of ‘The Families’ were
fading. Britain had a succession of Labor Governments which
were really nothing more than extreme socialists under another
banner, they were so close to being Communists that it was
scary. Slowly they taxed and levied ‘The Families’ almost
out of existence (I will explain the term ‘The Families’
at a later date). Being Socialists they hated anybody who
had more than they did and were determined to bring the
old order down ... they failed. Oh they might have decimated
‘The Families’ but by doing so they didn’t get the working
class on their side, rather the reverse happened.
One the surface Britain might have appeared a logical candidate
for communism; after all it had a Royal and Aristocratic
head and devastated poor for a tale. But it also had one
thing that Russia didn’t and that’s a solid, comfortable
and accessible to all ‘Middle Class’ and this was the buffer
that stopped communism in its tracks. - But I digress.
As kids we left home after breakfast and reappeared in time
(or more often late for), dinner. The days were spent just
doing ‘stuff’; walking the woods, building camps, digging
tunnels, visiting the farms. Lunch was a few hardboiled
eggs, bread and butter, a slice of cake and for drinks we
bought a big bottle of Tizer, which we shared, even though
we feared ‘girl germs’. Pea shooters, spud guns and catapults
were stuffed into the back pocked of every boy’s short trousers
and every girl seemed to have a skipping rope.
The long summer twilight allowed us time to very slowly
wind our way home, usually very tired but very happy. Strange,
but if at the end of the day anybody had asked as what we
did during that day, we would have had to say ‘nothing really’
as we did so little that we actually did everything ... if
you know what I mean.
Then the skies would get grey and heavy and the first of
the autumn thunderstorms would batter the village, blow
down our camps, flood our tunnels and set the woodland creatures
into a frenzy of home building for the winter. Farmers moved
the haystacks into the barns and animals were brought down
to the valley from their summer home on the Downs.
Soon cold November days would bring almost continuous drizzle
rather than solid rain. Every light from house and shop
window would create its own sparking reflection to shimmer
and dance on wet roads and pavements.
Eagerly we looked towards the coming festivities of Guy
Fawkes Night and Christmas.
So the year would end but with another waiting just off
stage ready to give us its own unique performance, just
like a play, you never really knew what you were going to
get until the curtain rose.
So, that’s why I have been having a wander
down old, long forgotten, pathways. I can’t give anymore
to the world of today, my doing days are now over - but
I can, with a few strokes of the pen, give, even if only
for a nano second, a form of life back to those now gone
and to a place that although it still exists, has mutated
into something, not quite so innocent and comfortable as
it once was.
I can let Mrs Wolten sneak back into the pub, I can let
Mr Blake and Mr Page deliver another load of lino, I can
let constable Bonney enjoy another lunch on the village
green ... and perhaps the greatest joy of them all, I can
let little Carol Kinsley again stare enthralled at her beloved
film posters and twirl around to show off her new party
dress.
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