Life At Home- Part 2

 My mother had a drawer in the kitchen for all manner of odds and ends. Offcuts of string, paper bags, brown paper, and elastic bands. You name it, if it could be rescued and saved, it went in this drawer.  Many items you bought often came wrapped in brown paper and tightly tied with string. We had to go to Braggins, the main department store in Bedford, to buy our school uniforms. 'Ovr Boys' was over the front of the shop, on the corner of Harpur Street and Silver Street. Why the name had a V in it I could never discover. Braggins had a fascinating system of tubes and, I presume, compressed air, which was used to send cash and receipts for things bought to the cash office, hidden in the bowels of the store. This was long before computers, bar codes and all the modern conveniences we now take for granted, but as a young boy, this system intrigued me. The shop assistant put whatever it was in a capsule sort of thing, which then fitted in the lower end of the tube. The thing was closed up, a button was pressed, and there was a whoosh noise, and the capsule was gone. I have no idea how they managed to send it to the right place in the store, but it really interested me, and it made shopping for boring school uniforms far more fun.

I digress. Returning to my mother's oddments drawer, I never knew her to actually use any of those oddments. Perhaps she did, but I never saw her go to the drawer for any of those bits and pieces. I think this may have been a sort of throwback to the Second World War, which she lived through, when there was a 'make do and mend' culture. Everything was saved, even the least important things, such as ends of string, brown paper and so on. When I think, I was born barely five years after the end of the war, so I suppose it's not surprising.

People did reuse things and had their clothes repaired.  I remember a lady used to come to the house every week to do mending, darning socks, jumpers, turning up trousers and so on. Her name was Miss Fuller, and she lived in a cottage right next to the garden of Malting Farm. She then started taking my younger brother, Andrew, out in his pram when he was a baby. He was born in 1961. Then, her work doing the ending got less and less, and she spent more and more time looking after baby Andrew. She was always 'Miss Fuller' and I never discovered her first name. It was the same with the two ladies who used to come into the house, to clean and do domestic jobs, Mrs Jakes and Mrs Fremantle. Mrs Freemantle lived in a cottage at the rear of Malting Farm house and was married to Bob, who was a ploughman on the farm. Mrs Jakes lived with her husband in a cottage which was possibly the last cottage, going out of the village, going towards Bedford. 

Malting Farmhouse was large. As I have already mentioned, it was old. Being owned by the Whitbread Estate, they were responsible for the maintenance of the place, and at one point, when we lived there, the roof had to be partially replaced. There was a traditional-pitched roof, but also a flat section, which ran across the front of the house and out into a semicircular area near the garden. This was made of lead, and it was replaced, no doubt at vast expense. 

There were two attic rooms at the top of the house (where attics are usually located), which we used as playrooms. My older brothers had a train set, which I believe came from a cousin, but I can't be sure of that fact. It meant we could play up there and away from everyone else in the house, but as a child, I found it somewhat scary, because there were a couple of doors which appeared to lead to nowhere in particular. A lot of ancient stuff was stored in a small room, such as paintings, ancient sports equipment and elderly suitcases, which probably hadn't been used in decades. The narrow and steep staircase to access the attic rooms could be tricky to ascend.  There were good views of the village from the windows and, if you were so inclined, you could go out onto the flat roof and walk around, but it was rather dangerous, because the parapet was very low and it would be quite easy to fall over the edge.

The house was large, and it was a great place to have games, such as hide and seek. There were no end of strange, secret places to hide, and you could spend hours hunting for someone who had hidden.

We used the dining room as the central room to watch television and generally relax in. In the early 1960s, my father bought a black-and-white television. In those days, television was in black and white and on 405 lines. Later, around 1964-5, BBC2 opened and was broadcast on 625 lines, meaning, if you wanted to watch it, you needed a set capable of viewing in the new 625 format. My dad eventually bought such a set, I think the brand was KB, nothing like a modern set, large, with most of the works underneath the screen, and to watch BBC2, you had to push over a switch, but I don't think we watched it much. In around 1970, the BBC and ITV introduced colour, but my father wouldn't commit to it until a good deal later. The first colour programmes were experimental in some way, and in 1967 the BBC broadcast Wimbledon in colour. I remember seeing it for the first time when I was taken on a school visit to the Robinson Rentals offices in Bedford (later to become Granada Rental) and saw colour television then, but I have to say, I wasn't over impressed by the quality.

Life At Home- Part 1

 I was thinking about when I was younger and living at home with my parents. I must have mentioned before on this blog that I lived on a farm in Cardington. Malting Farm, to be exact. We were tenants of the Whitbread Estate. Malting Farmhouse was a large Georgian house, built in 1764. It is red brick, with windows that have diamond panes. Some of the windows had been bricked up back in the 18th century, or thereabouts, probably because of the window tax, which was introduced during that period. I think the more windows you had, the more tax you had to pay, so people blocked up windows to avoid paying more tax. There was no double glazing or central heating. In the winter, when you got up in the morning, you would invariably find thick ice on the inside of the windows. The upstairs rooms were connected to one another, so you had to go through one room to get to another. My bedroom, which I shared with my younger brother, had three doors, so it wasn't exactly private. A corridor was added, both upstairs and downstairs, at a much later date. To get dressed in the morning to go to school, we had to run along the corridor to the bathroom and turn on the electric wall heater. This was the only source of heating in the winter in that room. Downstairs in the kitchen, there was an Aga, which was fired with a coal-like substance, which came in sort of nut-shaped lozenges. This Aga had to be kept alight, as it not only heated the water (although there was an immersion tank in the bathroom) but was used for cooking. There was a coal/wood-burning stove in the dining room, which was actually used as the main room where we used to watch television and as a family centre. There were other fireplaces in the other rooms, but they were rarely used. 

Thinking about it, we had all we needed in some respects. Being a farm, we had milking cows, providing milk, potatoes, grown to be sold at Covent Garden Market, Brussels sprouts, similarly grown for sale, and in garden of Malting Farm, a whole range of fruit and vegetables, apples, plums, pears, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries as well as lettuce, onions and in season, celery and rhubarb. My mum did shop for other household items, at a grocer's in Bedford called West's and later, at a store off Cardington Road, called D and A (that may be wrong.) This was well before supermarkets, such as Tesco or Sainsbury's, but she also went into Bedford centre and went to International Stores in the High Street as well as Saxby's, which did pork pies and sausages.

 Dad was friends with a man who was a butcher, Dick Woods. He had greyhounds, similar to Dad. They used to take their greyhounds coursing, and one of  Dad's won a race at White City. Dick Woods owned and ran a butcher's shop in Harrowden Road, and we bought our meat from him. Often it would be delivered by van, and often he would drop in for coffee or around 4 o'clock when we had tea and at times bring sausages which he made himself. It rather makes me think of Jones the butcher in Dad's Army, who was renowned for giving extra bits of meat or sausages to his regular customers, which was actually probably illegal and against the wartime rationing regulations.

Teatime was, as I have said, around 4 o'clock and my mother produced her best cakes, especially her speciality, shortbread. I think it was passed down to her from my father's side of the family. I believe it is a Scottish tradition, which would be right, because my father's family came from Scotland. It was at this time that there were visitors who just happened to call in at the right time, to be invited for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chat. Many of those who came to tea would be reps for the various companies that did business with the farm. 

Earlier in the day, around 11 o'clock, would be coffee time. My mother had a coffee percolator, which sat on the fridge. I don't think you can buy these gadgets today. It was probably made by Russell Hobbs. You put ground coffee into a metal sieve-like container within the percolator and filled the thing with water, and as it boiled, the water came up through a pipe and percolated through the coffee grounds, and the hot coffee was contained in a separate compartment. The outer body was made of ceramic, and it had a clear glass lid through which you could see the coffee percolating. I probably took about 15 minutes to brew a cup of coffee.

Time and Time Again

 Monday. 6.35 a.m. What about the title of this blog post? Attempting to put something across to someone and having to repeat it over and over again. Perhaps that person not understanding something and having to keep on repeating it. It is the title of a play by Alan Ayckbourn. I did the book for it when I was D.S.M. at Ipswich in the 1970s. The lead actor, Chris Godwin, created the part when the play was premiered in Scarborough. Alan Ayckbourn came to see our production and said that he thought it was far better than the West End production, which must have said something, considering the limitations of the stage at the Arts Theatre. (They actually dropped 'Arts' when I was there in 1973.) There was space off-stage on the prompt side, but the opposite side was extremely limited, and you had to get off the stage through a sliding door and to get from one side of the stage to the other, you had to go through that door and outside and round through an alleyway and then came back through the stage door to arrive prompt side. This could be problematic when ladies wore long dresses, particularly when we did a production of 'Great Expectations' and it was winter, with snow on the ground, and they come to pick up snow on the bottom of their dresses if they forget to lift them enough to not get covered.

11.40 a.m. I have been out attempting to make a video, walking along the towpath beside the Grand Union Canal at Peartree Bridge. Unfortunately, the Hohem gimbal began to play up. I did a test video along the path towards Oldbrook Green yesterday morning (and mentioned in yesterday's post.) All seemed to go well, apart from the microphone not working because it wasn't set up correctly. That was resolved this morning, but then the gimbal kept locking and spinning around (it was supposed to be set for POV (Point Of View.) and then kept spinning around. It eventually resolved itself and I managed to walk between two of the bridges over the canal and at one point saw a heron and got really close to this amazing bird, until it flew away, unfortunately not on video. It just moved too quickly for me to catch it on video. I walked back to Peartree Bridge and then into Jeeves Close, which is where I had parked my car.

I have now got my car booked in for its MOT on Wednesday, at Anglo Motors, which is in Mount Farm, on a road near the football stadium. I didn't go with Bleakhall Motors, because someone at church told me they had a bad experience with them, (which I have never had.), but I thought I would try them.

4.30 p.m. I've been to Monday Club at the Oaktree Centre. There weren't as many there as there have been in the past couple of weeks. Perhaps the weather has put people off. 

I  came home and took Alfie out, and we walked around Oldbrook Green. In fact, we did two circuits and a bit more, so I hit the 10,000 steps. 

I got back inside the flat because it started raining. The weather has changed considerably, which might or might not be such a good thing. (The flat temperature, according to the digital thermometer, is 23ºC. Just as I was removing Alfie's lead, I heard my phone ring and it was Mears. The lady I was speaking to me said they wanted to know when they could come to fit the extractor fan, and it's booked for Wednesday morning at around 9.30. After all the effort, it looks like it's about to actually happen!

Tuesday. 5.05 a.m. I awoke in the night. I think it was around 1-2 o'clock. It's the usual thing of having to go to the loo. No good pretending these things happen, particularly as you get older. I could hear what at first might have been an aeroplane, the engine sound did make me think that. But it didn't go away, at speed. It droned on, seemingly circulating Milton Keynes. Then it occurred to me- it could have been an airship. I know the sound, having lived in Cardington Village and close to the airship sheds just across the fields from where I lived at Malting Farm. You can hardly miss these two vast sheds, as they stand out in the landscape and can be seen for miles around. It was from here in 1930 that the ill-fated R101 took off for its flight to India, but, basically, because it was overloaded, it crashed in flames on a hillside near Beauvais, France, killing all the passengers and crew. The remains of some of those people are buried in a special area of the Cardington graveyard.

Anyway, I could still hear the sound of whatever it was, but I was more or less convinced it was an airship. I had to go and see, but, looking out of my bedroom window I could only see lights, and it was certainly, well, to me anyway, most likely to have been an airship. You can usually tell, because they float, rather than fly like a conventional aircraft. Then I was thinking, what was it doing over Milton Keynes, at night, in the dark? It possibly is on a test flight, because Cardington (and more precisely, Shortstown, the village which was built up around the airship hangers), is only around 15–20 miles from Milton Keynes, as the proverbial crow flies. It might have been flown at night to keep it hidden by the dark. I don't know, but it made me think it might have been that. One of the two airship sheds is used for filming, and quite a few well-known Hollywood blockbusters have been made there, including sections of the Star Wars and Batman movies.

7.45p.m. Another Tuesday at Camphill, in the performance art workshop in the Chrysalis Theatre. The day was a mishmash. The filming for the silent movie which I had originally been with, about time travel, had been completed, apart from a tiny scene which will be shot next week. We were supposed to go off to a location in Milton Keynes to film scenes for the pirates' film, but in the afternoon the weather changed, and it started to rain slightly, so it didn't seem such a good idea to go out. Instead, it was decided to use green screen to eventually mix in backgrounds and the green material was set up to allow filming in front of it.

Things To Do

Well, I have now got a flat sorted out, at last somewhere to move to from this house. I don't mind telling you that it's been a long hard journey and I only wish that someone had told me earlier that I could move to sheltered housing. It's almost as if wires got crossed somewhere. What I mean is, having claimed Housing Benefit at the Council offices, what with Carol dying and me being over the age of 60, someone would have noticed that I was living in a 3-bedroom house and that the Council wasn't paying the entirety of the rent. Well, there it is, just need to find a company to do the removals for me and get the small bedroom emptied of it's contents, sorting out what is worth keeping and what needs taking to the tidy-tip and I'm all done and to be honest, I'll be glad when it's over and done with.

I needed to take the tenancy agreement into the council offices, so that my Housing Benefit could be transferred to the flat in Dexter House along with Council Tax. I had been given this when I went in to collect the keys to the flat on Wednesday. I drove into the centre of Milton Keynes early and was in the Civic offices at just past 9 o'clock.

I had the tenancy agreement with me, because I was expecting this to be needed for the transfer of benefits be completed. I had to get help as I usually do, to use the touch-screen check-in system at the reception area. The young man who helped me wasn't a lot of help because it appeared he didn't know what I was there for. I was given a numbered ticket from the machine and then sat down to wait for the number to appear on the digital screens. After about 20 minutes it came up, and I walked to the desk with the relevant number, but it turned out that I was in the wrong place and was told  that I would need to fill in an on-line application. I could do it there in the office or go home and do it on my own laptop.

I couldn't remember my National Insurance number, so I couldn't complete the on-line application so I had to go home and set it up on my MacBook and THEN had to have the rent account number for the flat in Dexter House. I rang and couldn't speak to the warden lady, so left a message on the voice mail and then she rang about 10 minutes later, gave me the number which meant I could complete the change of address form. The first time I got it wrong and went to 'Change of Circumstances,' but then realised it should have been 'change of address.'

I'm still stuck with all the stuff in the small bedroom. I have been on line and have managed AT LAST to find someone who can actually deal with this situation. They are licensed to deal with material which can be taken to the tip and I rang this morning and they are coming this evening (Friday) to have a look and give me a price. I only hope they can do the job and I have been told that they could clear the room this evening, which will be a huge weight off my mind as this situation has been going on for months now. I have known that I would need to empty the room but how and when was an unknown quantity until I had somewhere to move to, but now I have somewhere to actually move to, the matter of the small bedroom looms large.

I went out yesterday afternoon with Alfie. It was attempting to rain, but only just, but this didn't put me off. I wore my blue Peter Storm jacket, which has a hood. Alfie seems impervious to a little bit of rain. As we walked around Eaglestone Park (well, I walked. Alfie runs.) the skies opened and it just pelted down. We just trudged on and got home before we got to soaked. Alfie shaking himself at regular intervals and once we were indoors, I used a towel to attempt to dry him. As a result of the soaking, Alfie's coat became more than ever curly, looking for all the world as if it had been permed.

The man with the van arrived at around 7.30. He had one look at the bedroom and all the stuff in there and sent a photo to his partner on his mobile. I had at first said I was prepared to pay £60 for the job, but he told me that he wouldn't be able to take everything for that amount and then said it would cost £160. I was reluctant to pay that amount, but if it meant that everything was cleared, the I would pay that amount and as a result I agreed and he started the job, taking everything out to his van which was parked in the space where I usually parked at the front of the house, having moved the car further along the road. He uncovered bits and pieces that I hadn't seen for  long time, and lots of Daniel's computer game discs, as well as a rather nice camera bag I hadn't known was buried in there. But most of it will be dumped, which he can do because he has the relevant licence. I discovered that he lived in Cardington village, where I lived and grew up in and he knew Malting Farm. He managed to finish the job at around 9 o'clock, and all I can say is that I'm relieved that its done, apart from the removal of the single bed which he said he could come back for either today (Saturday) or Monday.

Reading and Watching-2

Some worthwhile history television programming being shown on BBC2 at the moment, in the shape of a series called "A House Through Time," which traces the history of one house in Liverpool from when it was first built and occupied right up to the 20th century. Historian David Olusoga is the presenter who uses archive material to find out who owned and lived in a terraced house, number 62 Falkner Street, Liverpool, over 180 years, right up until the 1940's. It's a sort of "Who Do You Think You Are," but instead of following backwards to discover the ancestors of a celebrity it traces the house's inhabitants. Infact it made by the same production company who made "Who Do You Think You Are?", Wall-To-Wall Television. It's totally enthralling and if anything else, shows the various sources you could use yourself if you were to trace your own home's history. As a result of doing some of my own family history I've discovered some interesting material and from watching this programme might even think of tracing the history of my home as a child when I lived at Malting Farm in Cardington, Bedfordshire. The farm house was built in 1764, so there would be some history behind that and it would be fascinating to discover who lived in the house over the years before my family moved in.

A series of documentaries across all BBC channels is on about the Royal art collection as well as the Crown Jewels. The Coronation was an hour-long documentary on BBC1 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Queen'sCoronation. A rare glimpse of the actual crown she wore in the 1952 ceremony at Westminster Abbey and an even rarer chance to hear her actually talking about that occasion. It's very unusual to hear her Her Maj actually speaking in a more natural voice than to the one we've come to expect, for example,  for such occasions as the Christmas Message.

There's quite a few television programmes which visit various places throughout the United Kingdom. 'Great British Railway Journeys,' which is presented by Michael Portillo. This has covered a great deal of the United Kingdom, and he has used the Victorian 'Bradshaw's' railway timetable for various years to explain a wide selection of historic events as he stops off along the way. I'm not certain how many series he's done of this, but last week he was covering the Edwardian period and this week he's in America, and the show is now entitled "The Great American Railroad Journeys." The other television stations seem to have caught on to this type of programme, a sort of amiable amble about the countryside, stopping off to view the scenery along the way. Channel Four in the afternoon has a series presented by Penelope Keith called "Village of The Year," where each episode is from a different region of the British Isles and four villages are profiled and then one is chosen to go forward to the next 'heat' and then eventually one village will be chosen as the winner. There have been a few series about villages, presented by Penelope Keith, 'Hidden Villages,' as well as 'Coastal Villages.' She did another series, I think for Sky Arts, where she visited National Trust properties. I have a feeling it was also bought out on DVD as I've seen them in either National Trust or English Heritage shops whenever we've visited any of either organisations properties as we're members of both.

Living On The Farm

Malting Farm was not just our home, but was a fully working farm. There were other people who made the place function. The actual house, built in 1764 (how do I know? We had the ground plan of the original house framed and on the wall of my father's office, as well as being quite clearly marked on one of the down-pipes of the guttering.) My father employed several men, and during the summer months there were extra hands, usually during the harvest. My mother had to run the house, a large Georgian red-brick building. Two ladies came in to assist with cleaning, Mrs Freemantle, whose husband, Bob was the ploughman and tractor driver. They lived in a cottage which was behind the main house. I imagine at one time it must have been joined to the farm house. Bob was an avid gardener and had a plot behind the main garden. He grew vegetables. If you went near his beloved garden without his permission, woe betide you. He had a short temper. I don't think the other men on the farm liked him much.

Mrs Freemantle was a lovely lady. If Mum and Dad went away on there own (which wasn't very often, but when they did it was usually to sail at Brightlingsea.) she would come in to make sure we had meals and generally look after the house. We often went to stay with my grandparents, who lived at Mill Farm, abut two or three miles from Cardington Village.

The other lady who came in to clean the house was Mrs Jacques, who lived in the first house coming into the village from Bedford. Her husband worked as a farm labourer, but not in the village. The two ladies were great friends, as far as I know. I presume they were. I recall an incident when my mother had to lay off Mrs Jaques (I don't know why or what it was about.) But during one of the many village fetes or bazaars which were held during the year to raise money for the church, she had a stand-up row in public at one of these events. It was really embarrassing and I don't know how my mother managed to deal with it. I think it was the fact that it was so public which made it so embarrassing. I don't think Mrs Jacques ever came back to work at Malting Farm. I am fairly sure my mother didn't get rid of her as a worker because Mrs Jacques was very good at her job. When I think what a large house Malting Farm house it it was obvious that you would need extra people to help run it, particularly cleaning and the fact that there were seven of us as a family when I lived there.

Miss Fuller, who I've mentioned in an earlier post, came in every Wednesday to do mending (those were the days when people had their clothes mended, such as socks darned, trousers turned up, you mention it, clothes were expected to last longer when repaired. I suppose it was a hang-over from the War when there was the culture of 'Make Do And Mend,' which carried on into the 1950s and beyond with austerity. Perhaps it aught to come back today, although I suppose we have recycling.) She had come in from our neighbour's, the Porter's, and eventually came to look after my youngest brother Andrew, who was a baby at the beginning of the 1960s. She lived in a cottage which was immediately next to the garden of Malting Farm, but later moved to a cottage on the Green in the centre of Cardington Village.

Doug Pattle was stockman, meaning he was responsible for looking after the cattle. We had what was called a 'house cow' which was milked and the milk used by the household. This milk was 'raw' not pasteurised, although each year all the cattle on the farm were tested for T.B. I have to say 'raw' milk takes so much better than pasteurised, which took a lot of getting used to when we eventually had to have our milk delivered. The milk was taken to the dairy in the house and put in, how can I describe them any other way- flat pans, and left to stand and the cream scammed off for our use. Definitely great to have an almost limitless supply of such fine, tasty cream as well as full-fat milk for cooking, in tea and coffee and other drinks. As a child we had no choice but had to eat porridge for breakfast. Doug Pattle also drove us to school in Bedford. Some mornings my dad would take us, but on others Porter's pigman, Geoff Caves, took us. He used to look after their pigs at their farm in Cople as well as in a unit they had in Cardington. I remember the old car they used to ferry us into Bedford. I think it was a Rover of some kind. It always smelt of gone-off milk because I think he carried buckets of milk about in the car and it must have slopped over. The smell was unpleasant and sort of rank. I imagine the milk was used to feed the pigs. Strange how such things stick in your mind when you're a child. Smells particularly have a strong ability to bring back memories.

There were several other men who worked on the farm. Bert Gadsby, who was ancient when I remember him. He must have been well past retirement age at the time I'm thinking of. A Mr Huckle. Don't remember his Christian name. But when you were a child everyone was 'Mr' or 'Mrs' and you weren't supposed to call adults by their Christian names. I still don't know Miss Fuller's Christian name. I know it sounds strange now, but that was the sort of respect your had for your 'elders and betters.' Or Mrs Fremantle or Mrs Jacques Christian names.

There were also a set of ladies how appeared at certain times of the year, who came from Bedford. My father would go and pick them up and take them home in the Land Rover. They used to come to work in the Brussel sprout seed-bed (or whatever it was called) My father grew Brussels on the farm and the seed bed was a fairly small plot where the Brussels seeds were set and then, when it came to planting, they had to be hand-pulled and sorted, the poorest quality rejected and then taken to the field to be planted using a machine which was connected to a tractor and which was operated by several people sitting on he back and hand-planting the Brussel plants. Quite a difficult job, considering the plants had to be set at the correct distance from each other and whilst the machine was moving. I don't think I could have done the job as I think I would have suffered from motion sickness. My father produced Brussels which were a good deal larger than those you find in a supermarket today. It seems that the modern housewife wants Brussels which are probably a quarter of the size of those my father grew. They were picked in the autumn and winter months by men out in the fields, in all weathers, cold, rain, fog, bitter cold. Bent double. I think their hands much have turned to ice. I don't know how much they were paid, what their hourly rate was. These Brussels were bagged up and sent by lorry to Covent Garden. The farm dealt with a company called Bennet and Hawes and they came each evening for the day's load. They might have come daily or weekly, I don't know thinking about it now.

The same happened with potatoes. They would have been set from seed potatoes on a similar machine to the one used for Brussels. Potatoes need a lot of water and there was an irrigation system which was a set of aluminium pipes stretching across the fields and linked to a pump which was set up in the brook which ran through the farm. These irrigation pipes had to be moved at regular intervals and we had to help with this job.

Then there was the grain harvest, during the months of July and August. I was usually a tractor driver (probably my first experience of driving any sort of vehicle.) corn-cart, driving along side the confine harvester when it was still moving and when the cart was level with the augur which came out of the side of the combine, the corn was loaded into the cart behind the tractor (moving along in tandem with the moving combine. Not an easy job.) and the corn was loaded into the cart and then taken off to the drier unit at the bottom of Hill Foot outside Cardington or to Jordan's silo at Mile Road in Bedford. Or it was stored in a barn in Malting Farm in a pit and then lifted up via augur into a contraption devised by my father who was very adept at constructing such things. Probably taken somewhere  to be milled into flour for making bread or whatever.

I may have more to write about on this subject, so look out for a further blog post.

Alfie Traumatised

I walked back home from the hospital at around 5.15. Unfortunately it's hallowe'en. I think you'll have realised I don't hold with this so-called 'tradition.' I don't honestly think it's acceptable for children to be let loose on the streets and be allowed to bang on people's front doors and demand what is, in essence, money with menaces. I mean, 'hand over some sugar-fuelled gift, sweets or chocolate, or if you don't, I'll wreak havoc on your house', for example, over-tip your dustbin. Also, going around dressed in really cheap and totally pathetic costumes, pretending to look like either Dracula, Frankenstein or the Walking Dead is not my idea of ideal entertainment. And, during all this totally imported nonsense, what happened to the more traditional British holiday of Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night? When I was growing up we always had a bonfire party on 5th November, or at least the nearest Saturday to the date, with fireworks, hot cocoa, baked potatoes, bonfire toffee and all the works. It was usually in one of the fields behind Malting Farm or next door at Porter's house. We'd spend weeks going around collecting wood and all manner of rubbish to be used to build the bonfire and then we'd build a Guy out of old clothes, and this effigy was put atop the bonfire and when it was really dark, lit. So, why has this been taken over by hallowe'en? Well, to be honest, it's just another way for companies to make a bit more money, out of all the junk that is connected with it. It's just something that has crept in via Hollywood. An American 'tradition' because, basically, they don't have a long history and need something to make up for it. I think a lot of these things have been copied because they're featured in films such as 'E.T.' which I'm sure has a sequence where the little E.T. creature is part of a 'Trick or Treat' evening. It's the same with schools having 'Proms' at the end of the school year. No such thing when I was leaving school in the late 1960's. I still don't know why they call it a 'Prom' which to me is a concert held in the Royal Albert Hall every year and the singing of 'Land of Hope and Glory'.

As I was saying before I wandered somewhat from the track. I arrived home. The central heating was on because it's getting a good deal colder. Before I walked in there were a few children wandering about the street, going about their 'Trick or Treating.' I said 'please don't come to my house' and they seemed to get the message that I wasn't going to fall for that 'thing'. I walked in and Alfie began barking. He had gone upstairs to our bedroom when I got ready to leave the house earlier in the afternoon. He has a good idea what I'm going to do when he sees me putting my shoes on to go out and I try to get him to go in the kitchen where he's safe when the door is closed. But if he's aware I'm going out he shoots upstairs into our bedroom. I found him there the other day, under the bed, and in one of the storage baskets we have there. Quite funny to see him curled up in there. At least if he's in the kitchen he has water and something to eat in his bowl and we got him a really cozy dog bed which is in one corner. He seems to like it as it's warm and he doesn't have to be in a draught. Anyway, Alfie shot down stairs when I walked in. He didn't leave my side all evening. He couldn't get much closer to me and wanted to sit on my lap when I sat to look at my laptop to read emails. Mind you, he tried to push the thing off with his nose so he could sit on my lap and when he couldn't he attempted to climb onto the back of the chair. He can't sit there since we replaced the old chair with this new IKEA model as the back is too narrow for him to sit there. He also climbs along the back of the sofa and sits or lies there. I think this is a sort of terrier trait as the Jack Russel terriers my parents had liked to sit or lie like this, with their legs either side, even when we drove around in the car, they liked to sit on the back of the car seats. I imagine it gives the a good view of what's going on, being short dogs, they can't see out of the window or get a particularly clear view from ground level.

During the evening Alfie was displaying some body language I've never seen before. I was in the bathroom and he followed me upstairs and he was coming up the stairs with his body very low to the ground, looking almost as if he was creeping up he stairs and when he came into the bathroom, again he couldn't get close enough to me. It's as if he'd been frightened and he wanted me to reassure him that I would look after him. When I was in the bathroom, again, he couldn't get near enough.

I must say it makes me somewhat annoyed that this horrible thing, hallowe'en, has to cause distress to not only humans, but also animals. Poppy, our little westie/shitsu, was terrified of fireworks. She would cower under the most convenient piece of furniture or go under our bed. It seems Alfie is just as bad. He barks whenever a firework is let off (incidentally, what on earth is the point of letting them off in daylight??? Surely they're at their best when it's dark. They are part of Guy Fawkes night, not hallowe'en.) It's irresponsible of people to cause so much upset to pets and humans when they just want to be safe and protected. Banging on people's doors and demanding things is not a good thing, regardless of what people might think. The best way to deal with all this is to ignore it.

A bit later

It's 7.45 a.m. I've been busy since I got up. Put washing on and it's now finished and on the airer in the kitchen. That thing is annoying. Just hate having to slot every item of clothing through the bars on this annoying contraption. Just not well designed. I'd far rather hang stuff on the line in the garden, but it'll never dry properly as the weather is a bit unsettled. Anyway, I was sitting and eating my breakfast and Alfie is attempting to sit on my lap. He starts yapping at me, being very insistent, as he can be. He wanted to show me something. I assumed he wanted to be let out into the garden, so I moved towards the patio doors, but no, he took me to where the dog leads are kept, on a hook in the kitchen. He stood and yapped and it was really obvious that we wanted to go for a walk. I had to sort myself out, put on my shoes and then a jumper, as it's quite cold out first thing in the morning. I grabbed the lead and managed to hook it onto his collar and away we went. Alfie yapping at full voice, as is his usual want. We crossed the road and into the park. I saw a man with his dog across the park but Alfie charged off at full tilt, the other dog not knowing what had hit it. They usually don't as Alfie is like a mad thing, running in circles round the dog. The owner didn't mind, thankfully. Alfie just wants to be friends, but the other dog usually stares at him in disbelief. We walked across the wide grass area where there's some climbing equipment and other exercise items. I saw a woman and some children with a large Alsation-type dog in the distance and didn't want Alfie to run towards it as I really don't trust them so we went back across the grass area. This was long and very wet and I got my feet soaked, unfortunately, and meanwhile Alfie charging about like a mad thing. We walked back to the house and Alfie calmed down, I think the walk did us both a power of good. Just shows how much a little dog can do to make you feel better after the trauma of the past few days.

Living At Home- Part 3

My elder brothers were into music. James was (and still is, as far as I know) a very good trumpeter. He liked people such as Herb Alpert and had quite a few of his LPs. Robert, on the other hand, was (still probably is) a very proficient pianist. There was a good piano, an upright Steinway, in the house at Malting Farm. My grandmother Ferriman, who lived at Mill Farm, Cardington, was also a good pianist. She used to play at the annual children's Christmas party which was held each year at the Reading Room in the village. She had the scores of several musicals in the piano stool, including My Fair Lady and Salad Days. When I was a Student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham in 1969 I was involved in a production of Salad Days. It may have been my grandmother's love of musicals which rubbed off on me and got me interested in not only musicals but theatre in general. Granny Ferriman as she was called was something to do with the W.I. I'm not sure in what capacity, but each year they had a drama competition, held in the Civic Theatre, Bedford. Over several years I was taken along to watch the one-act plays performed. I do remember going to London with her to see a play called "Mr Brown Comes Down The Hill", written by Peter Howard, which was put on at the Westminster Theatre. I'm not sure what reason we went to see this play, but it had a sort of Christian theme to it. I had the script of the play, which I had in my book collection for years, but, unfortunately, it got lost basically because I've moved house so many times over the years. After the show we went to a house in, I think, somewhere in Cavendish Square, for a rather elaborate meal. The house was once where Robert Clive, of India lived or someone like that. I remember it was quite a lavish meal. To this day I'm not sure what it was all about. I suppose I would have been about 15-16 at the time.

Every Christmas we always went to see a show of some sort in London. I remember going to see either Chipperfield's or Smart's circus which was put on at somewhere such as Olympia or Earl's Court. A circus came regularly to Bedford, usually in one of the fields along the road leading into Bedford. I remember going to see 'Peter Pan' which ran every year at the Scala Theatre and being taken by Sister Watson, who was a nurse at Bedford Hospital when my mother was a nurse before she married. It was a big, elaborate production which included flying, most likely done by Kirby's Flying Ballet. There was a spectacular scene on board Captain Hook's ship, I expect the sequence where Hook attempts to kill Peter Pan, and there were lots of cannons being fired, which, apparently, scared me. I don't expect I can have been much more than 8-9 at the time.

The Scala Theatre was one of those theatres which allowed you to have tea in the auditorium. You ordered before the show began and it was bought to you on a tray. I can't remember if you got sandwiches and cakes. You probably did. You just sat and drank your tea in the auditorium during the interval. I can't believe they did this, and it's not likely to be revived for a 21st-century play-goer as it would be against our old friends, health and safety.

Living At Home- Part 2

Living on a farm we had acres and acres of places to explore, run completely wild and play. I think we were exceptionally lucky in that respect, unlike children bought up living in a town. No excuses when it came to finding something to do in the school holidays. My mother would never allow us to spend our time indoors. No such thing as mobile phones, tablets, computers, Gameboys or any sort of computer game console. No daytime television during the 1960's. Television didn't start until children's programmes started at around 4-5 o'clock. No 24-hour television as we have today. As I've said in earlier posts, we only had 3 channels until Channel Four came along in 1982. If it was sunny and warm during the summer we'd be outside all day and not go indoors until it was teatime. Long bike rides through the country lanes around Cardington, generally messing about in and around the village, particularly the brook that ran through the farm. I doubt children would have such a connection to the world about them today as we had then. Getting dirty, building dens, tree houses and having adventures. Probably in a world which seems to be dominated by our old friend 'Health and Safety' it's more than likely that they don't have anywhere the same sort of lives as we did.

Malting Farm house was large (and is. It's still there, although no Murdochs live there any more). Well, it would have to be because there were seven in our family. It had lots of corridors and it wasn't centrally heated. I think I've mentioned this in an earlier blog post on here. There was an Aga cooker in the kitchen, which could be very difficult to light and had to be kept going using special fuel, sort of nuts of coal. In the dining room and some of the downstairs rooms there were fireplaces which were lit occasionally. It could be extremely cold in winter. But, saying that, we didn't know anything different and we survived. With so many rooms, idea for playing hide and seek. There were two attic rooms which we used as play rooms. It meant you could make a mess up there and it didn't matter. We had a model railway layout. I'm not sure, but I think we inherited it from a relative. I'm not sure whether it was from my mother or father's family, but it was quite an extensive Triang railway with no end of track that ran around an amazing raised sort of construction which included tunnels, stations, houses and other bits and pieces. With four brothers, we did get toys passed on as they were grown out of. Me being in the middle of five, anything I got passed down had already come from my two eldest brothers, James and Robert.

I had Mecanno when I was a child. I doubt very much if young boys have this toy nowadays, or even girls. I doubt they would even know what it was. It had metal pieces, usually coloured red, blue or silver, nuts and bolts and various mechanical gears, pulley and similar pieces which you could use to build all manner of machines, cars, bicycles or a combination of mechanical devices. I inherited most of this from my older brothers and got more 'sets' as the years went by. It grew and grew. You could get clockwork and electric motors to drive the machines you created and a lot of these creations could be built using instructions you got in magazines and leaflets. I'm not sure that you can still get this 'toy,' even if you can call it a toy. Birthdays and Christmases bought more and more bits to build more elaborate creations. Endless fun and interest and no doubt it encouraged boys (and possibly girls) to become interested in engineering and probably careers in this field. I think perhaps today children are more interested in computers and similar electronic devices and the fact that they can communicate with other people via the internet makes things that are more physical, such as Mecanno, somewhat obsolete, which is a real pity.

It seems that children in particular, but also a great many adults, spend a lot of their time on smart phones and tablets (as well as other gadgets) and don't appear to communicate much face-to-face. Living in a cyber world, chatting on-line via chat-rooms, text or email, seems to have replaced speaking to another person in the 'real-world.' You only have to walk down the average street or visit a supermarket or shopping centre to see how many people only appear to interact through their devices. Also, I'm sure that manners have gone out the window. People seem to have lost the ability to be even remotely patient. Not everyone, but mostly young people. They don't like having to wait, especially in queues, for example, at the supermarket. A lot more short-tempered people on the roads. A lot of people cutting me up on roundabouts, impatient to wait if you stop at a roundabout, coming up behind me in their car and expecting me to drive faster. Pushing you to move out of the way for them or at least drive faster. People expect to have everything NOW, not time to wait for anything.

Wet Weather

After the warm, almost springlike weather yesterday, it's a really miserable sort of day. I'm really glad I cut the grass yesterday because today it's pouring with rain. Infact it's a good deal colder and we have the central heating on. I refuse to call that patch of grass a 'lawn' because it's nothing of the sort. A lawn is reasonably good quality grass, cut with a mower which makes the traditional stripes. Think Wimbledon tennis (I don't as I'm not a fan, but you know what I mean.) I suppose I mean what we see when we visit a National Trust property and go into the various gardens attached to these properties. Indeed, as a young man living at home, particularly Malting Farm, I was usually in charge of mowing the lawn.  I wasn't over-keen about having the job, but you had no choice. You did what your were told and just got on with it. I can actually think of nothing more boring than mowing a lawn, walking up and down, pushing the benighted thing, which wasn't always eager to start. My father was particular about the thing, making sure you checked it for oil, and then having to fill the engine with two-stroke petrol. To this very day I don't understand what is meant by 'two-stroke' petrol. How does it differ from any other petrol? We had to go to a local petrol station with the can and get it filled before I could put the petrol in the lawn mower before I could even think of mowing the lawn. Then check the oil level with the dip-stick. I suppose it was good that I was instructed on how to properly care for a petrol engine, but it was a bit of a chore, all this fuss and bother. There was a large garden at Malting Farm, Cardington, and my father was somewhat particular about how the lawn was mown. It was done with a traditional lawn mower, you know, petrol-driven, you had to empty the bucket think on the front which caught the grass as it went along. Not many up-and-down lengths before you had to stop and empty the thing into a wheelbarrow and when that was full, push the thing the length of the garden to the pile that grew exponentially at the other end of the garden. Compost heap was the word I was looking for. It gave off a very distinctive odour. I don't know what happened to it. It steamed gently. Mysterious. I expect this compost was used to bed in plants, act as a sort of fertiliser. Anyway, I'm drifting from my main subject. What I'm attempting to say is that the grass patch at the rear of this house is more like a quagmire, particularly when it rains. It's excessively uneven, which makes cutting it much more difficult. It's tusky and difficult to cut, even more so if it's slightly wet. I don't think our electric, rotary mower was made to cut such poor quality grass. More likely intended for even, flat lawns, at those houses with pocket-handkerchief sized gardens and even smaller pieces of lawn, made of nicely rolled, tended turf, purchased for some garden centre such as Frost's at Woburn Sands, or Dobbie's or even Wyevale. The mower at Malting Farm was one of those green Atco models. It had a detachable bucket on the front and you had to pull a cord to get it started, making sure you didn't flood the engine otherwise it wouldn't start. It was something of an effort to pull that cord-thing, which had a sort of wooden cross piece handle and the cord sort of re-coiled itself after you'd pulled it. It began to really hurt every muscle in your pulling arm after the sixth or so attempt.

Listening To Radio Four- Part 1

I was thinking to myself the other day how my interest in such things as literature, theatre and comedy have been influenced by BBC Radio Four. Most people, as they grow from adolescence to adulthood, listen mainly to what is commonly known as 'pop' music, and the form of delivery for this is via radio. In the 1960's we had pirate radio, such as Radio Caroline, which operated illegally from just outside the mainland of Great Britain. I do have a slight connection to this station (but only slightly, I may add.) Radio Caroline was broadcast from a ship which was anchored in the North Sea just off the Essex coast near where my family spent it's summer holidays, at Frinton-On-Sea. You could see this ship clearly from the promenade at Frinton, where we rented a beach hut for the two weeks at the beginning of September each year. One year there was a mighty storm at night and the ship on which Radio Caroline was broadcast from came adrift from its anchorage and ran aground on the Frinton beach. It made the headlines in the national newspapers over the next week of or two. In 1967 (or thereabouts) the then Labour government, under Harold Wilson, made pirate radio stations illegal, apparently because they were supposed to interfere with broadcasts for the lifeguard service. Radio Caroline (and other similar pirate stations) were put out of business and the good old BBC was tasked with creating a replacement radio station, which was to be called, rather unimaginatively, Radio One (because the remaining BBC radio stations were to become Radio 2 (formerly The Light Programme), Radio 3 (formerly The Third Programme), The Home Service became Radio Four. No doubt it was the obvious numbering of these stations that gave them their names, so to have a new station called Radio One was logical. I've not actually been a particular fan of 'pop' music, preferring classical music, but I do enjoy some bits of pop. I think if I have to have any sort of pop radio station on I prefer Radio 2, because, frankly, I can't stand commercial pop stations such as Heart which is awful. The adverts are really appalling and seem to play to the lowest common denominator. It was better when it was Chiltern and Horizon. They've just made it into a sort of mush, basically for financial reasons. Terrible. They must think their audience are really dim or something, the tone of the presenters.

Why am I mentioning all this? I suppose because when I was growing up I tended to listen to Radio Four. My parents always had it on in the house.  My father had to listen to the weather forecast because he was a farmer and the weather was important to him, particularly at harvest-time.) It was probably the main source of news and always seemed to be on at lunchtime. We had an ancient radio in the kitchen at Malting Farm, kept on a shelf high up on a wall, which took a time to warm up before it worked (I think most things needed 'warming up' in those days, before transistors became popular and replaced valves in things. The television we had, a black and white model, took some time to warm up. A good many years before the introduction of colour in the early 1970's.)

Radio Four must be unique. It's an all-speech channel. I can't imagine a commercial version because I don't imagine the audience figures are particularly high, so it would never survive on advertising alone. It broadcasts a wide range of material across such things as documentaries, arts, media, light entertainment, comedy (light entertainment covers panel shows and sitcoms and sketch shows.) as well as soap opera (The Archers would fall into this category. It's supposed to be the longest running drama or soap in the world, running for something like 65 years. In fact, it's one year younger than me.)

I got hooked on adaptations of books which were (and probably still are) broadcast on Radio Four. For example, some of Daphne Du Maurier's novels. which lead me to read many of them, particularly 'Rebecca' and 'Jamaica Inn.' I think I'd written them off as being somewhat female-orientated (which perhaps they are, to some extent.) but then, once I'd read them, I discovered that there was far more to them, particularly 'Rebecca' which is really gripping and has a mystery about it. She does atmosphere and character really well. Definitely page turners. The books have been adapted for both radio and television, and of course 'Rebecca' was famously made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock, with Laurence Olivier in the role of Max DeWinter. She also wrote another, the later novel which was called 'The House On The Strand' which was done well on the radio. There's something about a radio adaptation, you have to concentrate more than with a visual medium. There's no way you can get away with the scenery dominating, flashy camera-work etc with a totally aural adaptation of course.

Dogs (and other Pets)

We always had dogs when I was a child. My father had greyhounds, although I don't really think they'd be classed as 'pets' as such. They lived in their own kennels and there was a run for them in the garden at Malting Farm. Some were put into greyhound races, but others were used for coursing. I know it's not considered 'P.C.' (Politically Correct) and hunting with dogs is now illegal, that is still what they were basically used for. I'm not going to get into a discussion on the rights or wrongs of it in this post, although in some sense, in the early part of the 21st Century, perhaps it's a good thing that we don't continue with such things, but I'm not convinced one way or the other. One of the dogs won some race, it may have been at the White City Stadium in London, back in the early 1960's, because he had a large trophy which sat on the sideboard in the lounge at Malting Farm, which was the prize for this race. I'm not sure whether there was any money involved. Dad was a greyhound trainer, which is one reason the greyhounds were kept in separate accommodation. There were several litters of puppies born at Malting Farm, and the dogs made exceptionally good mothers. Contrary to what you believe about greyhounds they are very affectionate and do make good pets and I know people re-home retired greyhounds. One, in particular, called Ben, who became a stud dog, was often bought into the house and made a fuss of, but unfortunately he was poisoned during one event, I think the Waterloo Cup, which was held every year in Lancashire (now no more since 'hunting with dogs' is illegal.) Although you must not call greyhounds 'dogs.' I don't know what the outcome of the poor animal who was poisoned, whether the culprit was found or whether the police were involved. I think the poison was paraquat or some sort of poison used to keep down weeds.

Being a farm, there were always labradors around, usually black. Beautiful creatures used to retrieve game during shooting expeditions and the annual 'shoot', which was quite a big event, culminating in a large meal, provided by my mother and comprised of quite an elaborate meal in the dining room at Malting Farm. Later, my brother Andrew had a black-and-white Cocker spaniel, called Pippa, who came from a litter produced by a bitch owned by my Kendall cousins who lived at Eyeworth, near Sandy. Pippa was a sweet-natured little dog, who always went around with a wagging tail. We went to Fronton-On-Sea for summer holidays as well as to Brightlingsea, a little further down the Essex coast, where my father had a sailing boat called 'Flashpoint' on which we occasionally stayed. The boat was moored in the Colne estuary, and to get to it you had to use a small rubber boat or 'tender.' Trying to get out to the yacht with a load of shopping as well as Pippa was quite an ordeal. She had a tendency to always want to swim, which is what all spaniels seem to love. But on one particular occasion, she decided that she couldn't be contained on board ship for too long and took off by jumping in. But, as there was a  strong tide in the Colne estuary, she got caught in a song current which means she could possibly get back to the yacht. So we had to get in the tender and row after her in order to rescue her, otherwise, she would have been lost and possibly drowned. Even though she was a strong swimmer, she couldn't swim fast enough against the rapidly ebbing tide and would have been swept out to sea, never to be seen again. On the beach at Fronton, Pippa would enjoy the sea, and it was quite difficult to keep her out of the water. Her one abiding passion was chasing things, which is what a Cocker excels at, along with swimming. It was at a time when Frisbees were all the fashion, but if anyone was seen playing with one, usually someone or other of our family or friends, or complete strangers, merely throwing the things between one another, Pippa had the idea that the Frisbee was being thrown for her entertainment, and if the thing landed, she would run and pick it up and play with it herself, which could be quite embarrassing, particularly as she had a tendency to chew the things.

My brother James had a couple of black labradors. One I think was called Flon. She had a tendency to run off. As a child, I seem to remember another black labrador called Sorrel. I don't remember much about this dog. We had small Jack Russel Terriers in the 1960 and 70s. We had a small, tan and white terrier which had a wiry coat and called Honey. Unfortunately, it died. I think Dad took it to show the greyhounds and one barked and it scared the poor little pup to death. Sad. A really sweet little dog. I think she came from family friends who lived in Carlton, whose dog had puppies. Then Dad got another little Jack Russel, small, black and white and with an undershot jaw. Funny how you remember these things. She was called Spike. I don't know why. I think it was because her tail was like a spike. Then we got a second dog, a bit bigger than Spike, who got called Milligan, after the Goon's writer and comedian. I think it seemed an obvious name, come to think of it. He was black and white with tan markings, on his face and legs. He took to me and pined when I went to school. He used to sleep on my bed and followed me around like a shadow. Unfortunately, he rather liked the neighbour's chickens. I think he might have chased a few and killed them. Then he wasn't around anymore. I don't know what happened to him. Went to a new home, away from chickens. I was quite upset, as you can imagine. Then, a few years later another dog came into our lives, another Jack Russell Terrier. She was called Lucy. She had a problem with her skin. She got an allergic reaction to flea bites and her skin came out in a horrible load of sores. She was small, and to relieve the itching caused by the sores she rubbed herself underneath the armchairs in the lounge and made the sores bleed. Poor little thing. She had a sort of epileptic fit one evening when she was let out into the garden. It was quite distressing to see this, laying on her pack, with her legs shaking. She came out of it a few minutes later, but I thought she was going to die. I just think she was prone to have an odd sort of metabolism or something, which meant her heart raced at too high a level, which was what caused the epileptic fit.

Another dog we had, probably a good deal earlier, was a dachshund, called Chippy. He was light brown with white markings. He was very like a sausage (I know, dachshunds are often called 'Sausage Dogs.) and called Chipolata, hence, Chippy for short. He loved music, or so he seemed to, because if you were to play a mouth-organ (or harmonica) he would howl along. It was very amusing. He got his tail, which was very long for such a little dog, and got caught in the rear door when my mother had a Hillman Husky, which had a rear door which was operated by a lever on the car's dashboard. How on earth his tail got caught in the door when it got shot I really don't know, but as a result, the end of his tail had about half an inch missing. It never recovered and ended in a rather abrupt tip and the hair never grew back.

So, now Carol and I have two dogs, as you will know if you have been reading my posts on here over the years. The oldest one, Poppy, is a Shitsu-West Highland Terrier cross. She has a stubborn streak and does what she wants, particularly when we take her out for a walk, and you have to put her back on her lead and she runs off and won't return. When I first met her, at Carol's house in Crownhill (a good ten years ago now.) she was so excited to meet me that she weed on my leg! Take her anywhere with water, such as a lake or river, and before you know it, she'll be in and swimming.
The other dog we have is Alfie, who is a Yorkshire Terrier. A faithful little dog, who took to me very early on and follows me around the house like a shadow. He's even-tempered and has a lot of courage, especially when we're out walking and he comes across far larger dogs. He hates cats and if one comes into our garden he barks loudly. Both dogs sleep on our bed at night, but disturb Alfie at your peril and he will growl to warn you off. He doesn't like being disturbed and falls asleep at the merest opportunity.

My brother Robert was keen on horses. We had a pony called Meg from quite early on and Andrew had a couple of ponies, one called Whiskey, a black and white pony as well as a white one whose name I forget. My younger brother, Sandy, used to go to gymkhanas around Bedfordshire and take part in the various events and got quite good at it. I'm not sure these are still going, but there used to be an annual one at Clapham as well as the Young Farmers' rally at Silsoe. My grandmother Ferriman was President or something for several years. I do recall, from quite an early age, being taken to these events, even though I never took part. I did ride, occasionally, but what put me off was all the mucking out and tack cleaning which went with caring for horses. The fact that I was kicked by one of the horses and then bitten by another, quite badly, in the fleshy part of my arm, might have something to do with it, as well as being on one of the ponies which bolted with me on board and nearly going through a five-bar gate has definitely got something to do with it!

I'm fairly certain we had other pets. A budgerigar, which I seem to remember lived in a cage in the kitchen at Malting Farm. Whether it was male or female I have no idea. There was a tortoise, but it lived in the garden and wandered as tortoises do and was rarely seen, no doubt hiding away amidst the flowers and other plants, but was rarely seen. Which makes me wonder how it ever survived winter. No doubt it hibernated somewhere or other. One of my brothers, Robert perhaps, had a fish in a tank, and I think it was in his bedroom, but whether it survived I can't recall. That is all I can remember of any pets we had as children. Growing up on a farm there were always animals, such as cows and pigs (I don't actually think there were pigs at Malting Farm. The Porter's, who lived next door, had a pig unit, and there were some at Mill Farm, my grandfather's farm. Sheep didn't come onto the farm until my eldest brothers took over when my father retired in the 1970's. We were never allowed to become to attached or over sentimental with any of the animals, although we sometimes reared some of them, such as bucket-feeding calves. They were all treated with respect and had good lives.  And my mother had chickens and we had chicks which were hatched somewhere or other and put in a deep litter house and laid eggs which were sold.

Garden Fêtes and Other Events

Returning to things I remember about living in Cardington as I grew up, one of the biggest events of the year had to possibly be the annual church garden fête. It was held in order to raise money to keep the village church St Mary's maintained. We lived at Malting Farm, the large red-brick Georgian house immediately opposite the church and owned by the Whitbread estate. So the church played a fairly major part in not only ours but the whole village life. The bells contained within the tower stuck regularly, every hour and quarter-hour as well as being rung on many a weekend for weddings and other events. You certainly knew it when they rung and living directly opposite you got the full force of their chiming. I'm of the opinion that bells are best heard rung from a distance of several miles and not within only a few yards.

The fête was usually held in the month of July in the garden of Howard House, owned and lived in at the time by Humphrey Whitbread. This is found immediately behind St Mary's church, and is a quite beautiful building which has extensive grounds and gardens, the ideal location for a garden fête. Virtually everyone in the village became involved in the fête in some way or other, running a stall, setting up a raffle, making cakes for either a stall or the catering tent, making posies to sell on the stall my mother ran, the fruit and vegetables stall or in any other way. There were donkey rides, ice creams, fizzy drinks, a tumble, bric-a-brac, white elephant (to this day I have no idea why that stall was referred to as the 'white elephant' stall. Having now Googled the team it means 'something which cost a lot of money but has no useful purpose' which may or may not be correct as most of the stuff sold on this particular stall was little more than junk. I suppose it gave people a reason to dispose of items that they had stored in either their loft or garage and wanted to give to the fête so that it would, hopefully, be sold and the money raised put to good use. Being a farm we must have provided quite a lot of the vegetables for my mother's stall. My father grew potatoes as well as Brussels sprouts on the farm and I imagine people around the village also provided other produce. One of the other things that were sold were button-holes made up of sweet william flowers grown in the garden of Malting Farm and sold on a tray around the gardens of Howard House.

Of course weather was vital to the success or otherwise of the  fête. Usually the weather would behave itself and be sunny and warm, but on one occasion I recall the weather was awful and rained incessantly so the entire fête was moved lock stock and barrel to the Howard Reading Room further up the village. I can't think how much effort would be used to move everything and whether this happened on the morning of the Saturday of the fête.

I remember a somewhat embarrassing happening when my grandmother had the honour of opening the event one year. She had entered the raffle and one of the prizes was a very elaborate, iced cake. My grandmother, having been the lady-opener that year was also tasked with drawing this raffle and she won the cake! Many mutterings no doubt amongst residents of the village that no doubt the fact that she had won was rigged. I know it seemed to cause a certain amount of embarrassment, the fact that she'd drawn her own winning ticket.

The Whitbreads, who were the owners of the Cardington Estate, and owners of Malting Farm, used to provide a rather lavish Christmas party for the children of some of the tenants of the village and this was held at Howard House. I believe this party was presided over by Humphrey Whitbread's mother, a very elderly lady. Humphrey was an avid collector of antique furniture and so the house was filled with much of this, presumably, priceless furniture and other amazing items, so how on earth they could allow a hoard of very young children to run amok in that beautiful house I cannot think. Humphrey was a director to the brewing family and was renowned for his very flamboyant checked bespoke suits. He seemed to keep very much to himself although he did come to services at St Mary's Church. He died in 2000 aged 88.

Nostalgia of Shopping- Part 2

The main shop for our family was done in Bedford. Before supermarkets grocery shops were run on old-fashioned lines, whereby there would be a shopkeeper standing behind a counter and you would select your shopping with him taking items off a shelf. Items such as cheese were weighed, having been sliced off large blocks. I remember being able to taste before you buy, although some supermarkets will allow you to do this now, but cheese and other items of food weren't wrapped as they are today in vacuum packs, nor was meat in those polystyrene trays you see on supermarket shelves with cling film over them. Even bacon would be sliced on a machine and then wrapped separately, as would chops and even chicken portions. You could select the meat straight from the refrigerator. Dick Wood (who I mentioned in the earlier post) made the most delicious sausages. He would often bring us a packet when he came for tea. A good deal tastier than the packets of sausages you get today, and no doubt containing a good deal more meat, too. 

My mother did the grocery shopping, from what I remember, in a shop called Fred West (please, not to be confused with the murderer!) which was in St Cuthbert's Street, just off St Peter's Street in Bedford. I think she would take a list of what she required and the shop would make the order up and put it all in cardboard boxes, and then we would go in and collect the order in the car. I presume they had a carpark at the rear, but to be honest I don't remember. West's was one of those old fashioned grocers where they had tins of such things as broken biscuits along the front of the counter as well as chairs on for the customers to sit. Why, I used to think, would people want to buy broken biscuits, particularly? Why not buy whole biscuits? This was a time when you could buy your food in measured quantities, as I've already mentioned about cheese. I imagine you could buy biscuits in packets, but there must have been something great about being able to select those biscuits and have them measured out by the shop keeper. 

Living on a farm we were never short of vegetables. My father grew potatoes and Brussel sprouts on the farm. Once they were picked, they were bagged up and a lorry came and took them off to London, to Covent Garden. The company was called Bennet and Hawes. They still exist. I have just Googled them. They are based in Spitalfield's in London. In return for taking our produce we got fruit in exchange, such things as boxes of oranges and grapefruit as well as melons, so we could have orange or grapefruit for breakfast. I don't think I particularly liked them as a child but I grew to quite enjoy them as I got older, but having had a heart attack I'm not supposed to eat them or drink the juice as it's supposed to interfere with the medication I'm taking, but that's another matter. My father always seemed to eat a grapefruit for breakfast himself.

The garden at Malting Farm produced a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. We had asparagus and the bed in the garden always produced a fine crop. Also, we had strawberries and raspberries and there was an orchard which produced both apples and pears, although the last time I visited when my brother Robert lived there, the garden had been dug up, the apple trees cut down and replaced by pens for sheep and cattle. Sad in a way, but probably more sensible when you're running a farm on profitable lines. Also, salad vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes (grown in a greenhouse.) as well as carrots and other root vegetables. So, you see, we really had no need to buy most of our vegetables. Our milk was produced on the farm. It used to come straight from the cow, a couple kept specially for that purpose. I don't expect you'd be allowed to drink 'raw', un pasteurised milk now, if I know anything about E.U. agricultural policy.  It never did any of any harm, and to be honest, it definitely tastes far better than what we have to drink today. Although the cows were tested for whatever diseases they might have (which they didn't, naturally enough.) As a result of this milk we always had a supply of cream which was occasionally made into butter.

My grandmother had lived at Mill Farm in Cardington. When my grandfather died my uncle Michael took over the management of the farm and my grandmother moved to a house which at the time, (which would have been the early 1960's.) just happened to be the first house going into Bedford along Cardington Road. She used to shop at a grocer's along London Road, called Bass's, another old fashioned grocers which sold all the usual products. Almost directly opposite was a newsagents, Desmond's. The daughter of the family was a keen rider and my brother Sandy and Robert used to bump into them at gymkhanas and horse shows at various venues in and around Bedfordshire and the neighbouring countys. Further along London Road, towards Bedford town centre, there was another shop, Elsie Currah's, which stocked knitting wool, cotton for sewing and all the haberdashery requirements necessary for sewing, knitting, crochet etc etc. My mother was a very keen knitter and owned an electric sewing machine as well as a knitting machine (both Singer machines I remember.) She made a lot of her own clothes as well as knitting us the most amazing sweaters. My father detested the knitting machine, particularly as the thing was set up in the dining room at Malting Farm, which was where we sat to watch television, and he hated the sound it made. I suppose it was noisy, but as I say, she managed to create some really amazing knitwear of the machine. Elsie Currah's was where she bought most of her knitting wool.

Another grocer's was in the centre of Bedford, in the High Street. This was Dudeney and Johnston's.  (Now Lloyd's Bank.) They had several smaller shops dotted around the outer suburbs of Bedford, one being opposite where I went to school in Kimbolton Road, opposite Walmsley House, at one time a Co-Op but I think it's now a Budgen's. Dudley and Johnston's was quite an 'up-market' grocers, perhaps in the same mould as Waitrose today. They stocked quite a good range of products. Upstairs there was a restaurant and a large dance hall/function room where wedding receptions and dances were held. As a child we seemed to go to a lot of birthday parties for school friends and I went to several birthday parties in there. The shop also had a bakery although I can't remember my mother buying anything in there. I have a suspicion that Dudeney and Johnson was perhaps the first self-service supermarket to open in Bedford, but it may well have been Safeway in Greyfriars which I imagine was opened when that area was redeveloped along with the bus station in the late 1950's or early 1960's. It used to intrigue me as a child because they had one of the first automatic doors, something that we take for granted today. You stood on the mat or something which made the doors open, but today no doubt done with the aid of motion sensors or something similar.

Cars I've Owned- Part 1

Over the years I've owned many cars. Some I've loved, but many I have hated. You have a definite love/hate relationship with the car you own, basically because when they run smoothly, get you from point 'A' to point 'B' without any problems, when they decide not to behave, for example, refusing to start, or breaking down unexpectedly, they are more hated than loved. Most, if not all, the cars I've had have been second hand. I never seem to be in a position financially to afford a completely new vehicle, so the old cars I've had were prone to the usual faults such as refusing to start in cold or damp weather and one-hundred-and-one other problems. I suppose an older car is going to cause more problems than a brand new one because the bits and pieces, such as brakes, tyres, water pump, starter motor and so on are the bits that wear out fastest and so cause you the most problems.

Having been brought up on a farm does have it's advantages, particularly when you're starting to learn to drive. There is always space, or at least there was at Malting Farm in Cardington, I don't know whether all other farms are the same, allowing you to be able to drive a vehicle along farm tracks or across meadows and fields without encountering other vehicles. I was able to drive tractors which aren't exactly like driving a car as they have so many gears and sub-gears and far more levers to shift into these sub-gears. But at least I was able to drive such vehicles as Land Rovers which gave me a chance to do some driving, although off-road, before I was able to start driving lessons. 

The first car I owned was a Ford Anglia, the classic car from the 1950's- 1960's. I was working at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham in 1969 (see earlier post on here which gives a full  description.) Before I'd gone there I had been doing driving lessons and hadn't yet done my driving test. I don't know how many lessons I'd had, quite a few I seem to recall. My test was set to be during the summer break in the theatre's season so I went home to Bedfordshire. I probably took a few more lessons and then did the test. Unfortunately I failed miserably, on something quite trivial, like not turning right or left when told by the examiner, or keeping up with the traffic. I went back to Cheltenham and did a few more lessons there and did my test and this time I passed! As a result my parents bought me the Ford Anglia, which cost all of £75! I know, looking back, it doesn't seem possible that you could buy a car for so little! It was two-tone green, light on the top half and dark on the bottom half. It had quite a few quirks. One being the windscreen wipers. When you put them on, and you drove slowly, say, up a hill, in a rainstorm, they moved fast, but if you drove faster, for some strange reason they moved slowly. Why? Seems odd thinking about it now. On those old cars you had the headlight 'dip' control on the floor near the clutch pedal, unlike in a modern car where you control the 'dip' with a lever on the steering wheel column. I think it might even have had indicators which actually stuck out from the side of the car when you were going to turn either left or right and not just a flashing bulb on the four corners of the car. It's a wonder they never got knocked off when a bicycle or someone went past. Goodness, how cars have changed, but this is a good 45- or more years ago.

Of course, having a car was made use of as part of my stage management job. Moving on to work at Greenwich Theatre a few years after working at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, as part of my work I had to return a lot of items which were used as props in a show we'd done. I had to load up the little Ford Anglia with no end of items and then drive into the centre of London and return the things to some of the prop hire companies around Covent Garden in particular. I had not been driving for very long and it was quite nerve wracking driving through Marble Arch, not knowing exactly where I was supposed to go and no sure which lane I was supposed to get into as well and looking at an A to Z Atlas of London which was open on the passenger seat beside me. It was quite hair-raising, to say the least. The best way to learn to do something that might be difficult is to just get on and do it, a good motto for life I always think. Spending to much time mulling it over is a good way of talking yourself out of it, so that incident driving through Central London certainly taught me a thing or two and came in handy a good deal later when I used to go in to London in my car when I used to do TV walk-on work and had to get to, say BBC Television Centre or any of the major television or film studios such as Pinewood or Shepperton.

On another occasion I had to drive a large van with a load of furniture into central London and was going to return it all to the various hire firms around the city and beyond. It was a rainy day, which didn't exactly help matters. I don't think I had ever driven such a large vehicle before and I think it must have been the largest vehicle you could drive on an ordinary driving licence. I soon found out that stopping the engine was no easy matter. You couldn't just use the key to turn it off when you wanted to park the vehicle. The only way to stop it was to stall it by shifting the gear stick and the clutch at the same time or something weird which made the lorry shudder horribly. I went with another stage management member to help me unload the furniture, which included a piano. Somewhere in Covent Garden (at a time when the fruit and vegetable market was still there.) it was a real knot of small alleyways and roads and I accidentally got into a one-way street- the wrong way, so I had to reverse the lorry quite a distance so as to get out and so get back into the correct flow of traffic. Not an easy manoeuvre at he best of times, but not helped by the fact that it was raining. My vehicle-driving experience was increased several times over that particular day.

I was always very keen to keep on the right side of the law. For some reason or other, one always gets somewhat edgy, almost guilty, for whatever reason, when you are out driving somewhere and you see a police car, when you're absolutely sure you've done nothing wrong. On one occasion, when I was working at Greenwich, when I'd gone home for the weekend and was driving back to work fairly early one Monday morning. The route required me to go through the Blackwall Tunnel. I never like driving through tunnels at the best of times, but I had to go and ignore an instruction on a reading or one of those overhead gantry things, which told me to move over into a different lane. I just drove on and didn't move over to a different lane and I got stopped by a Police car, pulled over to the side of the road. I didn't have my driving licence with me and was told I'd have to go into a Police station and show my licence. I was numb with fear. I don't know why. I don't think, up until then,  had ever set foot in a police station. So, I did as I was told and a few days later I did just that, produced my licence at the police station somewhere in or around the Greenwich area, was told to not do 'it' again, and went away, fully warned off. I don't think, after that, I ever ignored an instrucion as regards driving in the right lane ever again.

As for hating any cars I've owned one was a bright red Ford Escort estate. Bought from a neighbour. It was a real pain to get started, particularly when the weather was damp or cold. I tried to remedy it with such things as new spark plugs, battery leads and other bits and pieces that I replaced, but all to no avail. It was worse when it was damp, even when there was no rain. Those cold, misty mornings, a slight drizzle, you name it, the confounded thing refused to start. Even having a tow from someone else's vehicle and jump starting, it would not start. So much so I just lost my temper and gave the confounded thing a good kick. A bit like that famous scene in "Fawlty Towers" when Basil Fawlty can't get his car to start and hits it with a branch of a tree. It's almost always when you need to get somewhere in a hurry, early morning, have to get to work. The thing had an almighty dent in it's side for ever after. I'm not surprised I lost patience with it. Stupid thing.

Blackberry Picking and Autumnal Mists

It's a typical autumn's day. Misty first thing in the morning and the sun comes out later. It's beginning to get chilly but then it warms up considerably. A bit difficult to know what to wear, since you can never be sure that it's not going to rain. Particularly difficult as the windscreen wipers on the car aren't working. Must get them seen too soon as it can make long journeys difficult.

I've been out this morning and picked around a pound's worth of blackberries.  I went along the Redway behind the house and got most along the area immediately behind the hospital. There is a sort of clear space, a sort of path with lots of over-hanging brambles and really overloaded with berries. It seems amazing to me that people never seem to bother to go out and pick them. They are free and make good pies, jam and fruity sauces. I suppose I'm used to this sort of foraging as I lived in the countryside and we were always picking blackberries as well as finding mushrooms in the meadows behind Malting Farm where I used to live in Cardington village in Bedfordshire. You would think, with there being a so-called 'financial crisis' people would be falling over themselves to get something which is free, and ply yards from their front doors. But I hardly ever see other people picking blackberries and there are certainly plenty to go round. We still have quite a few bags left over from last year. We made some into a sort of sauce to have with ice-cream and pie. We got some really good bags in Sainsbury's, which can be re-used. They have a sort of fastener of them which are easy to open and made of fairly substantial plastic. Better than conventional plastic bags which are never worth re-using and can only be closed by knotting the neck. I think these are made to freeze homemade soup and stand up on their on when placed on the work-surface and make filling easy. 

I attempted to get Carol a doctor's appointment this morning. The surgery doesn't open until 8 a.m. and then you are lucky if you can actually get through. Just an engaged tone. Our old surgery used to have what they call 'ring-back' which means you press the '5' button on your telephone's keypad, and they ring back when the line is free. Then, after about half a dozen attempts, I got through to a human and was told that all appointments are booked for today, please ring again on Monday. Just annoying that you have to go to all that trouble and stress when they could surely allow you to book appointments a day or two in advance.

Even More School Memories

Not only did we have those trips to London to see those shows I mentioned in the last post, but I seem to remember being taken on several other trips. One being to St Alban's, to view the Roman remains. Why we went there specifically I have no idea as we weren't studying the Romans during history lessons. In fact, I don't remember ever studying that period in all my school career. As it was a Saturday, the teacher who took us must have given up his own time to take us. We used to have school on Saturday mornings, for a few hours. As Rushmoor had boarders I suppose it made some sort of sense to have classes if there were pupils already there. I was threatened with being boarded out by my mother, but it never happened. It would have seemed a bit pointless when you think we lived only five or so miles out of Bedford. We used to be taken to school in the morning in a sort of system set up between my mother, the family who lived next door to us in Cardington, the Porters, and my aunty Chris who lived in Ickwell, a village around ten miles towards Biggleswade. Ann and Alec Papworth  went to schools in Bedford, Ann to St Andrews, which I've mentioned being virtually opposite Walmsley House School in Kimbolton Road, and Alec to Bedford School. Some days we were collected by one or other of the team, Uncle Ralph Porter (not actually an uncle, but you always seemed to call people 'Uncle' or 'Aunty' out of respect.) Nancy Porter went to the Bedford Girls High School in Bromham Road and Charles to Bedford School. The Porters had a farm in Cople, the next village to Cardington, but lived at Pleasant Place, a large house next door to Malting Farm. Some days we were taken by Geoff, their pig man, in an ancient car which always seemed to smell of gone-off milk, no doubt because they used to carry vast quantities of milk to various places and some would no doubt spill, hence the unpleasant milky smell. Then Aunty Chris would come and collect us in her ancient Morris Minor estate. I can always remember we used to eat imperial mint sweets in that car as there was always a bag of these in the front glove compartment and we ate them on the journey home. The sound of a Morris Minor is quite distinctive. I doubt that you can get even old models now as they must have gone out of production years ago, but this model was the one with the wooden panels on the side.

When my father was detailed to collect me on a Saturday morning there was always the chance that he would actually forget to come and collect me. He did this on several occasions, and I would be left standing outside the school for an hour or two, no doubt because he had stopped off on the way to have a chat with one of his friends and had just forgotten to come and collect me. It's not like today when we have mobile phones and you can just phone up whoever and they come and collect you. I think on this particular day it rained and I must have got soaked to the skin.

Later on, I got the bus home and the first time I was helped by Nancy Porter who was going home from school at the same time as me on the bus from Bedford Bus Station. It was quite a long walk down Warwick Avenue and into Bromham Road and the bus I caught went from bay 8 and the cost of the journey was around 3 old pence. Amazing how you remember all these tiny little details. I imagine that this was the only time I ever caught a bus as I don't ever remember going anywhere with my mother or father on a bus. I just don't think busses were ever considered an option when I was growing up, as my parents had cars and it was probably simpler to get in and out of Bedford by car. Not like today when there is so much being talked on such subjects as 'The Environment', 'Sustainability', and no such thing as 'Park and Ride' etc.

Those were the days when there was a fairly strict form of discipline in place. I don't exactly support any form of punishment, but if you did anything wrong at school you knew that if you were caught you would get caned. I never got to being caned. I was a bit of a goody goody I suppose. There was one incident I remember when I was a Rushmoor. In one of the classrooms, there was a large cupboard which contained all the art materials. Somebody had been found to have meddled with the lock and put a screw in the keyhole and this prevented anyone opening it with a key. The teacher, Mr Crutchley I believe, wanted the culprit to come forward, but nobody did. So he made the whole class stay in after school (it may have been during school time. It was a long time ago, so I can't remember the exact details.) As nobody was brave enough to come forward we all got punished, each of us going forward to the front of the class and being hit on our open palms with a ruler. If you flinched he did it again. It really hurt and even thinking about it now, it brings back the memory and I can almost feel the sting that was left after he hit our hands. I don't suppose you would dare do that sort of thing today. It would be in contravention of your 'Human Rights' or something, but as any form of corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed you certainly wouldn't get away with it.  Well, whether it was right or wrong you did, at least, know what would happen if you did something wrong. I think today children appear to have no boundaries (perhaps most do, but when there is a behaviour problem it is usually because the parents give their children any boundaries.) When I was about eleven or twelve I was supposed to be in and getting ready for bed. We didn't have all the gadgetry that we have today such as mobile phones, the internet, gaming consoles and all the other electrical gadgetry you can get. I can't say I'm any the worse for not having all those things. If we had a mobile phone I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to take it to school with us as they do over at the Milton Keynes Academy. I think people spoke to one another more in those days. You see people walking about with iPods plugged into their ears, so they can't hear what's going on around them. Rather dangerous if you can't hear traffic that is coming when you cross the road. Or else have you face permanently turned towards a mobile and texting all the time. It's a wonder some people don't get killed because they walk out in front of a moving car because they're concentrating on texting someone instead of taking notice of the traffic.

There were quite a few quite strict school rules you were expected to keep to. You were supposed to wear your school uniform at all times in school. None of the modern 'thing' about wearing your 'everyday clothes.' The uniform consisted of grey flannel trousers, grey shirt and blazer in dark blue with a cap, both of which had a badge of a red 'R' in a sort of shield. The cap was the same colour as the blazer and had a red section in the top. You were supposed to wear this at all times outside the school, or if you were in school uniform. I think there was also a tie which was striped red and dark blue, again to match the rest of the uniform. You also had to wear black shoes, which were expected to be cleaned for daily use. There was a winter and summer version of the uniform. The summer one I think had a light short-sleeved shirt (I think the brand was Airtex, but I'm not sure.) For games, we had to wear light brown shoes with a crepe sole for cricket and the usual football strip for games and no doubt shorts and t-shirt for gym. As I detested games anyway, any excuse to get out of it and into 'normal' clothes meant I was never in games clothing for long.

There were other rules, one being you weren't supposed to go to the cinema during term-time. I don't think this was adhered to very much as I remember going to the Granada cinema in St Peter's Street in Bedford to see the Disney animated film "Jungle Book" with one of my brothers, no doubt Sandy, as he went to Bedford School, and their rules about where you could or couldn't go during term-time were even stricter than Rushmoor's. We were also not supposed to go into what were called 'chain-stores.' To this day, I don't know why. I think this referred to such stores as Marks and Spencer and Woolworth's, but I cannot think of a good reason why this was so. I don't know what would have happened if you were caught in Woolworths or wherever, or in a cinema. Were you taken out and shot at dawn?  Taken out and caned in public? To this day, I don't know and know of no one who ever fell foul of this school rule. Oh well, as I say, rules are to be broken and it all remains a complete mystery.

Seems amazing that you always referred to everyone as 'Murdoch', 'Smith' or whatever a pupil's surname was. It seems amazing that you never got to know anyone's Christian name. What was the point? I can't think of any situation where you would be known by your surname alone. You never work anywhere (at least I haven't.) where you would be referred to by just your surname.I just hope if I was they would, at least, call me 'Mr.' Otherwise, it sounds so deferential and out of date, rather stuck in the Victorian or Edwardian period.

I remember when I first went to Rushmoor I was intrigued by several things. What was all that mesh, netting and suchlike over the windows? Was it to keep the pupils in, or prevent them getting out? The fact is, it looked quite sinister. Thinking about it now, as a 9 or 10-year-old at the time, it must have made the place seem like a prison or a zoo. Even at Whipsnade Zoo, today they don't have so many cages and enclosures for the animals that have old fashioned bars or cages with netting, or else they use some modern alternative to keep the animals in. I expect this netting and chicken wire was to prevent balls from breaking the windows. I was further intrigued by the green corrugated construction in one of the playgrounds. It resembled a somewhat ramshackle chicken house, made to seem more so bay the fact that it had chicken wire over the windows. I may have confused if for a chicken house because there was a similar construction on my grandfather's farm. Whether that was to house chickens I rather doubt, but the two constructions were very similar. Anyway, I soon found out that the one at Rushmoor was used as a gymnasium and also used for school assemblies which we had each morning. It smelt horribly of sweat and horrible rubber shoes, the type we wore for games and P.E. i think there was a cupboard in there which contained a load of such shoes, and you have an idea perhaps that the pong came from sweaty, unwashed feet that lingered in these disgusting old shoes. Not pleasant. Also, the smell of that chalky stuff they use in gymnasiums, the stuff ballet dancers use, is it rosin or something?

One incident comes into my mind. We used to go into that tin shack (for want of a better way to describe that shed or  gym.) and have morning assembly. The owner of the school, Mrs Richardson (I believe she owned the school when I was there.) a strict woman of indeterminate age, used to come in and play the piano for hymns. The words of the hymns were put up on a sort of song-sheet arrangement, rather like a massive book, perhaps six feet by four, which was suspended by a length of sash cord that was hauled up and then tied off on a cleat (all this quite familiar to me now, having worked in stage management, with song sheets used in pantomime and cleats and ropes on a fly floor. I have operated many in my time so a cleat is very familiar and I know very well how to use them.) Anyway, I digress. One morning someone hadn't cleated off the hymn sheet or else the sash cord was wearing dangerously thin, because on this particular morning, as Mrs Richardson was plonking and plunking on the piano, a rendition of something like "We Plough The Fields and Scatter" or some other hymn, and we were in fine, full voice, the whole contraption came crashing down, causing the assembled masses to laugh out loud. Whether we were supposed to or not, I don't know, but it certainly caused a great deal of amusement.

I recall a gym display was put on by pupils of Rushmoor. It wasn't put on in the 'tin shack' as I like to call it, or the so-called gymnasium. It could never be put on there as there was barely room for the 'performers' (or whatever you want to call them.) as well as the audience of parents and teachers. Instead, it was staged at the drill hall just off Ashburnham Road in Bedford. There was a great deal of showing off, jumping over wooden vaulting horses, marching around, all set to music. I can't think what the purpose of this display was about, who was supposed to be impressed, what it ever lead to. But it seemed to take up a great deal of time and effort. I don't think that drill hall is still used for such events. I'm not even sure that it's still there, but if it is I suspect it's for a different use. There used to be another similar building somewhere in Ashburnham Road, I think where now there are blocks of flats and where once the Job Centre used to be. Anyway, I can't even remember my role in this gym display, even if I was involved at all. Such are memories.

I have not made a great deal of effort to keep in contact with Rushmoor School. Well, to be honest, with my rather bad memories of the place, I didn't entirely want to. My younger brother, Andrew, spent a few years as a pupil at the school, but I'm surprised my parents sent him there after my experiences of the place. I do recall going to a sports day when he was at Rushmoor, when the sports field was somewhere along Clapham Road. I think, perhaps, on the ground where Sainsbury's now have a superstore. I can't say I remember now much about it and I don't think I met any former pupils or staff from my time at the school. As regards meeting any former pupils, I did bump into one, working in  a camera shop on Bedford Bus station when I used to use it on my way home, but that was a good 40- or more years ago. His name was Peter Sutton and I think he used to live in Sandy. Also, I had a friend called Andrew Allen who I used to have home for tea (as you did in those days.) and I think I went to his home in Biggleswade. He visited me some years ago and we had a chat about our time at Rushmoor and then I went to stay with him in Norfork when I was working on the television show "Allo, Allo."  I believe he was managing a garage or something in the Norwich area, but I'm not sure where exactly. A rather unpleasant individual, whom I recall was probably called Ward, and I believe came from around the Northampton area, who's family were in the shoe industry, used to be on holiday at the same time as we used to go to Frinton-On-Sea, was something of a nasty little pip-squeak. I used to spend a lot of time on the beach at Frinton, building really complex structures out of sand, roadways and rivers with water which rand along these dug-out channels from rock pools. He went and distroyed the hard work I had put in by jumping on it and breaking it up. Shows how spilt and unpleasant he was. I don't know where he is now, but I hope he doesn't continue with the sort of behaviour that he got away with then into his adult life.

I left Rushmoor in around 1965. You were supposed to go on to a 'big school', presumably one of the Harpur Trust schools or a grammar school. There were several in Bedford at the time. One being Pilgrim School, which is no more. It merged I believe with another, I think one at Biddenham if I'm correct. Can't be sure. The building, in Brickhill Drive, was taken over by various Bedford County Council departments in the 1970's and the Registry Office moved there and it's where you go to register a birth or get married. I did go for an interview at the old Pilgrim School, presumably to complete my education and do my G.C.E. exams, but I didn't get in. I eventually went to Abbey Secondary Modern School in Elstow and completed the final two years of my education there. I didn't actually do G.C.E.'s but instead did the then fairly new C.S.E.'s. I did five subjects, English, Biology, Art, Geography and History. The biggest culture-shock going there was that there were GIRLS! I think I actually benefitted from going there, after going to Rushmoor. Looking back  think I actually learnt far more. In fact, I don't remember actually learning much at all at Rushmoor.

From Abbey, I went to Mander College in Bedford (now Bedford College. I never knew why they changed the name.) I began an 'A' Level course, doing English and History, with the intention of eventually going to Bristol University to do a drama degree, as I had wanted to get into television production. I suppose in those days a degree in drama would have been a good path to getting into television production. As it turned out I didn't do particularly well in my mock 'As' at the end of nearly two years. I applied to several 'rep' (repertory) theatre companies to find out if I could get into stage management as I had been told by the BBC that in order to get into floor management I would need to have several years of professional stage management behind me before I could apply for any floor management jobs. I wrote to as many reps as I could find in a directory called 'Contacts' and got an interview at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, and was interviewed by the then Artistic Director of the theatre, Michael Ashton. I had also gone for an interview at the Royal Theatre, in Northampton, which would be the closest professional theatre to Bedford, and which I knew relatively well as I'd been to see several plays there over the years. I didn't get the Northampton job, but I was accepted at Cheltenham and worked for around a year as a Student A.S.M. (Assistant Stage Manager), and it was how I learned the various functions expected of an A.S.M. I think I might have got the Northampton job, except the Cheltenham offer came up first. The job began on the 16th of February, 1969. How well that date is permanently etched on my memory!