Growing up in Ditchling

My Family

I have no treasures that I can take into my hands and say ‘they are lovely’, nor ones that a sneak thief can creep into my home and steal. But I have countless treasures – memories.

Before writing of the things that I remember of the first fourteen years of my life, here is a brief description of my family.

Our father, Richard Stevenson, commenced his schooling at the age of four and left at the age of eight to work in a smallholding near his home. He loved the countryside. He had jet black hair and laughing blue eyes. He was a spiritualist and well-known medium in the village. He ran the fur and feather club for many years and was on the committee of the Horticulture Society. For more than fifty years he was known for riding a Dursley-Pederson bicycle. This had a hammock-type seat made of twine. He left this bike to the Ann of Cleves Museum in Lewes.

Our mother was Mary Young, the daughter of a local farmer. She was one of twelve children. She was beautiful, her hair was the colour of ripe corn. When she took the pins out of it her hair hung like a golden cascade. After my marriage to Frank, he told me that his first recollection of Ditchling – to which he came at the age of four – was of seeing what he thought was a golden angel holding the hand of a golden cherub. He learnt later that they were human, being my mother and my brother Rex.

My father was twenty when he married mother, who was twenty five. They came to live at Wing’s Place, as my father had already found employment with James Buffard, a local nurseryman.

Ernest Rex was born ten months later. He grew into a fine-looking lad, was bright at his schooling and very keen on sport. When he was twelve, a plane landed nearby. Rex climbed a tree to find its exact location but, alas, he fell and hurt his foot. Nothing daunted him, he rushed away to see the plane, a rare sight in 1924. He limped for some time, thinking the pain would grow less but it did not, so mother took him to the doctor’s. It was found that many bones were broken and had set crookedly, so from that time he walked with a limp. He remained interested in sport although he could no longer participate. He was president of Ditchling Football Club for many years. Rex and I stuck together, right up until his death a few years ago – we were always fighting for each other.

Ada Daphne Myrrh was the oldest girl. She had blue black hair and eyes as blue as the speedwell. She was a good mixer and had many friends. On leaving school she trained for and became a nursery governess.

Margarine Joyce was the baby of the family. She was given this unusual forename by mistake. Our father went to register the birth and could not remember how mother wanted the name spelt. He knew that it was not to be Margaret. The product margarine had just come onto the market, so he and the registrar thought that must be the name mother wanted. It should have been Marguerite. Her hair was the colour of ripe conkers. She had a lovely singing voice and also won many prizes for knitting and sewing.

I, Doris Mary, came between Daphne and Joyce, the third of us four children. At the age of two I lost all of my hair and it did not grow again until I was seven. Because of the taunting of the children at school during my first term I became ill, so did not return to school until I was seven, when my hair had grown. Thus I missed the basic elements of education. This coupled with the fact that no child was allowed to be left-handed as I was, meant that I failed to reach a high standard of education. Each time I was found with a pencil or a needle in my left hand I was given a sharp tap with the cane and the pencil was firmly placed in my right hand. It was my parents’ loving patience that helped me through some semblance of schooling.

What kind of children were we? My grandfather always said, ‘There are three thoroughbreds and one cart-horse’ – the others used to run like the wind, but I was so fat I always used to get caught, I always got the blame. I was not miserable about it though – I was so solid in myself. I was content to take a book and sit in a tree, at the top of an ash. I couldn’t read, but I was determined to learn.

I wonder if the following remarks made by one of the mothers that we met on the Sunday walks really summed us up? ‘Mrs. Stevenson, we all know that you think your children are little angels. It’s a pity you can’t see that they have black wings.’

My Treasures

I was born in the village of Ditchling, which is in the county of Sussex. The house where I was born is known as Wing’s Place, which stands to the south of the village church. Visitors to the village say, ‘How quaint, what a lovely old house! I expect that it’s Tudor.’ We who lived there did not think it lovely, for in our time it was divided into four cottages. The two in the middle were commodious, but the two that were at each end consisted of a ground-floor room and a lean-to scullery with a ladder to the room above. So it was in the cottage at the western end that I was born and lived for a few years with my mother, father, brother and two sisters.

I was recently invited by Mr. Prindl to visit Wing’s Place, which is now owned by the National Trust. I was horrified to find how small was the portion in which we lived. The bedroom was so small it would only accommodate a single bed and a chair. The landing might just have taken a cot, but one would have had a squeeze getting past. The living room was only 9 ft. by 7 ft. I can only conclude that our parents slept down there and we three upstairs with baby sister in a cot on the landing. How did we fit?

Before becoming a row of cottages, the house had been inhabited by the Browne family. Miss Mary Browne ran a school for young ladies.

At the eastern end of the house is an outside staircase. This was built at the end of the last century, for the tenants at that time ran a lending library in the upstairs room and those wishing to borrow books used this stairway instead of going through the house. The tall chimney at the western end of the house was struck by lightning during a severe storm in 1928 and was taken down and never rebuilt.

Mrs. Weller lived with her two sons and two daughters in the larger portion that was next to us. She took in paying guests and sold teas to day trippers who came by charabanc from Brighton. The stories that she told of the ghost that she saw and heard in the house brought in customers. One of these stories was about a serving wench, that she affirmed came into an upstairs room bearing a silver tray on which was nicely laid out the things to make the tea with. After the girl had left the room, unsuspecting persons going to help themselves to the tea found that the table on which they thought the tray had been placed, was empty. Another of her stories was that she heard the lovely voice of a choirboy singing. This might have been true, for there is supposed to be a passage leading from the house cellars to the church, so she may have heard the choir practising.

Mrs. Weller was a Brighton girl and did not really know of country ways. When told to pick hazelnuts in the autumn-time and to bury them in an earthenware jar so that they would keep fresh for Christmas, she did so, but forgot to mark the spot and did not remember until some years later when they sprouted up and grew into a hazel thicket.

Mr. and Mrs. Grainger with their family lived in the other large portion. Mr. Grainger was a builder and cabinet-maker. The door to the north of their portion of the house was of the up-and-over type, for he used that room as his workshop. The smell of the new timber was lovely. Now there is a studded door there.

Mr. and Mrs. Hemsley lived in the eastern portion with their seven children. Whilst we lived at Wing’s Place father had an allotment in the field along the Keymer road (where the pumping station is now). One evening he came home full of distress and anger. Someone had taken his newly planted potatoes, a great loss to any working man. In the darkness of the early morning he went to the allotments and there hiding in a group of fir trees, catapult at the ready, he waited to see if the thief would strike again.

He did. Father shot him, and brought him home and mother made him into a pie, for the thief was a rook who came with the morning light and dug up the newly planted potatoes. Father was an accurate shot with a catapult. As he said, it was silent and did not cost as much as a gun.

The house to the west of Wing’s Place was known as Sillwood House (now the vicarage) and was owned by Miss Ada Botting-Tuppen. She lived there with just a cook-housekeeper cum parlour-maid. How that poor woman Lisa Waller managed without the help of any modern aids, I do not know. She even had to change her uniform three times each day. She had one for the rough work which had to be completed before the mistress came down to breakfast, then one in which to serve the luncheon, then change again into a black ankle-length dress with a small white apron in which to serve the afternoon tea and the dinner, which she had to cook.

To the west of the church was Ditchling Court Farm, a busy farm with a large dairy herd, four cart-horses, some hunters, and always a gaggle of geese which, led by the gander, would leave the farmyard and take their exercise on the farm pond. Most of the farm buildings stood on what is now the village green, but the cart-horses had their stables, in which they spent the winter nights, to the north-west of the pond. These are now a dwelling-house known as The White Barn. The pigsties were on the east side of the stables, and what was the cart-lodge is now a bungalow known as Three Beams.

The farm was run by Benjamin Saunders and William Creed. Mr. Saunders lived with his wife and family at Court House. This house was the place where tenants brought their rent in olden times, and the bailiff would be there to collect it on behalf of the landowner who was the Marquess of Abergavenny. Court House lay to the west of the pond, which belongs to the farm, not to the village. The two Saunders’ sons had a punt on it for some years, to the annoyance of the waterfowl that swam in the water and made their nests on the small island.

One winter I remember the water on the pond froze so hard that Guy Thornton rode his motorbike with side-car attached around the frozen surface of the pond. Many people skated there by moonlight, although my friends and I preferred to find one of the small drainage ponds that were in most of the fields in those days.

We children would leave the school playground by creeping around behind the boys’ toilets and then crossing to the island by stepping stones, and there we would play our games of make-believe, for to us it was a magic island. Sometimes we were sure that there was buried treasure there, at other times it was the island on which Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned. Each game, looking back, must have reflected our history lessons. We never visited the island in springtime, for then a pair of swans built their nest upon it. The pond was not fenced as it is today.

One of the products that made a great difference to our childhood ramblings was those shiny black rubber boots. Before they came into our lives, we would have to walk along the banks of the streams to follow the water, for in our black lace-up boots, if we stepped into the water we got our feet wet, but in those rubber boots we could walk in the water. I often thought I would follow the stream until it reached the river, but I always got hungry after a few miles, so would climb out of the stream and run home. If water got inside of those boots, a tin of grain would be put in the oven to heat through and when really hot would be poured into the boots to dry them. This grain was carefully saved to be used time and time again, for it was too expensive to waste. Parents did not like those rubber boots – they could not be resoled like the black leather ones.

On winter afternoons, just as dusk was falling but before the lamplighter came, the ringing of a bell could be heard coming along the road from Keymer. I can still hear the sound of those bells coming closer and closer as the muffin man approached, carrying a tray of muffins on his head. One evening as he was coming along the road he was knocked down and killed. That was the end of an era.

At about midday on Sunday we would hear a bell ringing and a voice would shout, ‘Hokey-Pokey, penny a cup’! We would rush from our homes with our tin mugs to buy a pennyworth of that delicious ice-cream, for it would be Mr. and Mrs. Faccenda with their hokey-pokey cart. This was a horse-drawn vehicle with large metal drums of that delicious sweet. Oh, I can taste it now! Towards the end of the 1920s Wall’s started a ‘Stop Me and Buy One’ service. These were men in smart uniforms riding around on tricycles with large drums in carriers on the front containing ice-cream.

The village had gas lighting in the main streets. At dusk each evening a man called Mr. Frost would come on a bicycle from the Gas and Coke Company in Hassocks. He would pull on the lights with the aid of a long pole. A prank of the village boys was to go along behind him and pull the lights out, so that by the time he reached the end of the village, it would be in darkness.

Our father worked for Mr. James Buffard at Beacon Nurseries which were about a mile to the south of the village, at the foot of Ditchling Beacon. One of father’s tasks was to plough the land with a hand plough drawn by a donkey. His donkey girl was Tilly Waller, who later became Mrs. DeBarry Cox.

A few months after the birth of Joyce, mother became very ill. It seemed that the only way to save her life was for her to have an operation for the removal of a goitre. This could only be performed at Guy’s Hospital in London. The operation had to be paid for – no free health service then. Dr. Edgar of Hassocks paid the fee and father repaid him in kind, which took a very long time.

We children were parted. Joyce went to Aunt Alice in Eastbourne. I was put on a train for Dover to my Aunt Hetty who I had never met. Apparently I cried so much that after a few weeks I joined Rex at Granny’s. It was then, at the age of two, that all my hair fell out – quite suddenly. When my mother came out of hospital I spoke Sussex – all the words slurred into one another. My mother was horrified – she worked hard to make me speak English.

It was at this time that father decided mother should not return to Wing’s Place, and with Granny’s help purchased a piece of land and an ex-army hut. This was in 1922. The land was purchased from the Dumbrell Estate, and was a turning off the Lewes Road, down a track known as Shady Lane. There was a white field gate at the road end with a heave stile near the eastern side of Lexden House, and another gate and heave stile at the bottom end of the lane.

The army hut was bought as the army was selling off its surplus stock. With the aid of two friends and one of the Grainger boys, they went to Seaford with a horse and waggon and brought it back in sections to our own plot of land. The excitement was great. We children were brought home to see the last piece erected, and to see it divided into a kitchen, scullery, sitting-room and three bedrooms – one for mother and father, one for Rex and one for us three girls. But Joyce did not return to us for another year.

I remember the three of us rushing about, shouting with excitement. We could move without knocking things over. We thought it a palace! We had a bed each until Joyce returned, then I had to share with her, but we did not mind, nor did we mind the times we had to go without things. Nothing was brought into the house that was not paid for in cash. Father had enough to repay – the operation, and the price of the land to be repaid to Granny.

The garden was large with a pig in the sty, chickens and ducks, fruit and vegetables that we all helped to grow. We were much better fed than others at that time, but we all worked with a will. IT WAS OURS. We could ask friends in to play, and although mother had to spend a lot of time resting, she never complained of so many children coming in.

Father paid a peppercorn rent for a strip of ground adjoining ours. The feathered friends were kept there, but father, ever resourceful, made us some netball posts and we could practise there. We were fairly well dressed as our Aunt Dolly, who had no children, was a dressmaker. We often had ‘piece dresses’ made up from oddments of toning colours, the bodice being of one colour and the skirt of different coloured flounces.

Father left Mr. Buffard’s employ at that time and started out working as a jobbing gardener. With the money that he earned and the garden produce from our own plot of land, we were much better off than before. To supplement father’s income mother made jellies, jams, pickles and wines. They were much in demand. Her rhubarb and ginger jam was famous. The sugar was bought by the cwt. sack.

We children had the task of picking the wild fruits in season – bullace (small wild plums), blackberries, eggasses (hawthorn berries), the heads of dandelions, rose-hips, elderflowers for champagne, and later the elderberries for wine. We used to eat the tender shoots from the middle of new hawthorn leaves in spring. We called this ‘bread and cheese’. But the best task was the picking of wild raspberries, for to gather these we had to roam the South Downs, as up there the canes grew in abundance. We also had to take our turn at stirring the great pans. This was a very hot job, for we had a two-burner kitchen range. The jars had to be washed. These were not of glass as they are today, but of brown earthenware, holding either two or four pounds each. Rex wrote the labels, to get out of having to don a large white apron which we wore when stirring the boiling jam. We made the covers by cutting grease-proof paper to size, usually by holding a pudding basin over the paper and drawing around it. These circles were dipped into skimmed milk, stretched tightly over the jars and tied with fine string.

Some of the ladies of the village would buy a jar, but most of it was packed into wooden crates and these would be collected by Carter-Paterson the carrier and taken to the various universities that were attended by the young gentlemen of the village. I always marvelled at the vast amount of preserves that they seemed to need each term.

Our new home was near to the Nye, a small triangular wood, from which cottagers could take sticks and beanpoles, but only as many as could be carried, no transport to be used. This was under the terms of the will of a previous owner, a man named Nye.

On winter evenings, the tea things cleared away, we would all sit around the table in the middle of which would stand the oil lamp. Mother would be knitting socks for which she would be paid 9d a pair. Our father would be sitting at the head of the table with two children on each side and would read a passage from the ‘Children’s Dictionary’ which was published in weekly parts. Then each child would read the same passage, the book would be closed and we had to write out that passage from memory. If we got it right we could play until bedtime. I used to cry and cry and cry, because in those days they didn’t know about dyslexia. They just thought I was dumb, and of course my father was determined I should learn. I never got past the second page, I can show you it now, all grimy.

Our games would all be home-made. Mother would cut the numbers from old calendars and large letters from newspapers. These would be stuck on to stiff paper, and with these we would make up stories by placing the letters and numbers into sentences. Father would make jigsaw puzzles by pasting pictures, usually the front cover of a weekly magazine, “John Bull”, on to cardboard and cutting them into pieces. Later he got a fretsaw so the puzzles were made of plywood.

We had a ‘cat’s whisker’ radio. This was one of the first to be produced in kit form and was so called because it would only produce sounds if a fine wire made contact with the crystal valve. For a short time we sat with the earphones over our heads, but the novelty soon wore off. It was possible to hear the sound if one of the earphones was placed in a pudding basin. We soon returned to playing our old games.

It was not only children that forgathered at our home. Some of those from outside the village who came to work in the village shops would bring their sandwiches and have them sitting on the lawn in summertime or in winter-time, sitting in our kitchen.

Friends of Rex would also be around, and one constant visitor was our old neighbour, Mrs. Weller. She was a great talker, but a great sport and always joined in our games. Once when we were playing darts, she just kept on chattering. She laid her darts on the table and without her noticing, father changed them. When her turn came, she picked up what she thought were the darts and threw them. Each fell onto the floor. As she picked them up, we all laughed so much. She had thrown a button-hook, a shoehorn and a screwdriver, and she still went on talking.

Not all of the mischief that we got into was intentional – like the time we heard Mr. Stenning’s cows calling for their calves which were in the next field. The calls seemed to be pitiful, so we let all of the calves back into the field with their mothers, only to be faced with an irate Mrs. Stenning who told us in no uncertain terms that we were interfering little busybodies. She had spent a long time separating them and had to do the job all over again. We did offer to help, but she declined our offer. I WONDER WHY.

Sunday was a full day. We firstly had to go to Sunday School which was run by Miss Botting-Tuppen (Mrs. Edward Johnson took over when she died). The Misses Thunders assisted. These two spinster ladies would walk in from Hassocks accompanied by a very fat mangy dog. They, for as long as I could remember, wore very long black astrakhan coats, which in time looked as mangy as the dog.

After morning Sunday School we went to church for matins, although we only stayed until the time for the sermon to be given. After our dinner, the only one in the week at which we had meat, we would go again to Sunday School, after which all of the family would go for a walk which I shall describe later.

The highlights of Sunday School were the Christmas party combined with the prize-giving to those who had learnt to say the collect for each Sunday in the year, also the psalm. These prizes were an improving book, usually the lives of missionaries. We were all given a good tea with sugary doughnuts. These we had to try to eat without licking our lips. The tea was followed by a conjurer or a magic lantern show. As we left the party to return to our homes we were given an orange and a bag of sweets. The oranges were usually so sour that we would remove a portion of the skin, then push some of the sweets into the flesh and then suck them. Oh, what a loverly sound!

The second Sunday School treat took place in the summertime, after the hay had been gathered in. For some years this took the form of a large picnic. The Sussex waggons painted in their traditional colours of red and blue and drawn by cart-horses would pick up the children, teachers and hampers of food and take them to the chosen field on the outskirts of the village. Here games would be played and races run, the picnic tea eaten, then the tired children would once again ride in the waggons back to their homes.

In later years the summer outing was to the seaside. One year we would be taken to Eastbourne, the next year to Worthing or Bognor, depending on how much money had been donated. We travelled by charabanc and after spending the day on the beach, if fine, or wandering around the shops, if wet (what a boon Woolworth’s was, for we had no money to spend), we would all forgather at the chosen place for tea. This outing was for some of the children the only time they saw the sea.

Some of the children were sent to Sunday School so that their parents could have time alone, especially if they had only one bedroom. We went because we liked to go, but there was one service that I disliked, which was the flower and gift service. To this service each child was expected to take their favourite book or toy and these would be given to children who were in Council-run homes. We had so few books or toys that it was painful to have to give one up, but it was thought to be good for our souls.

The Sunday walks were taken after afternoon Sunday School; they were considered to be a part of country life. It was on these walks that we learnt our country lore, the shapes of the trees and of the leaves, also the variety of shades of greens that go into their construction. We learnt the different markings on the barks of the trees by closing our eyes and running our fingers over the trunks to feel the different textures. We saw how the different types of seeds were spread to multiply in the following years. We watched how the birds built their nests and noticed the patient way they gathered the materials with which to construct them, each type of bird using its own method. In springtime we would see the woodlands carpeted in white and green as the dainty wood anemones blossomed in the shade. Returning two weeks later we would find the carpet had changed its colour to blue as the sweet-scented wild hyacinths blossomed in profusion.

The banks on each side of the brooks were moss-lined with groups of pale primroses. Here and there a few purple or white violets would peep out from under their glossy leaves. The water in the brook would sometimes be moving sluggishly, sometimes rushing along as it wended its way over fallen sticks and stones to the river, where, having joined with the water from countless other brooks, it rushed on to the sea. And in our part of the brook we would watch the water voles who built their nests so near to the water’s edge that we thought they too must be swept out to sea.

On these walks we met up with other families. The men would talk of crops or of cattle and the bad state of the world – this they would put right if they had their way! Mothers would talk of births and of deaths, and sometimes they would say, ‘Little pitchers have big ears’, and the little pitchers would try to out-grimace each other, and get their own back at school the next day. So the different families would meet and talk, then pass on to meet with other families along the way.

Besides our country lore we learnt the names of the fields and woods. Some of the names that amused me were: Fairy Glen – when the sunlight filtered through the trees it did look as if there might be fairies dancing there – Rat’s Castle, Bung Hole, Sharface, Half-Way Gate (half-way to where?), Gunn’s Field, Molehilly and Ellyfield (hilly field).

The names of some of the farms had obvious meanings like Court House Farm, Court Gardens, East End, North End and Oak Tree. But I often wondered who were the Newtons, Stocks, Sawyers and Popes who had farms named after them, and did old Ben only have one field at Old Ben’s Field Farm? The Gospels seemed easy, for it had fields named from the Holy Scriptures: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, also the Epistles.

It was on these walks that father also taught us to make plaster casts of animal tracks. This we did by carrying with us a tin of plaster of Paris, a bottle of water, a piece of flat board and some small rings of stiff paper. A ring of the stiff paper would be put around the track, the plaster mixed to a thin paste with some of the water and quickly poured into the ring, covering the track. While this was setting, about 15 minutes, we would pick a leaf and place it on the piece of wood, face downwards, put a paper ring around it and pour in the plaster. While this was setting, we would retrieve the cast of the track. Both would then be carried carefully home, where the leaf would be painted.

Besides Christmas, three other Sundays had their customs. On Easter Sunday, the eggs that we had for our breakfast had patterns on them. This was contrived by mother, who cut a pattern on an onion skin, then wrapped the skin around the egg prior to boiling it. For dinner, we had the first rhubarb of the season. On Whit Sunday we always had roast saddle of lamb with mint sauce and new potatoes that had been forced to grow early by being grown in a bucket kept in the scullery. The sweet was always gooseberry tart. The next Sunday of importance was the first Sunday in October. This was Nutting Sunday. I have heard some so-called experts on Sussex customs say that nuts were never picked on a Sunday, but they are wrong, for Sunday was the only day that men had a part of the day off from their work on the farms, and nutting was a family affair. With baskets and hooked sticks we would wander the hedgerows gathering the hazelnuts. These nuts would be stored in large earthenware jars and then buried in the ground until Christmas time. This way they stayed fresh and kept their flavour.

In spite of the many tasks that we children had to do, we still had time to roam the countryside. Children were safe to do so in those days. The summer holidays were a great delight. No one went away, for fathers could not afford to have time off work – summer is the busier time of year in the country. We always broke up from school for the summer holidays on the day that the flower show was held. This was always on the last Wednesday in July. And it was with pent-up excitement that we hurried to the Star field where it was always held. Here the marquees had been erected and Harris Fair had set up their roundabouts and swings and the other types of stalls that would entice the coppers from a working man’s pocket.

The excitement was great until we had searched every ticket on every entry in the children’s classes to see if our efforts had been rewarded with a prize, 6d for a first prize, 4d for a second and 2d for third. If we had won a prize, we would roam around the stalls savouring the moment when we had decided what we would spend it on. If we had not won anything, we would rush around to look as if we were enjoying ourselves, for it was a case of no prize, no money to spend.

One of our favourite places in summer was Lodgehill, a small green hill to the north-west of the church. Some people think that this is the burial place of the tribe of Dicul, from which Ditchling takes its name. But we children knew it as a wonderful place to play in summer and toboggan in winter. Some kind person had provided bats, balls, stumps and skipping ropes. These were kept at Pond Cottage, from where we would collect them and take them to the lower part of the hill, which was almost flat, and there we would play until we were tired, or quarrelled.

One of our more daring pastimes was to take a tin tray to the top of Ditchling Beacon and with two children sitting on each tray, toboggan to the bottom of the hill, then climb to the top again (no wonder we had sturdy legs). This grass tobogganing was exhilarating. I do not recall anyone sustaining any broken limbs. (There was no proper road up to the Beacon then, only a chalk and flint track.)

There were two other attractions on our part of the South Downs. The first was the large flock of sheep, although these were diminishing by the late 1920s. The Ditchling shepherd was Mr. Rewell. He carried a black oilskin which he made into a rough shelter with the aid of his long stick and his crook.

The other attraction was gliding, which did not last long – about a month or two. The members of the club would meet to the east of Ditchling Beacon. The gliders were constructed of light wood, the pilot would sit in the cockpit, a team of ten men would pull it part way down the hill with the aid of an elastic rope until it was airborne. Then the rope would be released and the glider would drift down into the valley below. We children would race behind it into the valley and help to pull it back up the hill. The flight lasted all of two minutes – the glider never rose more than a dozen feet above the ground. After that they moved to Firle Beacon.

For a number of years our parents – along with many others in the village – boarded holiday children. These children came from the poorer parts of London to have two weeks of country air. Some of the children loved the change from their normal life and they got into all sorts of mischief (encouraged by us).

Others seemed to find the quietness frightening and were homesick, and they only brightened up the day that they were to return to their own homes.

One summer we girls did have a holiday in Brighton. We stayed with Aunt Dolly, who lived with her husband Harry Wright, in a flat which was over a butcher’s shop on the corner of Islingword Road and Hanover Street. We were taken to the Level to play, but we found the swings very tame and as we were not allowed to roam we soon got bored. We found the trams noisy, and after the excitement of the first ride did not wish for another. The shopkeepers shouting their wares was bewildering after the quietness of our village shops. One thing that did surprise me was the fact that it got dark in the summer months. It did not at home because we went to bed in daylight and got up in daylight. But Aunt Dolly let us stay up late.

One Midsummer’s Eve we had a house full of people. No one went to bed that night. It was about four in the morning when we set out to climb to the top of the Beacon, joining with many other people on the way up. When we reached the top, I remember feeling a little bewildered. On our usually deserted hill-top there seemed to be thousands of people, some singing, others laughing – it was like the Tower of Babel. It then started to rain, gently at first, then a real downpour, so we ran for home, and arrived there in a much shorter time than it took us to reach the top. It was some time later that I learnt that the Southern Railway Company had run special trains from London to Hassocks and from there these people had walked to the top of Ditchling Beacon to see the sun rise.

Another time I remember well was when the circus came to Ditchling. The circus was a very small affair which came all packed into one waggon. The tent, an ex-army marquee, was pitched in Lindfield’s field at the corner of South Road and New Road (now called Clayton Road).

Boys from the school helped to erect the tent. We all ran extra errands when we heard that a circus was coming, for we had to earn our own money for anything that we wanted to do. We were not given pocket money by our parents – they had nothing to spare.

The excitement was great as we waited, pennies clutched in sticky hands, jumping from one foot to the other. Not wishing to be laughed at by the older children, we whispered to each other, ‘What’s a circus, what’ll we see?’ Then we were admitted to that small, smelly tent where we sat on rough wooden benches, and we saw a mangy bear, two ponies and a sealion balancing a ball on its nose. I do not remember there having been anything else, but I have always hated circuses ever since. (I heard later that the man, an ex-serviceman, unable to find work, had been trying to earn a living with this circus).

About that time it was rumoured that a bear had escaped from a zoo and that it was in the district. We all carried buns about with us for a few days, just in case we saw it. I, feeling hungry, ate mine. The bear, whose name was Evelyn, never appeared.

A favourite place of mine was the forge, which had moved from its site in East End Lane to a site opposite the North Star beer house. There we would watch Mr. Sayers, the blacksmith, at work. Sometimes he would be shoeing a horse, at other times he would be fitting an iron shoe around the edge of a cartwheel. When he poured water over the red-hot iron to ensure a good fit, the smell was horrid. Not so the smell of the new timbers in the wheelwright’s shop that stood a few yards away and was worked by Mr. Seal. This shop had a great fascination for me. As the shavings from the different types of wood went rolling around the floor, sometimes they would be caught by the breeze and they would take on wondrous shapes. A model of a Sussex Waggon made by Mr. Seal can be seen in the Museum at the Corn Exchange, Brighton.

Two events that curtailed our country wanderings also made a difference to the lives of all the villagers. One was the widening of the road between Ditchling and Westmeston. Many men who would otherwise have been unemployed were brought into the area to do this work, so we had to stay near to home. Until that time the road between the two villages had been very narrow. The hedgerows on either side of the track almost touched at the tops, making it seem as if one was walking through a green tunnel in spring and summertime.

The other event that had serious consequences was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 1929 and again in 1931. This ruined many small farmers, not only financially but also in health, for to see a life’s work killed and burnt before one’s eyes is devastating. Most farm animals were like members of the family. I do not think anyone living at the time can have forgotten the smell as the thick black smoke poured forth from those funeral pyres.

Pocket Money

Although we did not receive any pocket money from our parents, we always seemed able to earn some. In the spring and early summer-time, we would collect herbs for the lady at the Blue House. One of the fields belonging to the Gospels Farm was named St. Luke, and as if living up to the physician for whom it was named, it always seemed to have a plentiful supply of herbs – agrimony, coltsfoot, ground ivy, ground elder, dandelions, heads and roots – these would stain our hands brown. The stinging nettles were the worst to pick, but we gathered them cheerfully and carried the sacks up to the Blue House, where the lady (I think Miss Sawyer) would sort the herbs, clean them and then package them and despatch them to London. This field was lovely in June, with ox-eyed daisy intermingling with the dainty ragged robin. We also sold cut flowers and paid mother for seeds each year, keeping the rest for pocket money.

In autumn we would pick acorns for the farmers to feed their pigs. This practice stopped after the 1939-45 war, for acorns tended to make the flesh slightly dark in colour. Another thing we did in autumn was to get up early and run bare of foot through the dew-soaked grass to gather mushrooms. There was always someone in the village willing to buy them.

On one of our holidays from school, Rex thought it would be a good idea to gather watercress from the all drainage ponds that were in most fields. This we were to sell. At the first pond, he leant over too far and fell in head first. By the time we had pulled him out and dried his clothes in the sun, it was getting dark, so we crept home to a good hiding.

My sister Joyce and I were fortunate in getting a Saturday job. Two spinster ladies bred Angora rabbits. These they kept in two ex-army huts. The hutches were four deep down each side of the huts. There were similar hutches in a double row through the middle. Our task was to clean out the hutches and put in clean litter. I disliked the job, but the pay was good – 6d a day for each of us. These ladies also taught us to card the wool that they collected each time they groomed the rabbits. Later they taught us to spin it, ready for them to weave. I was sad when after a disastrous fire they left the village. This reminds me of a childhood curse we were in the habit of using: ‘May all your rabbits die’. I wonder if this went back to the ‘cony burrow’ days, two or three centuries ago when rabbits were imported by the wealthy to breed and sell the fur.

Father persuaded us to invest some of our pocket money in an apple tree. Rex (canny creature) bought a dessert apple tree. We girls, on father’s advice, bought a Bramley each. He assured us we would have a good return for our money. Those three trees are still in the garden, although the place no longer belongs to us.

School Days

The school that the children of working people attended was that of St. Margaret’s, a state-aided church school. This had its beginnings in 1838 with one classroom for boys only. The other two classrooms were added as the people of Ditchling’s contribution to Queen Victoria’s Jubilee and from the generosity of the Rev. Norton, who was vicar of Ditchling at that time. To reach the school one had to walk through the graveyard behind the church.

Miss Williams from ‘Little Rolls Croft’ taught the infants; Miss Drew those in the middle class and Mr. Chinn taught the older children. For a time student teachers would come and go. One of these was Wilfred Beam, whose father was a gardener at Streat Place. There was a great age gap between pupils in each room – children attended that school from the age of four to thirteen plus.

The rooms were painted in a depressing shade of brown. Heating in the top classroom was by two open fires, but as these had large fireguards in front of them, the pupils did not feel the warmth. The other room was heated by a tall round ‘donkey stove’. We used to put apples on top of this to heat through for our lunches.

Chilblains were common, for some of the children had to walk at least three miles to school in all weathers, and some of them came dressed only in short trousers and a thin shirt. Some of the girls had only cotton dresses, even in mid-winter. If they had boots, they did not always have socks (our boots were calf-length, black and laced up the front). There were no school dinners then, although for one term a student teacher whose name escapes me did heat water on top of the donkey stove and with cocoa powder made a hot drink for those who could not get home at midday.

The rooms were lit by gas lighting. This was a T-shaped bar that hung from the ceiling. It had no mantles in my time there, and when alight, a blue flame came out of each end. It made a very loud popping sound and did not light the room at all, so on very dark days we went home early. The boys had a fine time with those gas lights. They would bring to school the metal stiffeners out of women’s stays, and by making small pellets of mud they would shoot these at the gas lights with the metal stiffeners as catapults, so I think that was the reason that there were no mantles. They tell me builders went into the school a few years ago to fix it up and couldn’t understand what all the little mud pellets round the edge of the ceiling were.

The school playground was of rough gravel. In the girls’ playground there was the bicycle shed, and what a motley lot of cycles there were: They were always black, the only colour on them was rust and mud. They were often tied together with binder twine, for they were handed down through the family. Children who lived quite a distance away took turns to ride the bike to school. Our family bike had a front wheel brake. You just pedalled backwards and the bike would stop, but if you were riding too fast you just fell off.

There was a large beech tree in the corner of the playground. It had twin trunks and there was just room to hide behind it. Those nuts always seemed to be so sweet in autumn time. In the boys’ playground a set of cricket stumps were painted on the outside wall of their cloakroom. The school allotments were over the north wall of the boys’ playground. Only the boys did gardening. Any boy caught misbehaving whilst out there was sent into the girls’ room and had to take sewing lessons. This was considered a terrible punishment. On one occasion a boy named Wally Pratt was playing the Charge of the Light Brigade. Using his hoe as a lance, he ran full tilt into Mr. Chinn, who never said a word, but Wally paid the penalty of having to sit with the girls and do sewing.

The toilets were outside and were very primitive even for those days. The caretaker would go to the sheds that housed them and flush them after each playtime. The caretakers were Mr. and Mrs. Gorringe in my time. They lived in a small cottage that seemed to be wedged in between the two classrooms.

On Oak Apple Day – 29th May – the Union flag would be flown from the flagstaff in the boys’ playground. All of the pupils would stand around it and sing lustily, for we knew that if we were good the Rev. Williams, who was the vicar and took us for religious studies, would give us the rest of the day off. Being a church school, we went to church every Saint’s Day for a service. On Ash Wednesday, woe betide anyone not carrying a sprig of ash, and it must not have any white showing, for if it did, well it was known as ‘pinch-bum day’, and children loved the excuse to hurt another child.

If Miss Drew had stayed on at the school I at least would have learnt more, for she was one of the most patient teachers that I ever encountered. There were very few teaching aids – we shared one book between five or six children. There was a large cardboard boot in the infants’ room on which those little ones who had boots could learn to lace them up. Large pictures adorned that room, pictures that had captions to them: Cc Aa Tt, Dd Oo Gg, etc.

Gallery

This room had tiny tables and very small round chairs.

In the other room pupils sat six to a desk. These were a long bench with two shelves. The bottom one was narrow – this was to put books, paper and pens on – the top was wider and had three inkwells let into it. We had just moved from the time when the ink was made in a small room off the girls’ cloak-room. This ink was made of powder grated from a block and mixed with water. If too much water was added it only left faint marks on the paper. If not enough water was added, it wrote like mud. The ink that followed came in large earthenware bottles, and the ink monitor had to collect the inkwells from the classroom, take them to the cloakroom, fill them from the bottle and return them to their places. And woe betide anyone who spilt the ink!

Another teacher was Miss Williams who was very tubby. If she had been given the chance she might have been a good teacher. She was not trained, but had come in to help out during the war years of 1914-18, and stayed on. The classes were far too large, also of a great age range. She had to my mind a too great love of making us sing part-songs and duets, pairing us with the most unsuitable partners, usually someone to whom we were not speaking at the time. Her favourite song was ‘On Yonder Hill There Stands a Beauty’. The boys would sing, ‘On Yonder Hill There Stands a Beasty’. We did not have physical training, although we did stand in the playground and flap our arms around.

Playground games each had their seasons. There were hoops – wooden ones for the girls, iron ones for the boys. Then tops – again a difference – the boys had peg tops and the girls had short tubby ones. Our boots were often without laces as they were being used as whips. Other games were marbles and skipping, singly or together in one long rope. In the autumn it was conkers, when again our bootlaces came in handy. It seems strange on looking back that each game gave way to the next suddenly – there seemed to be no tailing off. One of the student teachers loved singing games. One that I recall was ‘The Big Ship Sailed on the Alley-Alley-O’. Other games were ‘The Farmer Wants a Wife’, ‘Fox and Chickens’, ‘Statues’, and on cold days we played tag.

My brother and I were constantly being caned, so my brother thought up a trick to play on Mr. Chinn. We collected frog spawn in a bucket. When we had several small frogs we took them to school, and whilst Rex kept watch I put them in Mr. Chinn’s desk so that when he opened the desk they would all jump out. I did not see this happen, I was in a lower classroom. Did he jump! He never found out who did it.

One day two of the boys were sent to sit on the top of the bike shed, which was normally out of bounds, so we knew something special was going to happen. They were to keep a look-out for the Aldershot Command who were coming to Westmeston on summer manoeuvres. As soon as the boys saw them coming along the road from Keymer, they gave a shout and we, without waiting to be told, rushed from the schoolrooms, through the churchyard and sat on the south wall which overlooked the road to see them pass – the cavalry with their fine black horses, the gun carriages, also horse-drawn, as was the mobile kitchen with its iron chimney belching out smoke as it went along. I do not remember all who passed by, but the infantry were led by their band and the men of the Seaforth Regiment were led by their pipers. Great was our excitement at seeing such a display, but distress followed, for we had to keep close to home whilst they were about.

Near to the end of each term, some of the ‘ladies’ of the village would come to Ditchling School and look the girls over. They wanted those of a neat and tidy appearance who also had a malleable disposition as servants. Mothers soon found out in which houses it was best to place their daughters, because in some houses with no other help the girl – who would in most cases be just reaching her fourteenth birthday – would become a drudge. Those girls who had been placed into foster homes by various councils had no choice and it was they who usually got into such houses. They had to stay in their first job for two years.

These ladies were the wives or widows of white-collar workers who had the inclinations of the wealthy but not the income to really keep up appearances, so they cut down on food and on staff. We also seemed to have an abundance of retired actors, actresses and retired army personnel, and after Frank Brangwyn moved into the village a number of other artists also came. In fact, we said that Ditchling was the home of artists and of lunatics, alluding to St. George’s Retreat, the asylum to the north of the village. There were also a great number of spinsters trying to live as their families had done in the past but on greatly reduced incomes. Their clothes were mostly black going green with age. One such lady we called ‘Miss Leather Jacket’ because she wore a leather jacket until it fell to pieces. We certainly did not envy any of them their gentility or their type of poverty. We were poor, but happy, although I must mention that there was one lady that I did envy – Miss Platt. She was not pretty or smart, but she had a room given over to books, the walls were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and each shelf was crammed with books. And I had only two.

Our parents removed each of us from Ditchling School as we reached our twelfth birthday, and we walked to the Council school at Hassocks. The reason for this was that Mr. Chinn seemed to take no interest in the pupils after the death of his little daughter, so with many other children from Ditchling we walked in all weathers along that long strip of road. Often we were in trouble because we, as children will, made too much noise on the way there.

There are two incidents at Hassocks school which I well remember – one sad, the other amusing. The headmistress of the school was Miss Booker. One day our class was asked to write an essay, the subject to be our own choice. I sat and wrote as if inspired, my story was of a gypsy girl in the sunset. This I handed to Miss Booker. The next morning I was called to the front of the class. The conversation that ensued I recall vividly.

‘Stevenson, did you write this essay?’ – ‘Yes, Madam’ – ‘I can see that it is your usual haphazard spelling, but did you compose it?’ – ‘Yes, Madam’ – Swack went the cane across my hand – ‘Don’t lie, admit you read it somewhere’ – ‘No, Madam, I didn’t, the words just came into my head’ – Swack went the cane – ‘You are lying, admit it’ – ‘I baint lying’ – Swack went the cane again – ‘Go to your seat, you will stay in every play for the rest of the week, and you will write: I must learn not to tell lies’. I never tried to do well at my lessons again.

The other incident still makes me smile. For our art lessons, we were given pictures from a seed catalogue to copy, I could never do this, having no eye for perspective, so on this occasion I drew some petals. They did not look right so I drew round them, shaded in some parts and left others plain. I wrote my name on the back and handed it in. The next morning my drawing was pinned up on the wall – I had been given full marks and the teacher had written, ‘Almost a perfect rose’. The picture I had been given to copy was a marguerite.

From Hassocks school it was possible if one had the aptitude to win a scholarship to grammar school. There was no ‘eleven plus’ then. I was not a scholar. Looking back, I think one of the reasons was having lost two years at the beginning of my schooling because I had at the age of two lost all my hair. This had not grown by the time I was five so I had to wear a bonnet to cover my bald head. The children were very cruel and teased me and would pull off my bonnet and jeer at me. I became so ill I was taken away from school and did not return until I was seven.

I was also left-handed as were my mother and father. No child at that time was allowed to write with the left hand and so every time that I was caught with a pen or pencil in my left hand it was taken out and replaced in my right hand, so I gave up trying.

The cane was in constant use then. How teachers expected us to write with blue weals across our hands, I do not know.

Out Of School

Out-of-school activities included Brownies and Girl Guides. Miss Wilson of Colstocks was our first Brown Owl, with Miss Betty Hobbs as Tawny Owl. Our ordinary Brownie and Guide meetings were held in the church room which had been given to the village by the Rev. Norton at the end of the 1914-18 War. This stood at the corner of the Platt. But alas, like so many things in Ditchling, this has gone now. Our winter hats when we were in the Brownies were of brown wool and they had square tops that were turned over at the corners and held down with a button. In the summer time the hats were of the brown panama type.

Can any girl who has been a Guide ever forget dampers, dough twists, or cheesedreams? Dampers were made from flour mixed with water into a stiff dough and cooked on a stone in the camp-fire. Twists were of the same type of dough wound around a stick and toasted over a fire. When cooked they were removed from the stick and filled with jam. The cheese dreams were a slice of bread with a slice of cheese on it. This would be balanced on a hazel twig fork and toasted over the fire. They always tasted of wood smoke, but on a moonlit night eaten sitting around the camp-fire, singing the camp-fire songs between bites, they were food for the gods.

How proud we were of the badges won – we learnt so many things that we did not learn at school. Mrs. Peat taught us to make whistle pipes out of bamboo canes. Others came and taught us country dancing and how to make dolls’ furniture out of conkers and tiny chairs out of chicken feathers. The girls of my age group owe a lot to Miss Eastwood of Hassocks and Miss Scott and Miss Stafford of Keymer who gave us so much time. I often wonder if they enjoyed it as much as we did.

The rehearsals for the Guide concerts were chaotic. The dressing rooms in the village hall where the concerts were held were downstairs. From there we had to go outside and up a fire escape to the back of the stage. There was only one stage entrance, so if one had to make an entrance from the far side one would have to creep along the back of the stage pretending not to be there. I remember on one occasion a table was placed on the stage to overcome this difficulty, and a small Brownie sat under it ready to spring out when the cue was given. The cue was given but no Brownie appeared so the cue was given again, but still no Brownie, so one of the actors that was on the stage looked under the table to find the Brownie fast asleep.

It was a rule that we all learnt two or three parts because someone was sure to be ill on the night. One year there was an outbreak of chicken pox. I had three parts to play with very little time between each change of costume, so to save time I wore my Brownie uniform for the last act, over this a costume for a sketch and on top of those the costume for a monologue. Fortunately, this was ‘The Lost Golosh’, and I was supposed to be a very fat old lady that could not see her feet, so with all of those extra clothes I really looked the part. Can you imagine, I was fat already – I must have looked a typical country apple dumpling.

At a concert given by an adult group, in which a group of people were singing Victorian songs around the piano, the stage collapsed. When the stage was renewed it was made much larger, and there was room for the actors to move along behind the backcloth. The stairway up from the dressing-rooms came up on the inside of the building, but there was still only the one to reach the stage by.

Girl Guide uniforms at that time were a large blue velour hat, blue cotton dress with two breast pockets. In one of them was carried a notebook and pencil, and in the other a small tin in which there was a bandage and a plaster – this was a First Aid kit. The dresses were straight, pulled in at the waist with a brown belt. From clasps on this belt hung a clasp knife on one side and a neatly rolled piece of string on the other. The patrol leaders had a lanyard with a whistle. Black stockings and shoes completed the outfit.

One Guide camp that I will never forget was held in the corner of a field next to our home. Miss Ord, a great ‘do-gooder’, arranged it. The tents were erected, and from each tent three ropes ran, each of a different thickness. The thickest rope led to the cooking area, the second to the latrines, the third to the captain’s tent. Joyful laughter came often from this camp as the blue clad girls went about their tasks. There were no grumbles and it was one of the neatest camps that I have ever seen. All the girls were blind.

Jumble sales were also a part of community life – just as they are today. One I remember vividly. It was the only one that I ever attended. My god-mother gave me a penny to spend. How cross she was, saying that I had wasted a hard-earnt penny, but had I? I had spent that penny on a tattered pink satin pincushion, which, as was the fashion, had a lady (made of china) sitting on the top. I unpicked the cushion, hid the lady, and sifting through the stuffing found a number of needles. Nearly 60 years later I am still using those needles, and the lady, which I still have, is valued at £8 today. Good value for a penny!

An important game was stoolball. This is mainly played by girls, but although I would fill in sometimes for practice, I was seldom asked to play in the team matches. Once at Hassocks school there was a stoolball tournament, and not enough players, so I had to play. I was sent to the far side of the field and told by the teacher to stay there, so there I stood, hands folded in front of me, wondering how I would catch the ball if it should come my way, when to my surprise the ball dropped into my hands. I was the heroine of the game, yet I had not seen the ball coming.

Cricket was played in St. John’s Field, one of the fields of Gospels Farm. The cricket team shared the field with the cows, and before they could play they had to clean the pitch with shovel and brush. Many a match was enlivened by a player slipping on a badly cleaned patch.

Football was played in the next field, known as St. Matthew’s. There was no changing room, so players came in their playing kit and went home in their mud. It was at these matches that my sisters and I made more pocket money. We made lemonade from crystals and would sell great jugfuls to players and spectators alike.

It was in the late 1920s that the people of Streat, Westmeston and Ditchling purchased from the Misses Dumbrell a field near to Farm Corner for use as a recreation ground, so that all the various sporting activities could take place at the one venue. The money for this venture was raised by door-to-door collections. The ground is still in constant use today.

At least twice during the hunting season the huntsmen would meet at Ditchling Crossroads, filling the South Road with horses and hounds. The huntsmen would drink their stirrup cup at the Bull Inn steps (this was mostly brandy laced with cherry brandy) before moving off, with more than half of the villagers following on foot. So many people to chase one little fox.

Drag-hunting was a humane way of giving men and hounds some exercise, for instead of chasing foxes, deer or hares, the followers would chase a man. This man dragging a sack impregnated with linseed or some other strongly scented product would leave a given spot about half an hour before the rest of the pack. They, following the scent left by the human fox, would try to catch him before he arrived home. Unfortunately this sport never really caught on, and was soon given up.

Point-to-point meetings were often held. These usually started from north of the village, so that the riders got a good run from Ditchling Common. We would trail along after the other followers of the last two sports. We must have been sturdy, the many miles that we ran.

It was on Friday evenings that – their day’s work done – those men in the volunteer fire brigade would assemble at the fire station. This was where Glynn’s showroom now stands, later at East End Farm, and then at the Sandrock Inn. There two horses that had pulled the coal cart all of the week would be harnassed to the fire waggon and then they would be away at a canter up the West Street and around to the pond. Here they would practise their fire drill and play the pond’s water onto the west side of the church, watched by all of us children. It was a sort of weekly spectacle.

Later the fire waggon became mechanised, the money for the purchase of the new machine having been raised by public subscription. It must have been annoying for these men – having got to the scene of a fire – only to find no water available, for there were few hydrants in those days. One such fire was at Coombe Down, a large house to the south of the village. When they arrived the house was well alight, and the lake from which they hoped to pump the water was dry. So they could only watch it burn. Ditchling lost its fire service when it was taken over by local government in 1941 and now we rely on Keymer fire station.

Local Personalities

These are just a few of the people who stood out in the Ditchling of my childhood.

Mrs. Biggs lived with her husband in a house called Cotterlings. This is in West Street and is so called today. Mrs. Biggs used a large brass ear trumpet to the great delight of children, who loved to shout down it.

Nurse Binns was the village nurse and midwife. In spite of the many miles she had to walk each day to visit patients in the outlying parts of the village she was very stout. On one occasion she had cause to call at our home down Shady Lane, she managed to get through the first of the heave stiles but she got stuck in the second one. My brother was able to get behind her whilst Joyce and I stood in front of her, Rex said push and we did so. Unfortunately for poor nurse so did he, and there she stayed stuck fast until our father came along and released her by removing her coat. Nurse was most annoyed. She said that she would have managed if we had not tried to help:

Mrs. Bourne lived with her daughters at Meadowside in North Road, they were all keen on amateur dramatics. It was at a concert in their garden that I remember hearing De Barry Cox singing. He had a wonderful singing voice and he was often referred to as ‘the singing roadman’. On that occasion he was singing ‘Clementine’. Joanna Bourne was Clementine – she arose from their fish pond, covered in green slime. It is two of these girls who have bought the old Ditchling village school to turn into a museum.

Frank Brangwyn – who later became Sir Frank – was famous for the large murals he painted and was a well-loved resident who lived in the Jointure in South Street. On one occasion he had some little dark skinned children staying with him to use as models in one of his pictures. One morning they all managed to get out of his garden and ran naked around the village, to the consternation of some of the spinster residents. Sir Frank used many local people as models including my sister Joyce. She posed as Abel with Tilly Cox as the mother and Tilly’s daughter Maud as Cain. This picture was to be hung in the House of Lords, but for some reason was found unacceptable, so the picture went to a gallery in Wales.

Sir Frank was renowned for his colourful language. He would chase his models around the studio, swearing at them all the time. Joyce said that she was frightened the first time this happened. Sir Frank explained that he did this to warm them after they had been sitting too long.

One story about Sir Frank was that when his gardener was laying a garden path of concrete he made his dog run through the wet concrete to leave its paw marks for posterity. He is remembered by those who knew him as a kindly man who paid his models well. He was guarded by a housekeeper, Mrs. Peacock.

James Buffard was a nurseryman and preacher at the Emmanuel Chapel in South Street. This chapel was a tin hut, but in recent years it has been rebuilt in brick. After selling Beacon Nursery Mr. Buffard moved into the centre of the village to a house called Beacon View. This is in the Field Way off the Lewes Road. He took over the disused sandpit in East End Lane and turned it into a nursery.

One story about him and Sir Frank is about swearing. James being a preacher did not swear, whilst Sir Frank was renowned for his swearing. One autumn morning, James was cutting the creeper in front of Sir Frank’s house when Frank came out and looking up said, “What are you doing Buffard?” “Just tidying the creeper,” called down James. “And what are all these birds’ nests doing down here?” asked Frank. “Why they be only sparrows’ nests, the young varmints,” answered James. “Only sparrows’ nests, I don’t think much of your bloody religion, my God loves all creatures, so put them nests back and bloody well leave them alone in future.” So saying Sir Frank stomped back into the house.

Miss Crosswaite lived with her companion Miss Flood in a cottage in East Lane. They held classes for children to learn about the work done by missionaries. We also made articles to be sold at garden parties held in their garden. I was not clever with my needle, so they taught me to carve patterns on cork mats.

Mabel Hilton Philipson – before her marriage – was one of the Gaiety Girls playing under the name of Mabel Russell. She stood for parliament in 1921 and won the seat of Berwick-on-Tweed for the Conservatives. This seat she held for seven years. In 1924 she moved with her husband, two sons and daughter into a newly built house in Ditchling. She called this house Limberlost after a book written by Gene Stratton-Porter which she told me she loved above all others. She was a well-loved, flamboyant resident of Ditchling until her death in 1954.

William Kenning was known to all as Bill. When he met any person for the first time he would say, “No good wondering who I am – waste of time – I’ll tell you – think of cricket, that should make you think of the Oval, thinking of the Oval you think of Kennington, cross off the ‘ton’ and you’ve got my name, Kenning, got it?” and off he would go leaving the newcomer wondering who he was. For many years he was the mainstay of the local cricket and football teams. He lived with his wife and son at Lodge Hill and sold garden produce to some of the villagers. In springtime he could be seen climbing trees to reach the nests of rooks. From these he would take an egg, he thought that removing it was a more humane way of reducing the rook population than by shooting them and perhaps leaving a young one to starve in the nest. His other hobby was train spotting, which he did from a tree in his garden. From the top of this he could see the trains entering and leaving Hassocks Station. It was while sitting in this tree that he died. His wife was for many years the conductor of the Ditchling Choral Society.

Mr. Luka to my young mind looked like John Bull, and the likeness was intensified when he acquired a bull dog which he called Bill. Together they would waddle from their home at Motlands, now called Downlands Court, to the Bull Inn and back. When out riding he would often call at the White Horse and after indulging would be helped onto his horse which would find his own way home. Mr. Luka was also well-known for his colourful language. If he could not see his dog Bill he would shout, “Holy Jesus, where in hell are you!” to the consternation of those who did not know him.

Mrs. Mairet was famous for her hand loom weaving which she taught at her home in Gospels in the South Road. She was world famous and many people of different nationalities came to learn the craft from her.

Pat and Grahame Martin-Turner moved into the area at the end of my childhood. Pat was a member of the Parish Council, Honorary Secretary of the Horticultural Society. Grahame was a great cricket player and each season brought a team of his business friends to play at Ditchling. These were called ‘The Black Dogs’ after the name of his house. They wore white ties on which was the figure of a black dog with its head slightly detached from its body, in keeping with the story of the headless black dog that is supposed to roam the area in which their house stands. They have two daughters, Ann is now a doctor who has a practice on Vancouver Island. Maureen played first violin in the Lucerne Festival Strings, having been a pupil of Max Rostal. She now lives in Switzerland.

The Mayston Family have lived in Ditchling for many generations. A hundred and twenty-five years ago a Robert Mayston was a shoemaker. Later they owned grocers’ shops. They are also well known as handbell ringers and most of the male members of the family have been keen cricket players.

Esther Meynell started her career as a writer before her marriage, when she was Esther Moorehouse. Her books were mainly about Sussex and its people. I remember her as so graceful that she seemed to glide rather than walk. In the flowing blue garments that she invariably wore, she reminded me of the Dresden figurines.

Mr. Muggeridge, a relative of Malcolm Muggeridge, farmed Court Gardens Farm which lies to the north of the village and is thought to be the estate that was bestowed on Ann of Cleves. John Muggeridge was one of the first people in Ditchling to own a motor car. This he managed to drive to the top of the High Street but then he must have forgotten how to stop it for, to the great delight of the onlookers, he pulled at the steering wheel shouting, “Whoa, I say, whoa, there, damn you: Whoa, I say:” He managed to stop at the bottom of the High Street.

Paul Patrick came to the village during the 1914-18 War to learn horticulture from Mr. James Buffard. He married the boss’s daughter. He also helped Gavin Rae to restart the Scout group.

Gavin Rae lived with his wife at Raescroft in North Road. He, with the help of Paul Patrick, restarted the Ditchling Scout Troop after the 1914-18 War. His wife was keenly interested in the League of Nations and organised concerts to raise funds for this.

Shepherd Rewell was one of the last of the Downland shepherds. He spent most of his life walking the Sussex Downs in all weathers – snow, rain-storms or sunny days, tending his flock night and day. He never had a day off from his labours. His wage was small, his working hours long. When at last his employer had no further use for his services in the 1920’s he was turned out of his home and put into a cage, namely the Chailey Union Workhouse, where – deprived of the freedom to roam the Downland he loved he soon died and was given a pauper’s funeral. He was even denied the handful of wool that would have shown his calling. A just reward for a lifetime’s faithful service?

Doctor Richards, known as Doctor Dick, lived with his wife in South Road. He had a figure of a Wyvern (the figure on Alfred’s standard) on the roof of his stable, this was made at the terracotta works on Ditchling Common. This figure can now be seen in Ditchling Museum and will be used as the emblem on the Museum’s banner and notepaper.

The Doctor was a notable horseman and rode to visit his patients. He was mostly paid for his services with gifts of fruit, vegetables, eggs or even a truss of hay. There was no health service then, only the sick fund that was run at the Bull Hotel.

Mrs. Sennet, the memory of her still makes me smile after nearly sixty years. She was an actress and lived for some years in the house known as The Old Lodge which was in the North Road near to the North Star Inn. The Christmas after she left the village to live in Switzerland, she sent us a gift. On Christmas afternoon mother opened the parcel to reveal a shortbread. Mother tried to cut it but could make no impression on it. Father tried and bent the carving knife, so Mother laid the shortbread between two towels and hit it with the flat iron. The short-bread splintered and we children sat around the fire sucking pieces all the afternoon. It was too hard to bite.

Lewis Stenning was a man of many parts. He started to farm at the age of seventeen at Bungalow Farm which is to the north of Ditchling. He later took over Gospels Farm which is to the south of the village. He was a champion runner, running for the Brighton and the County Harriers. He represented the County at Crystal Palace where he won a silver medal. He also ran against the best runners of southern England and won a bronze medal. He was a member of the Special Constabulary from 1914 to 1945. His dairy produce was famous, the cream on the milk coming two thirds of the way down each bottle. He delivered around the village on a tricycle with a large carrier on the front. In later life he delivered milk for Jack Holman.

Charles Trustram lived at Oaktree in Spatham Lane which is to the east of the village. He would deliver the produce from his smallholding to the village shops, travelling by pony and trap. Nothing unusual in that, but he always had a Dalmatian dog running along just behind the carriage wheels. He was a victim of the 1st World War in that he suffered from shell shock.

The Reverend C.P. Williams was the first vicar of Ditchling to live at the new vicarage. The old one was at Dymocks Manor in East End Lane. He was a kindly man and well-loved. He took part in most of the village activities. He had one son and one daughter who took over the running of the Brownie pack from Miss Hobbs.

Frederick Wood was the local builder and for a time bailiff for St. George’s Retreat on Ditchling Common. He lived with his wife, two sons and daughter at Eastons in North Road. He was president of the Horticulture Society. His main hobby was the living countryside, a subject on which he wrote many books. His son Richard ran boarding kennels on the same site as the builder’s yard. He also bred terrier dogs.

I am finishing this chapter with Tommy Fox. He could not be called a resident of Ditchling. He was one of the itinerant travellers who came to the village, but Tommy was one of the regulars. Each spring, like the cuckoo, he would arrive with his possessions in a sack which he pushed in an old pram, his pots and pans hanging from a string around his waist. He would set up camp with a bedding made of bracken in the hedge-row near to the foot of Lodge Hill. He would do a few jobs for the farmer, then pack up and move on to reappear at a later time. Each morning he would come to the pond and dip his face into the water. I do not think he ever washed more than that.

He came for so many years we would look for his coming. One year he failed to come. I do not know if anyone tried to find out what had happened to him. Like so many people I expect he was just forgotten.

Tradespeople

In spite of the poverty of those times, the village was always full of life. There were many shops, all of which seemed to be busy, for it was only the very wealthy who bought outside of the village. They had the bulk of their goods sent down from Harrods or the Army and Navy stores, and only purchased small items locally. This may have been to the shopkeepers’ advantage, for the wealthy mostly paid six months in arrears, whereas the weekly-wage earner paid by the week.

Mr. Cutress owned the bakery in the West Street (where Mr. Grint’s is now). Bread was delivered around the village each day by a man with a hand-cart, and to the outlying villages by a horse and trap at first and later a van.

On Saturdays after the bread baking had been finished, a number of women took their large tins of cake mixture to the bakehouse to have them cooked. They paid 1d per cake for this service. Few of the cottages had large cooking ranges – most cottagers cooked on oil stoves and for an oven they placed an old biscuit tin over the flames but this was not enough heat for the large ‘cut and come again’ cakes that most women made.

After the Nevill Cottages were built by the Chailey Rural District Council in the late 1920s, and the tenants moved into them from a row of cottages in the High Street, these were pulled down and a row of shops was built. One of these became a baker’s. This was run by Mr. Maidment. Later he took over from Mr. Cutress.

There were three butchers in the village. The one at the east side of the Crossroads belonged to Mr. Lindfield, whose family had been farmers and butchers in the village for at least five generations. This shop was later sold to Mr. Avery who later sold it to Mr. Jefferies. It is now part of the Westminster Press.

The butcher’s at the top of the High Street belonged to Mr. Slater, who also farmed Beard’s Place Farm. He also sold to Mr. Jefferies. That shop is now an antiques shop. The proclamation to open Ditchling Fair has for some years been read from the balcony over its south window.

The third butcher’s shop halfway up the High Street belonged to Mr. Burtcher. It is the only butcher’s shop left in Ditchling now and belongs to Woods of Burgess Hill.

It seems funny to look back on three butchers’ shops in one village. Yet often on a Saturday evening many a child would creep into the butcher’s and ask in a whisper for a penn’orth of suet and two penn’orth of block ornaments. With these the mothers would make a pudding to have with a few vegetables on Sunday, and some would be left to fry up on Monday. Few families had meat on any other day but Sunday. The butchers used to give their customers a calendar with a pocket in the front for Christmas.

The greengrocer was George Carey, who had a nursery in the disused sandpit. The entrance to this was just north of the Bull Inn and the shop was at the entrance. There were also three grocers. The one in the West Street belonged to Mr. Mayston who – with the help of his sons and daughters and Bill Horney (who always whistled) – ran three departments, grocery, drapery and hardware, in fact most things were stored alongside of the bacon, cheese and cases of dried fruit and working boots. This shop was sold to Masters and Tully’s of Hurstpierpoint. It is now three dwellings.

The shop on the western side of the Crossroads belonged to Hoadley’s of Burgess Hill. They had two departments – one for drapery (where Clifford Dann’s is now), and the other for groceries (now Cullum’s). This shop had a mixture of aromas never smelt these days – of freshly ground coffee, strong cheese, candles and paraffin. Here you could see the assistants in their white coats packing the goods as you waited. They would firstly weigh the dried goods, sugar, rice, dried fruits and so on, then pour them onto an oblong of blue paper, and deftly fold the paper into a bag. Goods were stored in long wooden drawers. The biscuits could be seen in glass-topped tins along the front of the counter. There were chairs to sit upon whilst one waited to be served. The manager of Hoadley’s was Mr. Cottingham, who lived with his wife and sons in a flat over the store. Some of the assistants that I remember were Bill Cave, Maurice Killick, Dick Skelton, Miss Carver, Mrs. Driver, Mrs. Pratt and Julia Cave. The errand boys were never there for long. Amongst those that I remember were Wally Pratt, Frank Weller, Buster Hemsley and Frank Hall.

Errand boys would deliver the goods, not only around the village but to outlying places such as Middleton and Streat – all that way on bicycles with great baskets on the front of the bike, and sometimes cans of paraffin hanging from the handlebars. Later they had a van which was driven by Miss Julia Cave for some years. Later men took over.

On Saturday evenings children would ask the grocer for a penn’orth of spotted fruit. This was any oranges, bananas or apples that would not keep until Monday. With this fruit mothers would make a fresh fruit salad for Sunday dinner. They would save the sound pieces of rind to make into candy peel.

The third grocer’s was at the top of the High Street. This was Heasman’s Stores, and was very much smaller than the other two. It was started by Mayston’s before they moved into the larger premises in the West Street. Most types of goods could also be bought here. Later Mr. Heasman turned the down-stairs sitting room into a chemist’s shop, after his daughter had qualified as a chemist.

Shops seemed to come in threes, for we also had three sweet shops. Mr. Berry from Hassocks had a lock-up shop in the West Street where Nona now has an extension to her antiques shop. Mr. Green was just in the Lewes Road, next to Tudor Close. There was a brick stile between the two properties and one would have to climb this stile to reach the cottages beyond. This stile has now been taken up to roof level and a room has been built over it.

The third sweet shop was on the corner of Church Lane and was the one that most children had to pass on their way to school. This shop was run by Mr. and Mrs. Kidd although it had been started by Mrs. Kidd’s mother, Mrs. Waller. They sold every type of sweet dear to a child’s heart – liquorice bootlaces, sherbert dabs, gob-stoppers, jellybabies, aniseed balls and bullseyes. These would be weighed and put into a cone made of old newspaper. But few children had pocket money to spend. I liked the liquorice bootlaces – they could be cut into small pieces and so last longer.

Later Mrs. Kidd extended the shop and sold every type of thing a housewife could need in the way of pins, needles, silks, bootlaces, cards and games, in fact one only had to ask her for something and the next time one called she would produce it. This shop is now owned by Wally and Mary Parker.

Mr. Vincent kept the Post Office which was in the East End Lane. He sold many types of goods as did Fred and Phyllis Edwards when they took over from him. These two well-loved residents of Ditchling ran the Post Office for 48 years until they retired in 1984.

There were also three dairymen in the village. James Standing lived in the Twitten. He fetched the milk from the Hillborns in Spatham Lane (about 1 1/2 miles each way). He had a three-wheeled milk pram which he pushed. The wheels were of iron and he fetched the milk twice a day. He also delivered the milk twice a day around the village carrying two large cans of milk on a yoke. He would ladle the milk straight from the churns into the housewives’ jugs, thus saving the washing of milk bottles which were just coming into use.

Walter Turner and his son Jack who lived in the High Street delivered milk using a pony and trap at first. After the cottages in the High Street were rebuilt as shops they had one as a dairy. This was run by Jack’s wife. Jack also played the church organ for some of the church services.

The other dairy was run by Jack Holman who managed North End Farm. He employed a man and a boy to deliver around the village and to Westmeston. The man, Mr. Stenning who ran Gospels Farm, rode a tricycle with a large front carrier. The boy was Frank Hall who rode a trade bike also with a front carrier. This dairy’s milk was in quart, pint and half-pint bottles. They had to make two deliveries each day, with one delivery on Sundays. After each delivery they had to wash all of the collected bottles. All this had to be done by hand, the water being boiled in a galvanised bucket over a gas ring.

There were two garages. One of them was a few yards to the east of the Crossroads (where Glynn’s car showrooms are now). This was owned by Mr. Hallett. He also charged the batteries for radio sets. The other garage was at the far end of the Lewes Road, having been built about 1929 by Mr. Morley. It is now Glynn’s workshop.

The Limes at the top of the High Street was the chemist’s shop, run by Mrs. Sinden. The medicine came from her husband’s dispensary in Hassocks. Mr. Sinden was for a time a reporter for the Mid-Sussex Times. They were the parents of the famous actors, Donald, Leon and their sister Joy, who although a schoolteacher, is famous for her wonderful miming. The Limes is now a private residence.

There was just one fish shop. This was originally in Ditchling Gardens, but then moved into a shop in the High Street. It was run by the Page brothers, and is now Annabella’s antiques shop.

The chimney-sweep was Mr. Stephens. He had a faithful dog which – when told to guard his master’s gear – would lay near to it and never move or let anyone near it until his master returned, no matter how long he was away.

Mr. Coppard was the snob, and his wife helped him after giving up the sweet shop she used to have in the South Street. They walked each day from their home in Keymer carrying carpet-bags in which would be boots needed for the next day. Mrs. Coppard sold dirty postcards (my joke). The cards were always grubby from the smuts caused by the open fire on which her husband heated his tools. Their shop was to the west of the White Horse Beer House in West Street.

Alfred Tomsett took over the sadler’s that was at the corner of Blind Land (now known as East Gardens). Besides mending boots and shoes, Mr. Tomsett still undertook the mending of harness. His brother was a builder and it was he who developed East Gardens.

The riding stables were run by E. Button of Elfick’s Farm. This was about 1 1/2 miles to the north of the village as one approached the Common. It was he who taught the young ladies at the boarding school run by the Misses Dumbrell to ride. He would bring a string of ponies to the school every afternoon.

The Dumbrells’ boarding school was run by the Misses Edith and Mary Dumbrell, They took over the running of the school from their mother who had started the school to try to support her children after her husband James was killed in a hunting accident at the age of 49 in 1882. In its last years the school was run by Miss Knowles, who had been Miss Mary’s right hand for many years. This school closed its doors for the last time in 1982, just one hundred years after its inception. The grounds have now been turned into a housing estate for elderly people. Miss Mary Dumbrell played the harmonium in the small church room at the north end of Spatham Lane for more than fifty years.

There were four tea-rooms in the heart of the village and several on the outskirts. Teas of bread, butter, jam, a slice of cake and a pot of tea could be bought for 1/6d (7 1/2p). Mrs. Weller at Wing’s Place opposite the church also took in paying guests. Mrs. Partridge had the Sundown Tea-Rooms in the South Road. This was the first home of the Bowling Club. She also had a tennis court which could be hired, not only by local people, but also by those calling in for teas. Mrs. Black was at the Old Forge Tea-Rooms which was next door to the North Star Inn in North Rd. Mrs. Black always wore green stockings and a long green cloak with a tall black hat, rather like those depicted in pictures of witches. This of course seemed very strange in the times when married women usually wore black. Mrs. Creighton-Brown had the tea-room at Old Yard. This was an ex-army hut next to the playing fields at the far end of the Lewes Rd., towards Westmeston.

‘The Wayfarers’ was a guest-house, and ‘Grey Ladies’ was a nursing home for those suffering from a mild type of leprosy.

The village had two carriers. Walter Bannister in the East End Lane took parcels etc. to Lewes and Brighton, also furniture removals. The rival firm was George Turner and his son Alfred, who lived at ‘Sunnyside’ in the Lewes Road. They besides taking the local football and cricket teams to their away matches collected and delivered churns of milk from the smaller farms to the dairies in neighbouring towns.

The plumber was George Edwards, whose family had lived at Ditchling Gardens for 125 years. (This house is now the headquarters of the Ditchling Guide and Scout groups). Mr. Edwards also sang in the church choir as did his son Fred. His son George played the church organ for many years.

Walter Evans who lived down the Drove with his wife and family ran a motor bus service, plying between Ditchling Crossroads and Hassocks station, his bus was green at first, he then had a red bus. Mr. Grinsted of Keymer ran a blue bus in opposition, and races would ensue between the drivers to see who could reach the station first and so pick up the majority of passengers.

There are five public houses in Ditchling, four in the heart of the village and ‘The Royal Oak’ at the northern end of Ditchling Common. This public house is famous as being the place in which Jacob Harris, a peddlar, murdered three persons in 1734. For these crimes he was tried at Horsham, found guilty and hung on a gibbett near to the scene of his crime.

The North Star was for many years a beerhouse run by Harry Eade. The Bull Hotel near the Crossroads was a posting house in olden times. It was at the hotel steps that the hunt drank its stirrup cup before starting the day’s hunting. Mine host during my childhood was Mr. Saunders. The White Horse Inn in the West Street was run by George Pratt. The Sandrock Inn in the High Street was kept firstly by Jack Evans, later by his widow.

Our Pond’s Year

It is shaped like a giant spoon, that pond where as children we used to play. Its south end was the bowl, tapering to the handle at the northern end.

A small island joined the handle to the bowl, a magical island, reached by four stepping-stones from the eastern bank, but by only two from the western one. Sometimes it was Treasure Island, at other times it was the prison of poor Mary, Queen of Scots. The bowl of the pond was clear of weeds, and one could see not the old bicycles or the discarded prams, but submarines and sunken battleships, which we used to shoot at with our catapults.

The handle of the pond was full of reeds and of life. Amongst the reeds a clump of kingcups made a splash of colour. Here the bad-tempered coots, blue-black plumage and white caps low on their foreheads, built their nests on the reeds, chasing away the inquisitive moorhens with angry squawks. The moorhens – distinguished from the coots by having red caps – chose a spot on the eastern bank on which to build their nests. It was not a very wise choice, for in the bank not far from the water’s edge the water rats, cunning predators, had made their home. Their progeny increased every three or four months, which made them continual scavengers, thus making the eggs and the young moorchicks very vulnerable. Not so the eggs or the young of a pair of swans that took over the island in the spring. While they were in residence not even the most daring of children played near them, and any rat that ventured near was soon chased away.

On the wide marshy green to the north-west of the pond, a pair of mallards built their nest. The drake, with his green head and white collar, kept guard over the dowdy duck who sat almost unseen on a very untidy nest in which she had laid a clutch of eggs.

On the east bank an elder tree, its branches bowed down by ivy clinging to its slender frame, cast a dark shadow over the spring that kept the pond’s water slowly rippling. The ivy’s creamy white flowers were filled with noise as the bees collected the pollen. Towards evening the carter brought the heavy horses, Bess and Prince, Blossom and Captain, down to the pond’s south bank. Here they would first lower one foot into the water as if to test the temperature, then finding the water soothing they would walk further in until the water reached their hocks. There they would stand until the carter had finished his smoke.

The season changed, summer came. The coots, with the few young that they had managed to rear, came from the reeds and into the clear water. They moved in nervous jerky dashes. The moorhens, seeing them pass also ventured further into the pond, dashing hither and thither. But the swans glided gracefully, their grey-feathered young following behind their parents in single file. The proud mallard, with many a loud quack, ushered their tiny, fluffy offspring into the water. If one should stray it was quickly and noisily pushed back into line. The water-boatmen skimmed the water’s surface. A moorhen quickly ducked her head – a meal for her – death for some of the water-boatmen.

Joyous voices filled the air. Children freed from school gathered along the pond’s western edge. Some carried bags of stale bread which they broke into small pieces and then threw across the pond. The childish laughter trilled at their feathered friends’ frantic efforts to get their share. A hissing sound rent the air – the children scattered – from the farmyard the gander led his wives to take their evening swim.

A dragon-fly, its wings wide-spread, drifted lazily over the water to dither amongst the reeds and settle there when night fell. A glimpse of red sparkled in the water – a goldfish? No, just the fiery reflection of the setting sun. Before darkness came the young men of the village, their day’s labour done, assembled at the pond’s edge. They talked and jested. Some skimmed stones across the pond causing ripples as the stones fell to the pond’s bottom. The exception was of a Friday evening when the volunteer fire-men brought the fire pump to the pond for their weekly practice, and the west face of the church was thoroughly washed.

Yet again the season changed. Autumn came and cast a mantle of glorious colour, reflected in the pond’s water. The leaves of the trees on the pond’s east bank turned golden brown and the leaves of the brambles turned scarlet. Then, as the first frost touched their stems, they loosed their hold on those brilliant leaves and these then drifted down to rest for a moment on the pond’s surface before sinking to the bottom to lay and rot. Only the ivy retained its glossy leaves and its berries shining black. The swans and their cygnets flew in set formation away to find some river bank, leaving the island to the children to resume their games of make-believe, and the water to the smaller water birds, who would still be plagued by the ever-increasing family of water rats.

Winter settled over the pond. Each day the ice thickened. The carter broke the ice near the pond’s edge for the heavy horses, but they were not so keen now to walk far from the bank. The children in their multi-coloured hats and scarves brightened the sombreness of those winter days. They still brought the bread, and each day they tested the ice and argued – would it bear their weight?

The collared doves shared the ivy berries with the thrushes. The ice melted. The coots and the moor-hens stood on the pond’s banks, heads tucked under wings, waiting, just waiting. Soon it would be spring and time to start the cycle once again.