Letters to the Editor - December 2011

One of my favourite Christmas memories is also one of my earliest childhood recollections.

My sister Mary and I were sleepy but excited, for it was Christmas, and something special was going on.

We left the house and walked down the hill to Mr Bhore’s farm, where Dad was head cowman. We crossed the farmyard, passed the cowsheds, and climbed the stairs above the stables.

We may have been sleepy earlier, but this was going to be a night to remember. We were both under five years old, and we cannot always clearly remember details at that age but this was so special that my sister (now a Canadian) and I (a long-time Sussex resident) still hold the glory and magic of that Christmas night on our home island on Guernsey.

Mary remembers signing seasonal songs and carols, and playing all kinds of party games on those wooden floors above the horses that wonderful night, sixty years ago.
My abiding memory is of the perfect (in my memory at least) puppet theatre and show, which still elbows its way into my mind each Christmas.

A few years later, foot and mouth hit the Guernsey herd, and Mr Bhore and family moved away, back to the mainland. But the memories they left of those wonderful Christmas festivities will always remain.

Tony Gardner, Crawley

Almost seven years ago my brother-in-law died after many months of suffering.

Until he became ill, he had spent many years working as a farmhand, his last employment spanning twenty-eight years. He adored
the work, looking after the cattle, spending long days working in the fields and milking parlour, and loved everything about the countryside.

He also actively encouraged and fed about thirty feral cats on the farm. Each morning they would wait for him at the farm gate as he approach­ed on his bicycle and jump up onto the fence posts either side of the long drive. Then, as he cycled down the drive, they would follow him into the yard and, with tails straight up, into the shed where his first task was to feed them. (This was told to us by the farmer in the eulogy to my brother-in-law at the funeral.)

My sister could not decide where to have the ashes finally placed or whether to scatter them on the farm, with the permission of the farmer.

After many months, I managed to persuade her to have them interred at the town cemetery which was at the far end of the county market town where they lived. The arrangements were then made and the minister who had officiated at the funeral agreed to meet us at 10am one November morning. We collected the casket the afternoon before that day and placed it in the back of the car.
On the following morning we arrived with my sister at the car park at the cemetery. When the minister arrived, my husband opened the boot of the car to remove the casket.

On our arrival I had noticed a high hedge bordering the cemetery grounds. It was a very foggy and cold morning, and all was quiet.
As my husband lifted the casket from the car, we heard a cow commence lowing and then another and another, until a whole herd joined in; they must have been in a field on the other side of the hedge.

The noise was incredible — it had to be heard to be believed.

We felt overwhelmed by it all and then felt, too, that something very special was making this happen.

We believe that each one of us has a guardian angel and we like to think that, on that morning, my brother-in-law was making sure he had a good farewell and encouraged the cattle to make a final salute to this quiet, hardworking countryman, who was at last being placed to rest and he was being honoured in a truly deserved way.

It was a privilege to experience that very sad and emotional occasion, and it was something we will never forget.

Mrs M Heal, Bristol

During my national service in the late 1950s I was posted to RAF Wythall, south of Birmingham and now demolished. It had been part of Balloon Command during the Second World War, and two large hangars still existed on its outskirts where the barrage balloons (Way We Were, September) had been kept.

I only became aware of this because, as a shorthand typist, I was involved in correspondence with Chipperfields Circus concerning their annual rental of the hangars for the hanging, clean­ing and repairing of their circus tents in the winter.

Michael Wilkes, Hatfield, Worcs

Recently I have had to make several trips to Ludlow along the autumnal leafy roads between the Clee Hills of south Shropshire.

The hedge cutters had been out in force, mutilating miles of hedges and leaving them stark and boring. Some people, no doubt, would say “neat” but not I, for big branches had been left ragged and hazardous.

There is no hope for the dog rose, honeysuckle or bramble, whose roots are probably waiting for a chance to bloom — but will wait in vain.
For more than fifty years my husband has picked dog rose or a sprig of honeysuckle to put in my hair.

As a child I picked rosehips for the WVS, who gave us 2d a pound, which was a lot of money seventy years ago. The hips were made into rosehip syrup for wartime babies and child­ren who were deficient in vitamin C. We used the hips to extract itching powder — nowadays we would be classed as bullies or as being in breach of Health and Safety rules.

J M Mander, Much Wenlock

With reference to ‘The arrival of electricity to rural Somerset’ (October), we didn’t have electricity until August 1946, although it was in the village of Stoke Row and in fact next door. My mother was still filling paraffin lamps, including an Aladdin lamp with a mantle.
I was sixteen and sent for an estimate in my father’s name. The estimate from the Wessex Electricity Company was £7 for four lights and
a 5-amp plug. To my mother’s delight I had saved this money from my wages and paid for same. I still have the original estimate, number 589.

Incidentally, at that time we were still drawing water from a well, although mains water was next door.

John Pitt, by email

The recording of sights and sounds has been available for well over a hundred years but, as yet, there is no technique for recording smells. This is a great pity because some of the smells I remember from the thirties are now rare and difficult to describe.

Building sites used to smell of lime plaster but this can only be experienced now on restoration projects and the like.

A modern gas blowlamp produces little smell but the whiff of a paraffin blowlamp indicated that serious plumbing work was in hand.

Railway stations had a special odour of steam and coal only found now on restored railways. To me that smell always brings back memories of going home on leave during the Second World War.

One country smell gone for ever is that of the joiner’s shop. The first job in the morning was to light the stove, put water in the outer vessel of the glue pot and put it on the stove to simmer. The odour of fish glue mark­ed the joiner’s shop as different from any other department on the estate.

In the 1930s, people themselves used to smell of their trades and positions. The man who delivered coal by horse and cart or green­groceries on a dray smelt of horse and leather. Nurses could be detected in the next room by their healthy scent of carbolic soap. Plumbers and glaziers smelt of linseed oil from the putty they used.

As there is no way of recording smells, these will eventually be forgotten. The best we can do is to write about them.

Roy Jenkins, Weston-Sub-Edge

It was the custom of old Farmer Ben to visit the village local on Christmas Eve for a few drinks before walking the few miles home.

One particular Christmas Eve, Ben stayed a little later than usual, drank a little more than usual, and set off a little more unsteadily than usual. It was a dark and stormy night, when about halfway home Ben collided with a ram which had strayed onto the road. Ben shot out his hands and, touching the ram’s horns, took a firm hold. There was a violent struggle, the ram broke free, and Ben was left sprawling, muddy and exhausted, at the road­side. He went home, and not a word was said about the incident until he visited the village pub again, and the landlady asked him about his journey home the previous week.

“All reet, lass,” Ben replied, “but if I meet that bloke on his bicycle again, I shan’t let go of the handlebars as easily as I did last time.”

T Taylor, Guiseley, Leeds