Audrey Edith Veness

Autobiographical

In this memoir Audrey describes her childhood starting from her birth in Snape in Suffolk Many of the observation she made would have applied just as much to Southrepps were she and her family returned to in 1914.

No Silver Spoon or No return

 by Audrey Veness 9.8.1971

I was born in the village of Snape in Suffolk where my father, who was a native of Southrepps, a village in Norfolk -which village he had left some years previously to join the Royal Navy -was following the occupation of gamekeeper. When I was two years of age the family, which consisted then of my elder brother Albert Edward and sister Lena Maude and myself moved about and eventually settled in Whittlesford in Cambridgeshire where my father became head gamekeeper to a man referred to by the locals as ‘Squire Binney’. Life was good in the village. We lived in a house at the end of a drive winding down to the outskirts of woods which in spring were carpeted with wild daffodils, violets and primroses. Wild birdlife was abundant and there were heron, moorhens and any amount of jays, owls, hawks and song birds in the woods and on the marshes running down across the fields to the river Cam upon which stood Sawston Paper Mill. There were foxes in the woods, we had an aviary where father raised pheasants and partridge by placing sets under hens and kennels where he trained spaniels and retrievers as gun dogs.

Shoots and hunts were carried out across this delightful stretch of countryside and on the eve of the hunt it was my father’s job to go over the entire estate at midnight; while the foxes were on the prowl to find food, and to block up their lairs. He had probably practically seen them grow from tiny cubs and knew that the next day they would be hunted by men in hunting pink and skirted women sitting side-saddle on their mounts, as they did in those days. My mother had to provide cold viands for the hunt and we children filled baskets with wild daffodils for the members of the hunt to take away with them. Similarly, the little pheasants which had been hand reared were eventually free to roam and next in the woods and meadows, were flushed out by beaters and shot by the guns on the day of the shoot.

The cries of “view Halloo” “Yoicks” and “Tally-Ho” and the crack of the gun , while a bird fluttered to the ground to be retrieved by the well-trained gun dog were accepted as part and parcel of life for us as children as we knew it in those days.

By this time the family had increased to five children, there now being Cecil Philip and Charles Beresford to add to the list. I well remember the birth of Cecil Philip. I must have been barely three years of age but possess an extraordinary and almost photographic memory for detail which has remained with me through life.

I was given a whole penny to spend on the day he was born which in those days one could but at least four garters of liquorice, 2 “gob-stoppers”, some liquorice rolling pins and a “sherbert dab” for this sum was wealth indeed and I trotted off gaily with a neighbour to an adjoining small town to spend my wealth. I remember walking with her into a store and seeing some wonderfully dressed dolls displayed in a glass case and asking to be supplied with one of these in return for my penny. A kindly shop assistant gave me a minute celluloid doll with crinkled paper skirt in return for my penny and I was bitterly disappointed, if I could not have my magnificent doll, I would much rather have had the liquorice garters, the rolling pins, the gob-stoppers or the sherbert dab. One could also get aniseed balls, bulls eyes, jelly babies and coconut tobacco-pink and white but I was never keen on the aniseed balls. There were also tiger nuts to be had and locust beans which were, in point of fact only sheep fodder. I, nevertheless, had to be content with my tiny celluloid doll and trot along by the side of the neighbour holding her hand for three miles back home. There were no public conveyances in those days; other than steam engines, so most villages had no means of transport whatever. Only the comparatively wealthy and so called “upper class” had ponies and traps and the rest of us had either, to walk or stay at home. However, I digress. When I arrived home very tired with my tiny doll, there was a squeak in the bedroom above and I was taken upstairs to admire that wrinkled bundle which lay in a wicker cradle by the side of my mother’s bed and I finished up the gruel, which had been left for her by the midwife. This was the advent of Cecil Philip.

As time went on other babies arrived, my mother and father began to get nostalgic about father’s time in the Royal Navy and the next one became Charles Beresford (named after the admiral of the Fleet of that name) and yet another David Beatty. I am greatly surprised that one did not become Horatio Nelson but then, of course father did not serve under him!

We loved to roam the woods and cross streams forded by the trunk of a tree and to collect birds’ eggs of every description. We also found edible fungi which we were told was a great delicacy and was I believe called “murrel”. Moorhen eggs were plentiful and usually reposed in a nest perched precariously on a few twigs, reeds or rushes in the middle of a bed of wild irises or water lilies and we children received a good “hiding” or “thwacking” terms used in the local jargon for beating for coming home with saturated shoes and stockings having retrieved a goodly supply of these. However we found that our father would break a few into a tumbler, put in a little vinegar, salt and pepper on them and allow them to slip down his throat in that fashion. I believe this concoction is called a “prairie oyster” but to my small mind it was a revolting habit and I could not have done it for a king’s ransom.

I commenced my very sketchy education at the village school in Whittlesford; joined my with my elder sister and brother at the Temperance Society, called “The Band of Hope” and upon at least one evening a week we were allowed out to attend a meeting buts upon a winter evenings on the way home, it was our great delight to run across the park by the side of the church and slide across the surface of the frozen pond. My father always knew and made us hold up our shoes for inspection. There was usually some reprimand for this misdemeanour since we had been forbidden to take part in this activity. For one thing I suppose it was dangerous since the ice could have been thin and another it was not an inexpensive matter to find shoes for five little feet.

I well remember the death of King Edward the VII and the coronation of George the V and Queen Mary. There were great festivities in the village on the occasion of the coronation-swings and roundabouts bonfires and fireworks and we were each given a coronation mug. I recall that I had only just started school and qualified for a mug.

One incident that stands out in my mind from those days was seeing a horse shot the forecourt of a house facing the village green, its head placed in a sack and the carcass transported from the yard on an open-backed dray with a blood-soaked sack hanging off the back. This sight remained with me for many months and I had constant nightmares, always dreams of tall horses that could look into my bedroom window however high up it was situate. Thank goodness since those days a more humane method of carrying out this unhappy business has been devised.

I remember too my elder sister, brother and I going to a meadow about half a mile from the house to gather long dry grass for the nesting boxes. We were returning to the house with a well filled sack when we came upon an enormous red toad sitting directly in our path with a rapidly rising and falling throat and a horrible croak. We were terrified and tumbled hastily over the stile leading into the field leaving the sack behind and feeling quite certain that at least one of us would leave a leg behind in the maws of this monster. Of course, there must have been some perfectly logical explanation for the size and colour of the creature- it was as large as a tea-plate- and possibly the experts would be able to explain it to us children it was something monstrous, ominous and out of this world.  It had probably hopped up from the nearby river where it had wallowed in red slime. Be that as it may, from then on our fortunes changed.

War was in the air.

There were military manoeuvres being carried out at Newton, a nearby village and I remember several hundred marching soldiers halting at the village prior to reaching this destination while we children with others with others filled their water bottles from the village pump (no taps, sanitation or modern contraptions in those days) and their kitbags with apples and pears and shopkeepers supplied them with cigarettes. How many I wonder today perished on Flanders Fields?

However, for the time being all was excitement and I recall attending an open day with my family at Newton where there was horse jumping, polo, and a tent pegging display put on by the battalion of the Scots Greys. We had an enormous tea in a gigantic marque and I well remember a kindly sergeant saying to me “Stand up and jump down” when I said that I was “absolutely full up” I had never seen so much food, it was practically coming out of my ears and I could not have eaten another crumb.

It was about this time I first saw a balloon floating above the tree tops and wondering how on earth it got up there and how it would get down. I imagined that it would simply float up to heaven and thought that was a nice way to go to God.

Then there was the momentous occasion when a tiny bi-plane-one of the first- made a forced landing in a field near the school. We were only a short distance from Duxford Aerodrome and we were all given a half day from school to go and view the incredible sight. Looking back on it now and comparing it with the monsters that fill the sky today, makes one admire more than ever the courage of the men who took these frail pieces of wire, string and metal into the air and the intrepid Bleriot and, incidentally, to wonder whether the march of science is not taking man further and further from peace and tranquillity to ultimate destruction!

Chapter II

In August 1914 war broke out and our whole life changed. First we all moved to Norfolk where my father had lived in this village of Southrepps as a boy and he volunteered to join the Royal Navy once again, which he had loved so much, but having been invalided out with chronic bronchitis in the first instance, he received a Volunteers Medal but was not allowed to rejoin. He, therefore, did the next best thing to assist the war effort and served consecutively in the Aeronautical Works of two well-known Norwich firms. He eventually contracted tuberculosis, which in those days was a killer and when I was sixteen years of age he died, the family by this time having increased to eight.

I have often wondered whether he discovered, as indeed I have, that one should never

Go back. Dreams and aspirations, memories and associations are delightful in retrospect but only in the mind, seldom in reality. Even poverty which one had to endure because of ill-health in those days only served to bring folks closer together and troubles shared were troubles halved. What a pity this fine sentiment seems to have gone out the window with the advent of the welfare state, admirable as it is.

Chapter III

So here we were in 1914 back in the village from which my father had run away to sea as a boy to the desolation and heart break of his mother he being the only son and with two sisters. He had learned at his father’s knee to play the violin. His father had been nicknamed “Fiddler Grey” many are the times I have heard my father tell of his prowess with this instrument and the demands upon his time to play at Harvest Frolics and Barn Dances around the neighbouring villages.

When the corn had been gathered in, the farmers would hold what they called a “Harvest Frolic” for all the labourers and their families to share and there would be good beef and beer to eat and drink and the fiddle to which to dance their jigs and step danced in their studded boots on the brick floors of the barns. The beer was potent-a lot of it was home brewed- and it was on one of these occasions that my grandfather became over enthusiastic with the beer and dropped his violin out of the trap in which he was returning home. However, it was restored and my father took it away to sea with him.

Many are the occasions upon which I have heard him play the Sailors Hornpipe, the Fiddler and his Dog, Larboard Watch Ahoy etc. and if one of us made a noise or put him off his stride we had the fiddle bow on our heads for our pains.

When he joined the Royal Navy promotion was slow and difficult to obtain but he became a First Class Petty Officer and I remember the tale of him finding his precious violin in its case being washed along the deck by one of the hands and a fight ensuing. This was a serious offence in the Navy where discipline was the order of the day. He was hauled before the Captain, expecting I imagine to be at last hung from the yard arm or to walk the plank but the result was that he played his violin to the Captain and thereafter it hung in a place of honour in the Captain’s cabin.

Here I think I should mention a little about the methods of farming in those days. There was no modern equipment or implements and many a field had to be cut by a scythe and lie in neat swathes until it was dry enough to be gathered into sheaves and then stood up in what were called stooks or shocks until it could be gathered onto the farm wagon pulled by sturdy carthorses whose coats and harnesses shone and whose tails were tied with brightly coloured ribbons. The sheaves were lifted expertly from the ground on a pitchfork and handed to another on or two men on the wagon to arrange They were then stacked up and awaited the arrival of the threshing machine- a great adventure for children- which called at the various farms. Harvest was an exciting time. Some farmers were fortunate enough to possess a sail cutter, an instrument resembling a windmill with large teeth on the sails and as they rotated they swept the corn on to the blades and pushed it off at the rear. Rabbits hid in the cornfield and there were always plenty of people with dogs and cudgels to catch these terrified creatures as they dashed from the refuge of the last remaining stalks of corn and many a home had a good rabbit pie or stew for dinner the next day. I would emphasise that the farmer stood or fell in those days by his own efforts. There were no subsidies and if he had a bad season he made it up some other way.

It was great fun to watch the milking going on; butter being made and to take a can with a handle over the top a pennyworth of ‘skim’ as we called it. This was the residue left when the cream had been removed for butter making.

As I have previously, we came to Norfolk when I was nine years of age but by the time I was 12 my father had contracted tuberculosis for which there was no cure and my mother had eight children to bring up. There was no free milk or meals in those days and on many occasions we could not go to school because we either had no shoes to walk one mile or they were beyond repair. Hand-me-downs were the order of the day and the eldest was fortunate indeed to get anything at all that was new. There were no family allowances and there were many large families in this village who, like ourselves, must have been living on the breadline. Father carried on working for as long as he could but eventually entered Kelling Sanatorium and one year before he died, he was discharged as incurable. This could not happen today. He spent the last year of his life in a wooden three-sided hut with a wire netting front and waterproof sheet which could be swivelled to back the wind. This stood under a chestnut tree where today there are Council housed with all ‘mod cons’.

Now I must tell you a little about life in the village as I remember it. When we first arrived from Cambridge we had no permanent abode and went for a time to an old farmhouse about two miles from Trimingham. There was another farmhouse about three quarters of a mile away. This we called “Cubitt’s Farm” and the son Aubrey, was a very simple soul. Each morning he drove the cows to pasture and crossed a footbridge over a little stream. He always had either a wild rose or some other emblem from the hedgerow between his teeth and invariably left this sticking in a crack in the rustic bridge. One could have set one’s clock by him and if we found the rose or whatever on the bridge we knew we had to pull up our socks and run all the way to school.

Lunch consisted of sandwiches which we ate on the cliff top and I recall on one occasion climbing down to the beach with my sister and brother to collect mussels for my fathers and being cut off by the tide. We endeavoured to climb back but half way up I could go no further and we had to make our way back down again and wait until we could get up the cliff in the orthodox way. We were terribly late for afternoon school and got into serious trouble.

At last the cottage for which we were waiting in the village became empty and we all moved in and we children attended the village school.

Life in the village was hard but fun. After all, one made one’s own fun. With illness in the family from the breadwinner, we all had to put our hands to the wheel and each one was pushed out at an early age to earn whatever was possible. It was a positive disgrace to be living on ”the parish” My mother was allowed 2/6d a week and when she earned this amount cleaning the church, her magnanimous allowance was stopped. I often think; although there are many ways of looking at it, that it would do an awful lot of people an awful lot of good , who abuse the privileges they are given today and who take so much for granted if they had to endure these frightful hardships and deprivations. I am glad, however, that I lived to see a Socialist Welfare State created and could never, under any circumstances, vote to return to the ‘class’ system.

I recall the Rector of our parish when we first arrived was Sir Frederick Sullivan and his lady. The rectory was and is today a charming residence, its lawns were like velvet and under the trees in spring were masses of daffodils and narcissi. We children used to wait for dusk to fall and then naughtily creep through the large white gate and gather up a handful of the blooms.

Sir Frederick was a tall and dignified figure and he strolled around the village in a sort of condescending way in his square topper with his diminutive lady by his side with her umbrella or sunshade and the girls had to curtsey and the boys pull at the peak of their caps.

This gentleman was succeeded by the Reverend Humphrey Barclay and what a contrast. Here was a man with a heart as large as the house in which he lived. No closed gate guarding the daffodils but a gate and a house which were open to all comers and I am certain no-one supplicant was ever turned away from his door empty handed. He was not a wealthy man nor did he push religion down one’s throat but showed by example the true spirit of Christianity. His dog collar he suffered only when absolutely necessary and strode through the village in a big hearted friendly and generous way. He opened his heart, his house and his purse to the poor, set up a Reading Room and Social Club for the young and the church of St James was filled to  hear his sermons under the light of the oil lamps following the ringing of the bells calling the village to worship twice each Sunday. He made the village and held gymkhanas and open air entertainment in and around the rectory which was filled with children of his own, horses and dogs. Here was a man who practised rather than preached religion and has been known to walk into the pub on a Sunday, following his service, and toss the contents of a sack on the bar floor with the remark “Anyone like pigeon pie?” If anyone lived the good sanctimonious life, it was he and his epitaph should surely have been “He relinquished all that he had and gave to the poor”!

At this stage I must pay tribute to the great contribution paid to the life of the village by dear Katie Bird who played the church organ all her life, even after she became so deaf that she had to wait for a signal from a member of the church choir before in with the responses at the right time. She also played the piano at most social functions in order that we might dance and accompanied the various singers doing their party pieces. She was part of the backbone of the church. She is still with us I am thankful to say and long may she continue in our midst-god bless her.

Audrey had left the village by the time these were taken but it is what they would have looked like.

There were two public houses in the village between which there was great rivalry- The New Inn and The Vernon. At the back of the New Inn was a room called “the long room” and I have danced there many an old fashioned waltz, polka and Sir Roger de Coverley to music sometimes of the piano and sometimes to the music of the accordion played by a local man. Several inhabitants had their own particular party pieces which were trotted out on each occasion but somehow one never got tired of hearing them. There was Miss Dix, as she then was who could be relied upon to render “Coming thro’ the Rye” or “Chiri biri bin” etc. Then there was a Mr. Harry Baker with his “Up the garden path sailing” and Mrs. Edgar Payne with “Dear Eliza” This lady was a cockney and had a very large family. There was also the Lancers into which we all plunged with much gusto but little finesse. On certain occasions there were rival social functions in the Top Room at the Vernon Arms where some of the local men, particularly the Hewitts, would vie with one another in a step dance.

The village was almost completely self-supporting and we had practically everything we needed. There was a butchers, a bakers, a shoe repairers, a carpenter and a harness makers shop and a village blacksmith.

There was no running water, electric light or gas or sanitation and no street lighting. If one ventured forth at night, it had to be with the aid of a torch or a bicycle lamp and we repaired to bed with the light of a candle or Kelly lamp- a small lamp filled with paraffin which would return to an upright position if tilted over by children. A sound which I shall always associate with my mother was the metallic sound of her wedding ring as she cleaned the glass lamp, turning it round and round in her hand with a cloth inside prior to lighting the lamp for the night.

There was also a grocers shop which sold everything from bacon to tintack. I can still see the lady and her assistant who ran this establishment and the huge black tins with gold lettering announcing their contents Mazawattee tea, sugar, rice etc. On the floor were sacks containing flour, sugar lentils etc. which were baled out in scoops and I was always fascinated by the way the blue sugar bag was bounced up and down on the counter until the contents had settled and the corners neatly turned down an a final bang given before it was handed over. Almost the same method applied to an ounce of shag but in this instance it became a cone shaped package. On Sunday mornings these people Miss Barber and her assistant Mr. Johnson, set off for church, she in her long flowing gown with high neck and straight hat, pulling on her gloves as she proceeded with great dignity towards the church to occupy their hallowed places as did many of the local farmers and lord help anyone bold enough to usurp their places.

Then there were the Birds the Butchers and the Drury’s the Bakers. When things became really desperate in our family -money was short and ration cards were the order of the day, there were many occasions when we were glad to have a pennyworth of scraps from the butchers on a Saturday night to help down a piece of bread. These were the were the small crisp pieces of residue left after extracting the lard or suet.

The bakery was a fascinating place and had been in the Drury family for many years. It was lovely to go there on any pretext, watch the dough being kneaded in huge containers, slapped out onto a heavily floured board and expertly cut into loaves and set in tins to rise. When cooked a long flat spade-like instrument was inserted and half a dozen loaves crisp and brown brought from the depths of the oven. These were delivered to your door or could be purchased direct from the bakery crisp and new. Seldom were we allowed to have hot because of course it would not go so far.

There was the village blacksmith, a muscular man by the name of Riseborough. What a fascinating experience it was on a dark night to see as many as possibly six huge carthorses waiting in the road to be shod and the rosy glow from the embers as someone pumped the bellows. Into these embers, having first removed the old shoe, the smith would plunge with the tongs the piece of metal until it was red hot and then the clang, clang of the anvil as he hammered it into shape. He would then lift the huge foot and hold it gently but firmly between his knees on his leather apron file away and then place the new shoe in position, having first plunged it into water while horse stood patiently being shod. I could never understand why it was that the beast could stand the heat of the new shoe as it was place sizzlingly into position and then nailed firmly on. It was then led away by its owner to take part possibly in the harvest the next day or to drag along possibly a coal cart.

We had a mile to walk to school and could go either by the footpath across the fields or around what is called Long Lane. During the winter months we had pretty heavy falls of snow and there was no alternative but to take the lone way round. On these occasions we would wait for Ephraim Hewitt, a farmer’s son, who came along on tie mule cart and hitch a ride on the back until too many children climbed aboard and someone would yell out  “whip behind” and we would all fall off into the snow. On some occasions we had to abandon the idea of school altogether and wait for the snow plough.

The village boasted its fair share of “characters”. On Saturdays a little man in a hard hat, thick pebble glasses and a moustache Billy Comer would come around with paraffin. As he stepped aboard the trap, the shafts would up until I felt that either the donkey would be strangled or he himself would fall into the roadway but he always managed to get on his way with his paraffin cans.

Then there was the man who was so polite that everyone called him “thankyer man” I did not know his proper name. His conversation was interspersed with this expression and he exchanged paper windmills on sticks for jam jars and rabbit skins so there was a fine old business going ion at harvest time and we would all try to get mother to tip out the last of the jam or marmalade in order that we might get a windmill. We were also visited by a little man called “Cockle Joe” and he brought live cockles to your door on a Saturday. I shall always picture them being placed by mother into a bucket containing flour and water so that they might clean themselves and then being placed in boiling water to cook. I remember thinking I would not like to be a cockle or a crab but I enjoyed eating them.

All the cooking and baking which my mother did had to be done either on an open fire or in a brick oven built into the wall and the washing was done in a cooper under which a fire had to be lighted, all the water being manhandled into the cooper from the old pump at the back of the cottages. I loathed wash days (as I expect my mother did too!) We were a large family and washing lasted all day. There always seemed to be a small of Sunlight soap and soda (no detergents, soap powders or washing machines in those days), there was always cold meat from Sunday and bubble and squeak. Incidentally we were never allowed meat if it was hot and had to be content with vegetables and gravy and a good old” Norfolk Swimmer” or dumpling which was simply flour and water boiled on top of greens or potatoes.

We were often hungry and on the way to school, as we passed the bullock shed where the turnips were being put through the slicer we would deftly catch a slice  before it hit the ground.

Nevertheless, with all the shortcomings and deprivations life had its compensations. There was an annual fair which came with its swings and roundabouts and I can still see the naptha flares above the hoopla, roll a ball, dart and rock stalls and hear the blaring sound of the music from the steam horses as they and the gorgeous cockerel whirled round up and down above a sea of faces and one searches the crowd for a familiar face hoping that ones friends would see one riding proudly up there for possibly the only penny one had to spend. Then there was that lovely rock with Southrepps all the way through and the humbugs.

We also had an annual fair which was called Demonstration Sunday. This was a brass band competition and bands came from all the neighbouring villages and competed with one another on the Recreation Ground. There was always plenty of sandwiches and drink but for some peculiar reason I could never bear the sound of the brass band and as they passed by in their splendid uniforms an to fro movement of the brass rod, I would be invariably overcome with emotion and burst into tears- a little disconcerting for them had they seen me.

We were obliged to attend church and Sunday school two or three times on Sunday and always had to take off our best dresses when we came in in the middle of the day, put on our pinafores and dress up again in the afternoon for Sunday school. I never really knew whether I was Church of England or Methodist in those days since I went to both establishments and attended the annual outings of each. The Church outing was great fun and had we been going to the Continent (an unheard of thing in those days except for the well-to-do) we could scarcely have enjoyed this simple outing more. We always rode on Farmer Howes wagon with planks along the sides and down the centre for seats and were driven just as far as Overstrand beach where we ran races and had scrambles for sweets; were allowed too paddle and finished off with tea in a small cafe at the top of the cliffs which I believe is still there today. There was always plenty of bread and butter and jam, chunks of shop fruit cake and for the rest of my life I shall always associate this outing with what I call “hairy gooseberries” the large luscious red ones which we always had for tea. As we rode home singing “Jolly Waggoners” we were all sorry when it ended and we were gently lifted down by the driver of the horses and it was over for yet another year.

Then there was Anniversary Sunday at the Chapel when we all had to dress up in our best with a pink or blue ribbon in our hair and either sing or recite some heart-rending son or verse.

I remember an Evangelist coming to the village. This man had piercing blue eyes, a heavy black beard and a hypnotic manner. He visited various parishes accepting the hospitality of the officials of the various chapels and stayed as long as he could at each one. He threatened folks with utter damnation if they did not come forward and be saved. I heard him say on one occasion “Folks you have had the bread this afternoon, if you come to the Long Room tonight you will have the meat”! I was astonished at this and imagined that I must have arrived too late to get the bread. I told my mother I must be early tonight or I shall miss the meat as well. I suppose I thought I might have been allowed to have a piece of this as a change from a “Norfolk Swimmer” Needless to say I got no “meat” either!

Then I used sometimes to stay with my grandfather Appleton at North Walsham who was a Quaker. I loved him dearly and would go anywhere with this gentle creature who eventually died of cancer. I accompanied him on several occasions as a child to Quaker meetings and would be surprised to hear someone suddenly say” Praise the Lord” “Glory be to God” and “hallelujah”. Every little while some such remark would issue firth from a hushed and kneeling congregation. I wondered what had moved them to these ejaculations and imagined that something of somebody would presently nudge me and I would have to do the same thing!

Then there was the glorious sound of the sound of the Salvation Army Band as it played in the Markey Place on Saturday nights. I loved it but once again was emotionally upset and moved to tears by it.

I had a strong and varied religious upbringing. I have seldom in later years attended Church services but my faith remains. I can still join in and remember the words of the hymns and prayers which I learned in my youth when I watch and hear them on the television and I once received half a penny for memorising all the books of the Bible which I can still recite today.

Southrepps as we knew it in those days has disappeared with its village cop and district nurse- a self supporting community if ever there was one. The policeman was a father figure and would never dream of sending up young people before the beaks for minor offences which he would deal with himself on the spot with a cuff behind the ear or a well directed but harmless boot behind the seat of the pants. Indeed if he had not done so, half the young population of the village would have been “had up” for one misdemeanour or other-raiding “Sloddy Cubitts” walnut and medlar trees and scrumping Brown Dix’s orchard. Then of course there was the thrill of pinching sweet chestnuts and walnuts at the Warren in the autumn.

The District Nurse, nurse Larke in her whiter than white starched apron, stiff and studded cuffs, collar and waistband, could always be relied upon to wheel out her bicycle and to deliver the many babies which arrived in the village and surrounding areas and to deal competently with every kind of emergency. What a comfort to know that she was there to deal with our cuts and bruises.

I have like my father before me, returned to the village I knew well but which I no longer recognise.

The shoemender’s hut “Shumaker Bill’s” which stood on the corner has disappeared. The man who ran this had an artificial limb and many a time he has had a white-faced youth almost passing out with fear as he dragged his bradawl from his wooden limb, hopping around simulating agony. So we shall no longer see him or his successor with his ball of wax thread and his mouthful of rivets as he worked away in the evenings under the glow of his lamp. He worked cheaply and well to keep the tiny feet of the village children well shod that they might attend school having probably been ordered there by the “attendance officer”

There is now only one public house and no longer does one hear the clank of the iron as the men drank their beer and competed in the back yard of the Vernon Arms on a Saturday afternoon with their quoits amid rousing laughter and cheers.

The harness makers’ shop has a curtain draped across it. No need for that these days of motor and mechanised farm machinery, nor does one need the delightful forge which is now only, for me at least, haunted by the ghosts of those magnificent beasts which clattered and stamped outside as they waited their turn to be shod.

The bakery has disappeared and in place of those delightful hot and crusty loaves, we are supplied from a van with soggy ready wrapped substitutes and gone is the family and personal touch and the trill of going on Good Friday morning to pick up those delightful spiced hot cross buns. “One a penny two a penny -hot cross buns”!

There is no District Nurse and the village cop has disappeared. But the biggest tragedy to my mind is the loss of the rectory to the Rector and the fact that St James Church does not now justify a full time Rector and there is now in existence a “Group” arrangement and services are divided between the group making folks even less likely to attend church to hear the word of the Lord.

The rectory is now privately owned and the Rector for the moment at any rate, like our Lord, has nowhere in the village to “lie his head”

As I have previously said, the village of Southrepps as I knew it has gone. With the march of time and science, the influx of the motor-car, radio and television, the spirit which existed and the comradeship has departed. No longer the need for the handclasp of a friend in mutual sorrow or need, deprivation and disaster and the shared bowl of dripping or loaf of bread.

The world is changing and the Church is somehow losing its grip. What a pity that a lot of the youngsters of today have life so easy that there is nothing left for which to strive and they have lost- at least a large number them – that great standard by which to live.

To conclude, I could not again with my background and the hardships suffered under a “class-conscious” society, help to re-create, nor do I hope ever to see a return to those conditions but, nevertheless, the need to strive and to suffer made men and women of us all in those days.

If I may presume to pass a message to the young today it would be to recognise God thank him for his mercies and waste not in riotous living the substance which has been graciously bestowed upon you.

Audrey Veness