Autobiographical
My name is Jean Hewitt. I was born at Lower Street, Southrepps on 24th March 1936 to Mary and Walter Hewitt. My first memories are of living down Warren Road next door to Mr and Mrs Ted Burton-Pye and Mrs Swann. Reggie and Kathy Gotts who had 2 children called Peter and Isabel, and Walter and Rose Hurn also lived there and they had Valerie and David. This was before I started school.
We moved to number 6 Style cottages where my Gran and Grandad, Emma and Fred(Fri) Thurston lived at number 2 and Mr and Mrs Coleby lived at number 3 with their three children, Cyril, June and Margaret. Mr and Mrs Warner (my mother’s cousin Mabel) lived at number 4 and number 5 was occupied by Walter (Dumper) and Rose Thurston (my mother’s aunt and uncle). Number 7 was lived in by Henry (Happy) and Louise Thurston, they had three children Victor, Iris(Dot) and Joy. Later number 1 was rented by David and Elsie Fiddy (my mother’s sister). When I arrived in this world I already had one brother, Raymond who was three years older than me.
I started school when I was 5 years old, taught by Miss Stone (infants teacher) and later by Charlie Crane, (who also taught my mother) among others. While were living at the Style the war had begun, we were issued with gas masks at school. I remember the bombs dropping at the back of our house, in the fields belonging to the “Dutchman”, that was who owned the farm and fields around there. Mr and Mrs Billy Ecclestone and their daughter Doreen lived in the farmhouse. My father worked for a time on the farm looking after the horses. There was a footpath beside number 7 that went across the fields, (where the bombs dropped) to Upper Street, passing the allotments and the recreation ground used as the school sports field, ending at the New Inn public house and Mr. Bird’s butchers shop.
During the war years an American bomber crash-landed on one of the Dutchman’s fields, nearer to Upper Street along Long Lane beside the railway line. I can remember the American airmen (ground crew it would have been) coming with large lorries and long metal strips with holes in to make a runway so the aircraft would be able to take off again. Myself and my brother Ray, Iris (Dot) and Joy, plus a lot of other children, used to go after school and at weekends to watch them. The airmen were friendly. One particular one used to give me chocolate, oranges and chewing gum, something we couldn’t get in our local shop (Mrs Bayes). He was a coloured man, the first time I had ever seen a dark person. They also gave us ‘cigs’ to take home for our parents. As for what year or time of the year this was I really don’t remember but it must have been 1943 or 1944. On August 5th 1943 my brother Leslie was born, he was rather small. Grandad Thurston took one look at him and qsaid “he’s Nobby”, and that name has stayed with him in our family ever since. I always call him by his nickname.
I remember Prisoners of War being brought to Mr Ecclestone’s farm to work. We used to go down and see them. They were brought in by lorry Monday morning and taken back Friday night. They had 2 guards with them and were housed in a large barn. I remember they had a large copper (one that had a fire under it) like the ones in our house and many other houses used to boil water for washing or our tin bath on a Friday night. Now the POWs used to boil up willow sticks to make baskets with them and some of us used to sell them for the POWs. My Gran, Mum and Aunt Florrie (Dad’s sister) had one but after a while the authorities put a stop to it and we weren’t allowed down there any more. Then one of our Lancaster bombers landed in the field at Upper Street, near the White House, on Gimingham Road, up Chapel Street out of the village. A Mr Pellew lived there. We went up to see it but we were not allowed near as it had live ammunition on board and was guarded by the RAF police and airmen with rifles.
When I was 9 or 10 my family moved to the Lodge at Upper Street past the church on the right hand side (Rectory side), along the road to Trimingham and Sidestrand. My brother Ray and I then had to walk at least 3 miles to school in Lower Street using the footpath that I mentioned earlier. My dad now worked for Mr John Everett who managed the farm for Lord Templewood of Frogs Hall Northrepps. The lodge was a lovely place to live. There were 4 houses, 2 on the right and 2 on the left of the road that went to Sidestrand. We lived in the first one on the right and 2 sisters lived next door. “The Grimmers”, Mr and Mrs Blogg with their daughter Olive lived across the road and Alfred and Ethel Thurston lived next door to them (he was my mum’s cousin). My Gran came to live with us as she was ill with cancer and my Mum couldn’t keep travelling down to Style Cottages every day as she had Leslie (Nobby) small and us to look after. I remember my Gran being in a wicker or cane wheel chair with a handle which she used to steer two small wheels at the front. I used to push her from ours down to number 2 Style cottages as Grandad still lived there, so she could visit him and her house sometimes, until she got too ill. Gran died in January 1948, the year of the very bad weather. There were snow drifts 10 and 12 feet high. I’ve never seen so much snow before or since. It was a problem getting Gran to Southrepps church but they managed it and that is where she is laid to rest, (Grandad also but years later). I was about 11 years old, Ray was about to leave school and Nobby was now running about, still small for is age. Dad was looking after the horses and doing farm labouring. Any kind of work on a farm Dad could do. We had some lovely memorable times during our long summer holidays off school. We helped Dad with the horses, no tractors that I recall on the farm then. I used to ride the horse out to the field pulling a “tumbler” cart to collect the shoves of corn that the binder had previously cut and tied with string, then took it back to the field nearest the farmyard where it was fed onto an elevator and stacked. When the stack was finished my Dad and another man thatched it until a thrashing engine and machinery could get there to thrash it, mostly a good while later (months?)
While we were living at the Lodge Ray and I used to go see films and a matinee in the large shed at the back of the New Inn. They had a serial running, I think it was Flash Gordon. I still remember parts of it. There were lots of other films shown, Roy Rodgers etc. It was 6d to get in I think. Of course there were no TVs around then. We had a wireless which ran on an accumulator. Mr Cyril Drury used to charge it up for us a 6d a time. Dick Barton was our favourite, it used to be on about 6.30pm. Ray used to collect the accumulators on the way home from school. Mr Peter Drury had a bakery in Chapel Street and very often when we were walking over the fields we could smell the lovely bread pudding he used to make. We had to call in and collect bread, cakes, bread pudding etc., to take home for the house as in those days it was put down in a book and paid for at the end of the week when Dad got paid. Ray and I now and again got bread pudding and ate it all before we got home so we had to tell a fib (lie) and say Mr Drury hadn’t got any, but at the end of the week Mum knew better when she saw her bill. I’m sorry to say Ray came off worst (being older) he got a belting from me Dad and we were not allowed to go to the matinees or see any films (grounded is the word they use these days).
We then moved again to Bradfield about a year after Gran died, early in 1949. I was almost 13 years old. On June 9th that year my brother Michael was born. Ray had left school and was working for a Mr Baker at Church Farm, Antingham. We now lived at Golden’s farmhouse, owned by Mr Jocky Alston at Bradfield Hall Farms (the actual hall was owned by someone else). Ours was a large farmhouse high up on a rise overlooking Antingham. There were 2 cottages to the left of us down a short lane. Jocky and Ellen Hewitt (my dad’s uncle) and their son Harry lived in one and Robert and Queenie Wilkins with their daughter Ruby lived in the other, (Bob was my dad’s cousin). I remember going to school (walking and still to Southrepps) with Ruby, then Jocky died and also Harry and I think Aunt Ellen must have moved because Jimmy and Cassie Wilkins moved in. (Jimmy was my father’s cousin and Bob’s brother). They had 5 children, Barbara, Grace, Robert, John and Patsy (Patricia). My brother Nobby was at school now so we all walked together. I stayed at school until I was 14 1/2. When I left school I started work at the Egg Depot in Mundesley Road, North Walsham.
That starts another chapter in my life and the end of my childhood at Southrepps. As you will have guessed a lot of Hewitt and Thurston lived and still do in both Lower Street and Upper Southrepps.