From my Archives . . .

Here's a story that I originally posted on this Blog back in March 2009, and which I thought my many new readers might be interested in. It is set in the small town in Wiltshire where I grew up as a young boy. I hope that it evokes a few memories for some of you and gives an insight into a way of life that has long since gone, and one which is mourned by many, despite the technological advances of the modern world.


Who remembers Harry Dew delivering milk from his horse and cart in post-war Corsham? It was a very different world in the 1950's when Farmer Dew and Blackie delivered milk door to door, with far less traffic in those days for a horse to worry about. A real treat for me as a lad was to be allowed to ride on the cart as it made its way along Corsham High Street, Blackie knowing just where to stop for the milk to be delivered. Farmer Dew would ladle the milk from the churn into waiting jugs, covering the top afterwards with the little bead-edged muslin nets that people provided for that purpose. I'm sure that the Health & Safety folk would have a fit if anyone delivered milk these days in the same manner! Back then it was perfectly normal, and I wouldn't think that anyones' health was the worse for it. It always fascinated me that the horse knew exactly where to stop, missing out the houses which Harry didn't supply.

There are many things like this from the childhood years that are now only distant memories, for the world we live in, with supermarkets and hyper-markets supplying most of the things that the combination of shops and suppliers provided back then. To me these vast food emporiums are a sign of the way in which w have lost the art of leisurely shopping, and with it a way of life that will probably never return. To some extent I suppose that a remnant of that way of life still exists in villages lucky enough to retain a Village Store, but those are few and far between these days, the successful ones being gobbled up by one of the small cooperative food chains with their look-alike livery, or else closed down one day to open a short time later as a 'Tesco Extra'.

Gone are the days when the womenfolk, (okay, maybe a few menfolk as well!), walked along Corsham High Street filling their wicker baskets with the assortment of 'needs' for that day. Most homes didn't have refrigerators back then, although many, like us, had a larder with a cold slab of marble, which was very efficient. I wonder how many people still remember the open window at Shergold's with the wet fish display tempting the passer-by, or the wonderful fragrance of newly baked bread from Joe Damond's bakery or Johnson's bakery which was just up from the Post Office, near to Neate's the shoe repairers. And what about Hobb's Cycle shop with its permanent smell of oil and metal, where old Mr Hobbs would repair broken bicycles for a shilling or two? Saturday mornings, at a time when food coupons were still the norm, this small boy would skeeter down to Watt's Sweet Shop at the bottom end of the High Street, near the junction with Church Street, and purchase a couple of ounces of dolly mixtures or some other sweet delight, usually for the grand sum of a penny ha'penny.

At the top end of the High Street you turned into Pickwick Road where another line of shops supplied the town with much needed merchandise or services. Pickwick Papers were a good place to find small toys that pocket money could be used up by, whilst further up the road was Bulson's, the television & radio shop. Still further along, past the Greengrocers, was the Clarke's Shoe Shop, competition for Ken Davies' shoe shop in the High Street, and also William Hardwell's at number 27 Pickwick Road, where many a child was photographed.

All of these shops bring to mind the people of the day who either ran them or shopped in them, now mostly passed on and the way of life with them. Is it a good thing, this change that has come about over the last few decades? Well, to answer that I guess that you need to look long and hard at the society in which we live. Whilst there is much to praise and to be grateful for nowadays, there is also much that can be missed about the old days.

Back then children did pretty well what they were told for fear of being disciplined by their parents. Nowadays it's almost the reverse, with parents doing pretty well what is demanded by their children, for fear of what might happen if the children decide to report them to the authorities. From the 1960's an era of freedom was ushered in that has ultimately removed the word 'respect' from most people's vocabulary, and with it the idea of responsibility.

Perhaps, after all, those days of wicker baskets were able to offer much more than we ever realised. 

Blast from the Past: 'Memories of a Corsham lad'

      A couple of years ago I wrote a series of article on this Blog about my time spent growing up in Corsham, Wiltshire, which proved very popular with the readers at the time. As I now have over ten time the number of readers I thought it might be a good idea to repeat the article below as a teaser, and perhaps you might take a peek at the other articles by clicking on the 'Memory Lane' link.

      'As a boy I knew the lie of the land that made up Park Farm in Corsham, for I spent so much of my childhood playing there. Even now, though the intervening years might have dimmed the edges of much that happened way back then, I can still recall the pleasure that I got simply being part of the land in a country-life sort of meaning.

      The main thing, I suppose, was that I loved the land because it was always there, always reliable, always ready to respond in familiar ways and yet at the same time to constantly evolve like all living things. Being born and bred in the country is much more than simply having some sort of allegiance to the place in which you live. It involves a oneness with the land around you that grows out of an intimate knowledge of all that it is and all that it contains. I well remember going home, weary but contented, from helping out at Park Farm during the haymaking season. I've written on previous occasions about time spent at the farm which was so ably run by Farmer Jack Vowles, so I won't digress too far on that today.

No, today my thoughts are of the places in the great parkland that afforded a sense of mystery and pleasure to a growing country boy. I knew the trees that I passed by on my way to and from the farm and, as dusk gathered after a day spent haymaking, there was a warmth of friendliness from the familiar. I recall that as I passed by I would bid a friendly "Good-night" to the trees as if they could understand me. After all, I was a son of the soil in many ways and those trees had been with me all of my life, short though it was back then.

      Walking back from the farm as the sun was setting on another day I had the woods that bounded Lacock Road on my left whilst across to my right I could see the lake settling down for another night, the setting sunlight reflecting on the water, turning it into a cauldron of molten gold for a brief scantling of time. Moments like these were magic to a child. Years later, when I lived in Africa, I would remember the sun setting on Corsham lake as I watched the glorious sunsets that bewitched the African skyline.

      Several times of late, thinking about the park and the lake, I have recalled Bill Holland who was the game-keeper on the Estate when I was a boy. I don't recall meeting him so much as avoiding him, for his reputation was that if he caught you trespassing where you shouldn't be then not only would your father get to know about it --- and that could have dire consequences --- but he would give you a clipped ear as well. That threat did not entirely deter small boys of course, and I often would wander into the woods around the lake and go down by the boathouse to look for fish in the surrounding water. The lake would often freeze right over in the winter in those days, for the years of my childhood enjoyed, or endured, depending on your particular viewpoint, hard winters. Snow and ice seemed to be with us for week after week back then, unlike the mild winters of today. We were hardier creatures as well, not only because we were younger, but because we grew up to expect it and dressed accordingly. Also, as children, we did not sit glued to a screen, either TV or computer, for hours on end in centrally-heated luxury, but went out to play in the great outdoors as often as we could. Winter, to us, meant opportunities for FUN!

      I remember some winters when there would be skaters on the ice of the lake, though those memories are few and dim. I think that the thing about the lake that I most recall is the dire warnings of my parents not to go near the water for fear of falling in and getting pulled under and trapped by the weeds that reached upward and lay just below the surface. Certainly, many years later when I went out on the lake in the boat, I remember the odd shudder that went through me as I saw the weed so close to the surface. Whilst the adventure of being on the lake in the boat was great, there was a strong sense of fear that if there was an accident then it would be inevitable that it would be fatal. Such was the suggestive power of all the warnings that I'd been given in the past!

      An exciting place to play as a child was in the Dry Arch woods which lay at the farthest extreme of the park with only a field between them and the Corsham to Chippenham road. The woods were so-named because there was a slight bridged area which spanned what was probably a large ditch, although I never recall any water to speak of. As children the underside of the arch became a great place to play, forming as it did the necessary backdrop to suit the occasion. It could be a fort, a jail-cell, a palace, or whatever our childhood imaginations wanted it to be, and just like so much else in our childhoods it had a touch of magic about it.

      Not so another place in the park that I recall. Almost hidden in the hedge of one field was an entrance to an underground passage. You went don about eight or nine steps and you were in what appeared to be a bit of a tunnel, although it only stretched for about eight or ten feet at most before it became a drop into some sort of pit or possibly well shaft. I never found out what it was for, but the tales that we made up about it being some sort of secret passage that led either to the vaults of the church or to the cellars of Corsham Court, both relatively close by, were tales that usually managed to scare us witless and thereby ensure that we stayed away from the place for a few weeks until curiosity once more took a hold of us.

      Time to go now, but I hope that you enjoyed this wander down memory lane with me, dear reader.'

Wandering Down 'Memory Lane'

Sometimes I wonder why, the older we get, the more we tend to wander down 'Memory Lane'. I think that often, when we look around in the present, we find much about life that seems too unfamiliar for comfort, and so this turns our thoughts to more comforting times.

So much has changed over the last few decades! Not only have tremendous advances been made in terms of things that are available to people but also there is a massive change in the way that people are. I recall that when I was growing up we would see images in our comics --- remember The Eagle? --- which portrayed the future.Pictures depicting the Space Age would show people with some sort of communication device fixed to their ears. Now we have Bluetooth! Computers, once forecast that only a handful would ever be built in the UK, are now commonplace in almost every home, young and old alike. Digital cameras allow us to take a photograph and upload it to our computer, and then send it by email to someone on the other side of the world, the whole operation taking only a matter of a few minutes. When I was a boy I would have marvelled at the idea of these things, yet never dreamt that they could ever come to reality, let alone be a normal part of everyday life in my lifetime.

Of course, such advances have been made for every generation probably, but sometimes it becomes easy to feel a little left behind by it all, and when that happens then we begin to feel uncomfortable. That's when we retreat a little down Memory Lane! What's happening is that our stability seems to be threatened by the fading of the familiar, and so we attempt to re-establish it by refreshing ourselves with thoughts of more stable days.

How easy it can be, in times such as these, when you feel that society has been turned upside down and inside out, when their is so little respect, when your views appear to count for less and less, to feel insecure about the future. Yet the future is one area that you can find security in! By accepting Jesus Christ into your life and walking with Him every day you find that not only does the present become calmer and more positive, the future is assured and so you realise that there is nothing to fear except fear itself.

Suddenly you start to look at things in a different light, and then you see far more positive things than negative. Reach out to others in a positive way and they will respond accordingly. Keep saying bad things about the 'youth of today' and you will create a self-fulfilling prophesy as far as your dealings with young people are concerned.

Yes, Memory Lane is a great place to wander down for a change, every now and then, but not to go down it and fail to come back! Whatever happens in the world around you there is always one great piece of stability. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow! He never changes towards us. He's always there for us to walk in His footsteps, never alone, but with Him as our companion. What could be more stable and, yes, more familiar, than that?