One event stands out more than any other and it happened during the Great War 1914-18. We had regular Flower services in church. They could be better described as Gift services, when people of the parish collected and presented their gifts, which were then taken to the nearest big hospital in Sheffield 30 to 40 miles away. The most productive services were those in summer and autumn when there was a profusion of vegetables and fruit. Both my father and my mother took up on several occasions huge baskets of pears, apples or plums collected from our own garden. My father was always anxious to give that little bit more, for he was well aware that the soldiers and sailors in hospital were risking their lives in the hell of Flanders and at the Dardanelles. So he put in a box of woodbines, I should say 50 paper packets with five cigarettes in each packet. This was typically dad. When I was going out for the day he would give me two shillings or half a crown in addition to what I had already gathered together. He was not a man to loose his temper easily, but occasionally I would get a spanking, generally administered with a slipper. One red-letter occasion was my trip to Sheffield with Dad, when we stayed for a few days with Aunt Coggan and Uncle Amos. (Aunt refused to be known as Aunt Charlotte. She was my father’s aunt really, being a younger sister of his mother - Jane Smith.) My father took me into town and I remember two things about this trip, apart, that is, from the excitement of riding to and from Fitzalan Square (from Pitsmoor)[3] on a tram. (Sheffield always proud of its trams and the service, was one of the last English cities to do away with trams.) One high spot was the buying of a Brownie No2 box camera, and several accessories to do with the developing and printing of pictures. I was “rare set up” with this present. The other was our lunch at the newly opened Lyons Restaurant. I must confess I do not remember our first course, but I do remember that we followed it with apple dumpling with custard, one of my favourite dishes.
It was not long after this, possibly a couple of years, when to our great regret we had to part with Dad, on July 29th 1922, just five days short of his 54th birthday. I liked to go out with my father. During the summer holidays I invariably accompanied him, on my bike of course, to the Tuesday market at Gainsborough. What surprised me was the number of people he stopped to speak to. There was a poultry market on a piece of land in front of the Old Hall, and the auctioneer, also well known to dad, was Mr. Harry Stennett who also kept a pub in the town. Father was drawn to this auction as by a powerful magnet, and I am quite sure I many times pulled at his hand with the customary question, “When are we going, Dad?”. Such is the impatience of little boys. I believe I have written elsewhere of these trips to town. I recall on one occasion father joined a crowd gathered round a vociferous salesman in the Market Place. He was a sucker for buying things which were being praised, the salesman lauding his product and when he had got his crowd to the right pitch of interest, round he would come, handing over a tin, packet or box of his “wonder product” and quickly relieving the “new believers” of their cash. On this particular occasion there was no demonstration of the powers the powers of the marvel, but instead a longish description of the powder, with some high-sounding chemical and scientific words thrown in. I did not know what Dad and the others had bought until the next day. The wonder powder was bright red in colour. It had to be mixed with water and sprayed on the coal heap from a watering can. The result was supposed to give life to the coal making it last much longer and putting out more heat per shovelful. I am quite sure that all these customers were duped by clever talk. The salesman did not make repeat visits to the market. I presume he passed from town to town selling his miracle powder to all those innocents who fell for his chicanery. Dad never seemed to learn. He once fell for the gold watch trick when he and my mother took me on a church outing to one of the Lincolnshire seaside towns, either Cleethorpes or Skegness. I am not conversant with the moves played by the salesman who carried on a quick-fire patter collecting sovereigns from the crowd who were led to believe they would be the recipients of gold watches.
Anyway, the end result was that father parted with a hard-earned coin, either a half or a full sovereign. I am sure it spoiled our day. I have a very vague recollection of being in a railway compartment with my mother and father, no doubt returning from a day out at the seaside. This I think is my first, my very first real memory. Such trips were few and far between although in those days 2/6 would cover a day’s excursion I am quite sure. (What we have to remember is the relative cost of such a trip as against the average man’s weekly wage).
What else can I remember about my father? I think one thing gives an insight into his character. He was a regular churchgoer, no doubt in the first place through my mother’s influence. But he would never take any office in the church organisation and he always sat in his regular place at the back of the church. He was a great reader. I think he must have been starved of books in his younger days. He was a great one for reading aloud. On Sunday nights in winter he invariably read to my mother and me, that is unless we had visitors. His favourite reading was from the Bible, and the stories he most liked were about Moses and Joseph. We had a circulating library at the Village Institute and he borrowed books from it at a small charge. One book he was extremely fond of was Peake’s “History of the Isle of Axholme” which outlined the gradual drainage process turning the Isle into a fertile agricultural area, in the same way as the Isle of Ely was transformed, and possibly the Isle of Athelney. He was aware that his family the Gaggs were part of the body of Dutchmen who came over here in the times of the Stuart kings as land drainage experts and labourers, and who never returned to their native Holland. He learned this important bit of family history from one of the vicars who had examined the registers and ascertained that the Gaggs settled in Misterton in 1634. On Sundays father put on his best navy blue suit, with a stiff white collar having the flaps turned down, the tie being placed round the collar and tied in the usual manner. He wore stiff cuffs inside his jacket sleeves. I too wore a stiff linen Eton collar with a ready-tied bow, and also a pair of cuffs like dad’s. He was partial to patent leather shoes for Sunday wear, but when he wore ordinary shoes or boots he always took great care to polish them to a noticeable shine. He seemed to have a passion for shining and polish[ing] shoe leather, for he would offer to polish the shoes of any relatives and visitors we were entertaining. His bowler hat was reserved for Sunday wear, for during the week he wore a soft cloth “trilby” type of hat, the sort now favoured by anglers, and other sportsmen when going on a shoot. I never knew him to wear a cap. In winter he sported a pair of black leggings, and these also had to be polished.
The new venture of being shopkeepers in early 1914, was soon made more difficult when war broke out in August of that year. There were shortages, then rationing. When this situation arises, certain elements in the populace flock from shop to shop picking up a pound of sugar here, and half a pound of butter there, and this taxes the patience and the goodwill of those behind the counter. During a war situation shopkeepers can dispose of all kinds of stock some of which has been on the shelves for months, even years. I know from what I have heard, that my mother and father made a good living during the period from 1914 to 1919 and they were able to pay off the Building Society mortgage quite quickly and become investors instead. In those days the Halifax Building Society had agents in many of our towns, and one such was Joseph Barlow, by profession an accountant. He had his office in Gainsborough, but once a month, on a Friday afternoon generally he called at various homes including ours, to collect the monthly investment. He would stay a little while, and always had a cup of tea with us. He was bearded, and was of a gentle nature. He was a Wesleyan local preacher, highly respected. When he came to take a service at the local Wesleyan chapel we would be informed and would attend. I liked Joseph Barlow, no wild fanatic he. He contrasted very sharply with another Joseph, my uncle Joseph Henry Wharlton, always known to my father as “Juerziff” - with a full “you”. Uncle Joe had a pointed moustache, very pointed and very carefully waxed with something called “Tash Fixer”. He was rather bald and was very conscious of the fact, so much so that he always wore a cap in shop hours (he was a grocer too) and a hat when he was specially dressed. He was from a poor family, but tried to make an impression of having been brought up in rich circles. His pronunciations were anything but proper, and he got his “h’s” mixed up and had he known it, he made himself foolish.
There was the almost classic occasion when he took his son, Leslie, my cousin, and me on the bus to Sheffield. He had left a pair of pince-nez spectacles for repair at one of the city opticians. When we reached the shop, he gave us orders to wait outside, but evidently our curiosity overcame us and [in] we sneaked. He went up to the assistant and said, “Hi’m Mr. Wharlton, and Hi ‘ave come to henquire about my heyeglasses!” I never forgot Uncle Joe and his special way of speaking when he thought such “refinement” was necessary. Usually, he spoke in what can only be termed Midland twang. One thing I have omitted to say is that he always wore some kind of headgear even when visiting, which I as only a child felt was very impolite. He said he would never enter a church because he would have to remove his hat. He rather put me off by sampling food put on the table in readiness for a meal. He would pick up pieces of potato or vegetables from the dishes with his fingers - a most revolting habit. I always had the impression that “The Old General”, Grandfather Thursby had very little use for uncle Joe, but my Aunt Eliza, his wife was always Grandfather’s favourite daughter. She was always very kind to me. She contrasted rather sharply with my mother who had a strange sense of humour. (I never quite understood why my grandparents called one of their daughters Eliza and the other one Elizabeth.)
When I went to stay with Uncle Joe and Aunt Eliza, we often went to the Picture Palace. The owners always brought a long narrow bill for display in the shop, and each week they renewed the bill together with two complimentary tickets, which Leslie and I were allowed to use. We also went on Saturday afternoon to the “Twopenny Rush” and on these occasions there was always an exciting Indian and Cowboy film, silent in those days of course. The Palace engaged a pianist, generally a lady, who played extempore to suit the action of the film - playing which I regarded as very clever. I always envied the old pianists at the pictures, for they played mainly without any music, and kept up the music while ever the film lasted. For these holidays at Chapeltown[4] I used to save money, and my aunt too was generous. I remember going to a stationery and toy shop not far from the picture house, and buying things like “The Tiny Tots Post Office” and “John Bull Printing Outfits” Oh! What delightful days they were. I sometimes was passed over to Sheffield to spend a few days with Uncle Tom and Aunt Hannah. (Tom was the eldest Thursby.) Aunt Hannah was quite kind in her way, but she did not really appreciate the child mind. She used to annoy me - I expect I was a bit touchy - by referring to the collection of boxes and toys I brought down with me at breakfast time as “His Acts and Apostles”. I loved Sheffield. I think it was mainly because of its trams. They were some of the finest in Britain, and were well kept, clean and they ran on time. There seemed a tram coming along at any moment of the day. They seemed all to converge on Fitzalan Square, at that time the centre of the city. My Uncle and Aunt lived in Granville Road, a rather steep road with no shops, but what one would call middle-class houses. The road ran down past the main gates of Norfolk Park, so called because it was the gift of the Duke of Norfolk to the city.. There was a house somewhere in the vicinity of the park which had been the residence of the Norfolks when they visited Sheffield. This family owned most of the land on this side of the city and that parliamentary area was, and I believe still is, called the Park Division. Uncle Tom was a Methodist and attended a modern chapel more like an Anglican Church and called the Victoria Church. The organist I remember was a fine musician H.O. Ashmore. His playing was a delight to listen to. He had previously been organist at the Pitsmoor parish church, the area where my father’s relatives lived. Ashmore had extemporised very cleverly on a voluntary based on the tune “Tommy make room for your Uncle, make room for your uncle do!” and the vicar had spotted the basic tune, so he gave Ashmore the sack. The few services I attended with Uncle Tom at Victoria I enjoyed tremendously. Among those who held office along with Uncle Tom at Victoria was a middle aged man named George Bassett, of Liquorice Allsorts fame, and Bassett’s brother in law, Thomas W. Ward, whose firm has now grown to immense proportions but then was a small foundry. There was also William Irons, later Sir William, a prominent member of the City Council. It seemed about that era, that if you wanted to get on in business, then join the Methodists.
Later on Uncle and Aunt moved to 506 City Road, opposite the Intake Crematorium and Cemetery, mainly to be near their son Archie, who lived at 510. Archie was an engineer, who had served his apprenticeship with John Brown’s, later Firth Brown. He was a likeable sort of chap, Uncle Tom’s only child. He later on moved to Rotherham to become managing director of the Midland Iron Company in Bradgate. They were iron founders and brick makers. There was not much in the way of playthings at Aunt Hannah’s but she let me play a strange sort of gramophone. It consisted of a longish tube, over which one slid ebonite tubes on[e] of which I remember was “The Holy City” An arm came down, with I imagine a kind of needle in it and one got a rather poor rendering of the song or piece recorded on the tube. I believe this machine was called a phonograph and was one of the earliest automatic music producers, and could have been the invention of Alexander Graham Bell, who I believe invented the first telephone. Uncle Tom had a telephone with earpiece and mouthpiece in one, but to get any real sound, the speaker had to press a bar between the two, and I was on occasions allowed to speak to Uncle T. at “The Office” - the Navigation Board’s H.Q. near the Nunnery Colliery which was almost in the city centre. I am often reminded of Aunt Hannah for my wife frequently refers to some of my small personal possessions; pens, pencils, notebook, prayer book, keys and similar objects as my “Acts and Apostles”.
On the other side of the city at Burngreave Road which leads up to the huge Burngreave City Cemetery lived my father’s relatives. About halfway up the street resided Aunt Coggan and Uncle Amos and lower down, almost on the main road, their daughter Lettie and her husband George Wild. Lettie of course was dad’s cousin. She had two children Edward and Hilda who were being brought up as gentlefolk, so I had to mind my step when I visited them. It is, I reflect, an odd thing about Yorkshire folk, that they like to live close to relations and friends. This gregarious behaviour is somewhat embarrassing at times. When any of our relations came over for a day they would always bring “Missus and the kids” from next door, and they would expect us to put on a good old Yorkshire spread, a meat tea with knives and forks, none of you dainty “cup of tea and a biscuit” affairs. Admittedly if we had done the same and taken a carful of friends to see them they would have returned the compliment The Coggans would descend on us with very little notice, Frances Sentance, an old friend of my mother’s would bring Mrs Goode, or her friends John, Tom and Lottie Ward. Uncle Tom and Archie would bring along a coleague of Archie’s and his wife, Mr and Mrs Catchpole. Even Uncle Joe would visit us with Leslie and his playmate Graham Paramoor. It seems as though the Yorkshire folk are as gregarious and some times as noisy as crows[5]. We learned to get used to this for my father was very sociable and liked to have company. I used to be very disappointed on Sunday evenings if we did not bring someone home after church, when they would talk of old times with me a keen listener. If Polly Wharlton and George (Joe’s brother) came across with us we were sure of a musical evening, although in the 20’s comic and popular songs were frowned on for Sabbath evening entertaining. Miss Parr, my teacher, and my music teacher who was for some time church organist was a popular visitor - dad had high regard for her as a conversationalist and a musician. These Sunday night visitors were very welcome for although I liked to hear dad read, the Sabbath feeling hung around and to be quite honest my Sundays were not filled with joy, a pall of holiness seemed to hang around. When we had someone in who could play the piano we sang hymns and rather sentimental songs the titles of which now elude me, except for mother’s rendering of “Little Grey Home in the West”. I must say I enjoyed the hymn singing and I still do.
When we enter the church for the 10am Mass I like to check from the hymn board the chosen hymns to see if I know them and to ascertain if any of my favourites are included. I often wish I could have a hand in choosing at least one or two of the hymns. Sometimes we have tunes that are difficult and not well known, so we get what I call “Anglican Drag”. But I must not digress, for I must remind myself that I am writing about my boyhood at this stage. Church played quite a part in my life as a kid. I was christened when I was barely a month old, and Father Phillips was my godfather as well as the priest who performed the sacrament. He was a bachelor and had another chap to live with him at the vicarage. He fell from grace, and was given a nine month prison sentence for “offences against boys” and he was also defrocked. I am sure the same treatment would be meted out today, and I think rightly so. But the law about homosexuals has been relaxed about two consenting adults, male or female, who carry on in private. Anyway, this was a blow to the parish, and the next Vicar, Father Herbert M. Corlett was married, with one son, Aidan. He tried very hard to be a good parish priest, and kept up the traditions of the church as established by his erring predecessor. He was keen on missionary work. “O’er Heathen lands afar, thick darkness broodeth yet.” If he were alive now he would have to include the British Isles and particularly Ulster in this description.
Anyway we were very taken with his periodic Lantern Lectures held in the church room and almost invariably on a Monday night. There seemed always to be a plethora of children present. I often wonder why he picked on Winter Monday nights for these educational entertainments. Well, I hazard a guess. Mondays were wash days in practically every home and it was pleasant to get together, away from the damp atmosphere of clothes drying round the fire, and cold with it too! So on at least four Mondays every winter we could escape from this ordeal. The there were the weekly choir practices, held generally on Wednesday evenings, in the church. We did not altogether relish this weekly effort, but we occasionally had diversions which made us late for the seven o’clock practice. One such was the weekly slaughtering of a beast (cow) in the slaughterhouse which lay adjacent to the shop which served for some time as a sweetshop, and later as the village Fish and Chip shop. We seemed to delight in seeing Butcher Scott or his son Walter poleaxe a cow. This was before the days of humane killers and proper Council controlled abattoirs.
Choirboys are no angels, in fact I think we were a bunch of bloodthirsty little devils. The triangular piece of land close to the East End of the church and opposite the Windmill Inn had at one time been the Village Pond, and my father used to tell me of some of the antics the boys of his day got up to. A favourite was to lift people’s handgates off their hinges and deposit them in the pond. Sometimes a bike would find its way there also. Later this pond became filled in and dried out but it was known to the villagers as “The Pudge”, and probably still has this name. It was a meeting place for the youth of the village, and was quite a lively spot on Spring and summer nights. Various rough games were indulged in and occasionally there was disagreement and the ensuing fight. If the village bobby turned up, as was his custom in the evenings quietness descended temporarily on the assemblage, and if there was a fight the opponents would run for cover and so would those standing idly by watching. “Hey up, here comes Bobby Beardsley” acted like magic. He came from the neighbouring village of West Stockwith. He was large both in height and girth, he had a very red face and an even redder nose. ‘Twas said he enjoyed his pint, but woe betide anybody who tried to bribe him with a drink. I still vaguely remember seeing the older girls playing diabolo, a game which was individual and played with two sticks connected at the outer ends by a thin cord. The idea of the game was to keep a large sized bobbin revolving along the length of the cord, the player holding and controlling the two handles. My description is not a very accurate one, but I believe the game is old and makes a revival from time to time in various lands, no doubt under a new name. I believe Diabolo is a very old game which received a real revival about 1907. One pass in the game was to get the top or bobbin spinning so fast that the player could throw it to another contestant who has no top and catch it on her cord and continue the spinning and throwing. I say “her” because the game as far as I know never caught on with the boys. It got its name “Diabolo” from the fact that it was the Devil on two sticks, and the spinning top was the Devil.
The lads had a game which was simply made. One furnished oneself with a thin strong stick, maybe half an inch in diameter, and a little short of a yard long. A small smooth piece of wood a little thick[er], but about 5ins. in length was roughly sharpened at each end. This was rested on a small stone so that one end stuck up. The idea was to strike the upturned end so that it rose a foot or two, and while it was in mid-air to strike it again so that it flew a great[er] distance than one’s opponent’s “Peggy”. Yes “Peggy” was the name of the game and was a popular game on the aforementioned “Pudge” on summer nights. There was of course games of cricket in various parts of the village where local farmers showed a willingness for a paddock to be used. Football was reserved for the winter and we in those rather traffic-free days played in one or other of the lanes until we were chased off by nearby householders, or decided to beat it on sight of the local village constable.
Our village was pretty modern, for we had street lamps powered by gas from our own mini-gasworks. Some of these were lamp standards while others were affixed by brackets to the corners or gable ends of farm buildings and other advantageous points. One game we played under the gaslights on dark nights was one called “Sunday, Monday”. I am ashamed to say that my memory has let me down over the rules and procedures of this one, for it was such a successful and popular sport. All we required was a gable end - gaslit of course, and a tennis ball - it was in the days before Sorbo or sponge rubber balls were marketed. No doubt there were many variations to the game, but all I remember was that the caller threw the ball high up at the gable end, calling a day of the week. Each of us was allotted one day in the week, and it was the person called upon to endeavour to catch the ball before it had finished bouncing. I know there were often disputes, and sometimes we broke up and went to our several homes. But we always managed to congregate the next night for a game of “Sunday, Monday”, or one of the many games requiring merely a tennis ball. If ever I meet up with someone who remembers the procedures I will most surely record it. Games had their seasons. Also their fixed rules. Almost to the day each year whips and tops came out, and were used by both sexes. The boys went in for heavier tops and bigger whips. There were some real experts, and it was the custom to buy coloured chalks to make patterns when the tops got spinning. I remember having quite a large and heavy top.
String was in great demand for the constant whipping was a great strain on the “lashes” which had often to be replaced. There was a particular type of top that I never had much to do with, and I seem to remember it was not very popular at all. It was an inverted cone shape rounded at the top, with scored circular lines most of the way down, and it had a special pointed spike on which to spin. The idea seemed to be to wind strong fine string round the top, hold it in the left hand loosely, pull the string and so get the top spinning, and quickly place it on the smooth ground. I think the difficulty lay in holding the top, pulling the string and placing it vertically all in a matter of seconds. The good old whipped top was the one. The lighter variety of whipped tops were shaped roughly like mushrooms[6], and could be spun and whipped so that they would jump for yards land on their points and continue spinning till the owner caught up, and gave them some more lash. Is it surprising that they were known as “jumpers”. Any mention of Shrove Tuesday, be it quite far off, and always a school half holiday brought out whips and tops. And they were not the only outside toys to come out for the Springtide re-awakening. The girls brought out their battledores and shuttlecocks - a poor girl’s badminton. The rackets were small and criss-crossed with string, and the shuttlecocks were often coloured feathers fastened into a wooden cone. The girls were adept at “b & s”, and so they were at skipping. (The boys of my day were clumsy skippers in the main.)
Skipping ropes were in great demand during the spring and summer. The “sport” or better named, the exercise, was really divided into two, the individual rope, which was often replete with fancy wooden handles, and some times had ball bearings so that the rope could revolve inside its handles, and the long rope enthusiasts who played many different games, and adopted many different styles. This latter, the long rope, was for several players, and it was always a marvel to me how when the long rope was swinging round quite fast, each girl would enter and not get caught by the spinning rope. Possibly five or six girls would continue to skip happily inside the shape made by the whirling rope, and girls would enter or leave without disturbing the rhythmic swinging. I believe if one was “caught” by the rope it was her job to take a rope end and help the game along. I tried to skip - the individual way - and I achieved quite a measure of success, but I always had that sneaking feeling shared without doubt by the other lads that skipping was for girls, and cricket and football were the exclusive of the boys. (Nowadays athletes of both sexes, as well as footballers, boxers, tennis players and others have at last come to realise the great value of skipping for muscle building and general fitness.) I recall the counting that took place in both types of skipping, and some of the counting and rhyming contests that took place with the “long rope” version. I seem to hear a rhyme or count which included the words “Pitch, patch, pepper” and seeing the rope whirl faster and faster in an endeavour to find out the girl who could endure the longest and win for speed.
Now to the very popular game of marbles. It is surprising how the name “marbles” attached itself to the game, but I think of one thing we may be assured, that the game is very, very old. I wonder if it could go back to Roman times, or even beyond, and whether the first marbles were actually shaped out of that very same substance. If so a set of real marbles would be considered a great treasure. There are still villages where marbles contests take place, and in these cases the contestants are grown men, and the rules are carefully laid down and adhered to. I think we were rather inclined to make the rules “as we went on” for no two groups seemed quite to agree as to how to proceed. The marbling appeared to divide into three types. In one game we scooped a hole in some rough ground and competed to get our marbles into this hole being careful not to assist our opponents by striking their marbles so that they found their way into the pit instead of our own. Then there was another style, where we played along the gutters - this was a popular way of going to and from school. The idea again was to aim for an opponents marble, and if we were lucky enough to hit it with our own then it became our property. There was not the danger from passing traffic then that there is nowadays. In passing, I should say that there were quite a few types and sizes of marbles. First there were those made of plain glass, possibly half an inch in diameter. These were very common and most boys had quite a collection in their marble bags, cloth bags about six inches square, complete with a draw string. There were also very small marbles made of pot, generally left white with a couple of coloured lines painted on their diameters. There were also very pretty glass marbles with coloured whirls of glass inset. And there were what would be called giant marbles - alley taws I believe they were called in some parts of the country.
Some boys had marble boards with small “tunnels” numbered one to six. The idea was to claim any marbles one’s contestants failed to get through any of the six holes, but any marble which found its way through a numbered hole won for its owner that number of marbles from the board owner. I do not remember too many owners of numbered boards, the risk of having to pay out up to six marbles was one too great to be risked. Some of the girls joined in marble games, but generally they were too busy at skipping or “battledore and shuttlecock”. There was one exercise which both sexes took part in. That was hoop rolling or bowling. (This bowling was pronounced like the “bow” one gives to a superior.) Boys went in for metal hoops, and the hoop made from 3/8 in[7] steel had attached to it a kind of handle with a loop at the end through which the bowl revolved. It was necessary to push the bowl along with this rod and it had to be held well below the diameter of the hoop. We used to have races to and from school with these metal hoops. I am quite sure the blacksmith used to have quite a busy time fashioning these hoops and the handles. The hoops used by the girls were made of wood in possibly two or three layers. They had to be properly made as the wood had to be of such a nature that it would bend to the required roundness. These wooden hoops were propelled along by a wooden stick. The hoops themselves would be approximately 24 or 27 ins in diameter. The bowling season seemed to run concurrently with the whip and top, marble and shuttlecock period and so far as I remember we started these activities about Shrove Tuesday (which was always a half holiday) and they went on for some months. I am sure by the time we arrived at the Harvest holiday which varied from a month to three weeks, all these things interested us no longer. Besides the weather was hotter and we were less active.
I never got to know about five-stones or jacks as they were known as in some parts of the country. This activity was quite unknown in my village, but I vaguely remember friends of mine playing five-stones (sometimes also called “Snobs”) at the Grammar School which I began to attend when I was eleven. Snobs was very popular further down the County. I can remember the boys at my first school[8] at Forest Town, Mansfield playing the game. A set of snobs was five differently coloured cubes, with four adjacent sides ridged. They were made of pot, and I can now imagine they were quickly made by being extruded as clay and cut off to form cubes. I watched the boys play but never got the hang of the game and never had any real interest in it. It was a game demanding skill and quickness of eye and a good deal of dexterity. My wife understands the game and used to play it, so it is quite evident that “Snobs” was not a prerogative of schoolboys.
When the horse-chestnuts had ripened, then began the conker season. I should say that the best conkers are those falling in early October, and the outer shells are just bursting. I am not an authority on the art of conker-playing, but there are various treatments one can give to a conker, such as putting it into a warm oven for about half an hour. There are those who like to keep them in vinegar for a few days. I tried none of [these] tricks. I did keep my conkers for several days before boring them and putting them on strings. I often wondered how we were able to keep the “age” of a conker - that is the times it has survived in battle against the other chaps. I am of the opinion that a bit of cheating and a good deal of bragging went on. There was also quite a bit of haggling over minor points of the game for it was eagerly contested. Sometimes the result was a fight, and not always between the two contestants, but between those who sided for one lad against another. On the whole the onlookers saw that “Conkers” was played fairly. I almost hesitate to add that when your conker had broken your opponents the “age” of his conker was added to yours, so that “ages” often built up quite rapidly, hence the temptation to cheat a bit. I may have forgotten some of the popular games we played as children, but I feel that in the main I have mentioned, if only briefly the ones that “stick in my mind” ass no doubt they do in my contemporaries remembrances.
We had the roads for our playgrounds and rough they were when we fell. It was not the custom to allow little boys to wear long trousers. Most were allowed that privilege about the age of sixteen. Our trousers were rather longer than the shorts of today, and some of us wore long black stockings which came well over our knees and held up with, or by, garters. Later we had a smart innovation, stockings which had turn-downs often with a small amount of colour in them, the turn down commencing just below the knee and being maybe three inches in width. They were very smart, but still held up by garters. I must say bare knees were much smarter than covered ones, but, oh! The bruising and bleeding.
Our roads were constructed of huge pieces of “road metal” possibly two inches across, and these were spread with soil to fill up the cracks and rolled, and rolled, and rolled again by the steam roller. These roads were dusty in summer and filthy in winter and rough to both boy and beast. Many’s the time I went about with a bandage round my knee, and to this day (1981) I have scars to remind me. In addition the animals which were driven along gave our road sweepers plenty to do. There was horse muck and cow muck in plenty. Some of it found its way onto neighbouring gardens. The sweepers were Walter Blow, very hunch-backed and rather quiet, Peg-leg Parkinson who appeared to be in charge, and was a staunch Primitive Methodist. I imagine there were no artificial limbs for a man who earned such a low wage, so Sundays and weekdays he pottered along with his wooden leg. There was a third man named Kent, who seemed to take the more outlying lanes as his stint. They were all supplied with huge stiff bristled brushes, barrows and extra large shovels. It was also part of their duties to lift up the street drain covers and with a ladle on a stick remove into a sort of drum on wheels the thick sediment which formed there, and what a stink this operation made. The drainage by modern standards was very poor. The main drainage was to take away heavy rain water. We ourselves had sinks with drains and I assume the refuse water we poured down ran into and soaked the surrounding earth.
Our roads were well used chiefly by horses pulling various forms of transport. For example my great-uncle Walter Smith had a two-wheeled cart for his building business, but he had a highly polished well upholstered trap with side seats for the week end. The same horse was used for both vehicles, and I am sure he knew when ha was pulling the trap. I had several rides in this rather refined trap. The same sort of arrangement occurred with other business folk, bakers, butchers, drapers and grocers. We had no vehicle horse drawn. The nearest we got for deliveries was a home-made handcart which my father made using two solid rubber cycle wheels, and I can hardly imagine him giving the family a weekend ride on that. I can remember being sent down to the station to collect parcels for the shop. These were delivered twice a week by Harry Woodhouse on his coal dray (horse drawn) but sometimes we required the goods urgently so off I went to the station.
If my business took me to the goods department I always found my way into the goods office which was presided over by David Mitchell, assisted by Sam Mattock. David was one of the most exquisite calligraphers I ever met. He could write a copper-plate “calling card” to equal any turned out by the printers of the day. I think I first learned from David the joy of writing, but I am also indebted to my father who wrote a fair hand. In those days all correspondence was hand written with special copying ink, and all letters and accounts received were placed each under the page of a huge book, damped, and put into a screw operated letter-press so that the letters and bills were made into a permanent record. Another book of the same type with the same kind of absorbent leaves was used to take copies of all letters and accounts from the “outward” tray at the day’s end. Postcards, printed as pro-formas, and bills in unsealed envelopes were charged half-penny postage, while sealed letters were forwarded for 1½d. (Up to the outbreak of Word War I all sealed letters cost 1d for postage.) To make comparisons all postcards or letters under a particular metric weight are now at the time of writing (Jan 31. 1981) sent first-class for 14 new pence, the nearest I can quote being 2/7½d in “old money”. We also have second class mail and in either case it comes when it likes. I recall the time when you could send for an item from a London store by post on a Monday for example, and the goods would be in one’s hands first post on Wednesday. This was called “by return of post”.
It would, I think, be in the Spring of 1922 and I should be about fourteen and going to the Grammar School in Doncaster, that the whole village had a new topic - something everybody was talking about with a certain amount of disbelief. Two teenagers, Jimmy Gagg son of my father’s cousin Arthur, and Roy Fraser who lived with his aunt, Laura Spencer at the Windmill Inn, had constructed strange pieces of apparatus which when fixed up with headphones, enabled them to hear singing, and talking in far-away London without any visible connection. All they had to attach to their sets was a hundred-foot length of copper wire one end of which was attached to a pole high up in the garden, and the other end, fastened to an attachment on a bedroom window, came down to be connected to this marvellous set.
The set itself was home made and as far as I recall, allowed the “signal” to pass through a coil with a moveable knob and also through a fine springy bit of wire called the “cat’s whisker”, and this in turn, to obtain sound, had to touch a small piece of crystal at the correct spot. I remember seeing these contraptions for the first time and actually hearing voices and singing coming through the air, apparently. It was unbelievable - it was magic - it was supernatural, but there it was, two local youths receiving, intermittently I hasten to add, sounds being “broadcast” from some place in central London, and this place, largely experimental was known as 2LO - “This is 2LO calling”. My mother got one of these amateur made “crystal sets” for by this time others had climbed on the bandwagon and learned how to construct the sets. In a very short space of time papers had been published on this new venture, and a great advance had been made to two-valve sets set on a board, but with two moveable coils made by Igranic[9], and two bulbs - a very advanced form of electric light bulb, powered the set from two sources of electric [power], a Low-Tension accumulator which had to be re-charged weekly at the local garage, and a High Tension battery a long box affair with places to put in positive and negative studs. (The crystal sets needed no electric power to activate them.) Now we were really on the way, but listening still had to be done through headphones, and [an] aerial (external) still had to be erected. There was still the element of chance for you had to have the knob on the condenser in the right place, and the two coils had to be brought up to each other to secure the “signal”. Horace Kellington, a friend of the family, and who was unemployed, made our two-valve set - and it worked - generally. We had to see that our accumulator was fully charged, and a second one purchased to use while the first was being charged up. It was quite a performance. But oh! the wonder of it. It would seem that we country folk had never heard that Marconi had made his first successful attempt by sending in 1895 a radio signal over a mile, and that in 1901 he had great success in getting through from a radio station in Cornwall to Newfoundland. 1922 seemed to be the first attempt to hand this radio facility over to the public, and it was not long before the G.P.O. took it upon themselves to demand a licence fee from each person in possession of a receiver. There were several attempts to prove this was illegal despite Acts passed and Wireless Licences were demanded till a few years ago when there were so many, it proved too big a burden checking.
To return, the Radio became commercialised, and soon we had four-valve sets with the apparatus boxed in but with horn loudspeakers, like gramophones. With every improvement, the “Wireless” as we still call it, became less in size and more compact but aerials were still required. The aim was to get the sets portable. The advance was tremendous and soon we found a built in aerial or an indoor aerial would pick up signals. Valves became obsolete and something called Transistors replaced them, thus making them easier and quicker to make, and also convenient for accumulators vanished as did the separate High Tension battery. Batteries to function both sources of power were invented, so that at the time of writing (1983) we have tiny pocket sets powered by , say, a couple of tiny batteries of 1½ volts each, and sets which are adaptable to batteries and the mains electricity supply. I shall never cease to wonder at the marvel of sound waves for what have we now. Telephones are connected to others by wires (now underground, thus abolishing the poles carrying wires except in a few cases rurally), but for long distance calls, we use radio, so that if we want to speak long distance we can dial direct the number we require, and this applies to calls from foreign sources. The air which looks so blank is humming every minute of every day with sound and picture waves, to black and white, or coloured Television sets, and we now use satellites in orbit so that we can send messages into the highest heavens, and they can be bounced back to the destination required. When men are sent into space we can contact their spacecraft by signals, and also get T.V. pictures of the moon and other satellites and planets.
Telecommunications is a vast industry and it started, for me with the little home made crystal set receiver. Dare one say, “O Lord how wonderful are thy works”. But man would immediately cry, “I did it, we did it all, all by our little selves. Talking about the wonders of God is so much tosh!” But daily we get more and more involved, with T.V. and computers, it makes one wonder if we shall get so clever, so involved we shall one day go bust, for killers are at work using these very same waves, and apparati to fire huge missiles. But enough! My wonder at it all will never cease - I have gone on a bit, but the young ones who were born into these things cannot believe us when we talk about the first radio, the first T.V. pictures and such like inventions.
I must not wander too far into present day matters, so back a little. When I was a kid we loved, as all kids do, to play with a ball, and few of us were lucky enough to possess a leather case-ball (football). We played with discarded tennis balls from the local club and these served for our many ball games, including football, and our pitches in the main were the streets and lanes. But there appeared on the scene a new kind of ball, about Tennis Ball size and this was a solid rubber ball - it would be more correct to say it was made of sponge rubber which made it much lighter than if it were solid rubber. This new ball was called “Sorbo” and the very same type of play-ball is made and sold today. It main features were that it bounced well, it could not be punctured and was “everlasting”, but a bit expensive till production increased. It was of course no use for tennis, but cricket enthusiasts (junior variety) welcomed it. Since its introduction all small playballs are made of this sponge rubber - now, no doubt, some kind of plastic. We played football with these tennis-ball sized balls, and also for our street games. (I ought to say that football as we knew it was a street game for there were but one or two cars in the village and we could soon get out of the way of a pony-cart or horse and dray.) We played rounders mainly at school. Netball and other such games had not reached rural schools.
Here sadly the account ends and in finishing this typescript, this small labour of love, I feel again our loss, almost as poignantly as at the time of Dad’s death in 1995. I can only refer the reader to his other essays, which deal with a great range of subjects, some of which continue the story, for example “Trinity College Carmarthen” and “Family in Wartime” His diaries, many manuscript volumes of them, covering much of his life after the family moved to Helpston, are to be found in the County Record Office in Huntingdon. A.N.G.
© Howard W. Gagg 1983
