NORFOLK WITHIN LIVING MEMORY
Notes and Memories written by
Beulah Gowing
in 1994
My childhood was, I suppose, different to most. I was late starting school at 6 years being undersized, and after only 6 months, it was discovered by the school doctor that I had tuberculosis and so became exempt.
So, from the age of 6 until 15, I missed formal schooling. Nevertheless, I had lessons. First with the infant teacher and later with a retired teacher, and I did not escape the dreaded visit of the School Inspector to find if I was keeping up to standard. I remember being tested on such words a “helicopter” and “gyrotiller” which were becoming everyday terms in English language at that time.
My parents were publicans and came to Ludham Kings Arms in 1922. I was born in 1923 and their second daughter. My sister, being 9 years older than me, but only just, because her birthday is Nov 18th and mine is Nov 19th. New house and new baby in a year!
I did have childhood friends, despite being termed as infectious, but most of my pursuits were out of doors as were many of my meals. Fresh air was the only known cure for TB in 1929 and many children went t the sanatorium, often through drinking infected milk as I had. No tuberculin tested cows on farms until later on.
My parents were persuaded to let me run free of restriction, so I often preferred bare feet to shoes, and being thin started rumours of ill treatment!
Actually, I enjoyed the freedom, climbing the tallest trees and making myself friendly and gaining much entertainment in the next door saddler’s shop, where obtaining scraps of leather and borrowing small tools, I would chase patterns. I also helped to stuff horse’s collars with straw and, to my joy, get taken in the side car of the motor cycle to deliver supplies, and repaired harness to surrounding farms and villages. Also, the blacksmith would allow me to pump the bellows and throw water onto the furnace to clear it of flames. Heating the horse shoes and hammering to fit the waiting horse. What a smell of singeing hoof.
The carpenter in the adjoining shop would explain his work in detail and I saw cart wheels being made, from the wooden spokes being inserted into the hub, to the metal trim made by the blacksmith on the outer wheel. Again the hiss of steam as it was fitted.
A lot of my time was spent on farms, among the animals and workmen. Horses to ride, bullocks and chickens to feed and calves to teach how to suckle using one’s fingers and warm cows milk from a pail.
The simple games we played were often in the main street or village square. No danger from traffic then as cars were few and far between and could be heard approaching. Such seasonal games as tops and whips, skipping ropes, marbles, hoops and sticks, rounders and ball games with intricate rhymes. Make a mistake, and begin the complicated routine all over again. “What’s the time Mr Wolf” would get childish hearts beating in anticipation. Of course, conkers in the Autumn, snowballs and icy slides in Winter. The local Womack Broad used to freeze over more often than it does now and most of the men were proficient skaters with grace. We children were content to slide and shrill voices would proclaim our enjoyment. There was an occasional mishap of ice near the edges giving way, but other than wet feet and legs no one seemed concerned that anything worse could happen. Children did wait for the expert opinion of adult men who tested and examined the ice before anyone ventured on and woe and betide anyone seen throwing sugar beet onto the ice to get embedded in the following frost and spoil the clear run of skating enthusiasts. The sugar beet would be awaiting wherry transport to Cantley: I even rode my bike on the frozen river, not without mishaps, bare knees getting cuts and bruises. I was 12 years old and I still ride that bike at 70 years of age.
Living in a public house, one gained entertainment from watching bowls matches on our two bowling greens and by meeting people who came by car, coach and boat. They needed refreshment, relaxation and entertainment and this was provided by small packets of biscuits and crisps and music by visiting pianists and jolly singing inside the green room while I played with their children outside. Among the favourites were hand stands and gymnastic feats on the grass and jumping over the raised rose bed dividing the greens and the shock of finding it lower ground on the other side. It had moments of amusement to the viewers!
Of course, if one was in need of real nourishment, there was the fish and chip shop opposite our public house, and the other one, a beer house, The Baker’s arms and one could buy for 1/6 (or 8p) a substantial cod and chips. We children could have crispy scoops of batter for nothing. There were three fish and chip shops at one time ad of course the rivalry was too much and not enough trade for all, so the longer established shop won the day.
My parents were well liked and popular. Father had served long time in the Army and had risen to Sergeant Major. He was easy going but strict enough not to allow bad language and behaviour and was respected for it. Of course, the usual Saturday night jokes were played on everyone – “when beer was in and wit was out”. Sunday mornings would reveal our doormat at someone else’s entrance and chairs and tables would find their way onto Church Plain, also known as Stocks Hill, and be complete with empty mugs and glasses.
Mother worked very hard too, but enjoyed the company of our customers and the humour. Having a powerful singing voice, she was often asked to perform and by this time, I could accompany her as pianist. Everyone seemed to know the ballads she sang. “The Holy City”, “Bless this house” and “Ill walk beside you” were favourites, but I confess that the song “God send you back to me” used to send me into tears when I was younger.
Mother, my sister and I were all in the Choir at one time. On Sunday night, the locals would become impatient waiting for our return from evening service, before Father could unbolt the door and let in the rush of men eager to begin the serious drinking and games of darts and cards. In the Summer, Sunday evenings brought in wives with their husbands, dressed in their silks and cottons and the husband in best cap and suit and buttonhole of summer rose. How simple the pleasures of life were then and people concerned with each other’s joys and sorrows. With generations having lived in the village all their lives and knew each other so well.
It was cold in parts of our large house in Winter, but having TB until I reached 15 years, heat was not recommended for me. Coal fires in the public rooms but the counters meant only the customers could feel them and some certainly meant to judging by the comments of those who could not! Our bedrooms had no means of heating and no sockets for plugs. Lino on the floor meant the shock of cold feet if one missed the bedside rug. My bedroom sash window was open most of the time and crossing the floor to find the switch by the door I felt a sprinkle of snow or a puddle of rain on more than one occasion.
No bathroom either, just the usual wash stand in each bedroom and matching jug, bowl and toilet set and a jug of hot water had to be brought upstairs for washing purposes. A hip bath, possibly papier-mache, was sometimes put into the club room, the largest, coldest room possible. Pails of water carried upstairs, having been heated in the copper, and afterwards, bailed out and carried down again. Later, we had a long tin bath and used the downstairs scullery possibly by the cooking range fire in Winter. A large shallow stone sink and hard and soft water were for our use. The water from the outside tanks was also used because the indoor soft water supply would be full of nasty surprises, thin pink worms and the occasional very dead snails. The scullery was built over the soft water well, and more than once during a thunderstorm, the well would overfill and raise the stone circular lid and flood the floor.
Our electricity supply was also erratic in that area. Mother wore rubber boots on occasions when the electric cooker and also the wash boiler became “alive” and we were worried that shocks were likely on touching or using these electric items. I remember after one heavy thunderstorm, a bedroom light came on and glowed of its own accord, it was possibly the same time as the upstairs Club Room ceiling sagged and bulged with the weight of the water in the reeds above the plaster and caused weight on the exposed wiring.
Electricity was installed about 1928. After that, the scullery cast iron cooker was not so much in use, neither was the oven in the wall, but I remember how much stoking each appliance took, particularly the copper on wash days. How steamy everything got and so much rubbing and scrubbing, starching, blueing and mangling took place before hanging everything out on the lines. Then came the ironing with flat irons heated on the stove or by the fire and all the scorch marks on the ironing sheet when testing the heat. Airing and mending followed, so the linen was in sight for several days. I recall that our cat had her kittens in that sewing basket in the cupboard and then sensing our surprise and possible disapproval, she took off and deserted the kittens. Leaving me and mother calling for her return late at night in the street. Her name was Timoshenko, which dates her as a war time ex-army cat who adopted us when one of the regiments left. She was a tortoiseshell tweed, and one of her kittens, a fluffy blue Persian type, was named Eisenhower. How fond was Timo of music and she loved to parade up and down the piano keyboard. She just loved khaki uniforms, so obviously has former pleasant memories.
Our furniture for the bar was heavy and practical chairs and tables. The Green Room had padded bench seating and was a pleasant large room with a view over the bowling greens, gardens and pavilion. It was situated over the vast cellars and we were concerned during the war whether it was strong enough to bear the weight of all the soldiers and air force boys who crowded us out for the short duration of beer supplies.
The smoke room was comfortable and the tap room contained the extra crates and was used as a store room until we had to make extra space for customers.
Our own living room led into a large pantry with perforated zinc window panes, cupboards and shelves.
The scullery kitchen had a wooden partition because the back door led direct to the bottle and jug department. Those people who were anti-drink always used the back door for their supplies in case they were seen by the public going into the front.
We did not have many visitors to stay, although we were pleased to see relatives for day visits. Out of five bedrooms, four were in use by the family, and the other was used by overnight commercial travelers. The upstairs Club Room was large and meetings of the Oddfellows Club and dinner parties for various functions were held there. Mother would cook large joints of salt beef, carrots and vegetables for their consumption and much merriment could be heard during the evening.
I had a large Victorian rocking horse on the landing named Mabel, which came into use by the adult men, when they had celebrated enough to lose inhibitions!
Next to the Club room was the front or best room, very rarely used. Blue velvet three piece and polished oak furniture. White paint and shiny blue linoleum, it was the height of good taste. The second piano was in that room. Also a walk in cupboard, which contained many delights from a large doll’s house, a muslin draped cradle, books and annuals and toys galore.
As I had TB, I had the attention of County Council doctors. Dr Christopherson and Dr Morrison-Smith, one of them contracted TB and died of the disease. It was the case of weight and measurement and advice. They had no drugs or miracle cures other than fresh air, good food and rest. Our family doctor and District Nurse resided in the village and took care of the rest of our ailments from birth to death. How well they knew each individual and background history. I remember iodine was in use for bad bruises, when I fell down the stone steps of the cellar at about five years old and the fact that the doctor had little to offer in variety of medication. White bismuth, sal volatile, a red medicine for coughs and iron tonic, which was welcome from the raw liver which was recommended and I found distasteful. One cure I did enjoy was sulphur and treacle mixed with butter in a little china pot and I was told the fairies had left me fairy jam. This I enjoyed and it was to clear my youthful skin when I was young enough to believe in fairies. Another home cure was linseed or a bread poultice to draw out infection, inflammation and anything else from a painful thorn or sliver of wood in the finger to a painful boil or abscess. A warm shallot in the ear would relieve earache, a clove would numb toothache, and also the tongue as well. Of course, a basin of boiled onions helped a cold and a raw onion sliced would heal burns. The warts I had on my hands were bought by being counted and paid for and charmed away by a rough elderly horse doctor, who knew all of the old country cures. My husband, also a Norfolk man, ate fried mice to cure his severe whooping cough when he was a child. A sure and certain cure but they had to be field mice and not house mice.
Of course, our village, as I knew it in the 1930s was self supporting with many trades and shops. Everything could be obtained at short notice if not already available in stock and good on approval was normal, giving one time to decide. The grocery shops stocked drapery, hardware and shoes, paints and wallpaper and crockery. We did very little shopping in town, although we had an hourly bus service to both Norwich and Great Yarmouth. This enabled people to be employed in town rather than in the village.
Between the wars, we had three grocers, a post office with grocery, two butchers and a pork butcher, a corn merchant, a fish merchant, two coal merchants, a café and a builders firm with painter and decorator. There was a millwright, two blacksmiths, three public houses, a doctor, a nurse, a vicar, a head teacher, an undertaker and two market gardeners. Vans from Horning and Wroxham delivered bread, and milk was also obtained with butter from the farms. There were newsagents and a hairdresser.
At that time, I do not remember the luxury of toilet paper in local shops and it was a Saturday job of cutting newspaper into squares for use in the pail lavatories for family and public use. I also grated salt from large rectangular blocks, which would sting into small cuts and grazes on hands. No Marigold gloves in those days.
We had so many brass door knobs, fenders and fire hoods to clean and the knives on the rubbing board and forks and spoons and errands to do. Children were expected to do chores in return for pocket money and perhaps a weekly comic.
The Saturday pence would buy a variety of sherbet with liquorice pipe to suck the delight of fizzy concoction. Love hearts, a sugary shape with a message on each, gob stoppers, humbugs, aniseed balls, toffees, mini sticks of rock and penny bars of chocolate from the machine outside the Post Office door, also chewing gum was popular.
On Saturday nights, the Baker would give children pies and pasties from his van and a pony and cart with handbell proclaimed cornets of ice cream for a halfpenny, how white and cold with chips of ice were relished. Of course, the trike with “Stop me and buy one” with attendant in uniform was making and appearance. Walls and Eldorado. Great pondering over the choice in the ice box. I loved the creamy wafers, but I also loved the water ices, full of flavour in cardboard triangles and there was not money for both. Our Post Office stocked ice cream. I think it was Lyons. It was fairly solid and wrapped in shapes for wafers or cornets. Another dilemma – to have vanilla or strawberry?
Even then, there were those who could afford such luxuries and those who could not. Large families and sparse seasonal work meant a little had to go a long way. My mother was aware of this and bags of goodies and sacks of coal were sometimes delivered to those she thought would be more glad than offended.
Many jugs of pea soup and broth were taken to the elderly who were on parish relief of tow shillings and sixpence (12 1/2p) a week and one old lady asked me to buy her four pennyworth of carrots, onions and potatoes. This stew made on her open fire would nourish her for several days. Her poor cat had milk and water bread sop and little else, to encourage it to catch mice if hungry enough. However, the old lady benefitted from the “gentry” and was pleased to relate the hot dinners brought to her and how guilty one felt if one did not contribute also! She never forgave the District “Nuss” for standing a bowl of boiling water on the polished table where it heft its scar for ever more. Amongst her many ornaments were glass cases of stuffed birds and small animals.
Such a lot of pictures on the walls in those days. We had Lord Roberts, Baden Powell and Queen Victoria and of course Bubbles and Cherry Ripe pictures which were popular in several houses. Mt Aunt had The Stag at Bay and The Thin Red Line pictures in her corridor and many other battle scenes to view on the way to bed.
The farmers employed a lot of labour and everyone seemed to be in work most of the time. Haysell (hay making) and harvest, hedging and sugar beet hoeing, stockman, milkman and horseman.
A hard winter could mean a lean time. It meant little work other than a days threshing, mending sacks and killing vermin (with a gun that could shoot round corners – I was told).
The animals had to be tended and mangolds and chaff cut for their feed and skep baskets were carried high into messy stock yard for cattle. They could soon knock it out of hands in their eagerness to eat. The manure was carted onto the fields on a tumbril and left in steaming piles for spreading before ploughing in to enrich the soil. Several weeks preparing and sewing the seed and tending before another harvest was possible.
How nice to have tea in the harvest field and to ride the change of horses which were ready to take the place of those tired and sweaty, tormented by flies and very ready for their nose bags or manger. Then a short journey to the cool marsh if they were lucky, having got rid of the jingling harness. Some of the men were skilled in stack thatching and took great pride in a job well done.
A Sunday night walk between 1930 and 1940 would meet farmers and workmen in best suit, cap and boots all concerning themselves how their and other’s crops were faring in comparison.
We were fortunate to have a Church Room built in 1841, a village hall built in 1926 and the Methodist School Room to use for functions of entertainment. The Church Room is in the Village centre and always in demand for club meetings and council meetings, It was the Sunday School classroom for years, when children all attended there or the Chapel class. One of the highlights would be the Christmas party , also the summer outings to the nearby coast. Long sunny days by the sand a sea, with the excitement, tears and sandwiches being part of it. There was always someone who felt and sometimes was sick on the return journey.
The Christmas parties yielded many books as prizes for good attendance. During later years, the Council School had a bumper party much looked forward to with a choice of gifts made in advance and an entertainment. In the decorated school with the sparkling tree and appearance of Father Christmas, what child could fail to enjoy the awaited event?
The Methodist anniversary and tea was another enjoyable function. How nice the children looked at their performance of sacred songs and party pieces. Small boys with shiny faces feeling conspicuous and demure girls in frilly dresses and straw flower trimmed hats, shyly performing to a crowd of proud parents and relatives. The hearty singing of well loved hymns could be heard outside.
We enjoyed Valentine’s Night, when constant knocking would mean trick or treat to be had. The harmless trick was either a large well wrapped parcel containing nothing of value and nothing more, to the hilarity or disappointment of the recipient. Children did well with packets of sweets and I remember the pink and white blanket received for my dolls pram which I treasured for years. From a small friend’s mother.
Holidays, we did not have in the family. My parents being in business had little time off and we did not get out as a family. I don’t remember anyone actually going away for more than a day out. The school children did have their outing to London and I watched their departure so early in the morning with mixed feelings. My sister and husband had a weeks honeymoon in London. Quite an event in our family. After the war when it became possible and people’s disrupted lives by wartime travel put the idea into one’s head and finance into their pockets, it became possible, but not exactly popular among local people.
By the time the new estates were built and new people entered our lives, we realised how much more travelled they were. Television opened our eyes to fresh vistas and places of interest in this country and abroad.
When a child, I did have holidays staying with an aunt in Aldeby where my grandmother also lived and had many country adventures in that quiet village.
Our entertainment was found in local activities, we had the visiting fairs which we looked forward to each year and the regatta and fair with late night fireworks at Potter Heigham. Simple pleasures of swing boats and steam horses, cakewalk and stalls. There was the Village Fete and also an occasional visit of the big top circus – proving to me that elephants do not forget, when it refused to progress past a gate where it received refreshment several years before.
In my childhood, most people had local employment and did not venture only as far as their bicycle would take them unless a town visit was called for. So the three public houses were popular meeting places, The Kings Arms, The Bakers arms and the Dog Inn by Ludham Bridge. Of course, darts matches, bowls and billiards brought cups to the village also football and a cricket team. There were dances, socials, concerts, a visiting drama group performed “Maria Martin in the Red Barn” and other spell binding plays. A visiting cine camera and screen brought black and white films, shaky and much flickering. Felix the Cat and other comedies, romance and drama.
The 1939 War brought many changes to our village. Flat Norfolk meant and ideal site for an airfield and the marshland area was suitable training ground for the Army. We were soon surrounded by Nissen huts built by Pioneer Corps. Italian prisoners of war (who found our large snails a delicacy), Royal Engineers and Irish labourers. The RAF moved in and aircraft activity became normal. They were providing escort for heavy bombers and for coastal defence.
A visit to the airfield by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth did much for the morale of pilots and staff. The different regiments came and went from the army camp, which was built surrounding the village and within it to disguise the fact that it was a military base.
The Bren gun carriers broke up the surface of the roads as they clattered through the village to their practice areas on the marshes, firing ranges and bayonet practice areas.
Americans came for a short duration to wire the telephone system for the airfield. How quickly those boys worked and what strange garb they wore. So relaxed and different from our forces. I still correspond with the sister of one, who returned to his home town of Chicago. We had Canadians too, generous to the school children with sweets and chocolate. We had no fear of being molested with all these men in the village. Despite the blackout and late night dances and many Camp Concerts they gave. They were all decent fellows to our populace. Of course, harmless romances flourished and some of the non-drinking soldiers came to tea instead of propping up bars. The WRVS had a canteen in the Church Room and it was well used for refreshments and a change of scene. Army wives arrived and found accommodation. The officers were billeted in private houses. I believe it was compulsory if one had space and of course the extra food rations they brought with them was an advantage.
The Free French were always trying to buy soap to send home. There were Spaniards in the Poineer Corps who were excellent dancers and sang in harmony songs of their homeland. There was even a Burmese in the RAF and, of course, many pilots were Polish and Czech. How strange it was to notice the odd gold tooth. Something we English did not go in for in denture.
I corresponded with one widow whose husband was killed in a flying accident on his return to Prague. Her letter mentions several of the Czech pilots who were stationed in Ludham and how tragic it was that three of the pilots had been shot down by our own guns when returning to the bases. Having related this recently to a local person who has a small wartime museum in Ludham, I was given a wartime of Josef and two of his pilot friends I knew all those years ago. These pilots were constantly in their flying gear and had very few hours leisure.
We had a few bombs, mostly when making a hurried exit and wishing to travel lightened. A stable was demolished and horses were killed. Other bombs landed on marshes.
The land mines were especially powerful and descended by parachute caught in the cross beams of the searchlights. We children would watch with interest all air activity and at night, the tracer bullets looks spectacular. No one liked the buzz bombs or rockets which were likely to end in explosion anywhere once the motor had stopped.
A woman was killed by a machine gun bullet while in her house. She was the grocer’s wife and the shop was opposite the Kings Arms. Her husband died a month later from shock. We had several daylight raids, but considering the activity and the obvious Nissen Huts we were fortunate not to have had many more with serious consequences.
In the early hours of the morning on D Day and still in darkness, the lorries containing troops evacuated the village. The continuous rumble of vehicles went on for some time. I had been given parcels to pack and send at intervals containing watches, rings, money and photos to the wives and families of soldiers. This I did and put a note in some of the parcels as these boys were our customers and had become our friends. How sad I was to receive a reply that Private Abbott had been killed on that D Day mission and that his wife had lost the baby they had been expecting. Also his pal Jack Scott had also been killed. They were in the Duke of Wellington Regiment. So many did not return from that day of war.
After the war, Ludham settled down to normal and it did seem so quiet without the tramp of boots in our village. At least the locals found room to put their elbows on the bar and there was again enough space to plat darts, but no lively sing songs around the piano when if they contained improper words, Mother would switch the lights off in disapproval. Not hearing all the versions sung at the same time, I would continue playing in the dark thinking she meant “Time Gentlemen Please”. We did miss their teasing and quick wit and getting acquainted with different and strange accents of other counties. The Scots and Geordies were much harder to understand than the drawl of the Americans and Canadians and how the latter laughed at our Norfolk method of harvesting with horses and binders when they had progressed to combine harvesters and acres of fields. I did not lose my heart to any of them as I intended to eventually marry a Norfolk man and this I did in 1951. We have similar interests, hobbies and know the same people. I joined the Women’s Institute in 1938 and was fifteen at the time and am still a member.
Household chores have become easier and wives have more time for leisure and pleasure, to enjoy pursuits and careers of their own. Smaller families, better health and conditions, and yet I remember with nostalgia the fun and laughter we enjoyed of yesteryear and neighbourly affection when people were more concerned with each other, having an interest in those who were just born to those who had just departed. Norfolk village life is not the same with people constantly on the move and one cannot rely on support as in the past.
Our village is still a good place to settle however, and has a reputation for friendliness.
Written by: Beulah Gowing Mrs
Greenbank, Malthouse Lane, Ludham,
Gt Yarmouth NR29 5QL
Tel 0692 678284
