Yvonne Boldy
Yvonne Boldy (nee Gower). Memories taped by Christina Pope 15th October 2003 at the Sloper Room.
I have lived in Ludham for all of my 59 years. I was born at No 1 Manship Cottages and moved to 5, Laurels Crescent when I was about 9 years old. In 1965 we moved to the ‘Dairy Café’ in the High Street, we then refurbished the property to a butcher’s shop; at present it still trades as a butchers even though my father A.J.Gower died in 1985 and his wife Joan (my mother) died in 1986.
Wartime.
When we lived in Manship Cottages during the war, I can just remember the drone of the planes coming over, but I was very little, I can remember the soldiers standing by the gates opposite. We used to have to go across the road to get the water from the well, which I believe is now the pumping station. It was a natural well. Sometimes I would go across to the well with my Dad and I would look in the bucket and there would be a frog in there, so I’d make him turn it out and start again. We used to carry it in buckets across the road and the soldiers used to give us doughnuts. We never asked where they got them from, they probably cooked them themselves. I do remember all that area being high wires and that and we weren’t allowed to go in until after the soldiers moved away and the gates fell down through disrepair and we went in there.
Ludham School.
Mrs Mattocks taught the reception class, Mrs Parkinson was for the next age group, Mr Kirby for the next group and Mr Bird (the headmaster) for the ten and eleven year olds-your last class before you went off to Stalham Secondary Modern. I passed the 11+ but I didn’t want to go to Wymondham College, I wanted to go with my friends to Stalham and in the end they relented and let me go to Stalham.
Mr Bird lived in the school house with his wife. I was a prefect at the school and along with the other prefects, we were allowed to go into his sitting room in his house at lunchtime and watch the television. He was one of the first people in the village to have a television. Once we ate some sweets there and we had nowhere to put the sweet papers so we hid them under the cushions of the settee. We were worried that Mrs Bird would find them and it was about a fortnight later that Mr Bird called us together and said that no-one would be allowed to use the sitting room in future as Mrs bird had found them and that was the end of that.
In 1953 when I was nine and we had a television ourselves then, but not many others did. Lots of neighbours came in to watch the Coronation on the telly then we had a massive street party in the High Street with dancing down the Street, I’ll never forget it. One of our neighbours took her husband’s dinner into the Kings Arms and threw it at him as he wouldn’t come out. It was a very big occasion and the only street party that we had ever had at that time, it was lovely, lots of fun. Neighbours also used to collect at our house to watch the Cup Final.
When I went to school in Stalham we went on the Neaves Coach. Mr Wilson was a teacher at Stalham school and he lived on the Yarmouth Road in Ludham and used to travel on our coach to keep us in order. That was the only school for a long way and it was before the Broadland school was built in Wroxham, so the catchment was very big. Ludham school had children coming from Potter and Catfield and there seemed to be more children around then anyway. The children came from Catfield on the Neaves coach to Ludham school, then the big children got on to go to Stalham.
Church.
I went to church at St Catherine’s and I was in the choir. Mr Sheldrake was the choirmaster. I can’t remember us singing for weddings. I spent a lot of time living with my grandmother and four of my cousins and we used to go to the morning service at 11am without fail, and in the afternoon we went to Sunday School and in the evening we went to Evensong. We did that regularly and we loved it. We always went. The vicar was the Rev Ainsworth and there was no curate. He lived in what is now the Old Vicarage Nursing Home. The new vicarage was built about 20 years ago. He only did St Catherine’s church, no other churches.
My brother was a bellringer and my husband was a bellringer later on, but I was a handbell ringer at Stalham. I also played solo and French horn in Stalham Brass Band.
Groups.
We didn’t have Guides or Brownies, but we did have the Girls Friendly Society (or on bad nights it was the Girls Fighting Society!) run by Mrs Anderson. One year my name was pulled out of a hat and I was sent on a holiday to the Isle of Wight for a week and I went with Margaret Woods. She was homesick and they wanted me to go home with her, but I wouldn’t be persuaded so I stayed and she had to have someone sent home with her. It was a lot of fun. Mrs Anderson took us on the train and across London to hand us over at Southampton to a lady who took us on the ferry to the Isle of Wight. Mrs Anderson got cross with me for putting my head out of the train window and because it was a steam train I got smuts all over my face. I remember her damping her handkerchief with spit to wipe it over my face…you could never do that today…and of course it didn’t come off. It was the first time I had been on a train, but I had been to London with the school on a coach. It was wonderful. I was very lucky to win it. Other girls went on other years. She was a wonderful lady, Mrs Anderson. We used to mimic her a lot behind her back, but she gave us a lot of her time.
The Girls Friendly Society (GFS) did things like knitting and sewing and drawing which I loved. We played games too, a bit like the Guides and Brownies are today, but no camping. It was held in the Church Rooms on a Monday evening for about an hour and a half. I have two certificates in my possession in the original frames, but you can barely read them.
We used to take it in turns, two at a time to take the Church Room key to the Vicarage. Mrs Ainsworth always offered us sweets from her tin.
There was no Boys Friendly Society, the boys used to just play football. We did a lot of plays at the school and the lady at the Manor, Mrs Brookes, who was at one time Mrs Armitage invited us there; we had plays and dressing up, very family orientated and everybody took part in it. Every Christmas she gave a party and usually a small gift each to take home.
School outings were very rare, only London once, not to the seaside or anything. We went out more with the GFS and the Sunday School. I loved the Sunday School. The Church room was packed with children and there were about 4 or 5 teachers. My teacher was Peggy Lumbard (nee Grounds) who lives near Ludham Bridge, she was very very good.
There were no school activities after school, we used to go and play at Womack in and out of the brick kilns, and we used to go for walks, it was so safe for us to walk round Ludham. We used to do a lot of birds’ eggs collecting, which seems awful now, but everyone did it then. We never went on the river, but did a lot of fishing with my Dad at Little Holland and at Hunters boatyard. We never ate them, but we had relations living on the coast, at Eccles, Sea Palling and my Dad used to do a lot of sea fishing and my brother, cousins and uncles. Also fresh herrings and cod were enjoyed.
Home.
At home we had a wall oven and my mother had to stoke up the fire for it to function and we had an electric oven later on and did a lot on the fire. The kettle was always singing. Saturday night we had the water heated for the tin bath off the wall outside, ready for Church on Sunday. I’d be first then my brother would go in after me and my mother would then wash my white socks at the end ready for church.
My father worked at the butchers shop all the time, for other people at first and then for himself. My mother used to help him and she worked at Ludham School in the kitchens. She used to look through one of ten panels in the kitchen door and if she could see me not doing what she thought I should be doing, she’d tap on the window, so I’d have one eye on the window when I was having a mess around.
In the playground we played hopscotch and the grid for it was two, one, two, one just drawn with chalk. Not the one that was 6 squares or the spiral. We skipped with a big rope ‘salt, vinegar, mustard, pepper’ with two people turning it. We used to play rounders as a team game and a lot of stool ball. I loved the school sports and I was a fast runner then (not now) and I was captain of the greens. We had marbles and conkers. I remember being at my grandmother’s and we had cut out a hole for the marbles and my mother’s aunt (who never married and was always picking on us and thought we were a terrible nuisance) caught her heel in the hole and we all scarpered and ran away. We used to swap a lot of things, cigarette cards from parents, not bubble gum cards, not allowed bubble gum. We had a whip and tops and hula hoops and I remember the twist coming in. We had a youth club in the Village Hall, I forgot that, run by Mr and Mrs Waite, every Friday night. You went every time it was on, not like these days. You didn’t have to bribe them (like Sunday school) if you didn’t feel like it, you were expected to go and everybody went and we loved it.
Choir practice on a Thursday night. Mr Sheldrake the choir master used to wear a trilby hat and he left it in the church porch and we filled it with snow and he was busy talking and put it on his head. We just played pranks like that, it was nothing nasty at all.
I got married at St Catherine’s (walking through the rubble on the floor of the butcher’s shop in my wedding dress) and I had my son Kevin christened there, both events taken by Rev F.Smith. My wedding was at 9am on a Sunday morning so the reception went on all day until 11pm at night; it was held in my parents’ house over the butcher’s shop.
Free Time.
Another pastime was swimming in the river at Ludham Bridge. Also watching Ludham play football; going on the coach to away games.
The yearly village fete was always well attended. We always entered the fancy dress competition at the Village Hall.
A very popular sport of the day was ‘Speedway’. We went every Saturday night to ‘The Firs’ at Norwich. The coach was Neaves and Mr Harry Bensley organised the pick up of supporters en route. I was taken by my mother aged 6, my father, brother and cousin Brian used to cycle there. Sometimes we would go to Yarmouth Speedway during the week, but not as regularly as Norwich. Norwich team was called ‘The Stars’ and Yarmouth ‘The bloaters’. I continued going to Norwich until it was sold for housing about 1963; we were always promised an alternative site would be found, this unfortunately has never happened.
In my teens I went to dances in Ludham Village Hall, Potter Heigham (where the fish and chip shop now stands-same building) and The Oaks at North Walsham.
Christmas.
When I was young we always spent Christmas Day, afternoon and evening at my Grandmother’s. We looked forward to her airing the front room for about two weeks before Christmas; there was usually a dampness in the air but we didn’t care. We didn’t have a lot, but we played games and had a lovely tea and always a Christmas Cake and crackers with coloured paper hats.
