Upton until fairly recently was a small close knit rural community where everyone knew each other even if they were not actually related.
Life for most people was difficult. Jobs were not easy to find, money was short and until 1948 there was no Welfare State. However, they managed by helping and supporting each other Friends and neighbours were very important.
Life in the village, as described by the contributors, might sometimes have been hard but they all say that it was friendlier and calmer. They made their own amusements and had a good life despite the difficulties.
Homelife
most families lived in rented accommodation with few amenities and certainly no labour saving devices. The main sewer was not laid through Upton until the mid 1950s and that itself demonstrates how working practises have changed in the last forty to fifty years.
Gangs of men dug the trenches by hand - no huge JCB's or diggers then!
"During the First World War, father was away, mother had to look after me on her own. Then she moved on her own to Frampton Terraces, which was a cottage for the Brick Works. The rent was 3 shillings a week when she moved in."
"When mother did her washing we had to go down to the Brick Works with two buckets and get the water to fill the copper. We had to go to the common and get wood to heat the copper. The copper looked like an iron like bowl - cast iron. It was in the scullery. We had to heat it up to have a bath we only had one a week."
"The house we lived in was very old, belonged to the landlord and all the time I lived there with my parents, when it rained we used to have to put buckets down to catch the water, it used to come in the roof. We had no indoor toilets, no indoor water, no light because we had the coal light, no gas or anything like that, we just had coal fires."
"We had oil lamps and candles, paraffin stoves and there was a woman who lived in Upton named Mrs James and she had a shed with barrels of paraffin and we used to go down there and buy it off her."
"To get our water we had to go down the lane and in the lane they had two water pipes with taps on, one at the top and one at the bottom of the lane. In the winter, it would get frozen up and some people down the lane used to light a fire underneath the pipes so it wouldn't freeze."
"For the toilets we had to go about 20 yards outside. There were three, two facing one way and one facing the other" We had no drains just used buckets and tipped it out on the garden because we had very big gardens."
"At Toops Cottages, I lived with mum, dad and my sister. We had a toilet at the back of the garden, no sink, just a bowl and bucket, we had cold water laid on and then we got a sink later. It was just a cottage with five rooms and a big front garden and big back garden. It was hard work. A hard life."
"We got our water from a well. Five houses shared a well. Sometimes you'd lose the bucket and they used to get a man called 'Blind Burden', he was called Blind Burden because he was blind, he managed by just touch I suppose. He used to come up and he had grapples, which he put down the well and he'd get the bucket up for us."
"We have a well in the garden, its still there but covered over, its 30ft deep. We did not have water on tap when we moved in. When you had a dry summer, most of the people used to come and get water from here because there was always water in that well."
"There used to be a lane from Wyatts yard right down to Blandford Road - and we used to play down there by the river. We used to block the river up and make dams, and spend hours down there. And the lady who lived just down the lane, she used to have to collect her water from the river. She used to go down with two buckets, and she used to get quite cross if we'd made it muddy and stirred the water up. And we used to think "Oh ..." you know, and of course now I can understand why she didn't like it."
"In the house we had running water but a lot of the houses had a tap outside in the road so we were lucky with running water in the house."
"I am the eldest of six children, four boys and two girls. The cottage was a tight squeeze for eight of us and sometimes more if relatives came to stay. Sometimes I wonder how my mother coped but there was always a happy atmosphere when anyone came in. There were only two bedrooms (a bedroom and a landing, which was as big as a bedroom where the boys slept). A little sitting room where my sister and I slept downstairs and a living room and tin shed kitchen. Cooking was on a kitchen range which had to be blackened, toast was made on the front with a long brass fork."
"We had oil lamps. A copper to heat all the water. We children had to collect a lot of wood and fir cones for the copper. Mum had a gas copper when the gas was laid on which made life a bit easier and it was lovely to have a gas iron after the old flat iron, which had to be heated on the old range.
There was an old stone sink with a cold tap in the kitchen. It was freezing out there at times."
"As kids, we had a tin bath by the fire on a Saturday night. Later on we had what they call a bungalow bath, a long galvanised one which we dragged in and then it was dragged out by a couple of us to wash the bricks outside."
"The cottage only had gas lighting when we first moved in and this was a bother because the gas mantles which fitted over the flame and diffused the light were very fragile and could easily be broken by the match as you lighted them. My father put electricity into the house after about three years, which made,life a bit easier. Mother had an electric cooker eventually but the electric iron was the big benefit. Before that we had flat irons heated on the stove which you tested for heat by spitting on them. They had to be cleaned each time they were heated because of course the gas made them dirty. The heat didn't last long in the flat iron so it was a long winded, heavy job ironing, with them. I have a feeling that children had to help more in those days as I certainly helped with the ironing with these irons and I could have only been about 10."
"The kitchen must have been a nightmare for my mother who had come from a modern London flat. The floor was of quarry tiles which had to be scrubbed on your hands and knees. When we first moved in there was a copper built into the corner of the kitchen which was the only way of heating large amounts of water. A fire was lighted under this copper and laundry was put into it and boiled.
The Christmas puddings were also boiled in the copper. This was one good point because several puddings could be boiled together in the copper instead of just one in a saucepan. There was a free standing gas cooker with oven, an enamel topped table and a cupboard for food, a sink and a cold tap. That was it, no fridge or built in cupboards. Meat was kept in a meat safe, (a small free standing cupboard made of perforated zinc sheet), to keep the flies off the meat. Milk and butter was kept in earthenware pots surrounded by water, to keep it cool in summer."
"We had a tin bath which was brought into the kitchen for bath nights. Newspaper was put under the bath on the floor to insulate it from the stone floor otherwise the water was cold before you got into the bath!"
"Upstairs in our cottage were 2 bedrooms. The front bedroom had a small grate for a coal fire. The fire was never used unless someone was really ill. The only time I remember it being lighted was when both my sisters had chickenpox and whooping cough at the same time and were very ill. Apart from this there was never any heating upstairs in the house. My two sisters and I shared the back bedroom, The chimney breast from the living room below came up through the bedroom which did warm it a little. It was freezing cold in the winter and ice used to form on the inside of the windows."
"The cottage was 2 up and 2 down with a kitchen on the back and it ~ was semi-detached, they were probably built in the 19th century or the early part of the 20th century. The cottage is still there. It had a very big garden with a front garden with a wall and it ran down the side of the house right the way through a very long back garden, right through to a poultry farm at the back. We had an orchard with lots of old fashioned apple trees, pear trees, an enormous Bramley apple tree, we had a well which used to take the surface water from the roof, we had a toad living by the well."
"We lived in a thatched cottage next to the wood and running stream which was our play area. The facilities at the time were a kitchen range, tin bath, gas-lights on the wall (which were lit by the spills), toilet at the top of the garden (a bucket with a wooden seat) the contents of which were used as compost for the large garden, a copper to boil and wash clothes and a mangle with wooden rollers and a handle to rinse and dry them."
"I married in 1946 and I came to live in Sea View Cottages. There were 200 applicants and I was the lucky one out of 200, because it was just after the War and accommodation was very scarce."
"The Pony Drive Estate used to belong to Llewellins. The Roman Road used to come up along Ropers Lane and cross over the road, down Pony Drive. You could walk straight up on through because there was no bypass then. There's 2 houses up there and they belonged to the Llewellins; their keeper and his assistant used to live in there. The keeper, if the ladies had broken a prop in those days, would get you a prop for the clothesline, a wooden pole with a wire for hanging your clothes on."
"We moved to 63 Dorchester Road, Upton. A 3 bedroom semi-detached house with lounge, dining room, kitchen with cold tap and a flush toilet in the outside annexe. The house belonged to Mr Hibbs and we paid 7 shillings and 6 pence a week rent (3TYzp now) but in those days, a soldiers wage was only 21 shillings a week (�1.05 today)."
"My mother worked hard. Nine children wasn't enough, she used to go round washing for other people. She w9rked hard."
"Both before I appeared on the scene and during my young life, we had a donkey which was quite a thing. We could go and collect our own food and hay and things and my brothers and sisters used to drive the little cart and take the older family members to Hamworthy. The donkey on seeing the sea would run straight out into it and stop, and they would have to jump, take off their shoes and socks and jump out."
Shops and other Services - What couldn't be produced in the home or garden had to be purchased locally or delivered to the home by the shopkeepers. No supermarkets in those days and a trip to Poole was quite an event. Once a week at most. Upton shops were typical 'village shops' selling a bit of everything. Many people have memories of the different shops there have been in Upton over the years.
"Our first pint of milk was 4 pence half penny. Before the war it was two pence a pint. A loaf was three pence half penny. Our first hundred weight of coal was three and nine pence, I've still got the bill."
"Hibbs farm at the crossroads and we used to go there for our milk. There wasn't a milkman then but later on there was a milkman. The bakers, Palmers of Organford, used to deliver bread."
"In Seaview Road there was one wooden shop, Mr Cobb a butchers shop and there were no more houses on that side of the road until you got down Sandy Lane."
"It was only a pork butcher and no other meat sold, only pork. His wife used to make sweets and toffees and things"
"Dacombes had this little shop, it was an everything shop with groceries and sweeties."
"There was a little shop, Dacombe's. Can you remember Dacombe's Lane where Jarvey Toop lived?
Well, coming to the top of the lane there was a round wall. That's where Dacombe lived and they had a small shop, and they used to sell old-fashioned sweets and things like that. They didn't sell much, you know. But they used to sell coal - a lot of coal. I can remember going there and getting a quarter hundredweight of coal for sixpence and carrying it home on my back. And when you opened the shop door, they had a bell on a spring and it used to clang."
"Then there was a butchers and that was owned by the Coopers, that was right on the corner by the railway."
"Going down Blandford Road there was a grocery shop and next door to that was a bakers and he used to bake his own bread and used to make a wonderful lardy cake."
"Behind the Blue Star Garage was Hibbs Farmhouse which is now Darrion Way. Well, we used to go and buy our vegetables from there and they used to grow them in the fields in Pinewood Road - that used to be Hibbs field where they grew all their vegetables."
"There was the little shop at the top of Palmerston Road near the Liberal Hall and Mrs Woods used to sell the sweets, tobacco and paraffin and those types of objects. Then across the road was Mr Palmer, the garage, which was a taxi service as well and also it was the cobblers. Mr Frank Rose was the wheelchair bound cobbler and he used to repair the shoes for the village."
"Then Mrs Cooper in the War used to have these pies. Well Mrs Cooper that lived in the thatched cottage, she used to have Millers pies because you know when things were rationed and they used to bring a great whole load and she used to sell them. I don't know whether that was the WVS (Women's Voluntary Service). It was a great thing. I think you were rationed to however many you had in the family, you could have 3 or 4, all depends and it was a great event to come up and get Millers pies, steak and kidney pies."
People had many memories of the Post Office and stores.
"It was a very old fashioned grocery shop with high wood counters and boxes of biscuits, loose biscuits and all that sort of thing and I can remember going in there when very young."
"In those days they had a little Post Office on the side with a little grille - it didn't have a glass front, just a mesh wire that came down. It was just a run-of-the-mill Post Office like in the old days. Then Mrs Harvey had the shop there and she used to sell all the stuff people wanted, I suppose, in the village.
More or less everything - she sold everything, groceries and vegetables, soap, tea, everything more or less you wanted. And she used to buy vegetables from people. My father had a good crop of cauliflowers and they were really nice, and he sold them to Mrs Harvey for sixpence each. Big cauliflowers for sixpence each."
The Post Office and Refreshment Room
circa 1910-1915
"The Post Office there now is different to the Post Office in the past. You could stand back and look at it and see it was a house. The left hand side in front of the house was a shop with a little Post Office. As far as I can remember on the left hand side as you went in there, there was a single narrow counter for a post office which was run by an old lady, Mrs Harvey, and she had two daughters if I remember rightly and they ran the shop as a grocery shop. Of course stuff was delivered loose in those days, like biscuits came in tins and everything else was loose (not packaged like nowadays)."
"As I say, the shop was built out on the left-hand side as you look at it and on the right-hand side was a garden backed to the shop and the house. That was the first library, I remember it was in the front room of that house run by a Miss Osborne and it was three old pence a week to belong to the library. Miss Osborne was a nice lady."
"The Post Office was just a small cubbyhole in the shop, and the shop was back further from the road than it is today, because you had steps up and a big concrete forecourt, so the actual shop was way back, to what it is today. Behind the shop you had the store, and they had a kind of garage at the back where they kept everything. I'll always remember the housekeeper because if we had (which was very very rare in wartime) a case of oranges or anything like that come in, you had to take all the wrappers off the oranges, because that was tissue paper, and I mean that was unheard of in wartime. So one of the jobs you got if you were sat having a cup of coffee or whatever, was smoothing out all these orange wrappers. They were all kept, and they were put in the toilet. I mean, it was better than the Picture Post newspaper and you couldn't get toilet paper!"
"When sugar was weighed up, we had the little bags where you kind of turned them in, in an envelope, greaseproof paper which was all recycled, but it's not like the recycled today - it was horrible stuff, it really was."
"We used to cut the butter and pat it 'til we got the exact amount. You had 2 pats, they were like wooden bats really, and you patted it together. You cut it first, and you knew because you did it so often near enough how much to cut off, and then you just patted it with pats and made it tidy and wrapped it. Then you had a cheese wire to cut cheese. That was a long piece of wire, with 2 little wooden pieces to catch as hand-holders at the ends, and you pulled it through, which was quite a job because you had a huge cheese. I can't remember how many pounds there were in it and that all had to be cut up in different sizes. It had the skin on. It's not like it is today (all vacuum wrapped), and you had a board on the table, and you pulled the wire up over, and struggled to get it down through. You cut it in half first, and then you'd cut it in half again (there's a quarter); and then you'd cut it into the amounts that you required. Then you wrapped it and priced it, because we used to do little bits and wrap it all ready because people would come in for their cheese ration; and their bacon ration, and we had a bacon slicer. The bacon slicer, you put the side of bacon on and you had a blade, and you wound the handle and the blade used to slice through the bacon. You had to make sure the guard was on otherwise you would have had your fingers off. Tea used to come in quarter pounds, which you would separate if people only had to have 2 ounces. I can remember Horniman's Tea, and Brook Bond and Lyon's and it was mostly loose."
"On the crossroads stood a beer house in the last century. It was known as the Railway Tavern and it was said it lost its licence due to violent fights involving travellers. It then became the Coffee Tavern and later the Corner House, a typical village store selling everything and run for many years by a succession of families."
"I was born in the village, right in the middle of the village. It was called the Coffee Tavern at that time.
It was an old pub. Well that's where the surgery is now. My father, he lived there and he ran the place, and he had a couple of cows, couple of pigs, chicken and that. The Coffee Tavern had a bit of ground because we had animals. They say it was called The Railway but that was long before my time and before my father's time. Well my mother used to make tea there for the carters on the horse and waggons. She used to make tea there, and she used to make cakes and bread pudding - they always used to come and ask for a pen north of bread pudding. And my father - of course he had the cows and they used to sell milk at the door. People used to come there with their jugs and buy milk at the door."
"My aunt lived in a cottage at the crossroads (where Mrs Ede's was, the Corner House) her name was Best and lived there before Mrs Ede. My auntie used to serve coffee/tea and they had a room for the drivers and there was a little porch with spittoons, which they used in those days. She was there for some time."
"There was Mrs Ede's Corner House Shop which was quite a big building at Upton Crossroads, where the Health Centre is today. The shop had quite a big gravel area at the front and that's where the buses from Poole used to turn round outside the shop and park. I can remember the drivers and conductors, they had conductors then, used to go in to have a cup of tea while they waited to take the return journey back to Poole. On the side of Mrs Ede's Corner House, there was the library but eventually the floor fell through which brought that to an end."
"Then where Mrs Ede lived, the corner shop, we used to have a mobile fish and chip van and Mr Wilson used to have it and you know what kids are they used to call him greasy Wilson."
"Our weekly treat was a Fish & Chip van which used to park at the top of the lane where we collected our six pennyworth of chips!"
"Steven Rolls, that was the man who was on crutches with a withered leg, he had a little cobbler shop there. He didn't make ours because my father had a big piece of leather and did that all himself. The Cobblers was in Palmers Garage right in the corner at the front. 4s 6d for a pair of shoes. When you wanted shoes you would tell him what you wanted done and he'd be there with a mouthful of these threads and take them out of his mouth."
"There has always been a cobbler in Upton before my time, and this Mr Crook, he used to live in Toops Cottages. He was in the end one and he had a wooden shed on the end of the house where he used to do his cobbling. He used to do anything there - stitching and soles - everything he used to do.
At that time he was the only cobbler in the village."
"The Council built Moorland Way, they also built the shops there at Moorland Way. The Moorland Way people had quite a few shops because the first shop was a greengrocers and the shop next to that was a wine shop, next to that was a sweet shop and next to that Mr Humphries, who was on the Council, had a wool shop. Then there was Jon's hairdressers and around the corner was Forbuoys or whatever the name is. That was a little supermarket and then the first fish and chip shop."
"We had a good selection of shops, the Moorland Way shops were excellent. The only thing left there now of the original is the ironmongers and the chip shop but we had a very good grocers there, there was haberdashers. The greengrocers was where the Town Council offices are now."
"Shops in the Moorland Way Parade over the years have included a fishmonger, bicycle shop, haberdashery, mini-supermarket and an ironmongers. The Triangle Shops being a more recent addition have included newsagent card and gifts, baby shop, ironmongers, chemist, bank, food and now also an estate agents."
"People who delivered the food to Upton, there was Palmers who were the bakers, Keats the Bakers came towards the end, Dugdale from Wareham with meat in a high cart with 2 wheels. We used to go down to the farm to get our milk ourselves down at Pearce's. Mum used to cycle to Poole for groceries, nothing up here then, big baskets on her bike."
"There was no electricity or gas laid on and as it was in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, we had an oilman who delivered paraffin for the lamps and took the accumulators for the wireless to recharge them and bring them back the next week. We also had groceries delivered by the shop, which I think was where the present day Spar is situated at the crossroads. A baker delivered fresh bread from the Palmers bakery at Organford. There was a small village shop at the Limberlost Pine site, which kept a little of everything one might need."
"They used to deliver milk in big churns and measure it out with shiny measures, quarts, pints, gills, and these were measures of milk. You just took your jug to the door and they measured out the amount of milk you wanted. These churns were carried on a big bicycle with a big carrier front and back, which made the bike very heavy."
"The ice cream man - when the ice cream man came round, well that was summer then. It was Walls ice cream. We used to have a card with a 'w' on it. Jean and I used to find this card and stick it up in the window. Of course if he saw the 'W' in the window, he used to come in, you see, and then Mum would have to buy us an ice cream."
"Mother did a lot of shopping in Burdens of Poole. They used to come out with a little note book and take the orders and bring them out on a Thursday. Father used to ride to Poole on his bike on a Saturday because there were no fridges and he used to get the cheap meat and put it on the back of his bike and bring it home. Once he lost the dinner. When he got home it had fallen off the back of the bike. We had a baker called Lisbys, he used to deliver bread two or three times a week."
"At that time we all had coal fires and the Hooper Brothers were the coal merchants with their coal yard at Hamworthy station."
"Sally Heckford's had a little straw cottage. She had a tea shop, sweets 2oz a 1d, and she used to serve cups of tea and sell all sorts there. All the drivers of carts and waggons used to stop there as they reckoned it was the best tea in Dorset. That woman used to work hard because she had a well in the garden and used to have to draw all her water in buckets and make tea, quite a job."
"There was another caf� as well, that was Mrs Heckford's down on the corner of Sea View Road. She was a famous old lady, very small, and all the lorries used to pull up outside and she was known all over the country. I remember she used to keep her money in a little Oxo tin behind the counter and somebody stole it with the money in it. Some of the drivers rushed outside and caught the guy and gave him a beating and got the money back for her. She was helped by her daughter and later her grandson."
"On the corner of Blandford Road South and Poole Road was a big house which has gone now and next to that was a biggish house which was a transport caf�. There was a big pull in. It was the Mont Dore caf� and it had a big pull in for the big lorries to come in front but the lorries in those days weren't very big."
"Another old character was Mr Cramp who had the Mont Dore Caf�, which was a transport caf� between the St Dunstan's Church and the Gablehurst House and that again had a big gravel area where the lorries used to stop."
"One could not possibly dwell on the story of Upton without mentioning Jarvey Toop, a Steptoe-like character who ran a junk shop near the brickworks. There he kept all manner of household articles and it is said that many newly weds furnished their homes with the essentials from Jarvey's emporium."
"He did quite a trade, Jarvey. I married during the war in a Poole church, my wife was from Hamworthy. We didn't buy new, but we didn't go to Jarvey's. People used to give us this and that, and you just had to build up on what you had. So that was Jarvey Toop. But I'll always remember once I took a load of stuff up to a chap at Lymington (I was lorry driving), and I told him where I came from. He said to me "Do you know a man named Jarvey Toop living at Upton?". I said "Yes, I do", and he told me he'd bought a lot of stuff off Jarvey Toop and that's right up the other side of Lymington!"
"Mr Toop's yard was just the other side along the narrow lane, it was stacked high with second hand items and we would rummage through and he always seemed to stock something to suit everyone, buying new was never thought of then."
Home Produce - Houses had large gardens and many families also had an allotment in order to grow all their own vegetables. Poultry, pigs and other animals were kept to provide affordable eggs and meat. The huge wild rabbit population at that time also supplemented the diet, albeit illegally on occasions.
"In those times there wasn't a lot to eat, I can tell you, but we were all in the same boat, everybody was poor. If we found we were short we used to ask if could borrow a cup of tea or drop of milk or drop of sugar, we were all the same. That's how we lived and to me, it was better times even though harder, it was friendlier, you helped one another."
"We grew what we could. People don't realise that you didn't put in full potatoes in them times, you cut the tops off which is changed now. Times were hard, you couldn't afford like you do now and go and buy potatoes and put them in the ground."
"You could not afford to keep animals that didn't work but I got to tell you that when you went down what they call Ropers Lane, down the bottom there was two ponds, dogs pond and cats pond; one where they drowned the dogs and one where they drowned the cats."
"We had a couple of chickens and I remember my father once had a pig at one side and he decided to kill it so Mr Chappie came up from down the bottom. I was only about 9 or 10 years old, so they go on down the side and I was inquisitive and I went down with them. They took this pig out and loaded it on the bench and Mr Chapple cut his throat with a knife and the blood ran into the bucket and I cried, I screamed and ran away. They cut the pig up on the bench and they had hot water in a tub and they put the pig in, scraped it and took it inside and hung it up and somebody cut all the meat out. You couldn't keep meat in those days, there were no fridges or anything. So the pig owner had what they wanted for themselves and gave the rest away. They never paid no money because they never had no money, he had what he wanted and they had what they wanted and that's how we lived in those days."
"We used to kill our own pigs in those days. There was no waste to a pig, I mean I had 3 brothers and 3 sisters and mother and father and we used to have a 6 stone pig indoors every now and again and that used to last about a week and we had no fridge to keep it then, there was no waste. We kids used to have the trotters and the hocks for supper, the heads we used to boil up with 2 or 3 rabbits we used to catch on the farm and a couple of boiling fowls in the big boiler, boil it all up and make broth, lovely. Broth is a mixture of meat with rabbits, boilers and pigs all boiled up in the boiler together and you poured it out in a big bowl and used to set like jelly. We used to have some good food because we were lucky living on the farm, we used to have slices of bread and slices of brawn, thicker than the bread, between 2 slices of bread well that was a meal on its own. We had chittlings, they were pigs stomach, we used to get dairyman, he had 2 or 3 children so he was always glad of chittlings and father used to let him have some for his kids and he used to get what we call a spar and used to run the pigs innards, what we called the runners, turn them inside like, wash the outside first, then run them down through the spar which was a straight stick thing whilst all the muck washed under the taps and clean them all out and fry them up in the frying pan and they were beautiful. So there was no waste at all to the pig. The spar was a stick we used for thatching of the rooves."
"We had chickens and pigs, and 2 or 3 cows, he had. As a matter of fact, he rented this field where I live now, here, for the cows to run on, you know. My father used to have a churn where he used to make butter, I don't know whether he was supposed to do it or sell it, you know, I can't remember. They had the churn indoors and made the butter."
"I used to go rabbiting up in the commons here. Oh we always had a rabbit because I knew where they were. I used to go on my own sometimes and I sometimes had a friend there, you know. I'll always remember one time, we were right up in Beacon Hill there, the ferrets and the nets were down, and we got caught. So we had to leave the ferret down there in the hole and all the nets there. So I went on home, and (I was living at Hamworthy at that time) it was just after I got married, you see. I had a boy about 5 years old, I suppose. I brought him up with me - I got the ferret out, put the nets in a bag and put the ferret in my jacket pocket. Gets on the bus to go home, the conductor come for the money, and my boy looked up and said to the conductor "Our dad's got a ferret in 'is pocket". He didn't say nothing. Most people then kept ferrets, you see, and of course I must say a rabbit was a meal."
"My father also enjoyed shooting when he could get the time, he kept ferrets and a dog so he could go rabbiting for the family and a few others. He was a crack shot and he was pretty good with a catapult, he carried one right up to when he died. He also kept pigs and fowl so you can see quite a full life, we had a huge garden with an orchard so plenty of digging and fruit picking, jam making and chutney making."
"We used to call it the Wareham Road in those days, and the other side of us was the Blandford Road and we had the field at the back and we used to garden, put strawberries in and had about 400 chickens."
"Many of our happiest days were spent in our
garden, my parents grew enough produce to last the family throughout the winter, hundredweights (cwts) of potatoes were dried in the sunshine and then bagged up into hessian sacks and stored, the tiny ones were kept and cooked for the poultry that we kept."
"Mother, helped by us, would make pounds of jam or jelly from the fruit in lour garden, raspberry, gooseberry, loganberries and plums, the shelves of our larder were full."
"We would collect the many plate sized mushrooms that grew in the fields nearby."
"We used to go down to get the sprats off Poole Quay. When the horses and waggons went through Hamworthy, the housewives would come out with their basins and pull the sprats off. By the time we got back, half was gone."
"Look at the times we went down the allotments for father. The allotments were opposite the British Legion, along the Dorchester Road, there is a great big Oak tree that takes you onto a roadway for the Beacon Park estate. Come Bank Holidays we had to go there - help put the spuds in, help get them out. We had to have permission before we could do any gardening, we could only pull up the weeds and cut the grass. We couldn't do the gardening because we couldn't do it right. Father would say you're not digging level - he was a professional gardener, a proper gardener. We could never do it right for him."
"Mother bought day old chicks from Hollands and reared them in our bath tub with a towel and hot water bottle as she had done during the War."
Illness - Doctors and Home Nursing Before the National Health Service in 1948 brought free medical care for all, doctors had to be paid by the patient and doctors' bills were a worry to any family. Unless the illness was really serious, you healed yourself with home remedies and nursing.
"There was no first aid, we got ourselves better then, we had a doctor but you had to pay. I remember when I came out of the Army I had to pay because my wife hadn't paid a bill for �4.10 shillings for the doctor, which was a lot of money in those days."
"Father, he could do the milking and he could cut the hay but because he had had an accident when he was a boy, in later life he got crippling pain. They would have to lift him off the hayrick and carry him home on a door. Mother would put him on the settee and put the iron on the range and get it hot and iron him on a blanket, to bring the leg back to life you see."
"There was a Post Office in those days. Mrs Harvey used to keep that and she knew everybody. And I'll always remember my father, he suffered with gout or something, but his legs used to swell up and he had a job to walk (that was when he was getting very old). She used to make up some medicine.
Mrs Harvey mixed up some medicine for my father - it was all done with herbs and it was a very brown liquid when my father took it. After 2 or 3 bottles he started to get better, and in the end it did cure his legs, so she must've done some good. She must've had some knowledge of these herbs, you know."
"Well, Mrs Samways lived in Framptons Terrace and she was the village midwife. She brought me into the world, and all my brothers and my sisters, I've got 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Now, if you wanted a tooth pulled out you went to Mrs Samways, and she'd pull a tooth out for you (because you wouldn't let your mother do it - Mrs Samways had to do it!). She used fir cones for her copper so if you wanted to earn a penny, you'd get a bag of fir cones and she'd give you a penny and a piece of bread and jam. She was a nice old lady, she was."
"We used to have to take people to the doctor or depend on each other. We used to go to Poole or depended on neighbours, our mother was always going in next door each time she had a baby. They would come and ask her to come quick and she would go round."
"Dr Matthew was a private man, he didn't come out delivering. When Ken tripped over a stone or something halfway in Sandy Lane, our Dad had to carry him to the doctor the other side of Carters Avenue to get his lip stitched up."
"The doctor used to come once a week to the village as we did not have a doctor then, he came from Hamworthy, Broadstone or Poole. Dr Norman from Broadstone, Dr Baron for us, Dr Ollerby from Hamworthy near the church and I believe he came out in a little pony and trap before he had a motor car."
"There was a doctor who lived at Hamworthy by the church there, Dr Beadles; there was Ollerby, Robinson Smith (up where Currys was back along). The doctors were not in Upton. If you wanted a doctor you had to get on your bike and ride down to Poole and get him out, then you got a lot of grumbling. The hospital then was called the Cornelia, a small place, Lady Wimborne presented it to Poole, that was the only place you could get any medicine."
"The District Nurse lived at Lytchett Minster opposite the Parish Hall, she was called Nurse Howie.
She did have a car but do not know how she got here before then, must have cycled, she was around for years. She moved into a Council bungalow opposite Marsh Lane later on."
"Originally we didn't have a doctor - we used to have to go to Poole. Dr Ollerby, he saved my sight. I was out one bonfire night and some silly fool threw a firework in amongst the crowd, it went off and blinded me. I was blind for nine months and Dr Ollerby came out in an old Standard motor car with no sides on it only a canvas roof - he came out and tended me. I couldn't see anything - my face was black with gunpowder spots and he wiped it all out with a white cloth and he saved my sight."
"In a house at the crossroads, Gablehurst, Doctor Chown, Upton's first doctor, had his surgery, and through the happy memories of his now elderly patients one gets an impression of the tightly knit community which existed in those days. As one of them said "Everybody knew everybody else and we got on well together."
"There was a big house which was called The Gables, and in the early Fifties Dr Chown was our first village doctor. I used to be with a Dr Luke in Poole, but when I was expecting my first child, I changed to Upton and became an early member of the Upton clinic."
"Quite a long time afterwards, we had our own GP. He came to Upton and I was third on his list and Charlie, my husband, was the fourth one on his list, and very glad we were to have him, he was an extremely good doctor. He became very well known and the whole village came to him, and as the village grew it got more and more people, he had to take on helpers and it got too much for him and finally he moved to Wales."
"Another very important man was Dr Chown, the first doctor in the village and he lived at "Gablehurst" which was his house on the corner of the Upton crossroads, which is where the new Gablehurst flats are now. He was such a wonderful doctor, he really was fantastic and he brought new partners into the business but everybody still wanted Dr Chown and he became so busy that he just couldn't stand the pace with so many people wanting his services and he actually moved to Wales and started a small practise there. He said there was a limited number of people there and that suited him fine."
"In the early days we had a doctor who came to live in the Village, Dr Chown, a very tall man. He lived in a house on the corner of Upton Cross called Gablehurst, where he had a surgery. This of course was wonderful because he was such a caring man, one could pop in and get advice regarding your family and go to his little surgery and this saved having to go all the way into Poole. Eventually, of course, the new Health Centre was built near Upton Cross on the other side of the road to where Dr Chown lived."
"Then in 1955 the old house was turned into a clinic and doctors surgery and Dr. Chown moved across from Gablehurst where he had run his practise since 1950."
"Then of course Dr Adams took over the practise and he was very keen on boats. I can remember my father built an aluminium boat for him. We often had Or Adams in our works making all sorts of things. I know he is still making things today, he was telling me only a few weeks ago that he had built a special lift to get him up into his boat because its quite high and he is getting on now and he doesn't climb up into the boat very easily so he made this special lift. I remember my daughter some years later when she had to go for a medical examination with Or Adams but he spent half an hour " talking about my father and left her standing in the nude."
"The Corner House surgery, which actually had been a caf�, was very small:
2 surgeries - for Dr Johnson and Dr Gibson (one of which had actually been an old stable), there was a secretary's room upstairs, small reception and a waiting room which had a communicating door to the library. It was of course kept locked possibly so patients did not wander through to change their books whilst waiting for their name to be called. Eventually the library was moved into a caravan situated at the rear of the building."
"As the population grew, both in Upton and Lytchett Matravers, Or Adam and Partners decided to run a minibus for the Lytchett patients; this free service was provided for a number of years until a surgery was opened there. Two members of staff drove to the five pick-up points, patients were then seen by the doctors, their prescriptions dispensed and driven back to Lytchett Matravers. In due course, plans went ahead for a new health Centre and Library to be built on the same site.
By then Or S Williamson had joined the practise and he had to wait for one doctor to finish his surgery in order to start his - not an ideal situation."
"On the 13th December 1978, the Health Centre opened with so many facilities - 4 surgeries, large treatment room for the practise nurses, accommodation for district nurses, area health staff, health visitors, etc. A far cry from the Corner House Surgery and yet when it was being demolished, a feeling of nostalgia was felt. A picture of the Corner House is now in the Health Centre and was presented on behalf of the Women's Institute by Mrs Charlotte Lockyer."
Churches - For centuries, of course, the Church was a centre of village life. As one contributor said "It was always church on Sundays and, after lunch, a family walk. Perhaps it was through the lanes and along the stream over the stiles that gave entrance to the cornfield scattered with poppies, it ended at St Peter's Finger public house in the village of Lytchett Minster, where we enjoyed our lemonades."
Lytchett Minster Church
St Dunstan's Church of Upton was even more of a centre than most village churches as it also served as an Infants' School during the week.
"At Upton Church, when mother was caretaking, we would on a Friday pack up all the desks used for the two school classes in the Church. We would have to walk them out to a shed that was over at the side by the wall. We used to carry all those out and put them in the shed and then we would lock that up. Then we would go up to the alter and pull back some heavy curtains and take out all the chairs and desks and the front bits for holding the books.
The organ was in the corner, and we would bring all that out and put it ready for Sunday on a Friday afternoon. On a Sunday mother would never lift a chair, we had to go up there early in the morning on Monday and do all that in reverse, I had to when it was my turn. Each child of the family had to help mother before they went off to school and once they went out to work then the next one came up. When it became my turn, with my brother being 7 years older than me it meant that I was eligible quite quickly,
I had to help put all that straight and then I used to run to Lytchett School and just make it on time."
"Miss Ballam used to run the Wesleyan Chapel, down on top of Seaview Road and it's a lot different there now. She used to run that as a Sunday School for us children, well she was about the only person in Upton that I knew had a car in those days and sometimes she used to give us a lift in the car, it was great. We used to go on an outing once a year to places like Weymouth or Swanage on the coach.
We used to have a sort of Sports Day which they held in a field opposite Moorland Way, there was a big field there and we used to have our Sports Day in there with all the village and all the kids from the Sunday School. Kids would not believe it nowadays but one of the helpers would have a big tin of toffees or sweets and they would throw them all out on the field and you had to go out and find them. Everybody was poor in those days, that was a big thing."
"We used to get the one family on one side and their neighbours on the other. They used to quarrel all the week and then go to Church on Sundays. What amazed me was I could see the animosity between these different people and they used to sit in Church alongside one another and all the week they were rowing and doing anything they could to upset the other person."
In order to build the Church and Community Centre, which replaced the old Church, various money raising projects were undertaken.
"When they decided to build a new Church in place of the old St Dunstan's Church and School, I was asked at the time by Charles Hancox if I would do something in the way of helping them raise some money. So I put on a Country Fayre with the aid of Bob Arnold from Little Manor Farm. We had bouncy castles and ice-creams, a garden stall, we had a tombola, we had bowling for the pig, we had teas, and a car boot sale. Some boys from Bournemouth very kindly came out and supplied us with live music and we had a slide for the children so they sat on like a little truck with wheels and they sped down this slide. Bob Arnold also put his collection of miniature horse carriages on view. The Vicar came up and said "oh my goodness it's very successful, how much do you hope to make?" and I said "well if I make �2000 I shall be satisfied but anything over that will be a bonus".. In fact we made �2500 in one day. But the work that had to go in before was enormous, making posters and getting people to sponsor us for prizes and various other things and people were really generous, not only with giving money but also giving me time and help."
Upton was a real community where people made their own entertainment. There were three main halls used for everything from Brownies to dances and wedding receptions.
These were the Women's Institute hut on the corner of Roper's Lane, the Liberal Hall on Poole Road and the Corner House.
"We had the WI hut, it was at the end of Ropers Lane and Mr Bill Llewellin allowed them to rent on a peppercorn rent the WI hut. The WI hut they got from the army at Salisbury. It was a throw out from the First World War, a sort of convalescent home. They used to have dances in it and concerts, it was the community centre and people had their wedding receptions. Mrs Mitchelllived next door, when her son got too old to go to the party she used to take me because they were allowed to take someone else's child if you didn't have children. I used to go to the parties and we had dances then."
"On the corner of Ropers Lane, opposite Pony Drive there's a bungalow on the left as you go down Ropers Lane. That used to be where the Women's Institute hut was which was used as a Women's Institute hut, the village hall for dances and whist drives and beetle drives, and things like that. The Brownies used to use it, the Guides, the Scouts, the Cubs, everybody used to use it because that was the only hall they had. They used to have wedding receptions there and everything, and it was a very jovial place."
"My mother was a member of the Women's Institute, their hut was just up the road where you go to Ropers Lane. On the left hand side there was a wooden hut there and whether it belong to the WI or not I don't know but they used it, Girl Guides and we used to do dances in there, whist drives."
"Well there was a big wooden hall called the WI Hut, that was the Women's Institute, and that was used for dances, in fact that was where I met my wife there at a dance there."
"There was always great excitement when a poster was put up announcing a Social and Dance to be held in either the WI hut or The Liberal Hall. Adults and children went. Mr Wallshawfrom Lytchett Minster Post Office always provided the gramophone music.
The dances and games alternated. There were old time dances like the Veleta, the Barn dance and the Square tango as well as modern quicksteps and waltzes. The dancing was alternated with games like musical chairs and pass the orange. Young and old joined in the games and the dancing. Practically everyone could dance then and the older people taught the younger ones. Some of the old time dances were quite difficult and very energetic. The WI hut was built of wood with a wooden floor and when the socials were in full swing the whole building shook. Once during a particularly lively dance the floor gave way under one couple. The hole was covered over and the fun continued. I don't think safety regulations were quite what they are today!"
The Hall next to the Corner House at Upton Crossroads was popular for wedding receptions.
Some memories together with a few of the difficulties of post War (WW2) marriages are recalled here. One lady said she paid 35 shillings (about �1.75) for a nice pair of stockings for her Big Day; that was a lot of money in 1949. She also recalled that everyone in the village would turn out to see a wedding because of course everyone knew the bride and probably the groom as well.
"The Corner House (Mrs Ede's shop) and the library was where we had our wedding reception. It cost me �18 10s."
"The Corner House had a caf� at the side, sometimes it was used as a caf�, and then it became a library, and that's where I had my wedding reception in there in 1954. I was married at the chapel down at the corner of Sea View Road."
"It's not like nowadays, our wedding, I saved up about �1 00 for our wedding and we had a hall and as my wife came from Hamworthy, we were married in the old church at Hamworthy. The Reception cost about �100 because my wife's family did it themselves. In those days they made sandwiches, cakes and catered for themselves."
"We were married in 1949. I borrowed my future sister-in-Iaw's wedding dress, I bought a new veil and coronet, bought new shoes, I had a garter, and of course you had to have coupons to get all of this. My cousin, who had been married the year before, lent us her bridesmaids' dresses for his sister and my best friend and I made the little one's dress from scratch. Everybody chipped in and his cousin made the wedding cake - it wasn't a big tiered cake - it was beautiful- and we had our wedding reception at Hamworthy, St Michael's Hall. It is still there now. The Ship Caf� did our catering and the whole wedding reception cost �12 and 18 shillings. I've still got the receipt."
"The only luxury .we had when we got married was two tins of peaches and I sent them home from the Middle East by a plane which was returning to England. One of the bombers was coming back to England and we used to go to the American camp and scrounge all the food because they had everything. They had ice cream - everything. I got these tins - four there were - put them together wrapped them up and put them on the plane and the ground crew on board posted them when then got over here and the wife kept them or her mother did until we came home in 1946."
There are one or two memories of clubs in Upton:
"There was a Mission Hall at Lytchett Minster, opposite the Parish Hall, which is now the forge works near the Button Shop. The British Legion used to meet there from 1921 until the 1950's, they became the Upton Lytchett Branch and were formed of ex regimental associations. They were given the Royal prefix on the 50th anniversary of the British Legion in 1971. The present Club Hall in Upton was not built until 1947 or 1948 and was done with the help of donations from the local gentry and ex service members."
"The British Legion Hall was built by Wyatts in 1949 on land donated by Sir John Lees, who became Branch President and used to chair the Committee Meetings. I joined and soon became the youngest Committee Member, others were Tom Lees, Mr Burton the headmaster, Jarvey Toop, Mr Green, Mr Johnson, Horace Crowfoot, Bob Wyatt. When Sir John died in 1955, he was replaced as President by General Curtis of Trokes Coppice near Randalls Farm. We organised fetes on the Rec behind Wyatts and judged competitions."
"Mrs Edna Limb was very supportive of the Upton British Legion by helping to raise funds to keep it going. Eventually she became a founder member of the Women's Section. She was also Deputy Standard Bearer with Pat Treviss and S Beavers. She joined in 1946. Before the Women's Section met in the present club premises, they met in the Methodist Chapel previously called the Wesleyan Chapel. They kept things going between the 2 Wars."
"My father was one of the founder members of the British Legion in Lytchett and I don't know what year the women joined, but the men were very much opposed to the ladies joining at first. They kept them out for years, they voted to keep them out and then eventually the ladies were allowed to come in. My mother was one, with Mrs Willett and Mrs Green who lived at Colley Hill, and they were the founder members of it and they kept that going for some years. Miss Treviss, she was very much in it. The men used to meet in the Parish Hall in the beginning and then Sir John gave them the piece of land to build the proper Legion house."
"There wasn't a Public House in Upton until the Upton Hotel was built. Before the Working Men's Club house was built, we had a shed off Mr Courtney. He used to run the Blacksmiths shop and he gave it to the working men of Upton. They had an old tin shed. Then they built Upton Working Men's Club. After the war it started. We used to have Joe Curtis who used to come in with his band. We had one of these fires in the middle, a Tortoise stove. A bar was up at the end. We played darts and chatted and had a drink. Our garden at Toops Cottages used to come right down to the club. It was rebuilt about 4 years after the war."
"We were at that time trying to find a site for the Community Centre to be built on and it was soul destroying because we had many set backs. There were 4 main sites that we considered, one after the other. The first one was Miss Child's, which was a large house next to Wyatts on the Dorchester Road. That was sold for �21,000, which was extremely cheap and at that time the Turbary Trust was just getting their money and they couldn't buy it because they had not received their money. The man who bought it was offered double the money but he would not sell it and eventually they built 6 bungalows on the site. Then we thought we ought to be able to build in St Dunstan's where of course eventually the Community Centre was built but at that time the church did not want to get involved 'with the community. Then we thought the allotments would have been a good site because they backed onto the recreation ground, next to the British Legion. Unfortunately the allotment holders were very opposed to the idea although there was an alternate allotment site on offer. Then we tried to get the pavilion at the recreation ground. A Parish Meeting was called by the Parish Council in the Junior School. The School Hall was full for the meeting and the public decided by a big majority that the Community Centre should be in the pavilion. However the scheme did not go ahead. So that was another setback. It was Sir Tom Lees who suggested we ought to try again to have the Community Centre at St Dunstan's."
They had a library down in the Mission Room, at Lytchett, opposite the Parish Hall, it's gone now. In mother's day they used to have a soup kitchen in there in the winter time but I only remember it as a library. Miss Slough used to be in charge of it and she had quite a good selection of books but of course there was no heat in the place and they got awfully musty. You had to put them out in the air or in front of the fire to get the musty smell out of them. Didn't used to have a library, it was quite an event to have one in the village really."
Then there were Sports and Funfairs, F�tes and other amusements:
"The football team was called Lytchett and Upton. We used to play on the football field behind Wyatts Yard, which is now Beacon Park. In the time that I played, we played in the league, we played in quite a high position in the Dorset league and we used to play teams from Bovington, and Blandford Camp. We used to lay all the service teams, people from Marine camp, we used to have a wonderful team. We went by bicycle if it was a fairly local match or else some people had cars and we used to sort of double up or treble up, or whatever. You got there the best way you could. Towards the end, probably about 1958/60 which was when I last played, there was the odd coach about then that we used to hire or there was enough cars to double up and take people there. There is a football team still going but it is called Lytchett and Upton Royal British Legion Club now, it is not Lytchett and Upton solely, it is sponsored and based at the Royal British Legion Club and they play on the recreation ground now."
1981 Carnival Float
"In the 1950's the Upton Football Team, called Lytchett and Upton, formed the Lytchett United British Legion Club made mostly of ex servicemen."
"They had quite a good funfair every year in Hibbs Field, you know. It would be right opposite Moorland Way. It was always summertime when they came because we used to go in the light evenings. They stayed probably a weekend or so, that would've been long enough for them because obviously the people did not have the money to spend. Although it was only a few coppers to go on these amusements and that, people never had the money to spend, you see."
"Beacon Park estate is built on the previous allotments and recreation ground. F�tes were held on the recreation ground each year with Fancy Dress Parades, donkey or pony rides and many side shows and stalls."
"Another thing I remember in Upton is the British Legion f�te. That was a great event behind the field where Beacon Park is now, at the back of Wyatts Yard. Sometimes they would have it up the other end in Saxby's field, we used to call it, behind Mrs Cooper's. I used to go with my mother and Auntie Nora and spend the whole of a Saturday morning buttering bread. They would get big galvanised baths with lovely white cloths on and do piles of sandwiches in one and piles of brown and piles of white bread and butter in the other. That's where I learnt to butter bread properly because I was told "Don't bother about the middle, you must do the edges" and she'd make me do all the edges. Then we used to do that and then in the afternoon we used to go to the f�te and of course the men with their tug 0' war and all that sort of thing, fancy dress and I dressed my children up when they were old enough and we had great times then."
"One Elm was a Greyhound Race Track."
"We also had dog racing in Upton, held in the triangle shaped field near to the lodge half way to Lytchett. What laughs we had, spectators could view for free from over the top of the low hedges so very few paid an entrance fee and naturally this only lasted a short time."
"Another piece of history is the Lytchett Minster and Upton Cricket Club, the cricket pitch was opposite Laundry Cottage behind 2 thatched cottages which have long gone. We used to have a lovely time, my wife used to come as the scorer and we used to go out to other villages in Dorset to play and we had cream teas afterwards, it was a lovely way of life. We had a very big steel roller to roll the cricket pitch, it was about 6 feet wide and a very heavy thing. We could not get anybody to roll the pitch so I used to tie the roller on the back of the car and drive up and down the pitch to roll it. The vicar and Dr Chown used to play."
"I did speak I think about the Lytchett Players, our first effort was the Country Girl and then we did one every year with many local people from Upton and Lytchett taking part."
"People did keep their boats on the shore and just hid them in the fuzz-bushes and nobody ever took them. You could leave things there. We used to spend many happy hours just picnicking on the shore and going out in the boat and doing a bit of fishing."
"Sandy Lane used to be lovely for kids down there, our children used to go off in the morning down to the shore and come back with flatties and eels that they caught with a bent nail and a piece of string. We used to give the eels to a lady across the road for her cats and they would have the flatties themselves. "
"I had a flat bottomed boat, fishing boat and used to go out in the bay and catch fish, more crabs than fish, when you get into Slough there is Beach Road and I could keep my boat there. Mr Todds who lived up the top kept his boat there as well and that was the most accessible place because I could walk down there but the other places you had to go across the fields. I expect you can still catch the same fish now."
"We didn't have television at that time. in fact our family and my wife's family were some of the first people in Upton to have the television and we watched the Coronation on it. My wife's family had Miss Llewellin from Upton House come to watch the Coronation at their house, which was quite something to think that the Llewellins did not have a television at that time."
"When Lady Lees made her film "Voice in the Wilderness" we were all involved in it and asked to go and be extras in the film. It was very funny really because she used to come to my house and Mrs Skinner next door on a Sunday morning and she'd say "Come along, come along, we're filming this afternoon" and just like disciples following Jesus, we would put down everything, our pots and pans, and off we went. We dressed all up in tablecloths, sometimes we went to the Manor, down in the lower kitchens of the Manor, where she had all the stuff, makeup and the costumes. Then she did scenes on the steps of the Manor, which is now the school, crowd scenes, and we used to have things like tablecloths on our heads to make us look like Eastern women. I remember we used to take our children and one day my son, Michael, sat on a dustbin for about 4 hours because he was a street urchin and he had to sit there whilst they kept filming him. He didn't like it very much because it was smelly. We did that and sometimes we would all go up to the Blue Pool up at Beacon Hill and do the scene of John the Baptist and the baptism scenes and she used to cover us with all sorts of brown makeup. We enjoyed it although it was full of mosquitoes and everything. It would be somewhere about say the early 1950s, I can't remember that but it was a great experience. Dr Chown was Jesus, Mr Groves was a Simian, but we all loved it, it was so strange, very boring because you had to wait around a lot but to us it was something different and it was very interesting. We never minded, as I say we just went and did it. Thoroughly enjoyed it. There was great excitement when it was shown.
We did have a proper film director, she had one or two experienced film actors in it who took the main parts but we did all the crowd scenes. One lady's son, who is now what 40 something, he was the baby in it. It was quite fun and I remember also when Lady Lees had her school there and we used to go up there and she used to do plays, she worked hard for the village really. She used to do all sorts of plays and things and encourage people to get together."
It was evident from the contributors' memories that there were a wide variety of events and activities in the past, many of which continue to the present day.
Let us hope that the community spirit of today, which has grown out of the small village neighbourliness of the past, will continue to expand and thrive in the new Millennium.