Back to Sunnyside

Posted on 6th July 2018 by Ruiha Smalley

Now to get back to our life in ‘Sunny-Side’.  We were very lucky because we could get all our veg and fruit from the farm, also quite a lot of fruit from the farm, also quite a lot of log wood, we also had a pig club, everyone would take turns in cleaning and feeding it.  Mr Lawrence would buy it and keep it in the yard on the farm then when it was big enough they would take it to be killed and prepared by the butcher in Gravesend.  They would then draw numbers from a hat and whichever number you received you would get that joint.   The liver we would share, some people did not want the ‘chitlings’ (as we called them we loved it.

We didn’t ever eat pork if the month had a letter ‘R’ in it. (I never did find out why.)

At Christmas Mr Lawrence would give each worker a large hundred weight sack of potatoes, a box of Cox eating apples, a box of Bramley cooking apples, a big bag of oranges and one week’s wages in a brown envelope.  Also two bright shiny halfcrowns in a little brown envelope for each child.  It was so thrilling, we used to go into Mr Lawrence’s house to receive all this.  He was very kind I would have liked to give him a hug.  There was no other farmer who was so good.

When we had used all the potatoes we would give Erns mother the sacks, she used to make rag rugs with them, she was very good at it, they would look very pretty when she finished them, but how she could lift them to shake them I never knew, they were as heavy as lead.   Once thing was they would never wear out, she would cut up all sorts of things for them, even old coats.  She was a lovely old dear, always put ‘Libbys milk in her tea (that is evaporated milk).  She also knitted the most gorgeous socks for men, they were so soft.   When Ern had a hole in his she would unpick them and re-foot them as good as new. She used to remind me of a ‘Mammy’, her name was Suzannah (most unusual), her sister was Floss who was marred to Theobald (he used to play the violin).  They were a devoted couple, Ern and I used to visit them. They had three children, Mary, John and Alan. I still keep in touch with the children.  Ern’s mother’s name was Earl, very unusual to hear that isn’t it.  The children live in Halling near Cuxton.

I forgot this bit:  When Mrs Bicker made a cup of tea she always put loose tea leaves in the strainer, poured hot water over it into the cup, she never ever used a teapot.  You didn’t have tea bags in those days.

I loved the ‘Lodge’ where they lived, it had been thatched years before and the porch was made from the boughs of trees.  [I must take you down one day, perhaps you could take a camera then we could take the boys up the park to show you where I used to live. Also when the hall is opened to the public we will go down there, you would love it.]

Cobham Park Lodge Gate

Lodge Gate today

Another baby

When Jen was two we thought we were ready for another baby (a boy), after a while I was pregnant or rather ‘with child’, again Mum came to the rescue, said I could go to her for the birth.  Lena had moved into Mrs Knight’s house (she had moved to Lawrence Drive) which by the way was named after Mr Lawrence the farmer.  So Lena said she would look after Jen for me while I had my baby.  I was still working on the farm we were picking apples one lovely sunny day. Jen was talking! and playing with the rest of the children, when all of a sudden someone said to me ‘Jenny has eaten some black berries from under a tree’.  When I looked they were deadly nightshade (very poisonous) so I took her up to Mr Lawrence’s house, he had a friend with him who took me to Gravesend hospital.   They pumped her tummy out, quite a few came out, enough to make her very very ill they told me.  She was soon her old self.  Mind you I was very scared, I was about three months pregnant so I was a bit worried about the baby.  Then Jenny had a bad cough, the doctor said to keep her in the one temperature in one room so Ern brought our bed downstairs in the sitting room.  We kept a small fire going all night with a few logs.  Well I must tell you this, in the middle of the night I had an awful nightmare, I felt I was awake and looked in the bottom of our bed and my sister Ivy was lying there dead. When I looked around there were little angels flying all around the room.  When I woke I was really upset, I felt something had happened to my baby.

I think it was the fire flickering and I must have been half awake, so I suppose that would account for the angels.   Then I kept saying to Ern ‘I cannot feel any movement’  I kept moving about to wake this baby up.  I think it was being so worried about Jen that caused it.  Anyway all was well.  Then I was at my mum’s one day and Jen was running and fell over and knocked a tooth out.  Never a dull moment.

When at last it was time for my new baby ‘boy’ Lena and Len came round for tea and I started to get pains, so after their tea they took Jen home and Ern and I walked across the church fields up to Mum’s.  I had to keep stopping while the pains went away.  When we arrived at Mum’s my brother Fred was there with his family, it was Whit Monday.   Anyway they soon went home, so I prepared for the big event.  Everyone said the second one is a lot easier, so I felt confident.  Mum and I got the bed all ready but the kettle on to boil on the old Kitchener, a big draw sheet on the bed, a piece of old blanket to wrap the baby in when ‘he’ arrived.  Then came the big wait.  Mum said to keep walking about as long as you can, it will make the birth easier.

Well at three o’clock in the morning I am still walking about, apart from killing back pains, nothing! Mum kept saying he won’t come until you get a show of some sort. Ern said he would go and get the nurse, so we agreed.  He was gone for ages. When at last he came back, he had cycled all the way up to Laughing Waters Nissan huts to find the nurse, she was attending another birth so could not come. Mum said not to worry she knew what to do.  All at once I was on the bed everything was happening, Robert was born so quickly my poor mum was really crying, I said ‘mum what is it, a boy or a girl’, she said ‘it’s got so many bits hanging I’m not sure’. When we really looked at him he was a boy but he had extra little fingers on both hands.

At last the nurse came, she said the doctor would have to come in because I was so torn and needed stitches. So Dr Kagan came in the next day and put stitches and took my sons little fingers off.  I said to Mum isn’t he like Jen, my Mum said no he was very different.   When Jen came into see me and the new baby brother, she said ‘not very handsome is he’ mind you he was very red, even the doctor called him a little red lobster.   I thought he was just everything I ever wanted.  Mind you Jen was such a good girl, she never wanted to come along to see me or worry Mum.  She really loved being with with Unc, she went everywhere with him.  He was so proud of her she was always holding his hand. It was a nice feeling knowing she was being well looked after. We were so happy. I would just lay there thanking God for being so kind and giving me everything anyone could want.  I wanted this to last for ever. My son was nine pounds.

We stayed with Mum for two weeks, it was lovely. Then came the time after being ‘churched’ to go home to ’Sunny-Side’, it was a nice sunny day so we proudly walked home with our little family. Ern said ‘I will get the copper alight ready for you to have a nice bath’ I sure needed one. The nurse used to put this huge bedpan under one’s bottom and pour a large jug of Dettol water through your legs, mind you even that made you feel a bit fresher.

Anyway Ern had been down home in the morning to light the fire and get the room warm.   We only ever had heat in the kitchen.  Ern said he reckoned the water was hot enough now, I got Jen ready I thought I would pop her in first then get in after.  My house wasn’t anywhere near so comfy as my Mum’s.  I was already missing her.  Just as I got Jenny ready the darling little baby started to cry.  Ern had put an old rubber pipe in the copper which was in the kitchen to reach the bath he had made a small hole in the door to put the pipe through. Well when he opened the door the pipe had come out of the bath and all the boiling water was on the floor.  It was too hot to even mop up, the baby was still crying, Jenny was whinging she was getting cold. ‘Well’ Ern was saying ‘ I didn’t think it would come out of the bath’.  I just broke down in tears, I wanted my Mum, I thought I will never be able to cope with all these things.  I did find it very hard at first, it seemed never ending.

Hop picking

I didn’t take my new baby on the farm to work, I was feeding him myself so it was a bit awkward. So I went ‘hopping’ we would walk up to the village as soon as it was daylight. Ern would push the pram with Jenny and Robert in. I would push Ern’s bike for him to come home on. In those days you had to be on the hop fields very early, there were quite a few do’s and don’t’s. At dinner time a man would call out ‘pull no more bines’ so one would make sure you had plenty hidden in the bin so you could pick a few more after time. Then he would tell everyone when to start again.

Hop pickers (KAS ref HPM04)

We had a short break in the morning and again in the afternoon.  We would have what they called faggots, they were bundles of twigs to light a fire.  A big tank on wheels full of water to fill the billy can for tea. We just put leaves in the can and a tin of condensed milk to spoon into our mugs of tea.  Most of the mugs were enamel, so they didn’t break.   Everyone had bread and cheese, might have been one or two onions if there was an allotment close by.  The stain from the hops would make the bread all green and very bitter tasting, but we all loved it.  The tea would taste of wood smoke but we didn’t have time to moan about it.  In the morning it would be very foggy and everywhere was wet and cold.  In the afternoon when the sun came out it would be so hot it nearly baked everyone sitting on the bin.

When it was time to walk back home, I would go into my mum’s house to clean my hands with a paraffin rag to take the hop stain off, then dash back home to cook dinner for us in the evening. We always had potatoes with our main meal and not much else, perhaps a rasher of bacon and some cabbage, followed by apple and custard. Ern did love his puddings. Then it would be one mad rush to bath the nippers and get them to bed. I had about twelve pounds at the end of it all. You only got paid at the end.

Back to the farm

After that year I went back to the farm, mind you the women were very good to me.  There was a lot of work in the barn so if I had to work outside they would let me leave my baby in the pram with them. Mr Burns was the foreman and he very often gave me work in the barn, packing fruit.  We were very happy working  for Mr Lawrence.  Ern used to take his mouth organ and when everyone was settled up in the trees picking cherries, he would play us all a tune we would all join in singing even old Mr Burns used to smile which was very rare. Everyone was so happy we all got on so well. There were about twenty of us.  We used to have a break at ten o’clock then twelve to one dinner and finish most times about four.  You had to finish your box of fruit. It was nice being able to work with Ern.  We never came home without something, either pieces of wood for ‘mornings wood’ or logs for the fire, fruit or veg of some sort, it helped out such a lot.  We used to get corn for our six chickens.  My children loved to run up when the chickens were telling us they had laid an egg, they would cup it in their little hands all warm and brown.  I often wondered how many they dropped.  Sometimes the chickens would eat them so we would fill up a shell with mustard to stop them. We also kept a few cockerels to fatten up for dinner and if we sold any I would get them all ready for the table and get one pound  for each of them. We really thought it was wonderful. Bet they did as well, I mean the folk that bought them! Ern used to get Maurice to come up to kill them as he could not do it himself.

When Robert was seven months old Lena went into All Saints hospital to give birth to Les. He was such a poor little thing, only weighed four pounds. Lena had to keep him rubbed over with oil and not put him in a bath.  I did feel sorry for her. Robert was just at that bonny stage so it made it seem worse.  Poor little love I felt I wanted to take him and care for him.  I never did think anyone could look after them as well as I could.  (Things never change).  It was nice when after a while Len and Lena came down to live next door.  I loved old Len nearly as much as my Ern, he always seemed to be the same, bless him. Ern and Len got on very well with each other.  They were always having a laugh.

When we worked in the orchard, they had a hut with a long handles at each end, like a hop bin, it had a closed front with a lavatory seat on top.  The men would dig a large hole in the ground and put this hut over the top, it was for everyone to use as a toilet (well for a wee).   There was a nice lavatory up at the farm with flush toilet. The men used to move the hunt, which was called a ‘Dunacan’ every few weeks.  Also up the farm for everyone’s dinner hour was a nice room with an open stove to boil the kettle and wash basins.

I stayed for dinner, I would sit on the carrier of Ern’s bike then he would haul me pulling the pram behind him.  When we got home we would have bread and milk. We both had it down to a fine art, Ern would do the milk and I would cut the bread up, then I would sort the nippers and pram out while Ern got the basins ready. I used to say to the kids, it anyone asks what you have had for your dinner tell them you cannot remember.  I did not want them all knowing we were hard up.  Mind you it kept us going. I did cook a meal when I finished work at night. Good job we liked bread and milk

When I was a girl I used to think people were very posh if they had cows milk.  I thought everyone had tin milk, it only used to cost about three pennies a tin. We used a lot of tin milk even after we were married, Ern loved it in his flask.

When Rob was three months old, Lena and I took him to a baby show over at Istead Rise, he won first prize. I was so proud of him, mind you I don’t like baby shows, because everyone thinks their babies are the best.  Anyway Lena and I brought some raffle tickets between us, we couldn’t afford many and we won a lovely chicken meal, all the veg, stuffing, fruit and even a Christmas pudding with cream, there were also some nylon stockings.  We came home very pleased with ourselves. We had dinner together on Sunday.

When Rob was about fourteen months old, just learning to walk, he fell in the garden and split his lip open, I was so scared I couldn’t stop it from bleeding.  Ted Body lived next door, he said ‘jump in my gal, I’ll get yer to the quacks’ which he did. Dr Kagan stitched it up.  In the morning he had pulled them all out with his teeth, he looked awful.  So I go round to Mr Lawrence, once again one of his friends took us to the hospital. The doctor said he was far too young to have been stitched, so he put something on his lip and said bring him back every day.  I had to keep it bathed, the doctor said don’t let it heal too quickly or he will have a big scar.  Anyhow it did heal very well thank goodness.

Rob was always knocking his head and would get awful nose bleeds. One day they were playing blind mans buff, he put a sack on his head, of course he fell and hit his head on the wall.  I said to Ern I’m sure I can see his brains, it was a bad cut, it must have been muscles I could see, but it sure did bleed. My children were never indoors, even when they were in the pram I would put them in the stable (‘No Ern, not feed them hay silly’).

One day we were over Thong picking up potatoes, ruddy hard work. I was sitting on a sack of spuds for two minutes waiting for the spinner to come round, little Rob put his arms round my legs and said ‘Mum I love you with all my blessed heart’.  Mr Burns was close by, he said ‘Well you can’t say better than that’.  I worked like ten men after that, it really made up for everything.  I never ever forgot it.

They were very good kids, they could always find something to do.  When they were at home they used to tie a piece of hop string on an old stick, let the chickens out and play ‘Raw Hide’ it was a series from television.  The blinking chickens would be all over Ern’s garden, squawking and hollering, I think they laid two eggs a day after that.

We didn’t have anything modern, we had what we called a ‘safe’ on the wall outside it was like a box with wire gauze on the door, we used to keep things cool in it making sure it was in the shade.

We had Jim and Pete, butcher boys, who came round twice a week with meat.  Mr Cook used to come once a week, he sold all hardware stuff including paraffin.  There was also a baker and milkman.  We didn’t buy very much from any of them.  We would sometimes get a small cheap cut of meat on a Friday. I used to cook it in the summer the same day, we had to as there was no fridge, when we had milk I used to boil it as soon as it came, otherwise it would go sour. It was funny really because I thought that was how everyone lived. Mind you the old Kitchener was a good stove, I used to boil bones which one could get for nothing, on top of the stove for a stew.  A kettle would be kept boiling on top for whatever hot water was needed.  I kept an old big bucket type thing in one corner for the nappies.  A milk pudding in the oven.  On the top shelf I would bake potatoes in their jackets, if I had bacon I would put that on an enamel plate in the bottom, it cooked really well.

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Ern and myself

Posted on 5th July 2018 by Ruiha Smalley

Now to get back to Ern and myself. We saved twenty pounds (felt like millionaires). Ern’s Gran was selling her home furniture well we went out on our bikes to have a look at it all and it looked good as it sat in her house, we couldn’t afford much anyway. So we gave Gran our money (the whole twenty pounds). When we went back to get it the rest of the family had taken what they wanted and we were left with all the junk. There were straw pallias’s (I didn’t know what they were used for) my mum said years ago people slept on them instead of mattresses. There were two pictures which took up all the wall (of Queen Victoria’s funeral) a towel rack full of wood worm and a round table that tipped up when you leant on it and a big iron bedstead with big brass knobs. Anyway we bought it all back to Mrs Bicker’s lodge until we had a place of our own to live.

Getting married

We had a cheap wedding at the Registry Office on 14th October 1947 (same day as my mum’s wedding). Lord and Lady Darnley came to see us on the morning of our wedding, shook hands and gave us a lovely cake. We had just a few people back to the hall and a very small buffet. I had a couple of Land Army girls, Tim had quite a laugh with them, it was a really bright full moon, we all walked up to the village in the evening it was great.
Vi gave birth to a baby girl on 27th October ‘Trudy’ so I was kept pretty busy as housekeeper for them all, seven days a week. Mum used to get cross, she said they expected too much of me. Anyway when Vi was up and about (in those days you would stay in bed for two weeks) I told her we were going to look for a place of our own, she said ‘Why? We get on so well’ which we did but we also wanted to start off on our own. Ern went to see Mr Lawrence the farmer. He said if Ern was willing to train for pruning trees he could have work.

Mr Lawrence was the main figure in the village. Mrs Wilson was his sister she had a lovely photo of her and her brother taken when they were presented to the Queen. Mrs Wilson had one son John, he was not interested in the farm. Mrs Lawrence was mostly in a wheelchair, she had three miscarriages so they didn’t have any children. Such a shame because Mr Lawrence was a real toff, such a lovely man (to look at as well as his nature). He was a Justice of the Peace as well as President of the Agricultural Committee. Anyone who needed help, he knew the answer. He let us move into a Nissan Hut down Lodge Lane until he had a house vacant on the farm, it was huge and very nice if we had some furniture for it !!

Mr Lawrence said Bert Bower can move your things for you, well really we could have put them in a pram. When Bert came I felt awful, he was a right old gossip! He put our bits in the lorry, they all fitted in one corner for Mr Lawrence. The first night in the hut was awful. We sat without music, there was no noise at all, we both looked at each other and said ‘Isn’t it horrible not having Vi’s children around us’. We had never been without them, always playing snap or snakes and ladders or just playing with them. I didn’t tell Vi.

After six weeks of living in the hut Mr Lawrence said the house at Round Street ‘Sunny-Side’ is available, you can move in any time so if you want t go and see it you can. Well we came round to have a look. A Mrs Holmes was living there but Mr Holmes had died. I most certainly did not want her moving out on my account so I went to see Mr Lawrence but he said Mrs Holmes wanted to go to live with her sister who lived at Brighton and had two teenagers. So I went to Mrs Holmes to make sure that it was true. I told her we were in no hurry to move in but she had made all her plans, so on the 1st May 1948 we moved to Sunny-Side. I loved everything about it. We had hardly anything, nothing on the floors and no curtains but still we didn’t mind too much. We had each other. BIG THRILL I thought I was pregnant. You didn’t go to see the nurse early, in those days you waited until your waist thickened. We were so thrilled, Ern went to the lodge to tell his mum, she said ‘surely that could have been avoided’ I could not believe her. Mind you I wondered how we were going to manage. I suppose that is what she thought.

We were so happy. We used to walk in the cherry orchard in the evenings, the birds would be singing. I used to stand and watch the bumble bees on the blossom. They looked like they had little yellow wellies on with all the pollen on their legs. They looked like black and yellow velvet.

Having a baby

We had a little canvas crib given to us, so we titivated it all up, Ern made a v shaped top ‘It arf looked posh’. We put muslin all round it and wait for it a Big Blue Bow, I got really excited about it. We never stopped talking about it when we were on our own. I kept saying to mum ‘What’s it like mum how will know when it’s on the way’. ‘Don’t worry my girl. You will know soon enough, it’s no picnic’. But I used to think it cannot be that bad for mum to have had ten. Mum said I could go up to have my baby in her house, so that gave me a nice safe feeling. I said ‘What happens at first’ she told me how it should start with a small plug of jelly followed by back pains then front pains, so now I was all ready for the word go.
Mr Bates daughter who lived opposite us used to do a taxi business, she said she would take me when the time came, up to the villages for three shillings.

Nurse Backhouse used to call in once a month to feel my tummy and tell me all was well. She did not come the last month just said I will come when you call me for the birth. She said the baby should come on 29th August, she was nearly always right and was very good.
A week before I was due I got out of bed and was bleeding quite a lot so panic panic. I go up to my mum. Doctor Hasler came to see me and said I had a small opening but it was the afterbirth (placenta) breaking away. He told me to take things easy. Anyway Mrs Walker lived opposite my mum she told me I could walk down her garden which was nice and private and down to the college lane. I did not want to be seen by folk. When at last it was time for the nurse to come in, Nurse Backhouse was on her day off. So you will not believe it but a nurse Backaline was called, she was very old, she had been with my mum when I was born. So they had a lot to chat about while I was in agony. In those days one had to lie on your side to give birth. I did not even want to take my knickers off in front of my mum. Nurse kept saying ‘bear down dear’ I thought she meant bow over. Eventually my mum said ‘just strain girl as if going to the toilet’ I understood then, so after what seemed a lifetime I gave birth to a lovely baby GIRL!!! Eight and a half pounds, mind you she was beautiful lots of black hair and all nice and round. I found a small pink bit of ribbon out of one of mum’s bed socks to put on the crib. Mum was very proud. Mrs Walker gave me a very pretty ‘Vyella’ dress, it was ever so posh. In those days you kept them in long nighties for six weeks and long petticoats we called ‘beds’ (can’t think why). They had ‘belly binders’ and a cork with cotton wool over their tummy button so that it would be nice and flat.

I had to stay in bed for ten days, everyone did. The day you got up, the first place you went was to church to give thanks for the Lord for safe delivery. It was always called ‘being churched’. Only myself, mum and the vicar. You were considered very wicked if you did not go.

Now my baby was the best one ever. She was so good, always feeding and sleeping (still very good at it now). She was really pretty with big brown eyes and fair hair, we loved her to bits. Ern used to say will I ever see her awake. She was such a happy baby. I fed her myself for nine months. We were so happy, still broke but money could never buy us such happiness. I felt a bit like the nightingale, God gave us a pretty baby to make up for not having any money.

Ern cut the tall irons off our bed to make it a bit more modern, mum gave me a very old twill unbleached sheet so I bought a green dye to make it look like a bedspread, I thought it looked very ‘posh’. We painted liquid lino (also green) on the kitchen floor which was cement, so it was very easy. We bought some cheap lino for the sitting room as that had a wooden floor, it was more like cardboard, it nearly broke up when you touched it. We varnished a border where the lino didn’t reach, it was the biggest border I had ever seen. I had an old jute mat given to me, I couldn’t shake it because it would fall apart, so I used to use a dustpan and brush, before that I had used a shovel (none of your hoovers for me). My sisters had them but we could manage with what we had (‘little heros’). I had a small kettle which we put in the Kitchener (stove), you could open the top of the stove and pop the kettle down in and we had a cup of tea in no time.

When I first moved here in 1948 I had an old bucket lavatory, it had to be emptied every day (lovely job). I was lucky because in August they put us cisterns and flushes in.
I must tell you this, the workmen were nice chaps. I had only one smock before Jen was born. In those days you tried to hide your bump. Anyway I washed it out in the morning brought it in and put it on to walk up to see my mum. One of the workmen looked at me and said ‘I hope that’s not damp love’, funny what one remembers.

Cobham Hall, badgers and daffodils

Cobham Hall postcard c.1900

Now a few more yarns from Cobham Hall. One morning Lord Darnley told Ern’s Dad (Mr Bicker) that a badger had fallen into the swimming pool, it was lucky because it was dry at the time. It had been a lovely pool in its time. They reckoned Lady Marguerite would run across the south front lawns ‘naked’ to jump into the pool. Mind you it was very private so I suppose she made the most of it. It was a gorgeous spot, the lawns sloped down and it was next to the ‘acacia gardens’ (they were beautiful trees, covered in white blossom and the leaves were shaped like little French nickers and the most sweet smelling). I do get carried away, I relive every moment that I am writing about. Anyway we had a large plank put down and up the side of the pool. Mrs Knight had one side and me the other, we stood at the top with long poles to prod and poke the blessed thing he was very big and fat, black and white with a long nose. It took us ages to coax him out but in the end he ran up the plank and away to the cover of the trees.

We used to plant hundreds of daffodils, all those you see down the hall are what we put in.
Mr Bicker used to be the grave digger for Cobham so when he used to be off I was left to milk Buttercup and Daisy the cows. He was very good at digging graves.  He would have to measure the ground to get it about right, it had to be the shape of the coffin, people were very fussy in those days. They put green netting stuff all around so that no one saw the earth. It wasn’t an easy or nice job, he used to get ten shillings for doing it. When he had an old grave he said that sometimes the old coffin would cave in. I will tell you more about that later.

Anyway when we used to be planting bulbs we would have three barrows filled with them, we had a special tool for planting them, one at a time, right way up. One day Mr Bicker said ‘I will leave you two to plant them, it is four o’clock and I have to go to milk the cows’. Off he trots, well we looked at each other, we both decided we were fed up so off we go up the Avenue, we took two barrows and we just broadcast them under the trees and covered them with leaves. When Mr Bicker came back, he just looked at us and said ‘Didn’t take you two buggers long to get rid of them did it’ we said ‘No we have really worked hard while you have been away’. We had a good old laugh about it BUT next spring I think every one of the blighters had grown. Mr Bicker said he didn’t recall planting that lot. They did look pretty. I think even Lordy thought they looked nice.

Daffodils at Cobham Hall

Ern would shout his father’s name just like Lord Darnley, it used to be so funny, we would hide behind the shrubs when we knew his dad was close by, he used to like to be with Mrs Knight on her own sometimes, so we would wait, then Ern would shout very loud ‘BICKER’ his dad would run out from where he was, come past us and say ‘Watch it, the old mans about’ meaning Lord Darnley. We had so many laughs. Mr Bicker never found out it was Ern.

Sometimes when it was snowing, we used to go inside the hall, it had lots of flat roofing, so it let the water in, so we would go in to mop some of the water up. Used to be quite interesting. When we worked outside every morning we had a place called Pinkies Hut, a man called Pink once lived there. We used to light a big fire, put the kettle on and have our ten o’clock break and again in the afternoon. It was really cosy, we had chairs to sit on and an old sack on the floor, we used to dry our clothes off as well. When we had to cut tall flowers we would get soaked, like Lupins, Delphiniums, Manarda, Dhalia, Plox of all colours, Tulips and even Snowdrops. We would put them like a little posy with ivy leaves around them. Sometimes we would get an order for a hundred bunches for the florist, so we were kept pretty busy. I got on well with Mrs Knight, her name was Emily, she had lived in the village since she was a young girl.

Tom Kingman worked down the hall in the kitchen garden (nice looking chap). He was Bill Kingman’s brother (you know Aunty Min’s husband). He told us he had his calling up papers to go into the army. He came down to see us just before he was being sent too war. Next news was he was killed first time out. I cried when I heard the news, he didn’t want to leave the hall, it was so sad. His poor mum never locked her door and always left her light on, she was sure he would come home to her. She was about to have her 100th birthday, (she lived all alone in a bungalow in Manor Road, Sole Street called Glengarrie) when one night she put her electric blanket on and it smouldered and she was suffocated with the fumes. Poor soul, she had always looked after herself and got around right up until the end. She had one daughter, her name was Nellie. One day she was walking along the pathway on the Meopham road on a Sunday afternoon when a motor bike mounted the footpath and it killed her instantly. She was doing someone a good turn at the time, she had been to Nurstead to feed someone’s cat. It was tragic, some folk get more than their share of sorrow. They were a big family, lots of boys.

Getting back to Mum, she had a big black and white dog named ‘Chuff’ we were walking over the church fields one day, I was about six months pregnant with Jen, when out of nowhere came this huge dog. Our dog was on a lead, this beast flew at Chuff, they had a terrible fight, I was scared stiff.  I kept saying to mum ‘Let go of the lead’ but mum wouldn’t. A man came along, the shepherd (owner of the dog) pulled the dog away, when I looked at Mum her hand was bleeding really badly. I kept crying I was so worried about my poor Mum. She just kept saying don’t get yourself all upset, think of your baby. When we got her to the hospital they thought at first she would lose one of her fingers but luckily they were able to make it better. Mind you mum could never use it after that as it was always bent. After that she found a good home for Chuff, he went to a farmer somewhere. One thing for sure, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with it. Remember Dandy?
Now I must tell you this, my mum attended all of us girls at the birth of our babies, except for Lena (she went into hospital for Les) mum told me after Rob’s birth ‘that’s the very last baby I will deliver’ she said and it was.

Mum should have been a midwife

When Lil lived in Manor Road Sole Street ‘Glendale’ she was giving birth to Maureen, mum was on her own the nurse and the doctor were already with someone else. Mum was very good but when the baby came Mum said she had never seen anything like it, first the baby did not cry and she had a thick skin all over her, by this time the baby was going blue, mum was worried sick, then she noticed a pucker of skin on her shoulder, mum said she took a chance and pulled at it, it came away like a big plastic bag. Mum kept pulling and it came away from all over her body, then the baby started to cry so did mum. When the doctor arrived, he said ‘Well done Mrs King, you have saved her life’. He said he had seen this before but it was most unusual, it was what was named a ‘caul’ it was in fact just a skin that sometimes forms on the baby as it grows, he said years ago they used to give them to sailors for ‘good luck’. The saying was that you would never go down if you owned one of them (horrid thought). Mum burnt it along with all the rest of the rubbish, that was another belief. My mum always stuck to it as well. The saying was when the birth was over you had to burn the afterbirth, otherwise you would have bad luck and the baby would not survive. Good job they had closed in fires, not central heating. I think my mum would have been a wonderful midwife. She never got into a panic.

Entertainment and days out

When I was a girl living in the village we used to go to the ‘Old Mill’ behind the Mill Café or rather tea rooms every Tuesday night we would have a magic lantern show. We thought it was wonderful, there was a big white sheet they put the pictures onto it from a big machine thing, when it was on the man would tell us about it. He would tap the pictures with a big long cane, sometimes he would put music on to blend in with it.

It used to be really exciting if you sat next to a boy that one liked. Some of them would be more like a history lesson. Then we would have a part from the Bible so we could sing, one of the songs we sang was…

Climb climb up Sunshine Mountain, heavenly breezes blow,
Climb climb up Sunshine Mountain faces all aglow
Turn turn from sin and sorrow look into the sky
Climb climb up Sunshine Mountain you and I

After a while they had a few old out of the arc pictures but at least it was something to do.

Some Sundays I was allowed to catch a bus into Gravesend to go to the real pictures. It was six pennies to catch the bus and six or nine pence to sit up the back in the pictures, much nicer in the back with a boy friend, always a chance he might put his arm round your shoulders. In Gravesend there were four cinema’s The Majestic, The Regal, The Super and Plaza. You could stay as long as you wanted, some people would sit and watch it all over again. The Majestic was the best one, it used to have a man playing the organ before the film, he used to be right down the front he seemed to rise up out of the floor. I hated it but all the old dears loved it, including my mum. They would come round in the interval with threepenny tubs of ice cream, we didn’t have them many times.

The Empire Theatre, Gravesend, today

One day we went into Gravesend, Mum, Lena, Ern and myself before we were married. We went across the Thames on the ferry boat (it was very cheap) then we caught a train and went down to Southend for the day. We went into the Kursal Amusement Park, the rides were also very cheap. We had a wonderful time. We went into Kelly’s house which was all wobbly, on the ghost train, the caterpillar which blew all our dresses up in the air and showed my mum’s knickers with elastic in the legs. We laughed all day. We saved our money for ages so we could go. We talked about it for ages. Never did go anymore.

Another thing when we were kids, whatever we had wrong with us Mum would make it our own fault. If we had a stiff neck she would say ‘I expect you have been sitting in a draft’. If we had a cold, ‘Expect you have been sitting on wet grass’. If it was a pain it was ‘What have you been eating?’.  Mind you Mum’s cures were worse than whatever you had wrong in the first place. If we fell over or had any cuts she had a bottle of iodine with a little brush in the lid, she would paint it on and it drove you nearly crazy. It would smart something awful. We had Epsom Salts for tummy ache, you couldn’t get off the seat of the lavatory next day. We had to gargle with salt water for sore throats. Mum would cook the tops off the turnips and then we would have to drink the green water to ‘clear our blood ’. We could not have vinegar because that we supposed to dry you blood up.

Until we moved into Gravesend we had never seen ‘chips’ let alone tasted them. Mum would boil joints of bacon and we would have the brown rind from the outside, I loved it (I still do).

It was always horse and carts in those days, we would try to stand on the bar at the back, until the driver saw us, he would give us a good clout round the ears and tell us to ‘Bugger off’, we didn’t dare to tell mum. The first bus I saw that came through New Barn, was number 49 and a man called Pat was the driver.

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Now for another little yarn…

Posted on 1st July 2018 by Ruiha Smalley

When we lived in Gravesend we didn’t live far from the swimming baths as you know.  My mum said you are not allowed in the water until you can swim, so I had an old chair without a back on it so that I could practise.  I would put my tummy on the chair and move like a frog, arms and legs going like the clappers.  Very good I used to think to myself.  So dear Gert knitted Lena and me two swimming suits, ‘arf lovely’, bright red, mine with a big blue letter B and Lena’s was a big L. On Sunday morning you could get into the swimming baths for a penny (that was if you went at seven o’clock).  So off we go, put our swim gear on, hat on (mine nearly covered my eyes as well as my hair).  It was so exciting, very cold, we put our bands on our legs (we were the only two in there) walked down the steps giggling as well as shivering, got really wet.  Well you should have seen the water, all the red dye came out of the wool and when we stood up the crutch of our costumes were around our ankles, we tried to grab it up and tried to wring out the water, the thin little straps looked like string, it was awful.  We never wore them again.  So I still swim on my chair with all my clothes on…

We could get into the pictures on Saturday mornings for a penny to see Roy Rogers etc.   We all used to sing when we got there:

‘ Oh come along and join the party,

Let’s enrol you as a chum with all your pals so gay and hearty,

You can hardly wait for Saturday to come.

So along at every meeting the Majestic takes some beating,

That’s why I shout whoopee, I’m glad I am a union chum’.

We would shout as loud as we could.  The film used to follow on just when Roy Rogers was caught in a huge fire…will he get out, see next week.  We just couldn’t wait to see.  Mind you Trigger his horse was so clever.

We had to go to church every Sunday.  At Easter time most people would have a new outfit. Lena had a new coat and hat in blue, it was ‘Deanna Durbin’ style.  She did look nice in it though, bless her.

In the winter the ice would freeze on the pond at the bottom of Battle Street, it was not all that deep. We, the whole gang of us would go down on a full moon night to slide on it, being moonlight made it more exciting, boys had to hold us up.  None of your ‘hanky panky’ then ‘honest’.  I still didn’t know where babies came from let alone know how to make them, we must have been a bit thick.

Years ago we used to have a big block of salt, like a loaf.  We used to grate it to put it in a salt cellar, also the nutmeg would look like an acorn, it was a swine to grate.  When mum made the puddings for Christmas we would have to grate the suet which came in a big skin.  Thus the saying, ‘a bladder of lard’.  We would all have to help clean the fruit and take all the seeds out.  It took a long time and then we would have to go out the next day to the hop fields and find all the old bits of poles and bring them home.  Mum would poke them up the copper hole and put a stick across the copper to boil for about six hours, it took ages and they would be made six months before they were needed.

Mum used to keep the bars of carbolic soap in a big box so it went very hard, it would last longer then.

We would pick sage and wash it then hang it up to dry and then put it in brown paper bags to hang in the pantry.

Wash day was all day.  Mum would wash it put all the whites in the copper, take it out, then what she would call ‘sudsit’.  Put it in clear water, rinse it again then put it through the water that had a ‘Reckitts blue bag’ in a little muslin cloth. Then starch what was needed and put it all through a big wringer with big wooden rollers and finally peg it on a line and prop it up with a big two pronged pole (just a pole each end to hold it tight).  I hated wash day.

Dinner would be mashed potato and swede. Poor mum would be wet through with sweat, but she loved to see it blowing in the breeze.  I can never remember seeing it get wet with rain.

My brother Fred mended our shoes.  When he was angry, which wasn’t very often, he would only have to look at us and ‘dearo dearo dearo’ we would be off like a shot.  He was really lovely.  We were all proud of him.  He built a shed for himself which he used to bath in.  His mates would come round and he would put on boxing gloves to spar around.  He and Lil got on very well, Lil would have a go at most things, ride on the back of his motor bike.  They were always singing and Lil would yodel.

Getting back to Mum’s Dad, he used to wear ‘toe rags’.  They could not afford socks, so he would take a strip of old sheeting and before he went out he would bind it round his feet before putting on his boots.  Mum said he would do it very neat.  They used to wear ‘combinations’ ‘coms’ for short in those days.  Men and women wore them.  They were like vests with long sleeves and long legged knickers, which came down to your knees, all in one piece.  They had a big opening front and back which you just pulled apart to use the toilet.  They were made of woollen material which must have made one itch like mad  (worse than your petticoat Em).

Food and shops

This is a bit about the food and shops we had.  The cheese would be in a thick muslin, round in shape and weighed fifty six pounds before being cut.  They would take the muslin off and then a thick skin or rind as they called it.  The balls of Edam cheese would cost about 2/6d each for a whole one.  Dried peas were sold by the pint, they were all in a large hessian sack on the floor of the shop, they used to have a little block of soda to cook in with them. Dates would also be in one big block and they would cut out how many you wanted.   Woolworths was a six penny store nothing was sold over sixpence, they had a rail that went around the stores quite high, the girls would put your money in a little box then put it on this line and pull a lever which would take your money to another assistant who would take it out and put your change into it, then it would run round this bar and bring it back to you.  There was always a chair for people to sit on, you needed to sit and wait for your change.

Woolworths, Gillingham, Kent, c.1923

Drapers was another old shop in Gravesend , they sold all really old fashioned gear like fleecy petticoats, long johns, bodices and even fleecy knickers, they used to have three farthings on all of their stock.  Then there was Caveys, they used to give you pieces of tin money, after you had collected so many you could get something with it (like reward cards of today).  We would get three pen’oth of chips and a big bag of crackling from Maxfield’s fish shop.  The fish was nine pence a piece. Milk was tuppence for a pint, the well off kids at school could have little 1/3rd pint bottles of milk for a half penny (too dear for us kids).

As school we had a desk with a hole for the inkwell, we had to dip our pens in it for writing.

The used to sell live animals at the market in Gravesend, dogs, cats, birds, rats, mice even monkeys.  By the side of them would be a man selling roasted chestnuts on top of an old barrel.  They used to smell lovely.  You could also take a basin and get it full of ice cream from Papa’s ice cream parlour for six pence.

Back to Cobham

Now to get back to my youth in Cobham.  As I said Vi lived next door to our mum, she now had Barb and Glenys (Gen Gen always called her).  She was very tiny but she was the most stubborn child I have ever come across. Well Vi wanted to move up into the house in the wood, right up in Cobham Park past the Mausoleum, very lonely.  It was a lovely house, Neville was away in the army so mum decided that I would have to go and live with her and the children.  Well we were both very frightened at night so it was decided that Ern came up there to live with us. It was only three bedrooms, I had to sleep downstairs in the sitting room.  I couldn’t understand why Ern couldn’t sleep downstairs.  Vi’s bedroom had a small nursery leading straight off from her room.  There was a huge cellar under the house which had lots of room and was very cold.  The sitting room was big, then a hallway with red brick flooring and a kitchen.  There was no electricity and in the summer no water.  Ern and I would take a big bath down to the farmer’s house to bring water back, the farm was called Knights Place.  We were very happy living there.  At Christmas Ern would cut the top from an old Ern would cut the top from an old Yew tree or Holly and Vi and I waited until all the nippers were in bed and then we would titivate it with all the bits of toffee papers and made pom poms out of wool.  We took a Dr White’s (sanitary towels) to bits for cotton wool and cut silver bits from chocolate wrappers (which we mostly found along the way) and hung holly berries from cotton.  We put flour on the earth to look like snow and in the morning Ern would build a nice big log fire then play carols on his mouth organ.  We would then call the children to come and see it.  On top of the tree we put a star made from cardboard.  If you could see their little faces, it made us want to cry.  Then we would all sing carols together. For lunch we would have pheasant and rabbit pie for tea.   The children would help me making mince pies.  After tea we would play I spy or hunt the thimble, saying ‘hot’ or ‘cold’.  If we had a balloon we would play for hours until it burst on the holly above the pictures.   We would tell those stories and then have a sing song with Ern playing his mouth organ and the rest of us with a comb and paper.  If nothing else it tickled your lips and made the kiddies happy.   They were really lovely kids.

When I said we lived up the park, it was past the Mausoleum which was built like and Egyptian pyramid it had been built for Lord Darnley’s family when they died.  It was a lovely building and had an alter up the front steps and when you went round the back and down the deep steps there were all the divisions for coffins.  It was really a vault but it was never consecrated so therefore they could not bury anyone there.  It had a six foot or more spiked fence around it, shame it has been ruined now by hooligans.  I won’t tell you what was painted on the walls, some very funny things, it is so sad how these things happen.

The Cobham Mausoleum today

One night I was walking with Pam through the wood, she said ‘Aunty what is the moon’ it was a very windy night when the clouds raced across the sky, well I said ‘God made the sun to give us nice warm days so we could leave our coats off and he gave us the moon so that when it is dark we can see the way’.  Just after saying this, the moon popped through the clouds, we were just going by the mausoleum she looked and said ‘good old God, thank you’.  I am sure he heard her.

Barbara used to walk all the way down to Cobham school on her own, bless her.  We would hear her coming home long before she reached the house, she would be singing ‘coming home my darling, coming home to you’.  I think she heard Vi, her mum, singing this often.

Ern and I would go out every evening setting snares for rabbits and very often a pheasant or two and enough wood for Vi for the fire next day.  One night we had been out in the pouring rain and Ern shot a hen pheasant.  Now we tried not to let the children know about them, so we would take them straight in the back shed, which was behind the house.  Well this night we went into Vi and said we have put the rabbit (and winked to let Vi know what we meant) in the back shed.  After a while Pam came down from her bedroom wanting the lavatory, so we said ‘well hurry up and get back to bed’.  She was only a minute when she came back I hear her say to Barbara ‘they told mummy it was a rabbit, but it sure looks like a brown  chicken to me’.

Ern kept the garden filled with veg, he grew some lovely little cucumbers but our silly cat used to eat them as they grew.  We also had a black Leghorn chicken, her name was Clara Cluck, she would crow very loud every morning but she used to lay lovely brown eggs.   The children would hold her, she never used to mind.

After a while they put a barrage balloon up near our house, they were very nice lads.  They would chat away to Barb on her way home.  That was when the doodlebugs were coming over.  The siren was at Singlewell it was called Wailing Winnie, it would give one long blast when the danger was over and wailing ones when the air raid was on.  It made ever such a loud noise.  We all breathed a sigh of relief when it was over.

Then Vi gave birth to little Nev, Glenys was only about fifteen months old and being so tiny made it look worse.  Anyway Vi was getting a bit fed up with being up the park, Neville was hoping to get out of the army soon.  Ern and I were hoping to get married.  Mind you, I loved living in the wood.  We used to watch the bracken peep through in the spring and get to beautiful ferns by summer, then come autumn it was gold, it was so lovely.  To this day I never see bracken without re-living those gorgeous years we had.  To be in love with the most handsome guy and walk hand in hand through the park stealing a kiss here and there.  Also sometimes we would see the deer and their fawns and dad close by with his big antlers, on guard. Rabbits running here and there and listening to the pheasants calling to each other, it made up for everything else that had happened and having no money.  We didn’t even feel poor, I would lie in bed at night and think how lucky we were. I felt secure now I had Ern by my side. Mind you I had always had a lot of love from my sisters, not Gert so much but I knew Fred loved me ‘cos he told me so and I now had my very own man to love me.  Sorry I am getting a bit carried away sounds like a Mills and Boon yarn.  Just you remember the most important thing in life is to be loved, you can do without money but to be loved you can deal with anything else.  It always got me through everything in life, sometimes you feel as if no one in the world cares or understands you.  You think ‘I’m not like other people, I’m sure they don’t feel like I do about things’ but deep down they do.  Anyway sorry I get a bit carried away.

We asked Lord Darnley if he could find work for Neville, he said ‘yes and you can come and live in the Hall’, so we moved down there.  By this time Vi was expecting another baby.

Ern and I decided to get married, we still didn’t have any money.  Our new address was: Chauffeur’s Quarters, Cobham Hall, it was where years before Lord Darnley’s chauffeur lived.  Mrs Knight (who I mentioned before) her husband was the chauffeur.

Another little tale while on the subject, Lord Darnley’s mother, the Dowager of Cobham Hall moved to a place called ‘Puckle Hill’, now I am going back seventy six years.  Mrs Knight had Doris and Irene, she lived in the gate house of Puckle Hill, then Ken was born he is now fourteen months old.  Mrs Knight waited for her husband to come home, (thought he cannot be driving the Darnley’s around this late) so she went down to the big house (by the way it was right in the middle of a huge wood) to look for him. When she went by the garage he was in there with the head cook from the house….Well you can imagine they went mad at each other.  Anyway Mrs Knight said he went off with the cook that very night and she never saw him again!

One day I will show you where all this happened. Mrs Knight hated men after this, Doris has never even had a boyfriend, she is ninety years old as I write this.  Rene lived it up a bit, but sadly Ken died in his sixties, it must have been like the series ‘Upstairs Downstairs’.

Another story was one or the servants at Cobham Hall fell in love with one of the Lords, so she went up to the top of the pleasure grounds to one of the big ponds and took all her clothes off and jumped in and drowned herself.

Another yarn was about a girl called Peggy Taylor who was madly in love with one of them but she walked up the pleasure grounds and went out to the golf course and hung herself.   The path she took is still called Peggy Taylor’s walk.

There was also a gorgeous marble seat and shelter where Charles Repton did lots of his writing you may come across his name in history books.

I cannot begin to tell you all the different yarns.

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Hopping in WWII

Posted on 24th June 2018 by Ruiha Smalley

Hop picking

When we were still young, we used to go down to Yalding to go hopping.  We had some good fun.  We used to stay in an old barn next to the pub in Laddingford, The Chequers, the one I mentioned earlier.  All the old Londoners’ would come down and stay in the old hop huts.  There were loads of them.  They would sing all day, filthy dirty most of them and kids galore, I thought they were great fun.  They would pinch anything they could lay their hands on, even chickens.  When hopping pay day came, what a party, they would bring the piano out of the pub and dance and sing all around the pub green.  They all got drunk, even the women!  We used to do the Lambeth Walk with them and the noise could be heard miles away.  Old Tom would come down at the weekends (worse luck).  We only had this one room in the barn.  Lena and I slept in a very old bed in a dark corner, mum had another bed right up the other end, well Tom gets drunk as usual and ‘dirty old sod’ wet mum’s bed through.  We spent all next day trying to wash the sheets and blankets and get them dry.  If I had been mum I would have killed him.

Sunday mornings Uncle Percy would take us over ‘Daddy’s Bridge’ over the river Medway to go in his rowing boat.  Lena, myself, Ruby and Gerald, they were Percy’s two children.  It was lovely, he was very good at rowing the boat.  It was so pretty, all the wild flowers, king fishers and dragon flies also lots of different birds.  We would go a long way and coming back he would let us have a jam jar on a string to dangle in the water to catch really tiny silver fishes.  I loved every minute of it.  I could never understand my uncle Percy, he would talk so fast I didn’t catch what he said.  He and his wife Aunt Lil. He and his wife Aunt Lil would have their dinner on Sundays send the kids out and lock the door then go to bed.  He liked his beer, they must have been very tired don’t you think!

We also used to go hop picking on Mr Pye’s farm at Cobham during the war years, it lasted seven weeks.  Whenever the air raid siren went off and the ‘planes came over we used to have to run in the woods for shelter so that they didn’t see us. Mum would give us ‘hop pocks’ (big yellow sacks) to put on our heads, it made one feel safe but I don’t really think they were any good…still it was all in the mind.

Children hop picking

Doodle Bugs and plane crashes

When I worked on Mr Lawrence’s farm, one day a ‘plane (one of ours) tried to limp home to the airdrome but it didn’t make it and came down in the potato fields and killed two of the women workers.  One was my friend Florrie Vouseden’s mum the other was Mrs Redsell’s sister.  It was awful.  Will tell you more later. We had another plane come down at Henhurst and killed Mrs Dine, knocked her house nearly all down.

Mind you it was really frightening, the doodle bugs were even worse.  You could hear them buzzing very loud and then suddenly stop.  Everyone held their breath until you heard the huge bang.  There would be a lot of shrapnel dropping from the big guns which would kill you if they hit you.  I was always scared they might drop gas bombs.  I wouldn’t like to live through that again.  We were the lucky ones.

I wish you could have seen how people were in those days, it was so different.  People always had time to stop and speak to you and always were very helpful.  The good times and the bad I suppose.  Old Tom was the worst thing in our lives, he would always manage to be out of work when mum went hop picking, so he would want half of her money.

Mum takes ill

One day mum was taken very ill, the doctor came and said she must go to the hospital at once, he was afraid her appendix would burst.  So in she goes.  That night Tom sat in the kitchen with Lena and myself.  He said to Lena ‘Bet will have to sleep with me tonight, look at me.  I am shaking like a leaf’.  I said no way.  Lena said if she does, I’m going as well.   Well this shaking bit I had seen before, as you will remember.   Anyway he made us get into his bed, first time I can ever remember being so near to Lena.  We kept well over our side.  He had been drinking, so we soon heard him snoring.  We quick as we could, got out then heard ‘where do you think you are going’ we just ran in our room and blocked the door so he couldn’t get in.  The next morning about three am (it was damp and foggy) I woke Lena and said ‘come on we are going over to Sole Street to find Vi and Lil’, it seemed a long way but we finally got there, we had a job to wake them up.  We told them about Old Tom, we were also very worried about our poor mum.  They said don’t worry we will see about it, they gave us some food to take to school.  I thought about it all day.  Vi and Lil said don’t tell Tom anything.  We were hardly indoors (Tom was in his usual place right in front of the fire) when in through the door came my brother Fred, Tom got up ‘hello Fred mate’ he said going to shake hands with Fred.

Fred got hold of him by the throat and gave him such a bashing his nose was bleeding.  He dropped to the floor and begged Fred to forgive him.  Fred said ‘if mum wasn’t so ill I would kill you, if you ever try anything again I will come back and finish you off’.  He took us to one side and said ‘don’t ever tell mum what has happened, but you tell me if he does or says anything to you again, I don’t think he will’.

Well we go to the hospital on Sunday to visit mum, who was doing quite well, she said ‘poor dad fell over and hurt himself and he’s got a very sore throat, he has a job to talk’.  Lena and I just looked at one another. It was a lovely feeling to see him look so uneasy.   Forever after that he was very wary of what he said and did.

Now it was very clear what had been going on, he had no doubt tried his tricks with all of us, Glad, Ivy, Lena and myself.

It was also clear to me now why Ivy had died.  I was not supposed to have seen the newspaper but I did the day after Ivy died, on the front page of the paper the headline read ‘Girl Commits Suicide’.  I know in my heart that it was what Ivy had done, knowing her as I did, but they brought in the verdict as an accident.  I hated Tom even more.

Soon after this Vi came to live next door to mum. Dolly Mrs Knight’s sister moved away.   Lil came to live opposite the Darnley Arms.

Before I met Ern I had several boy friends like you do.  I fancied Roy Morris and Stanley Jackson.  Then at different places Teddy Tall, Bobby White, David Ralph, Ken Knight, Len Barden and my Norman Beckham.  My Norm was lovely, he had very black curly hair and really blue eyes, he was really nice but he was so shy he would go bright red whenever I spoke to him.  He had three brothers, one died at twelve and another was killed in the war.  I fancied Ern, I told Norm and he cried, I felt really mean. When he was old enough he joined the army and was sent abroad where he was very badly wounded and sent home for a long stay in hospital in Blackburn.  His mum used to live in Battle Street, Cobham.  I’ve only seen him once since then and it was not to speak to.

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A girl in Cobham village

Posted on 19th June 2018 by Ruiha Smalley

Now to get back to my life as a girl in the village…

I went to Cobham school until I was fourteen, it was a lovely village, everyone knew everyone else and were always willing to help.  Mind you everyone knew everybody’s little bits of gossip.  We had a nurse she lived in the next house up from us, very handy.  She would do all sorts of jobs, she was the midwife for everyone but if you had anything the matter with you she could usually fix it.  Her name was Nurse Backhouse, she used to plod more than walk.  You never saw her hurry.  It was too much to pay for a doctor, so she was kept pretty busy.  Mr Gander owned the shop which sold everything that people could afford, mind you during the war we all had ration books so you just had all that was due to you.  We would hurry into his shop once the word got around that he had golden syrup in.   You would have to take your own jar and he would put in the amount you were allowed.

I forgot to tell you that when we moved out to Cobham, Lena and I had to walk out with the dog (another Dandy). He was a nice dog, brown and black not all that big, he was still chained up in the kennel outside, poor thing.  When mum wasn’t around I would bring him in, he would sit close to the fire, I could nearly smell him burning.  I used to have to take him out for all his runs.  I was always late for school.  I would hear the bell go for us to be in school.

One day mum bought me a brand new pair of plimpsoles (9 pence). I ran down the church path chasing Dandy and trod on half a broken bottle and cut right through the plimpsole, my foot was bleeding quite badly, the curve of the bottle caught in the soft side of the shoe. When I went home mum was so angry , I had such a hiding. ‘I expect you were being silly and not looking where you were going, well you don’t get another pair, I can tell you that’.  When she wasn’t looking I poked my tongue out !

Shelia Sands was one of my friends, so we saved our money and walked over to my sister Gert to go into Longfield village to have our hair permed.  It would cost five shillings, took a long time to save it  so as we walked out after being made all ‘posh’ we decided to get a train back to Sole Street, only two stops away.  Very exciting.  Well when we arrived at Sole Street, we were too far back in the train, we looked out to see only tracks.  ‘Don’t worry’ says Shelia they will pull up a bit more in a minute, like hell they did, we went right down to Chatham.  We then had to walk all the way home.  Mind you we were able to cut across the golf links so that saved a bit of time.  We were very tired when we at last got home so we never did that again.

Working at Cobham Hall

The park was full of deer, it used to look lovely.  I left school at fourteen and went to work down at Cobham Hall.  Mrs Knight who lived near us told mum that Lord Darnley needed people to pick daffodils for him.  Mrs Knight to used ride what they called a ‘sit up and beg’ bike with a basket on the handle bars.  So off we go, down the lime trees avenue to the hall.  I loved it, money wasn’t too good but you never had a big wage whatever you did.   We did all different types of work.  We were working with Mr Charles Bicker, just the three of us.  Even milked the pet cow.  One day Lady Darnley came home with this cow, someone had given her.  There was a lovely dairy and place to keep her in.  We called her Buttercup, she was gorgeous.  She used to go for a long walk with Mr Bicker over to a farmer at Thong.  He had a bull, when the calf arrived it was so exciting it was a lovely little boy, we called him Billy , he used to suck my belt on my mac.  Then he had to go away.  I cried to see him go but Buttercup had Daisy next then Tulip.  I will tell you more about them later.

Cobham Hall

Then Lady Darnley wanted Buttercup to have an artificial injection so she did and had a boy calf.  He was so cute but one day he wasn’t well.  Lady Darnley said ‘don’t worry about it Bicker, I am a firm believer in ‘faith healing’.  He wanted her to call the vet but no she had this woman faith healer, Mrs Gilbert, she looked at the calf, did a few silly hands touching.  She said ‘I can see rays and powers of healing going right into him’ she said ‘I am good with animals, because they never resist me like people’ (what a load of bunkham).  The vet came the next day, the little calf had died in the night.  He had swallowed a piece of wire which had got stuck in his tummy, the very said he could have saved him with an operation.

There was a dear old horse in the field, we called him Nobby, no one seemed to own him, he would just roam around with the cows, so he always had hay and water.

Lord Darnley had daffodils named from A to Z they were beautiful.  There was a large kitchen garden with eight greenhouses, it had a very high red brick wall all around it.   There was a huge potting shed, a big rose garden and a large orange house.  We grew white and black grapes, peaches, nectarines , figs, plums, pears, quinces and russet apples.   Flowers grown were out of this world.   Such happy days, it was my idea of ‘paradise’.

We used to weed and clear all the ground of what was called the ‘pleasure gardens’.  The old chalet was there that Charles Dickens had done lots of his writing in.  It was a very pretty building, you had to come outside to go up the steps into the room at the top.  It is now down in Rochester I am told.

Swiss Cottage, Cobham, where Dickens would visit. Photo by Catherine Ward, c.1901. (Kent Archaeological Society collections ref. B04-05)

There was also the coach of Lord Darnley, they used to have the coach and horses to take them up Lime Avenue to the village.  The coach can still be seen at Cobham Hall.

Lord Darnley was very tall and most charming.   He used to come to see us most days.   I was carrying a huge amount of daffodils across the south front lawns, he came across and said ‘Betty you could do with a perambulator’, he didn’t offer to help me though.  He married for the third time a lady called Rosemary Potter, a blond bit of stuff, quite nice really.  She must have been about the same age as one of his daughters, Lady Marguerite who was a very pretty girl.  She was married to a squadron leader Hayward, he was very dashing.

I went to ‘Ingamale’ flower garden market in London one morning with him driving and my brother in law Neville, on the way home we went to one of the mews in London to see Lady Darnley’s mother, Mrs Potter.  She gave us breakfast, ‘boiled eggs’ I felt really ill when I came home so went to the doctor who said I had yellow jaundice. Later on Lady Marguerite had twins a boy Gareth and a girl Lucinda, she used to have very ‘posh’ clothes on them. Lord Darnley had a son called Adam, he was born on my birthday.

Meeting Ern

One day I was pushing a barrow in the grounds when I saw a dashing looking young man mowing the lawn, he smiled and gave me a wink.  I thought my heart was going to stop, it was so exciting.  I tried to see him every day after that.  Mr Bicker said ‘that’s my son’, well I just couldn’t believe it.  I kept asking about him, he used to get fed up.  After a while we started talking whenever we could.  One night, well about five o’clock I was going home from work with Mrs Knight and I stopped to talk to Ern, she dashed off home, went along to my mum and said ‘Betty is down the avenue with that boy Bicker’.  Mum wasn’t very pleased and gave me a right telling off.  ‘Time enough for you to be with boys when you finish work, just get yourself home my girl, and I mean it’.  Mrs Knight used to say to me ‘my Ken would make someone a very good husband’.  I used to think ‘not for me thanks very much’.  I did write to him when he went away to war, but he knew about Ern.

After a while, Ern was always mowing I used to walk down the hall after tea and take him some lemonade,  I would hold the bottle tight when he gave it back, it was still warm from his hands (so ‘citing).  I really liked him, it was all I could think of.  After a while we started to meet after tea and go for long walks.  Even if it was raining hard, we used to stand by the old Forge.  My mum used to moan, ‘must be mad’ she would say, ‘I will not have you bring home very Tom, Dick or Harry’ I used to think I only want to bring Ern home, but no I couldn’t.

Lena was in the land army now, Vi and Lil lived up Manor Road in Sole Street, they had Paddy and Barbara.   Lil was expecting another baby.   Both of their husbands were in the army.

The Land Army

Mum thought I was too young to take Ern serious, so she packed me off in the land army up in Gloucestershire to be with Lena.  We were billeted in a beautiful old place it was called ‘The Priory’.  It had a big marble staircase and lots of huge rooms, we were six girls to a room in bunk beds.  We used to have to cycle ten miles to work every day.  We all had tins with our food in, it wasn’t wrapped up.  The sandwich and cake would all mix together and there was no drink at all.

British Women’s Land Army recruitment poster c.1940

We worked with some Irish fellows   I think they were nearly all called Michael, they were mostly nice and used to give us tea from their urn and lovely thick slices of bread and bright red jam.  Most of them were nice looking, black hair and very blue eyes.

I worked driving Fordson tractors, most times we had one or two guys with us.  Anyway I would walk up Cleve Hill, a most beautiful spot (you could see for miles) with one chap, so we met up one Sunday.  It was a lovely morning, he met me outside the Priory and off we go, took ages to get right up the top.  The view was breath taking, but I think he had other things on his mind.  Like a fool he said let’s sit down for a while, I was quite glad to.  No sooner had we sat down, he came very close to me and started to put his hand up my dress.  Well I never thought that was on so I shouted at him, smacked his face and said ‘what do you think you are doing?’ he just laughed and said in a very strong Irish accent ‘to be sure my hand will do ye know harm’.   Well you couldn’t see my arse for dust.  I never spoke to him again.

I knew now I was in love with Ern.  I was very home sick.  The girls would go out every Saturday night dancing, including Lena.  The yanks would ‘jitter bug’ the night away.  I kept writing home saying how home sick I was and missing Ern but mum wasn’t concerned, so action had to be taken.  When Lena and I came home on leave, I brought my gear home, I knew I would never go back.  It was an awfully long journey, the train was full of troops and we had to stand or sit on our cases all the way home.

Back home

Mum was so mad at me for saying I wouldn’t go back.  She said it’s just a silly crush you have with this boy.  Finally, she gave in.  I had quite a few ding dongs with my mum.   There was a time before I went into the land army.  The big guns would make such a noise it felt as if the house would cave in.  Well poor Dandy, he would shiver and shake and be wet through with sweat where he was so frightened, so mum decided I was to walk him into Gravesend and take him to the RSPCA to have him put down (they didn’t charge any money). I was to wait for his collar and lead to bring home in case we had another dog.  Well I cried and cried but I still had to go.  So off I trot across the fields, on the way we came across a hay stack so we sat down and cried.  I’m sure he knew.  I thought ‘we will stay here for ever’.  Then I got a bit frightened, I thought there might be rats in the hay and they might bite us in the night.  So off we go again, it was a long way.  He looked round at me when they took him away.  I waited for his collar and lead, it was awful.  I hated my mum, she had given me some money to go to the baker’s shop and get some cream buns, which I did.  I finally got home.  Lena and mum were sitting in the kitchen, I threw the buns at them and told them I hated them and would never love them again.  Mum said ‘stop your mouth and get upstairs’ I said don’t worry that’s where I’m going.  I couldn’t stop crying.  I told mum the next day I will NEVER do that again, mind you it  didn’t get me very far, mum had the upper hand, ‘you will do what I tell you’ she said.  I thought ‘right I won’t let you know what I’m doing’.

Mind you mum had usually had a cure for everything, she had this way of making you see that what she said was right.  Her cure-all cabinet contained soda, salt, blue bag, starch, iodine, Epsom salts, camphorated oil, Vaseline and lint.  She used to cut onions up and cover them in dark brown sugar, leave it for a week and that was the cure for colds, we would have a spoonful every day.  It tasted quite nice really. If we had a sore throat she would tell us to put the foot of our black stockings on our throat and wrap it round all night.  If Lena had an earache mum would pick a large cabbage leaf, warm it in front of the fire and put it against Lena’s ear.  Lena said it helped (too daft to know different, bless her).

On day my brother Fred had a very large boil on his neck, one of his mates told him to warm a bottle by putting hot water in it then put the neck of the bottle on the boil.  Fred did this, well it did bring the boil out but Fred went nearly mad with the pain.  We couldn’t get the bottle off mum had to smash it to get it off.  He had a very bad place on his neck for ages.  He didn’t get a lot of pity, I think mum thought ‘serves you right’. Fred was so lovely.  We all loved him to bits.  I was bridesmaid to Gert, Vi and Fred.

When I came back from the land army I went back down the hall to work with Mrs Knight and Bicker.  Mum had come to terms now about me walking out with Ern.  Ern loved dogs, so he brought a sweet dog whose name was Sandy.  Ern was living in the Lodge house which was down the village outside the park (in years gone by, Mrs Knight’s parents had lived there).  They used to have to open and close the gates for the Darnley’s to come through.  That is why you mostly see a small lodge house at the entrance to big houses.   Cobham Hall is a mansion.  Anyway, poor little Sandy caught distemper and we had to have him put down, he used to have the most awful fits.  So Ern bought another one and called him Bobby, he was very pretty, brown and white but he was a little bugger.  He would chase the cows and sheep, he had hold of one of the sheep one day, when we got hold of him Ern gave him a hiding with his cap and blow me if he didn’t go straight over the top of the fence and chase them again.

When we lived up the park we had two little kittens, well one day one of the kittens went missing, we hunted high and low, then down in the wood we hear his crying and found him in an old rotten tree.  We brought him back home, his name was Ruffles the other one I used to call Ugly, Barbara used to say ‘don’t call him that, Aunty, I love him’.  But sure Ruffles went missing again, this kept happening so we thought it was very strange.   He was always in the same tree, so we kept watch.  Along came Bobby, he picked Ruffles up and we followed him and sure enough it was him pushing this kitten into the tree.  So we put a stop to his little game.

Before I went to live up the park, we would have Bobby at our house some times.  One winter night, snowing hard and bitter cold he went out on his own.  Well he didn’t come back, we hunted everywhere and told the policeman but he never came home.  Then in the early spring Ern and I had to go up in the woods near the keeper’s cottage called The Mount.  Mr Preston was the keeper.  We had to pick early daffodils in bud to sell for ‘Lordy’, they were named lent lilies (very tiny little flowers with a nice scent).  Well you won’t believe it…… but lo and behold lying on the ground was our Bobby, the snow had preserved his body and we could see all the shot up one side of him.  Well I nearly went crazy ‘it’s that rotten keeper’ I said to Ern because he was always carrying a gun to shoot foxes.  So down to the police station I go and said ‘it’s that rotten keeper’ ‘you mustn’t say that’ said the policeman.  I was sure it was him, anyway the police had a written statement from Mr Preston saying he didn’t shoot our dog but the police said they would find out who owned guns.  Well it turned out it was Mr Russel, Mr Pye’s foreman, he said he shot what he thought was a fox.  Ironically two weeks later he was found shot in the same wood, supposed to have been and accident but I will tell you about that later.

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