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Abthorpe memories

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Memories of Northamptonshire

6th Northwood Scouts go Hostelling

I remember staying at the youth hostel in Greens Norton with the patrol leaders of the 6th Northwood Scout Group. I was an ASL (Assistant Scout Leader) with the troop for several years and as I had always loved going to the YHA hostels I suggested a couple of days' cycling for the older boys. Maybe the other leaders knew more than me as none of them volunteered to come with me! So I finished up leading a party of half a dozen 15-year olds with their bikes. Money was tight - I think there was an economic recession at the time - so we availed ourselves of Kellogg's cornflake packet coupons which could be redeemed for free railway tickets. And so we obtained a handful of train tickets for the boys and their bikes for the 30th and 31st March. We took a train northwards, I can't remember just where now, and then practised our navigation with the local Ordnance Survey maps to get ourselves to the little YHA hostel... Read more

Blakesley Manor

I have a picture somewhere of Blakesley Manor, which was demolished in about 1967 and replaced with a housing estate!!! My dad thought that he should have inherited it, but he found out that it was left to his grandparents (who were ordinary people, in service) with extensive repairs needed plus death duties, thus it went into chancery. I always remember the shock and sense of unfairness I felt, when I found out that it had been knocked down, when I had been staring at it only a year or so before.
Chris R

Dreams

Now living in Australia, when we think of England we think of the Brave Old Oak when it was kept by Tony and Sylvia Hackett. What a magical Inn, what a magnificient couple, they represented everything unique about English Innkeeping. Friends tell us it is now a pigstye patronised by yobs, a disgrace to a lovely English Market Town

Whittlebury Lodge College

I was a pupil at Whittlebury College 1962-1964 . The school was run by Major Meager and his wife as a sort of "crammer" for those of us who needed to get more help for O and A levels. The teachers were perhaps not the best in the county but did help many to get the O levels that were needed, including myself but not in my subjects as I was expelled before I could take three more O Levels. I was seen smoking a Woodbine in the coppice just north of the school and was reported by a prefect (who I did not get along with). Lester Piggott's (the well known jockey) son was a junior at the school and his mother and father were particularly upset to find their fine young son had taken a puff or two of a Woodbine or similar! Major Meager was quick to make a new rule that anyone caught smoking would be punished too the maximum extent! I had been caned before by... Read more

Old Boys

I can remember pupils attending: Malcolm Airey, Clive/Bill Needham, Christopher Strother, Antony Meager, Pinkerton, Baxter, Kimberley, George Wallace, Ward, Philip Lacey, my brothers Stephen and Mark Pink. I am John Pink. Staff I can remember are Major Meager, Mr Rhodes, Mr Smith, Mr Burr, Mr Thurston, Mr Ryan, Major Hyde-Upward. The Matrons Mrs Smith, Miss Brooks. Mr Smith, master. Philip Sproughton, Mr and MrsShelton who were responsible for maintenance. Other old boys are Robert Sewell, Castle, John Bugden, Michael Hayes, Dampney. I wonder how they are all getting on.

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