Button Oak

I lived in Button Oak during 1942/43 and worked in the Wyre Forest for 'Bob' Harris who was the Forester. Along with two of my mates, Denis Mills and Hubert Till, I made frequent trips into Bewdley to go to the pictures or get my hair cut. The cinema was just over the bridge (is it still there?) and we left our bikes for safe-keeping chained outside the chip shop for a penny. Denis still lives in Bewdley but Hubert unfortunately died several years ago. Tommy Batchford ran a lorry in those days and used to collect the pit-props we produced on the Cadbury estate and we'd go with the load and transfer it to open trucks in the railway sidings. On one trip we were flagged down by the local postman who'd found a dead deer trapped in the roadside fence (or snare?). We delivered it quietly to a butcher in Bewdley. In Button Oak I lodged first with Hubert's mother and later with Alf and Mrs Wilkes and their son Jimmy.