Billesdon, Market Place c1955

Living at the White Hall, Billesdon (c. 1972 - 1979)

We moved to the White Hall when I was 2, almost 3, and my sister was 5 weeks old!  It was a wonderful house to grow up in - lots and lots of space, inside and out, and were were fortunate enough to have ponies and dogs etc. .. an idyllic childhood!  I remember the huge walled vegetable garden - and the apple tree at the end where my sister and I used to climb up and hide while we ate peas fresh from their pods!

While we were living there our brother, Mark, was born and died 6 months later - I still feel a very strong tie to the beautiful church in the village, and visited there a few weeks before my wedding.  With the kind permission of the then vicar I took some evergreen foliage which went into my wedding bouquet - so I felt that my late brother was with us on our big day.  Our second brother was also born while we were living at the house.

I have such happy memories of Brownies, run by the wonderful Mrs. Quinlan!, her husband, the vicar while we were there, and Dr. Kirby.  Also Doris Geary (?sp) and the village shop - which didn't seem to have changed at all when I went back almost 7 years ago.  And I am still in touch with one former Brownie colleague all these years later!

We used to ride ponies or bikes to Skeffington and could cycle round the village in safety - with neighbours keeping an eye out on us all - wonderful, happy days!

The Pink Elephant Club up at the school in the summer holidays!

Billesdon is a very special place - sad to see how much the White Hall has changed, what with the houses on what used to be the tennis court, and I couldn't see how one could gain access to the fields or the aforementioned vegetable garden - they probably don't exist any more .. does anyone know?

I must go back again - with my children this time!

My Grandparents Kitty & Reg Nichols by Elaine Waterfield nee Merrikin

My Mum Valerie Merrikin, nee Nichols, was born next to the old pub (recently knocked down) in Skeffington. Grandad Nichols worked at the hall and got the sack because he picked up some wood in the ground for a fire. This meant they lost their home and had to go and live somewhere else, 3 Sunrise Cottage, Brook Lane. When they moved they found an old suitcase full of baby's bones which caused a big hoo ha, and apparently a Miss Bents used to live there previously and she worked in the poor house.
Knowing this when I went to stay with my grandparents just after my Dad, Bernard Merrikin, died in 1973, I was rather frightened and made all the worse when Grandad Nichols used to snore all night long and the doors rattled.
One morning I woke up to a raucous sound coming from the garden and it was Grandad chasing some ducks from Simmingtons White Hall out of the garden and it was so funny that Nana Kit and I laughed so hard we fell on the bed in stitches as he shouted " Then ducks, them blimming ducks". I also remember traveling on the Post van which took passengers around all the villages near Billesdon picking up the post and being head over heels with Richard Graytrex, about my age, in his early teens, I used to be permanenty on the bus.
I also remember visiting Showaddywaddy's band member's grandma in Brook Lane, which at the time made,me feel like the bees knees..., as that's when the band was at it most popular.
Nanna was full of tales about the war, shrapnall landing in her back garden whilst she was out on her air raid shelter duties, as a German plane had been hit near by.There was also a prisoner of war camp up on Gaulby Lane with Italian prisoners and apparently Nanna like many families used to have priosners round for tea on a Sunday.
Nanna's parents were Tom Taylor and Amelia Rose Taylor, nee Tuggey. Grandad Taylor was a soldier out in India which is where Nanna spent her childhood, Bombay and Calcutta I believe, in the days of the Raj, with sisters Frances, Alice, Dorothy and Brother Tom. Nanna got so ill one day they thought she was going to die, but she asked for beer even though she was a girl and so Amelia granted what could have been her last wish and she survived, Amen. Else I wouldn't be here. Tom I believe fell off the train messing about on the way to somewhere in India and Aunty Dot who was always a bit risque ended up in a tiger pit. So when Nanna told me these stories I was often somewhere later in my wildest imaginations.
Aunty Fran and Uncle Joe Surman lived in the Vine Cottage on Leicester Road, the last one up the hill. Uncle Joe worked for the AA and Aunty Fran used to work in the local shop whilst their daughter Elaine Ware was a nurse and also lived in the village with husband Jim Ware, sons Mathew and Nick.
Years later I discovered that when Nanna was sent into service at a young age she fell pregnant and no one ever did find out who the father was, so one can imagine the terrible time she had when she came home in the late 1920s as her parents were highly thought of, but Grandad Nichols who always loved her married her and took Eileen as his own. Now it's not about dishing the dirt but it's history, real life, and girls then didn't have any benefits, help or sympathy, which is why many people ended up in the poor house. However Amelia Taylor had been an orphan herself in Portsmouth when her naval father died of tb and later on her mum why her brother was one of the 100,000 children shippped to Canada as child slaves.

The taylors lived in the bake house, and before that they lived in Gaulby lane just round the corner why we used to go for walks there on Nanas memory lane.She told me how Mum went to school at Church Langton, and Mums first boyfriend was Mick Toon who took her dancing. Nana used to work at the doctors surgery.Oh yes one memory was going into Hoare's shop on the main Leicester Road in the village and being terrified by the old fox's head and remember the musty small and very old advertsing pictures hung up in the shop. Years later as an antique dealer I would have loved to have had a good rumage in there before it was made into a house.One place where we liked togo was Rolleston Hall where Grandad Nichols and greart Grandad taylor used to work as Gardeners, in fact I was told they used to cut the grass with scissors..in the war it was a soldiers rest home plus Mum and aunty Eillen used to go there for walks and picnics.We still go there now but its all keep off private property, yet its always been an important part of all our family.
Once when me and Mum went there we got shot at during the pheasent season.
Oh yes and lastly Nan told me that Once when Grandad taylor took his dog out Policman Kirk arrested him and took him to court for sheep worrying and the pst dog was shot..I could go on but Billesdon was and is a magical place of lots of memories...People realted to us Zankers who married into the Taylors, Seatons, Nichols, Debenhams,Nana once said that all the families in Billesdon where all inter related.  you can contact me on nigelwater@talk21.com

Fleckney

My uncle Alf and Auntie Mary lived in Main Street, Fleckney. Their son was Joe my cousin.

Just a Kibbuth Lad

For those who have never been to our village called Kibworth, it is worth noting locals call it "Kibbuth". You live in either "Top Kibbuth"- Kibworth Harcourt or "Bottom Kibbuth"- Kibworth Beauchamp. I myself personally, have lived in both and almost on the boundary of both parishes. For almost the past 40 years (man & boy), I have spent many a happy hour living, playing and working here. Some of my earliest reminiscences are of taking a pair of shoes to be repaired at Old Joe Nourish's cobblers shop on the Leicester Road (just at the end of the Rose & Crown (now Raitha's) car park.

On arrival at his shop, you would press the thumb catch on his wooden door and enter. Inside you would be welcomed by a mixture of heat and the aroma of leather. He had a small coke stove in one corner and Mr Nourish would be  sitting at his bench near the window. He had a slight hearing impairment and he'd be gently tapping small nails into a heel of a shoe that was resting on a last.  Around the walls would be cards displaying "Segs", shoelaces and other footwear artefacts. Mr Nourish was about 90ish when he retired. At the end of each working day, you would see him walking back to his home (round the corner in Main Street), pushing his "sit up & beg", cloth flat cap on his head and a small leather bag (with bike pump inside) over the handlebars. Aah! sweet memories.     

my street

I was born 1953 and lived in No 94 Main Street until 1966, which is one of the small cottages on the right of the photo.  The big house at the bottom of the road was known as "General Jack's", he being a veteran of the Boar and First World Wars.  This road was great in the winter of 62-63 when, because of lack of traffic, we could sledge all the way down.  As you can see there were not many cars, only a total of 5 car owners in the whole of Main Street.