Happy Days.

A Memory of Burgh Heath.

Looking at the photos brought back so many happy memories, I lived at Homefield Gardens across the Heath & went to the Methodist School from 1956 to 1963. Miss Fletcher was the headmistress & I think Miss Watts was my teacher & seeing the photo of Miss Marshall was just as I remembered her. Walking across the Heath every morning to school, through the snow in winter, my first kiss at age five with a Janice Housego, the cherry tree in the small playground, hopscotch in the big playground, watching the racehorses of Cyril Mitchell exercising on the green, the walk at lunchtime across the main road to the memorial hall for our dinner, green fly on the cauliflower one day which put me off cauliflower for years, swimming lessons outside at the Sugar Bowl getting changed in the wooden cubicles in all weathers, freezing cold & with a polystyrene float as an aid. Out of school so much time was spent on the Heath, fishing in the pond , sometimes wading out to the island to fish from there or fishing in the willow trees near what used to be the tea gardens & catching carp & when we were a bit older we sold them to the chef at the Gallion. Other memories of a childhood spent around Burgh Heath are the corn stores & going to the two pubs with my parents , the Surrey Yeoman & opposite the other pub which I think was called the Sheep Shearers & I think owned by Cyril Mitchell the racehorse trainer whose stables were next door & where some of the jockeys of the time used to drink. How life was so much simpler then, Happy days!! Chris Silverthorne.