More Memories From A Boy Growing Up In Burghfield

A Memory of Burghfield Common.

Back in Burghfield around 1962, I clearly remember one day during the School Summer Holiday seeing a Huge Red and Green Steamroller coming towards me with a whole host of Road Tar making Machinery and about 10 men following on behind. The men 100 feet away were using extra long handled Forks to rough up what was then just compact dirt, and Tamp down all of the Potholes and large stones level the surface ready to lay Tar (Tarmac).
I stood by our wooden front gates and watched as a Machine spewed out boiling hot Liquid Tar. It seemed as if it was coming out from lots of mini taps, either way it had to be man handled in to position on the road. I walked a bit nearer so I could see what the men were actually doing, the smell was intense I had never seen or smelt anything like the machine and its stomach full of boiling top Tar ever before. It was obvious the men had worked the roads for many years together as a team, as they knew exactly how and where to align the Camber of the road levels exactly,

The men using very wide curved shovels, taken from one of two huge trailers which was level with the Steamroller currently covered in sacking, two or three of the men threw huge black shovel loads of black and grey grit on top of the molten Tar which was bubbling and blistering on the newly laid Tarmac, the men were making sure that the Tarmac covered the entire road.width ,taking extra care not to get any on what passed as a primitive type of footpath, there being no division in an undeveloped crude sort of way. Then the Huge Steamroller would slowly let out great plumes and clouds of white smoke as it chuntered along over shovelfuls of grit and Tar,

I thought that the noise would have brought people out in their droves, but except for an old man taking his dog for a walk (from where I was looking, it looked as if the dog was taking the old man for a walk, the way the dog was standing on its hind legs straining at the lead) looking ahead the long straight road was empty.

Slowly letting out of a tall metal chimney, plumes of white smoke filled the air , as the Steamroller ambled over the grit slowly stopping at the end of the newly built Tarmac road, the men repeated the gritting process again hurling great shovel loads of black and grey coloured grit. Then the Steamroller again ambled backwards over the newly gritted surface crushing the grit into the Tarmac, the Steamroller then carried on to the next section of road to be done. 7 men follow the Machinery on the next patch to be surfaced, three men stay behind with rough yard brooms and spades to chip away at any nearly set Tarmac brushing and scraping it off vegetation and grass and what passed as a pavement of sorts ,the men then turned to wave to me. and then they were gone.

I cannot remember when they actually built the modern Pavements we have today, but I do remember going to Sulhampstead Chapel as a small boy and it was quite often very muddy during the winter months up and down the Clayhill Road, and Ash Lane, but to my knowledge there was always some kind of crude pavement all be it a more compacted muddy walk way, but I remember from about 1960 that there wasn’t any of the modern type of pavement Burghfield there is today.

About 1964 I became interested in joining the 1st Burghfield Scout Troop after being introduced into Scouting by the late Mr Peter Hobbs, he was our Scout Master and we all looked up to him for guidance, he was the first true Burghfield Scout Master and as the year progressed more and more boys became interested in the Scouting Movement. At first we met at the hall of Mrs Bland’s School, Scouts a lot more senior than I will remember Mr Phillip Tadd from Burghfield Close as I recall as a Scout myself, we youngsters always looked up to him. Sometime in the mid 1960’s Funds were raised to build our own Scout Hut in Recreation Road, the giant A beams were guided and lifted into place, eventually the Wooden Hut was open for the Scouts, Brownies and Girl Guides. I never saw the Huts demise but I guess like all things it became too small and with the size of Burghfield Common doubling or trebling into the next 50 or more years. Since my mother passed in 1993 and my father in 2004, I rarely come back to Burghfield happy to remember it
as it was.

Every year as far back as I can remember the Fair came to Burghfield around the end of Summer, it always parked opposite from the Rising Sun pub on some black waste ground (close to the ever increasing " Grow your own Vegetables" plot, there was a fairly big Ferris Wheel anchored. You could get Toffee Apples and some dipped chocolate and an early version of hundreds and thousands. I was never allowed to go to the Fair but a lot of us youngsters left Scouts on early Friday Night either catch the Fish & Chip Van which took advantage of the Fair and would park on the Forecourt of the Rising Sun pub for half an hour. When I think back now over 60 years ago, how none of us boys thought our parents wouldn’t be able to spot the greasy clothes and smell of salt and vinegar, but we were young I guess and innocent to boot, and for a few long hot summers during the early 1960’s Dodgem carts, a Shooting Gallery with men going across each time you fired at a Metal Target to make sure there was nothing stuck in the barrel, and bending it in two ready for the next pellet,

. On the Dodgems men (usually in black leather jackets and denim jeans, with their slick combed hair Teddy Boy style), were hanging from the back of carts by the pole that was in contact with the mesh above, that sparks flew from it but, it was all part of the excitement. The men under the canopy with what looked to me like leather satchels over their heads, they seemed to me to be moving between the carts without touching the floor, collecting money no doubt. Rock and Rock Music blared out across that part of Burghfield Common for maybe August Bank Holiday, then on Tuesday morning as quick as they arrived, they were gone, rubbish stacked high (no black plastic bags then, but Metal Dust Bins) for the council to remove.

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