My Favourite Days

I was born in Burghfield in 1953, it was a great place to live, I grow up in, I remember in the Early 1960's a proper Fair coming to Burghfield, it parked on the wasteland opposite what was then the Risring Sun pub, they were a real Rock N Roll type Fair,
We started 1st Burghfield Scout Troop under a youth Peter Hobbs on Friday night's in the large hall in what for us born in the early 1950's in Mrs Blands School, before the first wooden Scout Hut was build by men from the Village and young men ( Scouts ) from mainly 1st Burghfield Scout Troop, great days I wouldn't swap them for the Moon,

Where we lived in Clayhill Road, each Sunday morning while I was out on the black step cleaning and polishing the family's shoes, sandals ready to start another great week at Mrs Blands School with, Mr Halfpenny, Miss Tombs and Miss Tanner, and later Wilink School, if you were lucky you might catch over the breeze the sounds of HMS Dauntless a bit further down the road,
After 1st Burghfield Scout Troop, I used my motorbike to drive over to Woolhampton Venture Scout Troop,
Every Sunday morning my late father would gather all us children up and smartened up to the nines we would step off on foot) regardless of the weather) for Chapel at Sulhampstead Congregation Church or Chapel, walking down the Clayhill Rd and the turning left just passed The Close and Pinchcut,in to that lovely old selectively transcend in parts, pass Mr Weller for all Fruit and Veg, down the lane with lovely stream at the bottom which back then didn't have a bridge,
At the start ( my start around 1957 or 1958 ) there was Burghfield Football team, they got changed in the Holiday House and then with proper Football boots and studs on, they ran up the road that's backs on to the Reading Road,
An early memory for me was walking up later join up end would join up to a connecting road in the Birch Rd,
Every my morning my oldest sister and I would walk to Mrs Blands School up on the Reading Rd, to get to school meant walking passed Mrs Parovitch's house, and if you were lucky you as we often were, you might catch some so wonderful Piano music that billowed out through her often open windows, either her or her husband were famous at that time, it wasn't a record playing , you no we were often struck dumb by how tumble down her house was at the bottom of the lane, that part of Burghfield had not be spoilt by the future disimation and scalping of old Burghfield, what you saw as you walked to school each morning in those days was like an unspoilt scenic rural photo trapped in time of a Burghfield slowly being consumed by Concrete and the Digger,
Just after my Father died in 2004 I went back to Burghfield for the funeral, and after the service I went for a walk around Burghfield once again, every now and then there were glimpses of the Burghfield I remember, I finished my little your by walking down the lane from the other end ( I started off at Gregons the Newagents, crossed the Reading Road, noting the wedge of grassy pavement that blocked off that road that turned almost overnight onto a Cul De Sac, even as a small boy under 10, I remember the awful Road crashes and collision st that spot opposite Mrs Blands School,
Walking down the now darken overhanging wooded Tree Lined road, with its ancient road markings long since faced into well scared 1930's tarmac, I turned right into "the lane" with its newish house on the corner build with in the last 40 plus yrs, and wooden railings after a few moments I'm snatched and caught like a rabbit in the head lights, the meadow in front of my eyes,
has changed completely, it's now a huge valley of Concrete and Red Brick as far as the eye can see,
As I walk back to my car I see the little worn path to the right of where Mrs Parovich's house once stood, where her Well once graced her small front garden there protected forever is a massive Modern manhole cover,