Chalfont St Peter

Ivy Myers. I wonder how many people from Chalfont remember the "Rose and Crown", a Benskins pub. My father owned it from 1946 until 1950. There was also the “Kings Head” which was on the corner of Joiners Lane. Of course if you look for them now you won't find them, the area is covered by the dual carriage-way and round-a-bout. At this time the village had hardly any cars going through it. My father said that because there were quite a few pubs in the village rivalry for customers was pretty fierce and he had to think of all different ways to get custom. The pub had an old stable block behind it which he turned into a club room. He hired this out for functions and started an “Ancient Order of Buffaloes Lodge”. He did catering for the Gymkhanas and the Bar for the dances held at the hospital. Dad also arranged outings to Goodwood races and local dart team matches. ... Read more

A Bren Gun

Gold Hill Common c1960
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Gold Hill common has an upper flat grassy area and then a sloping area, which leads down into the town, which is covered with scrub, not the town of course. This photo is right on the edge of the upper part. In 1963, when I was a boy of eight, the army came and laid on an exhibition, I guess this was a recruitment drive. They carried out a mock battle with half tracks and guns firing blanks and yellow smoke billowing slowly across the common. If you take the main footpath from Layters Green Lane (?) across the common, the swings and stuff will be off to your left, there was/is a hawthorn tree to the right of the path and I lay under that tree with a soldier who was firing a Bren gun. I asked him if I could have any of the spent carteridge shells but he told me that they all had to be accounted for. It was an amazing experience.

Learning to Ride A Bike

The Common c1955
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We found an old bike that had no chain and no brakes. Every day after school we would get the bike out of the gorse, where we had hidden it, and take it in turns to free wheel down this slope. Then push it back up and someone else would have a go. I would have been seven.

Going to School

The Village c1960
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I walked past this clock every day on my way to school. Down past the clock on the left was a news agent where I learned to shoplift. Almost every day I would steal from them and never got caught. I also started stealing from the Handy Stores at the top of Gold Hill common, anyone remember that place? When it was getting knocked down I found an old plaster wall picture which I took. I visited my mother in 2006 and she still has it hanging on her wall and she was 81 at the time. In the early to mid 60's we had some great winters and we would sledge down the common and sometimes right out onto this road. Those were the good old days when you could go to the cinema, get a bag of chips and still have change out of a shilling. Sadly, I never had a shilling and so those old days weren't that great actually.

Being Pushed by an Elephant

One of my earliest memories was from in a push chair. The zoo was parading through the street, I don't know which street though, and this elephant steps up onto the pavement and forces my mother back into the hedge. I have a surreal memory of that huge leg being very close to me.