Growing Up In Cold Ash Part III

A Memory of Cold Ash.

For a small rural community Cold Ash was a busy village in the 1950s.
Collins’ Farm, three shops, four pubs, a coal merchant, and two garages all provided local employment.
In addition the Convent with its farm and gardens employed farm and other maintenance staff although the bulk of the work there was carried out by the nuns.
The old Girls’ Home, Hill House, recently closed, now a nursery, provided employment for not only nursery nurses but gardeners, kitchen and other maintenance staff.
The Children’s’ Hospital which provided specialist care for respiratory illnesses provided much local employment.
Downe House School was also a major employer in the village, with its own kitchens and sanatorium, gardens and farmland. It had its own water pumping station, which had recently become redundant probably as a result of the improved piped supply to the village. Most of the maintenance and building work was carried out by the in-house team, which was the norm in those days. Mr Chapman was in charge, a modern day clerk of works. He lived in the thatched cottage down the slope from The Ridge and behind Collaroy House, where his Swiss wife kept and milked goats. He was aided and abetted by a team of around twenty. Stan Ayres was the boiler man. I can picture him standing in the boiler house with the exposed and flaky asbestos insulation protruding from where the casing had been damaged. We didn’t know the dangers of asbestos in the 1950s. Jimmy Reid who lived behind The Black and White Garage was the team’s painter and decorator. Gordon Carter was employed as a general builder. He was memorable for the cars that he owned and drove. There was no collectors’ market in those days, so he would buy the grandest of old vehicles from the nineteen twenties and thirties for next to nothing and drive them into the ground, whereupon he would buy another. Alf Gadd , my grandfather, was the resident carpenter. He had his own wooden workshop the exterior walls of which were thatched with bracken. I don’t know if this was for insulation or to make the building blend in with the woodland behind it. The kitchen garden was tended by two ladies, I can only remember Millie by name who was profoundly deaf and consequently dumb. She married a farmer from Briff Lane in Bucklebury, Harold Millsom, and upon Harold’s premature and untimely death, she proceeded to marry his brother, Reg. George Taylor, from Southend, performed general duties and Bob Childs looked after the sports ground across the road, adjacent to the Fir Trees pub. Bob was a keen member of Cold Ash Cricket Club which had use of the school’s sports field and so you could be sure that the grounds were always kept in immaculate condition. There are others that I’m afraid have faded from my memory, but I do recall that the young Mr Pam who later taught at St Marks and The Kennett was employed during the summer holidays whilst a student. The school grew its own potatoes and at harvest time it would be all shoulders to the wheel to get the crop picked up and bagged behind the Ferguson TEF and potato spinner. Field scale crops were discontinued at the end of the 1950s. The estate operation in those days at Downe House was impressive if not the most efficient. During the winter months the most important daily task was to get a good fire roaring in the mess room!

Before I end these reminiscences I would like to mention a couple of other village people still prominent in my mind. The first was Major Marriott who lived along the Ridge. I remember him as a customer of Stroud’s. A wiry man, somewhat in Montgomery’s mould. He drove an enormous wooden bodied Lea Francis Shooting Brake, the registration of which was GAM 123 and it is still in the area, or was when I spotted it in Newbury some years ago.
The second person was Dr Bradley-Moore the GP who administered to the sick of the village. Not a villager, her surgery was next to the recreation ground in Thatcham, but she was frequently to be seen around the village driving her Standard Vanguard Phase 1 Estate car.
Mrs Poole was to me the epitome of village life and the W.I. She lived on the brow of the hill and exuded goodwill and marmalade. On the opposite side of the road lived Mr Martin, a quiet man of foreign descent. He was very much a recluse seen occasionally walking to the post office, always immaculately dressed and wearing his homburg hat. I could go on; Harry Hopkins; Ken Godwin; Peter the Pole, but think I will stop here for now.

If by any chance I have sparked any of your memories of Cold Ash or the surrounding villages please do get in touch. I would love to hear from you.

Graham Smith. 18th April 2020

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