The Village

The Village c1955
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Going ‘down the village’ pretty much referred to the stretch of Cove Road, between Hazel Avenue and Marrowbrooke Lane, where most of the shops were. Once upon a time Cove must have been the typical English village: two houses, three pubs and a church. The ‘Tradesman’s Arms’, the ‘Anchor’ and the ‘Alma’ were all together, right beside the vicarage and St Christopher’s church. The two houses must have fallen down in the interval because the pubs and the vicarage looked older that anything else around. The church was odd because it looked very recent and I always wondered if there had once been an older building on the site.

Along one side of the Tradesmans Arms there was a narrow ally that always smelled strongly of pee. It was very convenient for the drinkers when they lurched out of the bar at closing time. On the other side of the pub, in a grubby little building beside the Methodist Church, was the chip shop, the Elite Fish Café. In the vernacular, pronounced Ee-light Fish Caff which actually better described the place. They did do a good three penn’th though, wrapped up in newspaper that they got from who knows where.

Further along, the newspaper and tobacconists shop was run by Bill Munday. Munday’s was on Cove Road at the junction of Bridge Road, next to Webb the butcher. Hill the butcher, where my mother shopped, was on the corner of Bridge Road and Highfield Road. Bill must have had money because soon after the war he was driving a Jaguar. He and Charlie Christopher both raced pigeons and it must have been in that connection that, one day, Charlie and I found ourselves passengers in the Jag going to something in Fleet. Charlie usually went places pedaling a heavy old trade bike with a big steel frame on the front.

Charlie Christopher and his mother owned a sweet shop, opposite what was left of Cove Pond at the side of Cove Green, just down from the Green Café, another rather seedy joint. I helped out in the store around the time that the new (c. 1949?) counters were installed. They were covered in plastic laminate with sloping glass fronts, very moderne. Part of the store was given over to haberdashery where Mrs Christopher sold a few reels of cotton and stuff. When the store started opening on Sundays, they had to cover all the counters on the north side and only sell sweets and ice cream. Rationing lasted until well after the war and sweets were in short supply. Christopher’s used to sell ‘Licorice Root’, a sort of woody substance with a strong flavour that kids would suck on. It wasn’t rationed.

Yeoman’s Dairy was on Cove Road between the brook and the railway bridge where the Fleet, Minley and Hawley Roads met. Every day in the early years Mr Yeoman came down the street with his horse, and cart filled with milk churns, and dipped out pints and quarts into customers’ jugs. Bottles came much later.