Drayton St Leonards 1936

1936 - my father Ernest Eldridge and mother Violet and myself Barbara moved from Dorchester on Thames to Drayton St Leonards. My mother's friend May Rusher (wife of Frank Rusher) arranged for the cottage next door to be let to us. The kitchen window looked out to the churchyard. I attended the small village school until we moved to Oxford in c.1939. My grandparents lived at The Lodge, Chiselhampton. I remember going to the chapel on a Wednesday afternoon straight from school where mothers would be. I suppose it was a meeting of sorts.
Frank Rusher was a lay preacher there. I remember the plays and various other entertainments which were enjoyed in the chapel hall. Our garden was across the road from our cottage adjoining a field. The old fashioned toilet was there. I absolutely loved the cornfield with poppies, daisies and cornflowers and it led to my interest in my later life designing flower birthday cards and also Christmas cards. I remember taking a milk churn to the village farm dairy, no doubt my mother was watching from a distance. I also remember the village shop not far from the chapel where I was allowed to have sweets in a screw of paper probably costing a halfpenny, remember seeing my father playing football in a field not far from the public house situated opposite the little school. In the summer a Walls ice cream vehicle was pedalled into the village and was truly welcomed by the children.I loved the 3 cornered paper packets, especially the red ones. Down the lane past my mother's friend's cottage (she was Auntie May to me) on the opposite side of the road pigs were kept and I can remember the terror and sadness I felt when one was killed and the squeals of the terrified animal.

My mother used to cycle, with me on a seat at the back, to see my grandparents in Chiselhampton. I remember being frightened when the river flooded and we walked along boards. There was a barn on the right-hand side of the road near the village and I was being carried on my mother's bicycle and for the first time in my life I saw an Indian man wearing a turban standing in the shelter of a barn.

I remember Lady Peers from Chiselhampton House visiting the village school near Easter and giving out sweets.

At Christmas at school one year we had a nativity play and I was taking the part of Jesus's mother Mary with my big doll as baby Jesus.

We used to have horlicks at the morning break which was relished.

Drayton St Leonards was to me in my childhood an idyllic village.

Happy days.