The Best Years of my Life

The Village c1955
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Happy memories indeed. For an eight year old living in the village in the mid 1950s it was heaven. Long summer evenings and school holidays playing in woods, open fields and on building sites. Or cycling (yes at eight) to Overstone park or down to Castle Ashby station to watch the trains from Northampton and Wellingborough come past. No nanny state in those days, no parents worrying about their children playing out until dusk! Memories of the smell of leather from the shoe factory on North Street come flooding back along with memories of Lyons Maid ice creams and Jublies from Ingrams shop on Victoria Street. The village bobby was called Bosworth who once gave me four lashes of the strap and confiscated my bike for four days just because I nicked a few World War One rifles that I found in an anex next to the church. I tried to sell them for six pence each to my mates. How times have changed for today, social workers, courts, child welfare people along with probation officers would all be involved! Earls Barton school was run by a headmaster called Mr Goodbody assisted by the arch dragons Miss Elson and Miss Clark. Terrible teachers but good at banging books on your head from behind if they thought you weren't paying attention. The fact that you may have been was totally irrelevant. Every lunch time I walked from school to home on Elizabeth Way and remember the quiet (no cars in those days). Who recalls the siren that used to go off at exactly one o'clock? I had to be at the bottom of Manor Road when it started otherwise I was late for school. Yes, in spite of the liberally applied stap or books banged on my head, they really were the happiest days of my life and even though I moved from the village in 1958 my affection remains.