Farmcote memories

Third World Conditions in The English Countryside.

It is all too easy to look back to the past and remember an idyllic picture of country life and forget how it was in reality, I often think back to when I was growing up in Claverley in the 1950s and 60s. My parents, younger brother, and I lived in a tied cottage which came with my father's job as a farm worker, this was no picture postcard house by any means, in fact it was a semi-hovel. It was the middle house of three and consisted of a small room with a door which opened to the outside. There was a lean-to kitchen with barely enough room for a small table, an electric oven and boiler, a tin bath and a sink with a single cold tap, also there was a tiny room off the main living area which was used to store anything and everything including my mother's vacuum cleaner, etc, and there was a cellar which flooded on a regular basis. Upstairs there was a landing bedroom which... Read more

I was working for a builder from Claverley and we were doing work on the Gatacre estate and 3 of us decided to try to see the ruined hall; after hacking through what seemed a "veritable" jungle we came upon the outer walls where there was an ancient car covered in undergrowth. I also remember a farm on the estate which was run by a family named Hyatt who remembered Squire "Calfery" Gatacre when he lived at Gatacre Hall. After the hall fell into disrepair, the squire on his return had a bungalow built to live in. It was always said that whenever the squire went in to any of the farms on the estate he recognized furniture from Gatacre hall, "allegedly". I also remember being told by a man who grew up in the area that he remembered the library just after the hall was abandoned, some of the books (tomes?) were so big, a wheelbarrow was needed to remove them.

Halcyon Days in The 1950s

What fantastic days they were, despite the hardship. I too remember Greys shop, also Mr Bach from down the lane towards Wergs post office, he used to deliver groceries around the CAMP, as it was known by the locals as I remember. My mother and eldest sister used to work at the ministry building near the Polish church, checking tins of corned beef. School for us was at Tettenhall Wood, we used to catch a bus at the cottage which is now where Mr Brown's farm shop is. We left Wrottesley Park in 1960, we were one of the last families to leave as I remember a lot of families were going to Codsall or Wombourn. Due to the strength of my mother and her reluctance go to either of those locations we ended up in Pattingham. We lived at no 56, a large oak still stands to this day in what was our front garden.