Childhood In Helions Bumpstead

A Memory of Helions Bumpstead.

My family moved to Helions Bumpstead in around 1964. My parents renovated an old farmhouse which they named "Roslyns" because my Mum went to the Chelmsford Records Office and discovered that the place had been called Roskins Meadow in the 17th century. The first thing I remember is the smell of the house (dusty and musty) and the fact that my sister and I caught ringworm from some old toys left in a cupboard. The main thing, though, was the garden. We had nearly three acres of scrubby garden, meadow and a run down orchard. There was also a brick privy (the house had no indoor plumbing when we moved in) which Dad knocked down and then built a greenhouse on the site. When we first moved there, the garden seemed so big that we didn't dare go round the edge without Mum, but we soon got braver and built dens, camps, treehouses, etc. Our favourite trick was to sit in the old tree at the farthest corner of the land, overlooking the road, and drop water bombs on passing cars. A local farmer we called "Ticky Tickner" driving a Jaguar was our favourite target! The house had a cellar which we children turned into yet another den - it was lovely and warm because Dad installed a central heating boiler down there and piped the stream which used to flow through it in wet weather. There was a footbridge across a drainage ditch across the road from the house, and a footpath ran up the side of some new houses to the Rec (reation Ground) at the top of the hill opposite. One of our favourite pastimes was to travel along the drainage ditches, wearing wellies, all the way around the village and even to Steeple Bumpstead two miles away, without ever putting our heads above ground level. The object was not to be seen by any adults. The ditches were piped in places, but we were small enough to stoop and walk through the pipes, hoping that no spiders would drop on our heads as we passed. We were allowed to light bonfires in our field, but never given any matches to do so. So I used to go round to Mrs Craig, a retired schoolmistress, who lived in the cottage next door and ask to "borrow some matches". She always obliged, but always said "You may have some matches, but you may not borrow them as I do not want the spent ones back!". Mrs Craig also gave me recorder and piano lessons and let me watch her making lace on a real lace pillow with beautifully carved bobbins. Her house always reeked of paraffin from her only form of heating, and boiled fish with which she fed her numerous cats. My Dad built a garden shed in the orchard which I used as a wendy house. Sometimes it was just a home for my dolls, but on other occasions it became a natural history museum, filled with large bones we dug up in the field, and "devils toenail" fossils and fossilised oyster shells which turned up everywhere in the flower beds my Mum created. Later on the shed became home to my rabbit which I bought for five shillings from a little girl at the top end of the village, smuggling it home through the hedge so my parents wouldn't see (but my Dad had an instinct for that kind of thing, and knew perfectly well what we were up to!). When we were really bored, we used to sit on the big conrete gatepost at the front of the house and watch the cars go by. If we saw a Ford Anglia (or Angular, as we called them), we used to roar with laughter - for some reason we found them, and the people who drove them, very funny. If we had been good we were given some pocket money and allowed to go up to the village shop. This sold all kinds of things, but we were really only interested in sweets. When there we nearly always bumped into Mrs Peck, who lived in one of the bungalows round the corner and used to visit the shop several times a day, sometimes just to buy one egg! We went to school in Steeple Bumpstead on the school bus every day, which we caught at the cross roads in the middle of the village. My favourite teachers were Mrs Humphrey and Miss Wheatley. I was seriously impressed one year when we went to the Haverhill Show and I saw Miss Wheatley riding a lovely horse in the show jumping class. We had various friends in the village: the Dobson girls, Claire and Helen, who lived at Boblow Farm on the far edge of the village, the Humphreys children and to begin with, the Hall children, but they moved away when I was about 9. There were some children who for some reason were our enemies, but I really can't remember why now! A touch of the sinister was added by the haunted Red House Farm which stood empty almost all the while we lived in Helions, and by the Toffee Apple Man who lived alone in a tumble down cottage near the pub and who came to us to pick nettles to make into soup and sometimes to sell toffee apples which were delicious. Unfortunately he was very religious and used to give us rather odd tracts to read and take home - our parents were not impressed, and we delighted in being terrified of him. My overwhelming memory is of total freedom, to roam, explore and play uninterrupted for hours, only having to return at the end of the day in time for tea.