Boyhood

A Memory of Mundford.

I was born in 1922 in Mundford where my Father was the village policeman. We had no motor car, indeed in those days there were not many people who could afford this luxury. The village was small, however it was self-contained and provided all the necessities of life, including a village doctor, blacksmith, carpenter and general store. When other needs arose we hired a taxi or cycled to Brandon where there was a train station that would enable us to get to Norwich or Kings Lynn. My Father policed the area for which he was responsible on foot or on his bicycle. The social life was superior to that found in the suburbs today and in many respects I believe we were much happier. There was no TV and the radio was still in its infancy; it was not easy to get into town and we all had to make our own entertainment. Whist drives, various clubs and weekly meetings for tea, talk, knitting and sewing. Of course the pubs provided beer, conversation and the occasional game of darts.
The village was surrounded by miles of fields and woods and we children could walk where ever we wished in the countryside. The old, infirm and sick were looked after by their neighbors and the rest of the community. My home life was much different from that which most children experience today. Our main source of heat was the big cast iron cooking stove in the kitchen, although there were small fireplaces in the bedrooms for very cold winter nights. Oil lamps and candles provided illumination in the evenings, and a large "tin bath" was brought in from the outside "washing house" for the weekly bath. Evenings were spent sitting around the kitchen table playing games, reading or just watching the flames in the fireplace. Water was carried into the house in buckets from a pump out in the yard, that also provided water for several other homes. The most common fuel was coal and outside was a brick building, the "coal shed" that held almost enough coal for the entire winter. Each morning the "coal scuttles" were filled and stood beside the stove and fireplace while the ashes were removed and dumped in the garden. Also out in the coal shed was a separate area containing the "copper", a large cast iron bowl about four feet in diameter, heated by a coal fire underneath. Every Monday morning my Mother carried buckets of water from the soft water tank, that was filled by the rain on the roofs, that she poured into the copper and then lit the fire underneath. Once on the boil the clothes and linen were thrown in and washing was done for the week, first the whites, then the colored items which were then all rinsed in clean water to get rid of the soap and then all hung outside on the "clothes line" to dry. Once cooled down the copper was baled out and the water dumped onto the garden. When the weather was wet the clothes were hung on a "clothes horse", a wooden frame, that was then stood in front of the stove in the kitchen until the clothes were dry. With no inside bathroom, another section of the "coal shed" contained the toilet that was emptied every few days into a hole dug in the garden. Water for washing in the bedrooms was carried upstairs every day in a large jug and the waste removed. With no refrigeration, food was stored in the "pantry", a small room lined with shelves and with a window to the outside so that it could be kept as cold as possible.
With no refrigeration, food of course had to be cooked or consumed promptly, at least in the summer. This meant that most food had to be locally produced and purchased each day, which is why every village had it's own bakery and butchers shop. Milk and other dairy products were delivered straight from the farm. There was a grocery or general store in the village that provided the necessities of life. Major purchases of clothes, hardware and similar items, usually came through the mail order stores or during the next visit to the nearest town, which was usually a once or twice a month occasion.
Like every other family in the village we grew all our own vegetables which were taken fresh from the ground every day during the growing season and vegetables and fruit were bottled for use during the winter. Each fall my father dug by hand the entire garden which he then spread with manure from the local farm. In the Spring he dug it all again and planted the seed for the coming growing seasons. Potatoes, carrots and other "ground" vegetables were piled into a heap for the winter, stored under a layer of straw and then covered with soil to keep them free of frost damage. When this pile was opened, sufficient vegetables were taken for use during the next few days and then the pile was covered up once more. In this way we always had some fresh vegetables throughout the year. Fruit trees and bushes provided apples, pears, black currents, raspberries and plums, most of which were bottled or made into jam. Every fall we would go around the hedgerows and gather the wild fruit, that was also made into jam. A cupboard in the kitchen was filled with jars of fruit and vegetables before the winter began. A butcher in the village provide fresh meat throughout the year although without refrigeration the choice of cuts was often limited.

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