Memories of Rickmansworth

Ah, summer !

Each summer we would set off, my mam and dad and I and the dog, Raq, in our 1938 Morris 8 to travel from Hartlepool to Rickmansworth to stay with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sally Charters who had the grocery shop in Norfolk Road (number 55, I think it was). It was a huge adventure every year, setting off at 6 a.m. and travelling down the A1, stopping for tea on the cobbles at Biggleswade, just beneath the house martins' nests on the front of the hotel and shops. We would arrive at about 8 p.m. to a meal of Uncle Charlie's home-cured and boiled ham which was always in great demand from his customers.
I played with Nobby who lived across the road and his friends, usually fishing for tiddlers in the water splash or trying to catch fish in the canal at the end of the road. The water splash was always warm and clear, awash with fish just asking to be scooped up in our nets and popped into our jam-jars with string tied round the necks as carriers. Invariably we'd take them back to Norfolk Road and set the fish free in the canal, having climbed over the road-end wall, or drop the fish into the little beck ( I suspect it was just an overflow from the canal) which ran down the end of Uncle Charlie's garden. Someone had told us that the fish in the canal could be lured by bread soaked in geranium essence and we spent ages trying to get up the nerve to buy some at a chemist's on the High Street, because we had also been told that only adults were allowed to fish with geranium essence !
Uncle Charlie used to deliver boxes of groceries from the shop in Norfolk Road to people in Croxley Green, cycling there with his delivery bike piled high, just like Granville (Open All Hours). In 1954 he managed to buy an Austin Ruby which made his job a lot easier.
We would stay in Ricky for a fortnight, often visiting London and, every year, a warehouse on the Edgeware Road to buy household goods because they were much cheaper at trade price - retail price maintenance existed then. I can still remember the frilly chintz eiderdown which chafed my neck at night !
One of the highlights of visiting Ricky was the leaving ! Aunt Sally always gave me an Oxo tin totally filled in Uncle Charlie's immaculate packing style with chocolate bars, sherbert suckers, Spangles and other delights to keep me well nourished on the ten-hour journey back home.
None of my friends at home had ever heard of Rickmansworth, nor had visited London, so I always had lots to tell when I got back and could cope easily with the "My Summer Holiday" story we had to write when school started again in September.
How I looked forward to the next year's holiday with the same adventure and delights ! Memories, eh !

A beer with my Dad at Ye Olde Greene Manne

In the distance you can see Ye Olde Greene Manne pub on Batchworth Heath. My Dad and I sat in the pub garden and drank beer one hot summer's day in 1965 and my mum took a photo of us together which I treasure as a lovely memory. Can you believe we were wearing tweed sports jackets, coloured shirts and ties on a hot day! I suppose that was fashionable then. I just wish the old beer prices were still in fashion; as I recall it was one shilling and ten pence for a pint of bitter. Mind you Watney's Red Barrel and Inde Coope's Double Diamond were all you could get locally in those days. The quality and choice of beer have both gone up dramatically over the last 40 years but so have the prices. Sadly my Dad died in his mid 60's so I had very few opportunities to visit pubs with him but this visit to Batchworth Heath sticks in my memory as a very jolly occasion for us both even though at that time I was a bit of a shy 20 year old! Since then I have returned to the pub on numerous occasions and look forward to taking my own son and granddaughter there in the future. On some recent visits I have visited with the Whitethorn Morris Dancers as I often play my accordian for them. These days there is a crowded car park and a busy main road outside so it seems quite unlike either this view or my memories of the lovely pub garden back in 1965!

Saturday morning pictures at the Odeon

School days were OK but on Saturday morning the walk/run from Croxley Green down into Ricky was always an adventure. We would go down Scots Hill or down the track opposite the church at the bottom of the Green and come out by the cinema we called the flea pit. Then a short walk into the town.  Normally what seemed like hundreds of children would be gathered at the rear of the Odeon  waiting to get in. Films of Roy Rodgers, Jean Autry, Charlie Chaplain and many others would entertain us. If any youngster had a birthday that day, his or her name was called out and 'Happy Birthday' was sung buy everybody, all very happy.

The Artichoke on the Green

I used to walk or ride my bike past the Artichoke public house almost daily while running errands from the small group of shops opposite the church.
There used to be a small cycle shop, news agent, grocers shop, and a garage, with the Sportsman public house at the north end of the group.
In the warmer months the publican of the Artichoke would put out his cockatoo parrot by the front door. It would call out to everybody passing by on the Green. I would go over to him for a very one sided chat and brave putting my fingers in the cage to pet him.

Walking in the river

From the concrete slab bridge by the watercress beds to the park near Scots Hill we would wade in the river with bare feet, I was only nine years old then.
The river bed was a fine golden grit that was easy to walk on. The water was always clean and clear with minnows and bullheads in abundance. We frequently saw Kingfishers darting into the water for the minnows. The water weed waved in long flowering bunches and the ripples would lap against the reed margin like quiet music. I have visited the Chess many times and have never tired of it.