Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire

Elephants in Waterbeach

I am assured that my memory is not playing tricks on me when I recall elephants living in the large garden close to Dr Pritchard's old surgery. The nuns at the convent off the A 10 road used to terrify my sister and I. They were all partially visible behind a decorative gridded screen to the side of their chapel, black-clad and mumbling.
The parcel people would pass through Waterbeach regularly. A woman who turned naked cartwheels through The Fen was a popular sight.

Playing in the corn fields

I lived in the cottage next to the Chapel, and played with Wendy, we used to cycle to Upware and Wicken fen. At one point we would sit on the haystacks after the farmers had finished them. I would go horse riding in the corn cut fields, wonderful thing to do.

One good memory was when it snowed, Mrs Dowdswell used to pour water on the playground so we could all slide on it. Not allowed to do that sort of thing for the children today, Health & safety and all that!  The village used to have a few shops, which sold more or less anything you wanted, and two pubs. We had lots of places to play, cadnam, down the fen, up heath road. It was a happy time. Children now adays do not know how to play with each other.

Cambridge Photographic Memories

The cyclists here obviously felt sufficiently safe not to worry too much about hugging the kerb and avoiding brushes with the traffic. The practice of parking a bicycle by leaning it on one pedal against the kerb is rarely seen these days.

Cambridge Photographic Memories

With their knee-length breeches and caps, the word that comes to mind is ‘urchins’. More to the point, one wonders just what it was they were conspiring about when the photographer set up to take this photograph!

Cambridge Photographic Memories

There are some obvious posers in this photograph. Peering over the thatched roof is the battlemented octagon of the village church, rebuilt after two collapses in the 18th century.