Snow In Moonlight

A Memory of Fair Oak.

It was that cold, cold winter of 43/44 during the war that I remember so well. Please forgive me for I was not a Fair Oak boy but my memory is from there. I lived in Bishopstoke as a lad before, during and after the war so I knew Fair Oak very well. I had the privilege to lay on my back as a "casualty" one Sunday morning for a ARP exercise in the square and I found it cold and hard but I forgive you.
My memory started one winter day in I believe 1943. It had been snowing off and on for several days when a man that I worked with decided to make a super sledge in pieces at work and it was my job as a boy to reassemble it at home that evening. Now he lived in Fair Oak and knew of a hill that was popular for sledging so several boys and men that we worked with decided to have some fun and to make their way to your Fair Oak that night. As it happened the skies cleared and a giant full moon shone over your village equal to daylight. We all met and made our way along with other locals through deep snow laughing for some of our party were way over the age to be out that moonlit night to play in the white stuff. There must have been a hundred or more grownups and children covering the side of the chosen hill and it was a sight that I carry to this day.
Sledges, dustbin lids. tea trays and just their their bottoms carried them swiftly down the hill of snow along side a barbed wire fence to be abruptly halted by a hedge several hundred yards away at the bottom.
It was the combination of bright moonlight, dazzling white snow and being with so many happy laughing people out together when they would all normally be in doors by the fire behind their blackout. It was to me MAGICAL the sort of thing you saw in an American movie at the Regal in Eastleigh.
Now clothes were difficult to replace in those days owing to rationing so we all wore what we could get. This elderly man( he must have been about 30 looking back) was very helpful to everyone with a sledge that needed a push off but nobody offered him a go, so I did, and he eagerly excepted.
He wore an old overcoat that in it's day was of quality and was probably his only. I gave him a great push off as he deserved but alas he soon lost control and shot under the barbed wire fence going great guns across the neighbouring field but unfortunatly leaving the back of his coat on the barbed wire. The rest of it on his back like ribbons waved to us like people on a doomed ship as he disappeared down the hill. We all wanted to help him but you cant can you when you are laughing so much.
I dont know what time it was when they reluctantly started to leave that magical hill in Fair Oak but they were probably in bed tucked up when I was still walking in the snow in brilliant moonlight back to Bishopstoke.
If you want more of that winter, go to Memories Fishers Pond.

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