The War Years

A Memory of Howle Hill.

My sister and I arrived at Kerne Bridge station very late one evening as evacuees. We ended up living with Mr Calkin, a retired head master, and his charming wife. They were absolutely wonderful to us for the time we were with them, this probably being two years.
Our mother and sisters also moved out of London and found accommodation, my mother lived with an old lady called Mrs Lewis in a very small cottage also up the top of Sharman hill. Later we moved down to live with Florence Yemm who lived in Porters Lodge at the bottom of Sharman Hill, we never felt any animosity from the local people who I am afraid were invaded by kids from London.
I still visit Ross on Wye as we have a daughter living in Chepstow, we had been going down and staying at pub/hotels in the Ross Town area.
I love the area and only hope it can keep its population and values as I see them today, sorry if anybody feels this is a racial remark but I mean what I say.
The east end of London has changed so much but I still also visit that regularly but I would never move back to the area, I am afraid I could never feel as one might say...at home.
Ross I could move back to tomorrow with no regrets, I must add I do live in a wonderful small town up north and it's doubtful that we would ever leave it.
I am in touch with a very nice lady who lives in the Ross area, she went to Walford School at the same time as my sister and I.
I do read the news and such on the Wyenot site on my computer, I am waiting for the day they mention a pub or hotel that had a good old fahioned pianist playing instead of groups. I am joking as we don't even get that in our small town here up north. I did play the piano one weekend in the Kern Bridge Inn when it was a pub, we had a really good evening in there.
I am afraid the songs I like best are all very old, I cannot read a note of music but can play most songs from the 1920s up to the 1950s, not like a topline musician but just as a decent old pub pianist.
What an exciting day it was on the Saturday when we got on Bill Webb's bus to go to Ross, if I remember rightly the fare was just three pence. As I go out of Ross towards Walford I glance at the spot where his bus used to be parked, I think he used to do a midweek run as well.
I remember our nice teacher at Walford School, Mrs Tarry, and in our time the headmaster who played cricket for Ross, I thnk his name was Mr Cross. I could be wrong on his name but I remember the man and he was very nice to all the children.
I saw the first film in my life at the Roxy cinema, it was "Gone with the Wind", I think we only went to the cinema once in the four or five years we lived in the area.
I think being brought up  in the wonderful countryside was a very good start in life, when we used to come down years ago we always got a warm welcome at the Crown Inn on the top of Howle Hill. We knew Mr...dick.. Stacey and his wife plus several of the other elderly customers who we used to swap jokes with.
We also used to make sure we called in to The Buildings Inn, this being opposite the house lived in with Mrs and Mr Calkin. The lady who ran it was over 90 years old the last time we were in, many years ago, she was rather deaf but had a wonderful memory.
It seems sad there is not a pub at all now in the area, I feel we all have to accept these changes in our lives as we knock on a bit.
Len Askew.

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