The Wheatsheaf Pub At Little Burstead

A Memory of Little Burstead.

It seems this is the first memory to be posted. My grandparents (Florence and Max Vetterlein) had the Wheatsheaf pub for about six years to 1957. They were tenants of the brewers Charringtons. There was the saloon bar and the public (known as the spit & sawdust bar). An extra penny was charged on a pint in the saloon. There was a very large garden at the back and so overun with nettles that a goat was borrowed to devour them. My brother and me were given our first Levis and we were thrilled that we could kneel in stinging nettles and not be stung. The customers' loo flushed but the living quarters was a bucket type with Jeyes fluid poured in, then emptied into a hole in the garden. Mrs Scroggins in the next door cottage called it the bumbee hole. Once we heard a dog whining all night. Next day we found it had been standing in the sewage and died when its strength gave out, unable to climb out.

We saw Princess Grace get married on a 9" TV with a magnifier over the screen at Mrs Scroggins. We learnt to play chess with her grandsons. There is a stream down a lane nearby that we did our best to dam up. The Clock House owners used to have a St Bernard dog - big to us boys! Wheat was grown somewhere opposite the Dukes Head and horses were used. It was cut and put into stooks.

We used to walk to the main road from Laindon to catch the bus to Billericay. There we learnt to row. The lake was divided into the kids' section and the adults had most of the lake. The old boat house still stands I see. Note its old roof tiles. Now Health & Safety have put a stop to rowing due to algae, so I hear.

We used to go to Southend from Little Burstead for the day and into the evenings. We had fun at the Kursaal and used to go on an aeroplane ride that took us up high. The Southend lights were to me just as good as Blackpool's. At the entrance to the pier was a row of about 12 stalls run by one family, all selling cockles and whelks and seafood.

My grandad died in 1957, two years after grandma, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the chuchyard. I returned to Little Burstead in 2007 to go down memory lane. After 50 years the old Wheatsheaf pub is gone, replaced by a new structure. Do they have all the old garden, I wonder. Wheatsheaf Cottage next door used to be a terrace of four cottages with old Mrs Scroggins in the end one by the pub. For fifty years Little Burstead has changed little and that is surprising. Of course properties will be modernised and maintained, I didn't come accross any housing estates or new roads cutting through the heart of the place. How thankful I was. So I can forgive the passing of the Wheatsheaf pub and can accept the black shiplapped house that stands in its place. I reside in Brighton which is just too hectic, but will never forget those idyllic school holidays 50 or more years ago in Little Burstead. Today's residents, please keep it as it is, you have a gem of a village.
Bruce Bagley, Rottingdean, Brighton.

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