My Beloved Bonk

A Memory of Cheslyn Hay.

I have loads of memories of village life as a kid. I was born in 1961 and still live on the Bonk. I will probably die here as well. There were many old characters back then. Iron Bates the vegetable cart man (did some boxing apparently), he would come on his round down the Mitre RToad on Saturday. I remember his deep growling voice, as he shoved a brown paper bag with a few spuds in, saying "Gi' them to yer mam, she can pay next wick if her's short". If we were lucky we could ride on the horse to the top of the road round to owd Maxi Potts, on the corner of Pinfold Cottages. We would sit on his doorstep, with a jam sarnie each, and listen to the tales of how he shot Adolf Hitler when he was younger. He would show us a revolver wrapped in an old oily rag and say "There see, that's what I shot him with. Right between the eyes". Later on we would wander back past the Colliers Arms back down the hill to Bates yard and scrump a few apples, me, Paul Evans and the Clarke brothers. There was a hole in the hedge, just by Mr Parke's pigeon loft. Now Iron Bates kept some pretty good guard dogs in the yard (white geese they were), one of us would distract the geese with bits of bread while the others scrumped as quick as we could. I remember coming back through the hedge one day and seeing a big black shiney boot either side of the gap, which was eventually to be planted up my backside. They belonged to Mr Humphries the local copper. One at a time as we came out we had the boot. We would all have to tell our dad we had been caught as well or we would get another one and possibly a thick ear to go with it. Ah, them were the days.

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