Smallfield

A Memory of Smallfield.

Does anyone remember the mobile library that was parked near the parade of shops? I think there is a house on the land where it used to park.
I have memories of hanging my beret up on my named peg; my double-breasted dark blue rain coat two times bigger then me; the boys trying to pull me over the yellow line to the boys playground; the huge black spider webs in the outside toilets; the hopscotch on the floor of the girls' playground; walking two by two down to the village hall for dinner; being made to eat roast potatoes and ending up in tears; being in a play at the school dressed in pyjamas? Mr Johnson, ahhh, he looks like my dad now. I remember my dad taking me across to the playing fields for the swing and the slide, and me with my friends, sitting on the wall of Orchard Road. Would we allow 6 year olds to do that now? Ialso remember playing in New Road around the (I think) Conservative Club; the light going off at the top of Orchard Road; the sweety shop on the corner, which was always a hangout for 8 year olds; the butcher's shop where my mum would never pass on a Tuesday as he slaughtered his own sheep out the back! Then I moved to the New Town Crawley and stopped saying "I say" at the begining of a sentance. So it then became "OY"!

---

---