My Childhood

A Memory of Stanley.

I was born at West View, Stanley in August 1939. My father bought 2 cottages and knocked them into a very large house. I had 5 older siblings and my mother's father lived with us. Our family name was House. I loved every minute I lived in that house. Being way out in the country we were free spirits. We fished and paddled in the river, picked flowers in the woods (now gone) and played in the fields around. I started school at Bremhill when I was around 4.
Dad bred rabbits for the skins and flesh during the war. I can remember sitting on grampy's shoulder watching Bath being bombed. The sirens just meant I must get inside and under the stairs.
We had our milk delivered by horse and cart to our back door. Mum always gave the horse a titbit. Mr Dauncy the milkman kept his horse in our paddock at the bottom of our garden and when mum and dad moved to Calne in around 1960 they sold it to him, they also sold a strip of garden to Percy Dolman 'cos he had no garden with his cottage, on the edge of the road behind the Chapel.
We went to chapel twice on Sunday and Sunday school with Mr Jones. His wife played the organ as did I when I was older and Mrs Jones was ill.
The farm across the road belonged to Mr Phillip Pocock. Us kids earned pocket money by weeding crops and catching white butterflies.
I liked the farmer at the top of Bencroft best. He let us run in any field as long as we shut the gates and his fields ran along the back of our house so we could go across the field and along the canal. It was very overgrown so we could find all sorts of plants etc to draw.
At the front of our house was our paddock and at the side of that was Jimmy Isles' field. He was an old man who lived on his own in a small house by the river. He had an orchard and made cider with a huge press that was up the side of his house. We helped him pick apples and we were allowed to have what he called his banana apples. He gave Mum his damsons which she made wine from. She shared it with him and also gave some to the vicar for communion.
We had a Sunday school outing each summer. Usually to Weston-super-Mare. It was a great day out. Then there was the chapel anniversary and of course Harvest festival. The chapel was always full on these days; usually there was only a few people who attended services.
We had a little steam train that ran fom Chippenham to Calne and we went shopping on Saturdays in Chippenham. We would leave the back door open so that Spot, my dog, could meet the train to carry Mum's handbag. It was so safe in Stanley. It was like having a large family 'cos everyone looked after each other. When I was little, if I fell I would go to the nearest house to be looked at. Life was good in Stanley then.
Us kids thought it wonderful when the river flooded Jimmy's field right up to our garden fence, but poor Jimmy lived upstairs. We waded over to his cottage to see if he was ok. It made his field very good for hay as he could mow twice a year.
I got married in July 1958 and moved to Wroughton. I wish we still lived in old West View.

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