Childhood Memories

A Memory of Watton at Stone.

I remember when I was just a young teenager... you could roam around the village and just about everyone knew you.

I loved to wander down to Mill Stream Lane with my jam jar and fishing net and walk along the stream searching for stickle backs and anything else I could catch. The fields behind us would whisper in the breeze and the sunlight would filter through the trees and glisten on the water below. Life was not so demanding, not worried too much about stranger danger and you knew that you was nestled in a village that looked after its own.

I remember old "Snowy" who had worked for years in the local butchers shop.
I remember Mr Warner one of our primary school teachers...looking back he was a steady influence in our lives and rarely raised his voice to his students even when we caused him to quieten us down from chattering too loudly.
There was a post office and a general store and dear old Mr and Mrs Camp ran the bakery and grocery store, where I worked on Saturdays. It was great there, and most of the villagers called in as we was several miles to the town of Hertford. It was not self serve really, you could take a basket and collect off the shelf or if you was old and tired, us young ones behind the counter would run back and forth collecting their items as they sat and talked to Drue Camp or Harry Camp. We would cut and weigh the cheese by hand, the bacon too. Harry made the best cream cakes, and if at the end of Saturday there was some left, Harry kindly let us take them home!! Yum, those were the days.
There was a hairdresser at the top end of the village. I remember old ladies coming in for their weekly wash and set and sometimes a blue rinse...

I remember the primary school playground and the old air raid shelter under ground in the girls' play ground and we had just one look in there as it was out of bounds and deemed not safe!!

There was gooseberry bushes off to the side of the playground and we would sometimes have some and have tummy ache later!! The joy of being a little naughty. There was some stone steps that led up to the grassed area near the back of the playground and we would spend nearly all break time with a game or two jumping up and down them, there was a little song, something about the quarter masters stores and someone would call out butter, sugar, tea and that determined how many steps we would jump to. French skipping was the other pastime in our little playground. The boys would have the front playground and in season would play conker fights to see who would win. Marbles was one of the other pastimes.

I remember the church fetes each May in the front church field...and sometimes they were on the common I think or spread over two areas? There was raffles and cake competitions, fancy dress parades, the coconut shy.
The field was mowed and the smell of fresh cut grass and bumpy ground was all part of the aroma of the memory it left.

I still remember the atmosphere of the church and the smell, the air of wood and musty books and damp air...oh happy days when we sang in the choir...
I remember we celebrated our last primary days by going to church and was given a Bible to commemorate it.

There was a village hall where babies would be weighed in the mornings and women's country institute would meet in the afternoons. And sometimes there was movies shown and all us kids would wander down to watch it. If any of the boys came from the nearby town our lads would look after us local girls and even see us home to make sure we was safe...ah the days of good manners and polite kindness was the norm.

When I was primary school age we lived on Bardolf's farm, that was great sometimes, we would go scrumping apples in the farmer's old orchard and get colly wobbles in the tummy afterwards as they were bitter to the taste. We would run past the pig sties so the pigs could not see us eating the apples they were fed...oh the innocence of youth. There was a duck pond half way up the driveway and we would ride our bikes and sometimes we would fall off and land in the nettle patch, but there was always a dock leaf to rub on the skin and stop the stinging.

Village life was a close community even though you may have lived there many years, if you were not born and bred there you was called quietly "an outsider", this expression must have gone back to many centuries before, but all added to the local charm of the place.

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