Music

A Memory of Burghfield Common.

We moved to Burghfield Common when my father started work as an MOD policeman at Burghfield. We moved into Bannister Road when the estate was still being built and I remember my mother saying that one day she opened the back door to find an adder on the doorstep. My sister Maureen & I went to Mrs Blands School when Mr Halfpenny and Miss Tanner were teaching. I remember that I always said I would have a car with the registration number OMO 21 just like Miss Tanner's. We had piano lessons from Mr Parlovich at home. He would come in and place a few sweets on the end of the keyboard and say 'if we were good with the lesson, we could have the sweets at the end' I don't remember not having the sweets. Although we attended church at St Mary's, Sulhampstead I went to Sunday School at Burghfield Common Methodist Church. A small group of us formed a choir and we would go around chapels in the area singing for evensong. Myself, Sue Bushnell, Pam Smith, Nicholas - here to my shame I cannot remember his surname or the names of the other members although I can see their faces in my mind as I type. During the CND protest we used to go to the main road by the Rising Sun and watch them all go past as if it were a carnival. There waas a bakery at the other end of the village from us and I used to cycle down to get the bread but my mother always complained because by the time I got back home the end crust had been eaten - freshly baked bread from a proper baker!!!! Maureen went on to Willink which hadn't long been built and where my mother was assistant cook but Pam, Sue & Myself passed the 11plus and went to The Holt in Wokingham. We used to catch the 4pm bus from Wokingham home and then wait at the bus station in Rreading for the 4.40pm bus to Burghfield so that we travelled back with the girls from Kendrick & the boys from Reading School.

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