Wonderful Times

A Memory of Coldmeece.

My father moved to Cold Meece in 1960 to take up his job as a prison officer at the nearby Drake Hall open prison, and we stayed there for a couple of years before we moved to live at the prison itself.

At the time I was between 9 and 11 years old and, for a child of that age, it was a wonderful place to grow up. It was so rural that there was little risk of being knocked over by cars, and we were free to wander all over the place, only returning home for food and, occasionally, money for the ice cream van.

There were two wonderful structures that we had ready access to which are worthy of special mention :-

- There was an old abandoned stately home, which we kids used to play in. At that time it was in a stable condition so it was relatively safe to play in. I remember that the house had its own dog's graveyard outside for the family pets who had passed away. There was a metal plaque on the outside wall referring to someone famous who had flown over the house on one of the first flights. There was also a pond which contained perch and other catchable fish.

- Even better than that was the abandoned railway station that had been used by the local ordinance factory during the war. We could play throughout the entire station and its adjacent air raid shelters.

The other strange highlight for me, was that when I passed my 11 plus and had to go to St Joseph's College, a catholic grammar school at Stoke, myself and two other boys from Swynnerton needed a taxi to take us to the nearest bus stop from which we could catch a bus to school!

All in all, I look back on my spell in Cold Meece with great affection and with fond memories.

---

---