Cranborne

A Memory of Cranborne.

I was a pupil at Cranborne First School at the time of Ms Rogers and lived across the carpark at 9 Water Street. I remember ending up with prizes for cooking and mini garden and doing the show at the old village hall singing '1, 2, 3,4,5, once I caught a fish alive' and I became confused with which hand was my right one, lol. I also played Joseph. I remember when I moved there I managed to get in trouble with the local bobby within days as he came out of his house to find me in his garden on their swing and when he said it was not mine I told him it could not be his as he was too big.
The main thing I remember was in 1973/74, I was playing with the phone outside the fire station (where my dad worked part time) and was put through to the police and I told them a story about a bad man who had my mum up a tree wearing a striped shirt and a mask! The problem was at the time they were looking for a man dubbed the 'panther' so next thing was a knock on the door from CID and uniform with tracker dogs (whoops) looking for Mr Cooper who was 84 (or may have been 94 but I told them I was NEARLY four). Thankfully they thought it was funny and the car park was full of laughing police.
I went to a Christmas party at the manor house (my father worked in the saw mill) and remember the massive tree that was indoors.
I also climbed the tree (still there I think) in the back garden and managed to get stuck so my father brought a ladder from the station to get me down and all I kept saying was how I could see my school over the house (looking back I wonder why my parents didn't put me up for adoption, lol).
Next door (no 11) lived 'Nanny' Evans and I still have fond memories of being at her house toasting bread on the open fire (something i can do now,first open fire since childhood) but sadly i remember going back with some of my brothers birthday cake a few years after moving (we had lept in touch) and as we pulled up into the carpark we saw her husband's coffin being taken from the house. I learned to ride a bike at the rec on the big hill and used to spend hours sliding down Castle Hill on sheets of corrugated iron and eating beech nuts (you would not let a kid do that these days).
Many years later I ended up working in Cranborne as a cleaner at the bakers (sadly gone now) and met the old bobby's daughter that I had not seen for about 15 years but she did not remember me. I loved the place and it was a wonderful place to grow up back then (even with mucking out the farmer's stalls every weekend for a minor infraction on his farm at the end of Water Street) and wish I lived somewhere like that now for my kids.

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