Joy Arnold As A Child

A Memory of Cranmore.

I lived on the Isle of Wight from the early 1930s until roughly 1943.We lived at several different locations, Cranmore being one of them. I remember as a small child Mrs Jordan's shop. I also have vague memories of the old postman wearing his Victorian postman's uniform and also of Mr and Mrs Higginbottom. As I recall, Mr Higginbottom worked for an insurance company and was also a Sunday
School teacher and taught myself and my two brothers Reg and Archie . Mr and Mrs Higginbottom took all three of us to Sunday School in their car.
There were two elderly sisters who lived next door to us who kept angora rabbits for their fur, which they used to spin! I think of them as my guardian angels as they used to tell me to sing "There is a happy land" at the top of my voice when I went to fetch the milk from the farm nearby so that they knew that I was safe. ( I was only about four years old at the time).
I remember the adders in our garden and the bonfire which my father Ted used to keep alight during the summer months ready for their impending cremation (much to the horror of my two guardian angels!).
There were also two other elderly ladies who lived together further along the road. They lived in a bungalow and kept goats. They invited me to tea one day and the one sister asked would I like a drop of goats milk, the other lady insisted that perhaps I wouldn't like it and suggested she add some sugar which she did. I very tentatively took a small sip and looked up at the two anxious faces and on being asked did I like it said "Yes thank you" and drank the lot down very quickly.
My childhood memories of Cranmore are very happy ones because of the freedom and the caring friendships. From here our family moved to Abbitsford near to the American Woods near Cliff Bridge.

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