The Railway Children

A Memory of Finningley.

During the war years in 1940, we moved from Doncaster to Rossington. My father worked on the railway and felt we would be safer in the country. We lived at 254 Gatehouse Crossing and later in 1948, at 383 Gatehouse, Bessacarr. My mother had charge of the gates and would open them for the farmer, Mr Lee. It was also her responsibility to put fog signals on the line if she saw anything suspicious. She requested a revolver so she could shoot any would be saboteur and was quite capable of doing so! I attended the old village church school with my sisters and we would spend our sweet coupons and a penny at an old lady's cottage, where the sweets were spread out on a table in her sitting room. The sweets were placed on plates covered with starched pure white crocheted serviettes, on a beautiful white lace edged tablecloth. There were liquorice laces (red and black), sherbet dabs, and jelly babies all beautifully arrayed to tempt our palettes. A monthly treat awaited with mouth watering eagerness. At lunch time in the summer we would sit under a huge copper beech tree and eat mum's packed lunches of chocolate spread sandwiches, and cocoa in a thermos flask. School meals came later when we attended the big school in New Rossington. Dad loved fishing and had plenty of company on summer days fishing in the river Torne. In the evening, wives would join the fishermen and we would walk together later when it was dusk to a disused railway carriage that someone had occupied and made his home. He had an old American organ and those who could play would do so, while everyone else sang the popular songs of the day. The words could be bought at the Saturday market in Rossington and for a penny a sheet gave us all good value in reading material and memory training. On either side of the railway lines there were two woods, one coniferous and with abundant rhododendrons, the other was deciduous and yielded up blackberries and nuts as well a wild flowers. As children, the deciduous wood was a great play ground as was the river Torne, where we paddled and observed nature. September brought the ripe blackberries and were made into delicious pies, and later nut gathering for chestnuts and hazelnuts ensured Christmas stocking fillers. Mum and dad had a large piece of land to' Dig for Victory', and we had chickens and rabbits. This was added to over the years to goats, geese, ducks, guinea fowl and mum's favourites - saddle back pigs. Life was rich in many ways and the war seemed far away. We children were unaware of rationing - not missing what we never had, and were only made conscious of the fact of rationing when we ran out of sugar or butter (which didn't last long in our sweet toothed family). Butter rationing too meant on Fridays when it came with the groceries, lasted for two days then margarine had to be put on the bread, "Put it on and scrape it off again," mum would sing cheerfully when hugging the bread and cutting a thick slice for jam sandwiches. These were to be taken to the fields when haymaking days came. The children 'helped' put up the hay stoops into ricks and then when weary of running about, cooling their hot grubby bodies with a paddle in the river. The Rossington I knew has gone, but my memories are as clear as if it was yesterday. Thus I am in the process of writing them down for my grandchildren. As a teacher I was asked by the Head of my school to write down my memories of the war for the children studying World War II, however she wanted facts but to me the war was my childhood ,and I saw it from that perspective. I knew how it affected my life but it was a child's life spared the realization of the horrors of war. Childhood is precious and the memories are specially treasured now at the age of 79 when I recall the happy times with my family spent in Rossington. There is a housing estate there now but though it has changed there are some reminders. At the beginning of the lane to our home was a large house and on the way home from school we would stop and ask for fallen apples. For a penny, the owners would give us a big bag of sweet apples and pears. Sometimes there would be crab apples too. Much of the old village remains and all though I now live in Scotland, I roam the loved places of my childhood in my dreams.