The Plough Inn, Kibblesworth

A Memory of Kibblesworth.

This is for Margaret Elliot, I am from Kent but my adopted Grandad, Fred (Frederick Joseph) Johnson was the landlord of the Plough Inn during and after the Second World War and my mother and I were evacuated there and later holidayed there and I loved it!
My real grandad got blown up after six weeks in France, Nana married a Canadian but he died of war wounds, then she married Granda (Fred) and we became the best of mates.
I had complete freedom even as a little lad of 5 or 6. Most mornings I would leave the back yard of the Plough by the side gates, make my way across what is now West View, through the allotments opposite and into the back door of South Farm to be welcomed by another Mrs Johnson, the farmers wife, (no relation,) and given breakfast. Later I may go with Mr Green, who worked on the farm, on a horse drawn cart to collect mangleworsels which were fed to the cattle. I recall sitting on the green outside South Farm Cottage with a little blonde girl about my age peeling a mangleworsel and cutting it up so we could eat it raw. We used her mum's carving knife with a bone handle, we didn't do Health & Safety back then and probably got tummy ache.
Granda and some of his regulars belonged to a "Pig Club." This meant you could own a pig jointly, get cheap feed from the Ministry of Agriculture and when it was slaughtered half was shared by the members of the club and the other half went into the food chain for other people to buy.
I would also go through the fields with other lads down to the river Team and throw stones at the water rats ... fortunately they were much quicker than we were and nobody fell in, or we would play on the railway lines which carried coal from the pit to the marshalling yard at Lamesley.
There was a Co-Op in the village where we could buy sherbet fountains, broken biscuits and lemonade crystals, you may remember it.
The Plough had four bars and a dance hall. The Bar was for men only and had cuspidors, (spitoons,) there was a ladies' room, a family room and a games room. The dance hall had live bands on a Saturday night and everything except the Bar had waiter service from Uncle Bob who lived on the premises with his wife in a flat at the rear. The female clientele had use of an indoor toilet but the men used an outside urinal, as was the custom in those days, it was on the far side of the back yard.
My next visit to Kibblesworth was in 1957 when I cycled there en route to Edinburgh and I stayed with friends in the village.
I returned to the Plough for a night in 1967 and met some of the locals who remembered Fred Johnson, then again in 1983 by which time the Plough had been completely modernised inside and a front porch had been added ..... also all toilets were now in a new extension.
Unlike many public houses in the UK the Plough is still open for business, I must go back before I am too old.

---

---