Memories 1955 1965

A Memory of Shaftesbury.

We came to Shaftesbury from Singapore in 1955, when I was 4 and only spoke Malay. We rented part of the then rambling old house called Green Close, at the bottom of a hill. We then moved to 3 Lower Blandford Road and started school at the C of E Primary School, behind Holy Trinity Church. Either trudging past the boys Grammar School or going down Hawksdene Lane and cutting through Boyne's Meade to town; or going on via French Mill Lane and staggering up Gold Hill, hanging onto that iron handrail for dear life when it was icy! I remember the lime trees on either side of the path leading from town, near King Alfred's Kitchen, to the school. Come rain or shine we had to go outside at playtime and those quarter pint bottles of milk with straws used to taste yukky! My sister Catherine started there on the same day my mum, Mrs Turner, began teaching at the school, and 'Auntie Ruth Stockley' from Coppice St used to clean for us and look after us and the dog if Dad was away. Her husband, 'Uncle Ed', was nice and they had a corgi. The school was so cold and in the winter the ice was on the inside of the cracked windows which overlooked the cemetery! And those horrid outside loo's...! I remember we used to tune into the radio programme 'Listen to Music' and sing folk songs, shanties etc - I've still got some of those books, too! Oh, I recall having to stand up and recite our 'times tables' backwards and forwards, too! I remember going 'up the Rec' near the Secondary Modern School where there was a roundabout and some swings, and occasionally going to the off-licence with Mum and Dad at the Half Moon, just over from our house, when we would sit outside and drink orange squash. There was a fabulous monkey puzzle tree in the field behind the pub and we used to swing from the lower branches and try to miss the cow pats! Cowards Farm was down Hawksdene Lane and we would go and look at the chickens there. Now that I'm older, the memory of those poor battery hens upsets me. Father Jenault lived somewhere near Boyne's Meade and he always had a big smile and cheery 'Hello!' when we met him. I passed my 11-plus and was one of the day-girls at the High School for Girls and was in Wren House, with blue woven girdle. I remember we had to do deportment, and would line up in the corridor before assembly and see who had won a deportment star! I was in the orchestra and recorder society and Miss Drake, the music teacher, lived next door to us. After we moved out to Bedchester in 1964, if I had piano lessons either next to St Peter's church or down at St James, I was allowed to join the boarders for tea as there wasn't time to go home and back. I learned to love apricot jam, which always seemed to be for tea! We moved out to Bedchester and my school friends Jane Kerley, Denise Allum (from the Jewellers in Shaftesbury), Gill Henderson and Jane Farrand and I used to sometimes hang around Clayesmore School at Iwerne Minster, in order to chat to the boys there at the weekends! I remember the local boy pop groups would perform in the summertimes outside the pub at Fontmell Magna, and we would go along in our frocks, thinking we were the bees knees and hoping they'd notice us! I remember the dreadful winter of 1962/3, when the snow was higher than the hedges down French Mill Lane. 'Uncle Eric Brown' from the village shop at St James would stagger to us with a huge basket of provisions - we often used to have tea with him and 'Aunty Ivy' at the back of the shop, come to think of it! I remember that there was a helicopter drop at some point, there was a water stand-pipe in town and anyone who had a pony/horse and cart used to do their best to deliver food around and about. I also remember the time when something from outer space supposedly landed in a field at Charlton, causing quite a stir! I remember very many names from my infant and High School Days and am still in touch with some of the girls. I recall Moira Davis, Joe Merefield, the Pikes and the Warehams, Maureen Sellars (we were in Singapore with them and they lived in the Prefabs up near Wincombe), Ross Boyne at primary school; loads of girls from the High School and the teachers too - Miss Hughes taught English, Miss Fraser was the PE mistress, Miss Watkins taught Latin and Miss Piggott taught Geography and used to wear long narrow skirts with old-fashioned white blouses tucked in! Miss Drake was very friendly with the recorder people, the Dolmetsch's, and used to fawn all over K.D when he visited! I remember Hine and Parsons, (the clothes shop), the Bell cafe, the post office at the bottome of town, where the roads met; Smales the sweet shop, Marshall Johnsons furniture and The International grocers. I learned to ride at Hindon, at Penny Verner's, and rode for most of my life thereafter. We left for Cyprus in 1969, catching one of the last steam trains from the station at Gillingham as we headed for our UK departure point in London. I would live in Shaftesbury again if I could. A privilege to have spent my formative years there.