Walks To Mappleton

A Memory of Mappleton.

My family moved to Ashbourne in 1942 when I was 6. My father was the engineer at the Nestle factory in the town and we lived in a big company house on the rising ground to the North of the town. There were two houses - mock Tudor - they are still there though more houses have been built on what were extensive gardens. There were two girls in the other house a little older than me and we went to the same school. We had Wednesday afternoons off school and our passion and delight was country walks. We used to walk regularly to Mappleton, collecting wild flowers along the way and spotting rabbits. I particularly remember the woodlands on the right hand side of the road and the violets in spring and the wood anenomes. I used to think it was a long way to Mappleton - my legs would get tired. One memory I have of our walks is encountering American soldiers who were stationed near Mappleton prior to 1944 - they would throw chewing gum to us as we often hid behind a hedge being a little scared. Chewing gum was like manna to sweets starved British children. I have not been back since we left in 1948. Now I live in Australia, in Queensland just outside Brisbane and north of Brisbane up in the hills is a little town called Mapleton where there are dairy farmers just like Derbyshire.

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