Growing Up In Sutton

A Memory of Sutton.

We lived at no 6 Greenfields, Sutton. My nan lived at four with my grandad Tom - in fact it was my family which helped forge Sutton village. I remember many families; Mr and Mrs Harland who ran the village shop, Mr and Mrs Gardener, Mr and Mrs Vile, Mr and Mrs Dudman and their two sons, the Alston family, the Brownes,and the Armstrongs - I could go on. I had two aunties that lived at Sutton End, auntie Nancy and aunt Aida; my aunt Sue still lives in the village. My grandad, Tom used to cut the church grass. I left the village many years ago, I married and had children. I used to tell them stories of life growing up, long hot summers, village flower shows and the fact that I was not the most popular kid in the village with other parents - my fault because I was an awful kid, but I do have very fond memories and more than that, great respect to those I have mentioned and those I haven't. I used to visit the village from time to time, but in 2011 I suffered a stroke which has left me severely disabled and confined to a power chair. This came along at the same time more or less when they diagnosed me with brittle bone disease, so as you can imagine I can't make those trips out to the village anymore, but recently the day centre I attend took us to Bury, and as we were going on to Chichester afterwards, our careworkers drove through Sutton to Duncton Hill. As we drove in the minibus through the back lanes, my mind wandered back in time, to picnics below the cuckoo tree, a name give to a tree by my aunts. Also to two hills we called the Burket and the Slipes, and me as a boy trying to beat my gran in finding the bigest wild strawberry growing by the road. Why was life better then? They say that a part of you remains in the place you grew up in, so I often think that if one was to stand and gaze across one of those sun drenched corn fields in Sutton village. Perhaps you may hear the distant sound of children laughing as they play hide and seek around those hay bales, and maybe even a glimpse of them as they slowly return back into the past and you are brought back into your time, as a cuckoo sound breaks the silence of the evening sun setting.

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