Happy Times

A Memory of Turners Hill.

As children we were very priviliged to be part of the village community. We spent many carefree hours playing and making camps in the woods and fields, sometimes we would venture further but had to keep a watchful eye for the keepers. I'm sure they knew we were about but most of the time they turned a blind eye. I was fascinated by their traps, they may seem cruel to some these days but they had a duty to look after the birds ready for the forthcoming shooting season and to provide a good show for their employers, their employment and housing for their families depended on it. On the whole the estate were excellent employers and looked after their workers, many of whom came from previous generations of estate employees. The estate owned much of the village then and this led to a fairly stable and contented way of life for most. Carpenters, woodsmen, decorators were all needed to maintain the many properties that the estate owned, not including the many farms needing labourers, stockmen, cowmen and in days gone by carters for the horses. In my holidays I used to work for Dennis Beard, a very forward thinking and organised farmer as can be seen at Tulleys and Worth Hall today. His sister Bett did the cows along with Mr Laker. One of my jobs was removing mayweed from the rows of parsley so that it was clean ready to be cut by the converted forage harvester. I remember finding a pair of leverets in the sixteen acre behind Worth Hall farm above the Rats where mother hare had carefully hidden them in the thick parsley! Back breaking work but it stood me in good stead for my eventual trade. Denis used a variety of casual labour including a Romany family called the Akehursts, they were ruled very strictly by mother who had jet black hair which was always greased and kept in a net, she drove them all in the truck to the farm from Edenbridge, Denis always paid her then she would divvy it out later! I used to love talking to her as she was a mine of wisdom and country lore but would find it hard not to use the special Romany language. We were talking abouut ferreting one day and she kept on about my webs, in the end I realised they were the nets, which of course look like giant spider webs! At lunch time she would delegate one of the others to light the fire and put the big black kettle on for tea. John Millam the keeper for that side of the estate would often appear out of nowhere on his rounds to keep an eye on us all. There were three pubs then and they all seemed to keep busy. The Crown was famous for its ham, egg and chips cooked by Mrs Sargent. Les and Josie aka Blodwin were mine hosts and were great characters. Regular bingo sessions were held in the reading room where Murdo used to call out the numbers in his great booming voice, there were great prizes such as a chicken dinner to be had! There were various youth clubs held to try and occupy us as well as clubs for the adults. At that time we had a butcher ,Mr Humphrey, who I worked for, a baker Mr Muggeridge, Mr Bristow the grocer, the sweet shop Mr, Mrs and Miss Cornford, and the newsagent and cycle repairer Mr Budgen, he kept a pony at one time in a wood behind Hill House where the houses are now, this was always known as Budgen's Top. Nelson Skinnsly was the estate's master carpenter and Dicky  Lucas did the metalwork down at the pickletanks. The other great feature of the village was Arthur and Norman Bowers with their horse and cattle transport business. I used to love going to the markets with Barry, Arthur's son, in the luton of one or other of the lorries. The foxhounds used to meet on the village green once a year after the shooting season had ended and would usually go into the park through Grove farm. I used to bunk off school on those days and follow with my dad on our bikes along with Uncle Tom on his scooter. Usually Ray Budgen the head keeper would pick us up in the landrover and we left the bikes somewhere in a hedge. I 've never lost my affection for the village and often have a wander around the graveyard to remember the familiar names that are there. I hope the children there now appreciate what a beautiful place they live in and take time to explore as much of the countryside as they can. I see that the school has been tastefully extended and that the children have some chickens to look after, what can I say, fantastic! We had three teachers in those days, Mr Eastwood the head, Miss Elison and Mrs Tilman for the infants, probably less than twenty five children in total! The school meals were beautifuly cooked by Mrs Davies, food like hungarian goulash!! and served up in the ark of course. Happy times indeed.