From New Barnet To High Barnet

A Memory of High Barnet.

I remember being in the last year at Whitings Road School, and having our school 5-a-side picture taken on the back steps of the school. It is the earliest colour photo taken of me and the team, and I still have it. I remember John Brennan, John Hill, who turned out to be a pretty good footballer, John Hanratty who, for a skinny lad could boot the ball over 3/4 of the length of the pitch, myself, and Malcolm, sorry I can't remember his second name. In the front there is a silver cup, but I can't remember what cup it was. I lived at the bottom of Bells Hill, and our field we used to play in was the grazing field for the milkman's horse, 'Kitty'. Happy days until they built an estate on it. By 'our', I mean all us kids who were local to the fields up Bells Hill then. Melvyn Eyers, John Hill, Steve Anderson, Gerry Crochet, Bernard Clark, John Rugman me and my brother Martin. Although as a family we came from East Barnet, Welbeck Road, we moved to St Stephens Road when I was 7 in 1957.
Do any of these names ring a bell?
I went on from Whitings Road school to Ravenscroft school and left there in 1965. Some of my best memories are around the arrival of the 'fair', always on the last days of the summer holidays. I would get 1s.3p pocket money from my dad, Gerry Burke, who was a hod carrier, and half a crown from my great-nan Mrs Burke of Welbeck Road.
1960 I remember for an episode on 'Buttercup field' which was on Bells Hill, just above Dellors Close, and opposite the great building that were part of Barnet General Hospital. There were four of us on a Saturday afternoon and we had just bought a jamboree bag each and were finishing off the sherbert dips when a gang of lads from Conaught Road area (off Mays Lane and opposite the end of Chesterfield Road) came onto our field. One of the lads, I remember, shouted "It's them from Conaught Road"! The average age of all of us was no more than 11 years, and yet a couple of us had a catapault, another an air rifle, and these lads from the end of Chesterfield Road had weapons among which was a long bow. My brother climbed the old Elm tree that was halfway down the field and to the left, John Anderson got safely behind the Elm, I'm not sure where Gerry Crochet was, but I found some cover behind an old sheet of corrogated iron.
I can remember letting fly with a couple of stones I found but then, as I peeked out from behind the tin, what I thought was a stone hit the side of my head. It was, in fact an arrow. It had clattered the side of my face and the point had gone through my left ear. My brother jumped from the tree screaming "It's gone through his neck", as it was still hanging from my ear. This ended the confrontation and the Conaught Road gang ran off. Gerry Crochet though refused to snap the arrow, in order to get it out of my ear, and sliced my ear with his sheath knife.
I asked my mother this week if she remembered my returning from playing and her rushing me up to the hospital. She said she did remember that episode, but had no idea how it had happened. I didn't tell her, I just nodded with a rueful smile.
Now, as I watch my grandchildren grow, I am sorry they don't have the same amount of freedom we had, and yet in so many ways I'm aware of the dangers that come from too much freedom. Looking back we were lucky to survive when I think of the scrapes we got into, and to those we played with I would like to say this. I am sorry for any pain I caused, or our little group caused, but in particular my brother and myself would like to apologize to John.

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