My Grandmothers Family In Kingstone Winslow

A Memory of Kingstone Winslow.

Nearly all my holidays were spent in Kingston Winslow, in the 1950s. I was brought up in London, but would have loved to have lived in K. Winslow. permanently. My family were the Becketts, and lived in a small terraced thatched cottage. My mother used to take me there, or I went with my grandmother, Ada. Sometimes my London cousins would come as well. By the time I was born, my great-grandfather John Beckett had died, but my great-grandmother Sarah was there. I had a great-uncle, Bill, my Nan's brother, who also lived in the cottage . He had been in the army and had sustained heat stroke abroad .He was permanently disabled by this, but still remained mobile in his hand-propelled wheelchair, and he used crutches to walk. I had lots of cousins and great-uncles and aunts. I even went to Sunday School a few times. In the 1950s, for the first few days of my stay, my K. Winslow cousins and I usually had difficulty understanding each other. Their Berkshire accents made them pronounce a lot of their words quite differently to me. I used to return to London talking as they did, with a fabulous accent. Then the London kids didn't understand ME!
The cottage is pretty small, with low ceilings and it had an iron range in the main room, where, of course, all cooking and water heating was done. Everyone ate in the main room as well. There was no indoor loo of course, but there was a communal privvy outside at the end of the row of cottages,above the cesspit. Lots of nettles grew around the cesspit, and I remember once my cousin Keith (who was also from London) fell into the nettlebed and developed huge blisters as he hadn't been wearing a shirt on that hot day. Back in the cottage, the only mod con (in the scullery ) was an indoor tap above a drain, but I think this may have been a big advance from taking the buckets outside to and from the well. On going to bed at twilight I took a very small oil lamp up the wooden stairs to light the way. I cannot think of what Health and Safety would have thought of that in a thatched cottage nowadays! There was no electricity at all, and lighting was all by oil lamps.
We used to paddle in a small chalk stream nearby, and one day I fell backwards into it . My K. Winslow cousins Raymond and Shirley thought that was great. The whole family used to walk to the Rose and Crown in Ashbury some evenings, and we children used to play in the courtyard, drink lemonade and eat crisps. My Nan took us up on Winslow Bank (pronounced Winsley by all the local folk) on hot summer days, and I remember looking closely at the silvery flowers and different insects, (especially Dumbledores!). When I grew a little older I thought my Nan had got the pronunciation wrong, as they are bumblebees, until I looked it up. (Long before G.K. Rowling and Harry Potter arrived!). Of course that's what you call them. The people who live there know! I know now. Dumbledores.There is a lot more that I remember, like the tiny shop in K. W. with the huge thatched roof. It was run by an elderly lady and sold, among other things rather soft, and I suspect rather out of date, toffees. We still ate them and survived. The "cinema" happened in Ashbury village hall. It was obviously visiting and temporary. It had a large noisy projector which made a clacking noise, and the seats were benches with no backs. When I had learned to ignore the projector noise I became engrossed in the black and white western. I forgot I wasn't in London with purpose built cinema seats. I leaned back and fell on the people sitting hehind me. Happily I was only eight years old and quite small.
The mornings were heavenly, and I always looked out of the small bedroom window, surrounded by fragrant dewy thatch and could inhale the summer air and the roses growing below. Even the vegetable patch had a freshness of its own, and when passing allotments in the mornings in London, I was often reminded of KIngston Winslow. My Nan's family always sent us boxes of russett apples in autumn, and boxes of cowslips in spring. They came on the steam train, we went to see them on the steam train too. Very few of us had cars, which is probably why the air was so fresh. Even in London. My Nan taught me about hedgerows, gardening, little town sparrows, swifts, insects, all very matter of fact, and almost without realizing, I had been learning such a lot from her. She gave me a love for the countryside which will never die. I would like to do the same for my granddaughter. I have not been back to K. Winslow for some time now. I live in Norfolk, and last time I saw Granny's cottage, it was coloured pink and called a romantic name. The lady living there then very kindly showed me round it, and I gave her some copy photos of my family in the 1920s and 1930s. The old russet apple tree with the hole in the bark with the bluetits nest was still there. Thank you for inviting me to contribute.

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