Lucan Villa With The Ellicot Family

A Memory of Luson.

During the Second World War the Buckle family lived in Embankment Road with Aunt Laura Ellicot when the bombing got too dangerous for us to stay in the city of Plymouth. So we went with Aunt Laura and her grandchildren and 2 of her daughters to Lucan Villa. We lived in the lovely house, that had an amazing staircase at the front, and a concrete staircase at the back from the pantry. My sister Mary, brother Peter and I slept in a lovely double bed together, and absolutely adored living there. It was Paradise for us children. It had a large orchard full of every type of fruit, and if we were hungry we just picked fruit. We were free to wander the lanes and fields around Luson, with the older children, Mary, Jennifer and Katherine. I was only 3 and Peter 4 when moved there. All the children went to the school in the village of Hobleton, and I was quite lonely during the day. When they came home we would run off through the fields down to the streams and pick watercress, or go to the farm opposite Luson and play around the pond. We were chased many times by the flock of geese, especially if it was your turn to fetch the milk. I remeber watching a foal being born in the barn that sided on to Lucan's yard. I also fell off the five-bar gate and a dog bit me over my left eye. I still have the scar. There were soldiers stationed in a field near the crossroads, we were told not to bother them, but we did. I think they quite liked seeing all us children on the way to the village to spend our pennies. It was a long way for little legs to walk, but we thought nothing of it. Indeed, when I started school we always walked there and back. Sometimes we got a lift to the crossroads on the two carthorses Boxer or Violet. Other times on the milkcart. Aunt Laura was a wonderful person, and could do anything. We once watched her tie a pig to the five-bar gate, put a bucket under its throat and cut it. The blood rushed into the bucket, and the pig squealed and fell over with a thud. She got the butcher to cut it into joints etc, and made sausages and hung the meat on hooks in the scullery. That smell followed me for years. There were lots of chickens and pigs, and she grew vegetables.
Christmas was special. Cooking would start weeks before, and most of her family would manage to come for the holiday. Hobleton has a big church for such a small village. Daughter Katherine was married there, and I remember getting out of bed one night and being shown her new baby, which was born in Lucan Villa. We watched dog fights with Spitfires and German planes. One was shot down, and landed in a field nearby. I don't know what happened to the pilot.
Summer holidays were spent on the beach, I think was Mothocombe, or wandering the fields with newspaper-wrapped sandwiches. At harvest time we would help in the fields, after a fashion. How we loved sharing the men's lunch and drinking a little cider. The Gypsies would come in their colourful caravans, and park in one of the fields. They would be there for the harvest and fruit picking. We had great fun with the children and were sad to see them go. They returned every summer.
Winter was quite hard, because if it snowed and we were down down a steep hill we didn't get far. It took longer to get to school and once we had to stay at school all night. We loved to make slides in the hayricks, and were often in trouble.
We lived at Luson for wonderful years, and returned to Embankment Road when it became safe.
Mary, Peter and I have all revisited Luson and haven't been disappointed. It still looked the same, although the farm was derelict, and the garden of the house was altered, the orchard had gone, but the house is still as beautiful as was the area of Luson that we all loved so much, and still do.
Ann Sandells (nee Buckle). Brighton, Sussex.

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