The Early Years

A Memory of Mundford.

I was born in Mundford in 1955 - when I was 18 months old my family moved to the nearby hamlet of West Tofts. We had a small wooden bungalow, one of a pair, that was directly opposite an army camp.
My father worked for his father as a farm labourer at Lynford Home Farm, but following some sort of bust-up, my dad started working for the MOD on night shifts and during the day he gradually built up a smallholding, ending up with about 40 acres - we farmed barley and sugar beet, and kept pigs. Now I look back, I realise how hard Dad must have laboured to hold down a job a night and work the land during the day. He did have me as a (sometimes unwilling) labourer.
Usually I would get up and feed the pigs before going to school at Mundford Primary. At that time, 1960 when I started, the 3 or 4 kids in West Tofts were picked up by a local taxi and taken to school and duly returned home after school - by the time I was 9, the rules changed and as I was within 3 miles of the school (2.8 miles to be precise), I had to make my own way there. This resulted in me biking back and forth each day, on my mum's biks, which certainly was not 'cool'.
I remember well the school and its teachers, particularly Mrs Cherish (spelt wrong but sounds the way I have written it), who was strict but was my favourite teacher. I also remember spending time in the school garden where we had lessons setting and tending all sorts of vegetables, I suspect they ended up on the Head's dinner plate, as none of us boys (girls did sewing) ever saw the finished product.
The highlight for me at primary school was the 'Cup Final' we played each year on the grown-ups' pitch - it wouldn't happen nowadays, but 22 kids playing football on a full sized pitch was euphoria for me and many of the others.
Christmas time would involve the whole village - us kids getting a sneaky shandy if we were lucky, the whist-drives and bingo evenings and finally the carol service in the village hall accompanied by the Salvation Army band, with the larger than life, and very well liked, Billy Emms taking care of the proceedings.
I particularly remember the 1963/64 winter - we were without running water for weeks (our WC was outside at that time, no flushing system). Mum and I would walk into Mundford for some shopping, and cart it all home again - we never seemed to mind though. Money was tight at that time, and I suppose I should admit that as well as our home grown vegetables, most of our meat came from the local countryside. Rabbits and pheasants were plentiful, and Mum knew how to cook them to perfection - I have yet to taste anything as good as Mum's rabbit stew.
Mid-summer saw the harvest starting, and many long, hot days and evenings were spent sacking up the barley and shifting into dry storage, followed by the bailing up of the straw and making of the straw-stacks - the end of the evenings work would be signalled by the beer that was brought out to us, and I remember the first time I was also given some beer - I was about 10 years old and I thought I had reached manhood.
Adult life in the village at that time centred around the two pubs (the Crown and The Kings Head), the bowls club and the village hall. Mundford had a good football and cricket team, and of course everyone knew everyone. Needless to say, there was quite a rivalry between the local villages, a definite case of one-upmanship where sport was concerned.
For the kids, the youth club thrived - we had all sorts of stuff going on, table tennis matches against other youth clubs, disco's and even live bands.
I moved on to Methwold Secondary when I was 11 years old - this meant getting up even earlier and getting back home later, but still the chores needed doing.
Finally, I left West Tofts at 15 years old to join the RAF. I think I had done my share of farming by then and wanted something different out of life. Mum and Dad moved back to Mundford when Dad semi-retired, they had many friends there and didnt want to be isolated as they grew older.
I never did move back, but I hold West Tofts and Mundford in my heart - the old saying fits with me, "You can take the boy out of Norfolk, but you can't take Norfolk out of the boy".
Mundford has changed, of course. New families came in and populated it, but not for the worse I think. Things were great back in the late 1950s and 1960s, and I wouldn't change that period of my life for anything. I have some great mates from then who I still have contact with, even though I have no family left in the village. I think the sense of looking after each other in the community at that time has taught me respect of people and their property - that was after myself and BG (he knows who he is) was caught half-way up a couple of apple trees filling our trouser legs with apples (trouser bottoms tucked in socks), and we managed to fall out of the trees, leap stiff-legged over the fence and kind of goose-step hurridely away from an irate owner.
We never had TV until I was around 5 years old, then only limited programmes and in black and white, but I cannot remember a day or evening when I was ever bored.
I hope some others see this and it prompts them to share their memories - I do feel lucky to have been part of Mundford and its local communities.

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