Happy Days

A Memory of Robertsbridge.

My dad Fred Brown, estate carpenter at Mountfield, was a good singer and actor and was a member of Robertsbridge amateur theatre group, and I remember going to shows at the hall several times, only one I remember, 'Changing of the Guard'. I remember him playing the piano at home and singing words I remember went something like 'Willo Willo Waley, will you marry me' and as kids didn't go much on that. Mum (Doris) worked at the Grey and Nickols (?) factory during the war, making table tennis tables. As teenagers we went to the dances at the hall on Saturday nights, walking back to Mountfield in the early morning absolutely shattered. In 1947 when I was in the RAF it took ages to get home with phone wires, branches broken off the trees to negotiate and freezing cold. My RAF greatcoat stood up in the bakehouse where Mum had put it to thaw out for several days for about the first 20 weeks in the RAF, I must have been home 15. About 1948/49 Albert Button and myself were at RAF West Malling, every Saturday we cycled home and returned on Sunday night, I feel tired just thinking about that now, at the time being young and fit and with very little money we thought nothing of it. Would it be done these days? I think its a NoNo. Still, I am sure they were happier days.

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