Walderslade Thoughts
A Memory of Walderslade.
I live in the house where I was born in Walderslade. I have a huge collection of memories as, being 64 things that linger in the memory are triggered by living in the place you grew up.
Kit Hill Avenue was originally cut through the woods from Chestnut Avenue by Mr Reeves, long since gone. He cut the path through to get to his plot which I estimate he probably did around 1920. I am trying to find out! The road was originally called Alexandra or Alexander Road which I again guess was due to Mr Reeves naming it. Mr Reeves built his house in the middle of his plot with no running water on site such that he and his wife walked to the stand pipe that was on the corner of Chestnut Avenue and Walderslade Road many times using buckets and an old pram until he dug a well near the back door of his home. This was around 2mtr square and almost 5 mtrs deep and some of the spoils of his digging was placed at the back of the next door plot that was to become my parents and now my home. In my early teens the end of the garden was nothing but nettles and brambles but as I got more adventurous I cleared the growth and eventually, with my dad we dug out the pile and put it in skips. The difference in the materials in the pile reflected the depths to which Mr Reeves had dug in that on top of the pile the clay was almost sandy whilst further down it was thick pug. I am sure he must have tipped his spoil elsewhere in the woods at the time as he would have been the only resident! Woodland in all directions no doubt.
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Beyond the back garden there was a chicken run that spanned the width of our garden, and Mr Reeves so some 140 feet or more long and over 30 feet deep beyond which was a field that variously held Larry the Lamb along with an artists studio and at various later points a stable with a couple of horses. This land was owned by Mr and Mrs Stephens who also owned the widest plot of land in the road along with an orchard outside their front door. Larry was Mrs Stephens pet as was the large Labrador dog that they had too. Mum was petrified of feathers so if the chickens broke out of the run and found their way into the garden as they always seemed to do I used to get the job, even as a 5 or 6 year old, to round them up and get them running in the right direction back to the run.
I also remember that walk to school that I did 4 times a day. Mum of course initially did it 8 times as was the way at the time. Thing is it used to be cold. In the winter we would get freezing rain and hail and sleet none of which I think we have experienced as weather here in the south east for at least 35 years if not more. I used to come home for lunch never having stayed for school lunches, and walked the mile and a quarter and back as a 6 year old that I would doubt anyone would consider a safe thing to do today.