I was born in 1944 at 2 Council Houses, Blithbury. This is now known as 2 Uttoxeter Road. These houses were built as housing for agricultural workers and had subsidised rents.
My grandfather, Herbert Wainwright (always known as Bill), worked at the Priory Farm in Blithbury. My eldest sister, Barbara, says she believes he worked there all his life. Granddad use to cycle from his home in Hamstall Ridware every day and leave his cycle at our house. He would then walk through the wood to Priory Farm, do a morning’s work and then return to our house for his lunch. He would go back to the farm after lunch (which he would have called ‘snap’) and return in the evening to cycle home. This was in all weathers. He was still doing this in his 80s. He only gave up work when he started having problems with his legs and feet, and indeed he subsequently lost his leg.
Barbara can remember spending many a day playing with the Hammond children at Priory Farm during the days when they ran it.
Granddad was excellent at hedge laying (a craft which is rapidly dying out now by the look of things). He taught my dad Tom, and my uncle Ernie, how to do it and the local villagers used to say that they could tell when a Wainwright had laid a hedge. There was a certain style to it. Granddad also used to do the ditching and Barbara can remember that he used to put sacking over his feet in an attempt to keep them dry. I remember that both Granddad and my Dad used to use sacking over their coats to keep them dry. Dad also used to tie his trousers up with string below his knees as a protection against rats.
I can remember Granddad picking me up one day from our house with a horse and small trap. He was taking the horse to the blacksmith at Abbots Bromley to have it re-shoed and he taught me how to control the horse on the journey.
There are two things in particular about the Priory Farm which have remained in my memory. The first is the mass of primroses along the drive to the house (which is quite a length). There were also daffodils. It was a beautiful sight. The other is the gypsy caravan which was kept quite close to the house. I always thought this was lovely and occasionally would sneak off to have a look at it. We were always chased off if we were seen by the bailiff.
There were four children in our family: one boy and three girls, Derrick, Barbara, Joyce and myself. Derrick was accidently drowned in the River Blythe at Blythe Ford in 1947, when I was two. I was much younger than the other children and was a real favourite of Derrick’s. He took me nearly everywhere with him. Mum used to tell me a story that one day I was with him and he wanted to do something else for a few minutes. He was up by the Bull and Spectacles. He went to the farm next door (I think it was when Tomlinsons had it), and asked Mrs Tomlinson (who had several children herself) whether she would keep an eye on me for a short while. He told her that if I woke up (I was only a few months old) then she was to pick me up, and put me on her shoulder and pat me on the back. She was highly amused by this.
I was with him on the day he drowned. He had gone to the river to swim, accompanied by the boys from next door and me in the pram. Mum and Dad were devastated by his death as he was the only boy.
My Dad’s first job was in a coal mine somewhere near Burton-on-Trent and he used to have to walk several miles there, do a day’s work, and then walk several miles back home. This was obviously not the right job for him as he was very much an outdoors person. By the time he and Mum got married, he was working for a farmer whose farm was between Blithbury and Hamstall Ridware down a lane. I think it was Mr Sales but I am not absolutely certain. One of his jobs was to look after the horses and he used to take the stud to wherever his services were required. Everywhere he went he used to have to walk with the horse, again several miles each way every time.
Mum and Dad’s first home when they got married was a very tiny cottage in the middle of a field, well away from any other property. They had no running water, no electricity or anything like that. This was obviously far too much of a culture shock for my mother as she had moved from Stoke-on-Trent and it took her a very long time to come to terms with her new life.
My Dad worked during my earlier years for the Mellors at the Manor Farm, opposite the Bull and Spectacles. I can remember that we always had a side of bacon hanging up at home, as Dad was given a share when a pig was killed. Mrs Mellor used to make black pudding.
Another story my Mum used to tell me was that Derrick would never eat bacon from the side, as he would not eat what he referred to as ‘that pig bacon’, because he had seen the pig killed. Mum used to have to slice the bacon off and then wrap some of it in paper as if it had been bought from a shop. Then he would eat it.
We always had our milk from Mellor’s. I used to fetch it every day in a jug. An interesting point is that when the NHS started to do BCG [Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an anti-tuberculosis vaccine] injections for TB, we were the first pupils to receive this at Aelfgar School. None of us knew what to expect. We were given the skin test first and both Margaret Mellor and I had huge lumps on our arms within a few days. Everyone said that it looked as if we would have to have the injection and they would not. To our surprise it was the other way round. Margaret and I were the only two in the whole year who did not have to have the injection. We had natural immunity. I had a problem during the 1970s, was tested again for TB and I still had this natural immunity. We were never sure if it was because of the milk we had both been brought up on, or whether it was because one of the mothers from Blithbury had to go to a sanitorium for six months and her two children played with us and came on the school bus every day. Either way, unpasteurised milk never did any of us any harm.
I can remember that during conker time we would stand on Blithbury Bank and throw sticks up on the trees to knock the conkers off. Fortunately for us there was not much traffic about in those days. We would sometimes stand on the other side of the trees on the lawn at Blithbury Bank Farm, but the problem with that was that Mrs Butters always had at least one cade [orphan] lamb and these would act as guard dogs and would butt us. They would be able to knock me over as I was always very small.
On the opposite side of the road there was an area which was always referred to as the Dump’. People used to dump things there, even though we should not have done. There were always batteries and things there, things which were very interesting to youngsters. There was a pond at the bottom and there were kingcups on it and occasionally we saw a kingfisher. We used to slide down the steep side of the dump and I can remember doing it one day without realising that there was a piece of glass there. I had to sit on a cushion at school for several weeks after that and I still have the scar!
Just round the corner from the drive to the Priory Farm there was an area on the opposite side of the road which was covered with plants with very pretty white flowers on them. Valerie Knight and myself decided to take a short cut through these plants to walk across the fields towards home. What we didn’t know was that this was wild garlic and when we reached our house we stank to high heaven of garlic. We were both put into the bath straight away and Joyce went to Mrs Knight’s to get clean clothes for Valerie. We weren’t allowed to forget that for quite some time and we never walked through the garlic again.
I can remember a few things about our house at 2 Council Houses. We had a brick-built copper in the corner of the kitchen, under which a fire had to be lit to heat the water to do the washing. This was still in when we left the house in 1960. We also had a big range/fire which had to be black-leaded. I hated that job. It was almost guaranteed that at 4.30pm to 5.00pm every day the electricity supply would go down to virtually nil, as all the farmers put the milking machines on. I can remember being very disappointed that I could not watch children’s programmes on the television, like the others who lived in Hill Ridware. We had a little 9 inch television. It was one of the first things Mum bought when she went to work when I was able to go to school. She worked at St Mary and St Anne’s School at Abbots Bromley in St Bridget’s, the part of the school for the very youngest girls. I used to spend quite a bit of my school holidays in Abbots Bromley, either at my sister Barbra’s home or at the school with Mum. All the spring cleaning was done during the school holidays. The girls at St Bridget’s knew that I was keen on reading and they would send their magazines to me. These were Girls’ Crystal and School Friend. I wish I had some of them now as I am sure they would be collectors’ items.
When Dad left Mellor’s, he went to work for Mr Smallwood at Handsacre Hall. He was more or less in charge there, as Mr Smallwood was very elderly, in his 80s. Dad used to do all kinds of work on the farm and he used to act as shepherd. During the lambing season we didn’t see him very much as he would spend most of his time at the farm, just returning home for a short while to have his meals. He used to sleep in the barn. He was returning home to one night, when a train went by and Dad noticed one of the wheels was white hot. He turned back and walked to the signal box – this was in the 1960s when the box was still there – and told the signalman. By the time they stopped the train it had reached Tamworth, and the wheel was so hot, it was within a very short time from setting the train on fire. One of the brakes had jammed on. Dad received a very nice letter from British Rail thanking him for his prompt action.
We used to have a Sunday School at Mrs Knight’s home (Rose Cottage). This was run by Mr and Mrs Waltho from Hamstall Ridware. They were members of the congregation of the Brethren Chapel at Hamstall Ridware, which was at first held in the front room of Mrs Goodwin’s house opposite the school. Also, on Tuesday evenings John Smith from Trent Farm at Pipe Ridware used to come in his car and pick up Valerie Knight and myself and take us down to Hamstall for what was called ‘the social’. This was a meeting for youngsters, which consisted of chorus singing, bible teaching and games (in the summer in the field by the school, usually rounders). I always really enjoyed those evenings. The Smiths became very good friends, particularly Mrs Smith Snr. She was a lovely lady. After a few years a Chapel was built further along on the opposite side of the road. This teaching was very good grounding for us and I have retained my links with the Christian Church, although I am now a member of the Methodist Church and attend St Paul’s in Rugeley. I still have a very soft spot for that little Chapel though. We went on holiday from the Chapel one year to the cottage on Cader Idris near Talybont which belonged to Mrs Goodwin, Mary Smith’s mother (a different Mrs Goodwin from the one whose front room we had used). This was a really good holiday. The cottage was built into the mountainside and the windows upstairs were at ground level, which I found odd.
I can remember that when King George VI died in 1952, the school at Hill Ridware organised a service in the village outside the filling station that was there then. The pupils stood in rows (short rows as there were not many of us) and we sang hymns and said prayers. I can also remember being taken from school in 1953 to the opening of the Blithfield Reservoir. I was only eight or nine at the time and it seemed a long way off. We went on a coach, which was a real treat, and I can remember seeing the Queen Mother, even though it was from a bit of a distance.
We had a celebration in Blithbury to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and we had a fancy dress parade. I can remember that my sister Joyce made me a costume out of crepe paper. We were all given a mug and we had tea.
I can remember that one Christmas we youngsters (Barry Eyre, Michael Eyre, David Butters, Valerie Knight, and myself) decided to go carol singing round the village. Miss Done (in the house across the road from the Bull and Specs) was very pleased to see us and gave us all a cake and a glass of lemonade. We went on to Pipewood and sang there. The man in charge was so pleased that we had gone that he gave us two shillings each, a veritable fortune in those days. We also sang at the pub. I don’t think we were very good but we made a bit out of it.