I was born the youngest of four brothers at the Old School House in Hill Ridware on 6 August 1935. My father, Alan Hammond, was the youngest son of Frederick and Bessie Hammond of Pipe Place Farm, Handsacre. My mother (Winifred Hammond) was born a Southwell, from the square in Rugeley, where her parents were florists.
We lived in the old schoolhouse and my early recollections were of the old bucket toilets at the top of the yard (a block of four, belonging to the school); the coal boiler in the outhouse where we were bathed in a tin bath which hung on the wall; and the air-raid shelter my father built (about 6 feet deep, with a roof of railway sleepers covered in grass). Because it was below the watershed line, it constantly had a foot of water in it!
There was only one house between the schoolhouse and the Chadwick Arms. On the other side we had an orchard running up to the smithy. We enjoyed picking our own fruit, Keswick apples being a favourite, and greengages.
Saturday morning (when not at Grandpa’s farm), we gathered at the smithy to help pump the bellows for the blacksmith. The smell of shoeing the horses remains with me to this day.
We all (four boys) went to Hill Ridware school as our first school – this was via the lane past the Chadwick Arms, or down the shortcut path to the right of the smithy. One of my memories of school is the dread of the dentist arriving in a mobile clinic and parking in the playground. My mother always refused let us be treated and we went to a private dentist in Lichfield.
We later went to the Hawksyard school on the Rugeley Road, Armitage – paid for by my mother’s income from making holly wreaths at Christmas, which was a source of income for several ladies in the village.
Opposite the old schoolhouse was a row of terraced houses stretching from the corner opposite the Chadwick Arms to the Royal Oak, divided by a gated entry to some farm buildings and a field at the back. The last house by the Royal Oak was a slaughterhouse, where the meat was served over the top of the half-open shed door. Hence the outbuildings and field at the rear. I believe this block of properties and field etc., all belonged to the Hammond family.
My particular friends at the time were two girls who lived on the opposite side of the road by the name of Meanley (Barbara was the elder of the two and about the same age as myself). My other pal was Keith Berkshire who lived directly opposite our house.
On a Sunday we regularly walked down to church at Mavesyn Ridware, to sit in the front pew. On our way home, if we were lucky, Mr Froggatt would pick us up in his Rolls Royce! The hill down to church used to be our playground for riding our trolleys, made from old pram wheels and orange cases!
During the Second World War the Old Hall at Mavesyn Ridware was used to house Italian prisoners-of-war, who helped on local farms. A POW called Tony Uchello (from Sicily) worked and lived at grandfather’s Pipe Place farm in the week. He would return to his hostel at the weekend. One incident etched in my memory was when one of his pals lost his job on one of the farms. Tony told us he had ‘had the bag’. Sometime later, and to his amazement, he learned that we had not realised he meant ‘the sack’. I can visualise him now, arms in the air, saying, ‘the sack, the bag, they the same!!!’ Some of the Italians used to make rings from old threepenny bits, inserting pretty stones or coloured glass as ‘rare stones’, to enhance their appearance. They gave them to children in the village.
Local young ladies would look forward to the weekends when a number of American forces would visit. The girls next door by the name of Ridley, considerably older than me, were recipients of nylons! A luxury indeed.
My father was in Air-Raid Precautions (ARP) in the Second World War. He and the local vicar would patrol the village at night to make sure there were no lights showing. I remember him coming home in shock, having had to reprimand one of the public houses for having an upstairs light on. Apparently, his advice to ‘draw the curtains’ was met with a reply in rather colourful language. This in itself was no shock – his shock was to hear the vicar reply in equally colourful language. My father was a churchwarden and was not used to such language from the vicar.
During the war we had an evacuee living with us from Ealing in London. She was the wife of a serving officer. We called her ‘Aunty’.
We regularly went collecting rosehips which were sent off to make rosehip syrup. We also went blackberry picking, which mother made into jam.
When walking to Grandpa’s farm at Handsacre, we often helped bring in the cows for milking at the farm next to the Chadwick Arms.
My grandparents both passed away in 1946 and I can still remember the church bell being tolled to mark their passing. A regular occurrence in the old days was to ring the church bell when a parishioner had passed away.
On the passing of my grandparents, we moved to Pipe Place Farm at Handsacre. My first memory here was the Green Bus from Rugeley that crashed through the Iron Bridge into the Trent killing one of the villagers.
I have fond memories of the garden parties held at various places in the village to raise funds for the church, etc. We used to help, including changing the Ladies and Gents signs round one night to confuse the visitors!