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I started my
education at Brasted Village School in January 1913 when I was
four and three-quarters and, by the time the First World War
commenced in August 1914, I had reached the age of six and was
quite an old hand.
That war did
not disorganise our education as a future generation of small
children’s was to be by the wholesale evacuations of 1939 but
things seemed to be much more exciting when we were ‘out of
school’. In school we always sang patriotic songs and tended to
display the flags of the Allies on our bicycles but the even
tenor of our day-to-day scholastic life went on through it all.
By the late summer of 1914 I was facing my ‘remove’ from the
‘infants room’ where we were taught by Miss Remnant (later to
become Mrs August) who rode her bicycle each day from Westerham,
two miles away, to preside over us. I graduated to ‘the big
room’ where Miss Crank and Miss Alderson managed two classes
each, separated only by a curtain. I marvel now at the
difficulties they laboured under and overcame as each teacher
could hear every word spoken in the other class.
The senior
pupils worked behind a glass partition at one end of ‘the big
room’ and they were taught by the School’s Head Master, Mr
Hubble. He was well liked, popular and respected and
affectionately known as ‘Old Tommy Hubble’ by generations of
Brasted children. I always felt his best memorial was the
beautiful copperplate writing which he so painstakingly taught
and which lingered on among the older generation for so many
years. It was Mr Hubble as Secretary and Treasurer of the
Brasted School Penny Bank who gave us our early lessons in
thrift. Each Monday morning we took out coppers to him and, when
we had saved a whole pound, he opened an account for each child
in the Post Office Savings Bank and every subsequent pound saved
was transferred into the child’s account.
In what was
known as ‘the classroom’ Mrs Parr was the terror of all the
children. She must have looked just like Arthur Lucan in the
character of Old Mother Riley as she always wore a black bonnet
and cape with a long black skirt and a large cameo brooch pinned
high on her bodice so that it cut into one of her many chins. On
needlework afternoons she always wore a big white apron and the
boldest of her pupils would dare each other to entertain the
rest of the class by undoing her apron strings! For a long time
I lived in mortal terror of the time when I would ‘go up’ into
Mrs Parr’s class but just before that dreadful day dawned she
was no longer with us! Word went round the village that ‘Old
Sally Parr’ was ill and I remember straw was spread across the
road (the A25) in front of her house and a blue and white
checked duster was wrapped round the door knocker so she would
not be disturbed by noise. I suppose she must have suffered from
a sudden stroke as to me she seemed to be teaching at school one
day and dead a couple of days later. I had dreaded being
in her class but I had not anticipated quite such a drastic
intervention in my affairs! (My elder sister’s birthday book
contained an entry against Mrs Parr’s date of birth ‘Sally Parr,
born 1600’ which surely shows the young do not change much.)
On Empire Day
we all marched round the playground and saluted the flag which
hung from the flagstaff in the Head Master’s garden. When a cry
went up for ‘conkers’, when it was discovered that the oil could
be used in the making of munitions, we went out with our little
sacks to collect them and fill the small shed in the school
garden for them to be collected and we were also encouraged to
donate a penny each to send Christmas puddings to the troops
fighting in France.
Away from the
ordinary run of school life, there was the absorbing interest of
a camp which was established at the top of the hill to the north
of the village and large wooden huts, serving as cookhouse and
dining hall, were set up. The soldiers spent most of their time
there exercising and grooming their horses and training but they
were billeted all over the village – we always had three
sergeants sharing one of the two big attic rooms at the top of
the house – and the men were a source of an unlimited supply of
buttons, cap badges and cigarette cards. (I still have some with
the now faintly pencilled signature of those soldiers on them.)
Empty houses were taken over as Company Offices and the house
directly opposite to us across the road served as the Orderly
Room. My elder sister and I used to watch the Orderly Officer
each evening as he inspected the Defaulters’ Parade outside.
While the West
Lancashire Regiment was stationed in the area one of the
officers was married in Brasted Church and, although we did not
join in the excitement as we were in school at the time, I heard
all about it. The bride and groom, in an open carriage drawn by
a team of six gun horses, were driven at full gallop along the
street to the White Hart, where the reception was held. The
other officers of the Regiment formed an escort and rode
hell-for-leather with drawn swords on either side of the
carriage. (I always wondered just how the bride really felt
about it!)
My father, who
was oldish, was a Special Constable, mainly, I believe, because
we were one of the few houses in the village at that time to
have a telephone (Brasted one-oh) and, when there was a Zeppelin
raid imminent, the telephone would ring and a disembodied voice
would announce ‘Field Marshal’s orders – take air raid action’.
One night Father had to go, in company with his neighbour and
friend, Mr George Woodhams (the village grocer), to guard
Polhill tunnel when troop trains were going through to the
coast. It was fortunate they did not find a German spy blocking
the line or blowing up the tunnel as their only weapons were
truncheons.
Looking back to
that time, I can only remember being carried downstairs on one
occasion during an air raid but I think our mother was of the
opinion that it was better to let the children sleep through
them if this was possible. As I say, our lives were really very
little disturbed except to be made far more interesting and
enjoyable and all the ‘outsiders’ in the village and exciting
incidents which happened must surely have widened our childish
experience of life. |
