My first visit to my childhood village in around 30 years.
For some reason, the door was locked. Being an ex-choir boy I remembered alternate ways to get in, and I was surprised to find that they weren’t secured. There were signs of construction, it’ll be interesting to see what they are doing. Maybe the construction was why it was locked. The door was unlocked when we visited in both 2008 and 2014.
I was not prepared for seeing graves of people I knew, including my Sister’s Godmother. I can’t say how moving it was to just sit and think here.
Just a few of the departed
Sheila Scripps was my sister’s Godmother. Her and her husband, Roy, were family friends. I last saw Roy – from a distance – in 2008. I was parked outside St. Nicholas conducting a telephone interview, and he went by, presumably to visit and tend her grave. Roy’s family contacted me sometime in 2009 to find out the fate of my parents. They, of course, were long dead by then.
Rumor had it that Bertie George was German. He certainly had an accent and was prone to highly comical outbursts and fits of temper. For five years or so he and his wife drove the coaches that took us to school. My memories include pushing the coach across a stubble field when Bertie got it stuck turning it around because our route was blocked by an accident. Another was his yelling at the top of his voice, “Who wrote ‘shit’ on my coach!?” Happy days.
I walked the three-quarters of a mile to catch the school bus most days for four years with Albert Abrams’ daughter, Elisabeth Abrams. Four years was a long time back then. I’ve no idea of what she did after she left school. I do know that the orchard that was alongside their house is now long gone.
If my memory is correct, Margaret Cranville was one of my Junior school dinner ladies, and the church organist.
I was so pleased to be able to ‘phone Ginger from here, and let her hear the church bells. I then took her on a walk down to my Junior school.
Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.