Gasthorpe Tales 002

Village social life, the introduction of WWII allied military forces and a murder.

The Social Side
We at the village school sometimes did dancing displays at fetes. All of us would take part. By the time I left, aged 11, there were only eighteen of us remaining on roll and the 2nd teacher was no longer needed, thus free to help her husband with his garage and taxi business. The Governess was still holding the fort and living in her somewhat isolated spot in the schoolhouse. The schoolroom doubled as a village hall. It involved re-arrangement of the furniture which we did before leaving school in the afternoon. On alternate fortnights whist drives and socials were held. At the whist drives you changed partners after each hand and the first three top scorers received prizes, whilst the lowest score received a booby prize. The M.C. was always the game-keeper who always attended in his game-keeper suit of plus two tweeds and Norfolk jacket. He had a cap to match which would go on his head as soon as he stepped outside, even marginally before the threshold was crossed, but was never, of course, worn indoors. All of his work was done on foot or bicycle because he had neither car nor horse and cart. His successor had a Land Rover type vehicle.

The socials found us playing Bingo, but we called it Housie-Housie and the gamekeeper was the caller. Various people sang solos. One dear lady regularly sang a comic one which included a ‘piddle pot’ being worn for a hat. Whether called piddle pots, pee pots, piss pots or chamber pots, they were used by everybody since there was no piped water in the houses. The article in itself was not funny, but upon the head it was hilarious.

We all laughed very much and she found it difficult to get the words out as she was giggling so much, but she always managed it. She was such a pleasant friendly soul. People told short tales and jokes. It was a great time to catch up with gossip, news and discuss the next event, as many people would meet in between times. Some people in the villages never came to either of the events, while those who did were regular and several came from surrounding villages. Sometime during the evening there would be a long dance session with music provided by the school wind-up gramophone and records, no doubt supplemented by extra records purchased for adult events. The teachers would use the extras in school as well.
Edit 25.03.2025 From my school friend Madge in New Zealand:
‘So enjoyed reading this. I remember your mum and dad had their bit of a party piece. It was a song as a duet and started off, “When shall we be married John ?….”to which your dad replied. And so on. Do you remember all the words?
People in those days made their own entertainment and it was such fun.'
Val replies, the words:
O No John!
http://www.joe-offer.com/folkinfo/songs/560.html

Everybody cycled or walked to these events and I remember them with great pleasure. Soldiers from the camp at Riddlesworth came. It was about a mile for them to come along a short cut through the grounds of Riddlesworth Hall. We sometimes went to events in the Sergeant’s Mess. I remember particularly members of the Eighth Army and the cheery times we had and the gutted sadness when we learned that all the boys we had known had been killed. Some time later I asked my mother, “Does anybody still have contact with any of the Eight Army boys we knew?”
She replied, “All of those boys were killed.”
I was gutted. We were all gutted.

Basil Curson had lived at Hopton, later Knettishall and attended both schools and served during the war in the RAF. He told me that he and other villagers in the forces had received regular money from the social events raised by the village school events.

Once when a house became empty in Gasthorpe it was made ready to accept evacuees. People gave things to furnish it with all the basics and we all had expectations about the newcomers. Their arrival day came and went, but we learnt that they were not coming after all and the house became re-occupied. We did have other evacuees from time to time. Michael who came to the grammar school had been one. His family lived in Ipswich. He had two older sisters. They came as well, but on leaving school returned to Ipswich. Michael stayed until he had finished 6th form at grammar school.

Another girl called Betty came to live with her auntie in the Barrack Square. There were eight children in her host family, but three of the grown up boys were in the army and navy, so Betty had two boys and three girls, all older, to live with. She was my age, we became friends and I missed her when she went. She was one of a family of all sisters whom it seemed could all sing, dance and do acrobatics. One day they all came down to see her and put on a show on the Barrack Square green. I believe the whole village population came to see them. I thought it was all totally wonderful and question whether, for me, any other show has met the same height of perfection.

The people in Betty’s host family were gentle. One day, when I was a teenager, one of the daughters and I were talking about parents and I was told, “Once my dad threw his cap at me.”
The girl was in her late teens. They were a very peaceful family and that was as cross as he’d ever been with her.

To briefly go forward about half a century, I was in a foyer belonging to Thetford Grammar School where there was an exhibition connected to Poppy Day. I recognised a large photograph which was of the person who was the centre of attraction of the exhibition. I asked the gentleman who was pinning things if he knew the name of the man in the photograph. “Do you know him?”
“I know that face, but it may well be of an older brother I never knew.”
“He is Victor Lovick.”
“He looks very like one of his younger brothers.”
“Do you know the family? We have been unable to contact any of his relatives for his memorial service. We do one for a different ex-pupil each year.”

On my way home I looked up Victor’s sister-in-law who lived in Gasthorpe. Victor never knew her as his brother married way after Victor’s death. She did, of course, know of him and said she would contact her other members of the family and Thetford Grammar.

Victor was the eldest son of Betty’s host family. He had gained a scholarship to Thetford Grammar and was later killed in battle at sea. As a child I remember Victor’s father proudly telling my parents that the Thetford headmaster had said that Victor was ‘the cleverest boy there has ever been here’. That was probably accurate.

The Forces Move In
At Riddlesworth an army camp was set up and at Knettishall a large American aerodrome was built. There were also camps at Thetford and more aerodromes the other side of Thetford. In fact there were camps and aerodromes scattered all over East Anglia. Two buses went each week to Thetford which enabled people to shop, go to the cinema and attend dances. The intake of Forces made life interesting for the unmarried girls, but more difficult for the lads, though soon many were ‘called up’ anyway; not all because working on the land often proved a reason for staying in ‘civvy street’, but it did not work out that way for all. The ‘applicants’ never knew until their ‘call up’ papers were returned. Their employers had to put forward a good reason to keep them at home. Apart from the horror of being killed, it was an exciting opening for some to get away from the feudal style of life. A consolation was the influx of the Land Army Girls who did their war service by working in agriculture. Again, an opportunity they would not normally have had and some took to it well and settled in the village.

Murder
Patricia was 6 and sat next to me at school. Her parents were in London. She was staying at Riddlesworth Stud with a childless couple, probably an uncle, in a cluster of houses a good mile away from the school across the Hall Park. At 6 o’clock that evening her host arrived at the school to ask why Patricia had been kept so late. No one was ever kept late at school. It didn’t happen. The Governess explained that Patricia had been absent. Police were contacted and alarm was everywhere. The host and his wife were closely questioned. They were good, kind and honest people who must have felt desolated.

Why had the host couple left it so late to enquire? This must of been a burning question in official places. The couple would have given her time to dawdle home, have a chat perhaps, keep waiting expecting her and an ordinary explanation to turn up, but eventually set off for the school to investigate. The Riddlesworth Hall Park through which Pat passed was by then a senior girls boarding school and had well over hundred girls there with all the necessary domestic staff coming and going. No one had noticed Patricia that day.

The postman was closely questioned because he was around at the time. He was childless, ‘chesty’ (hardly full of vigour) and harmless. He sometimes gave me a ride on the front carrier of his bike. Sometimes he went one way round and sometimes another. Why did he or did he not go this way or that way that day? Chances are he didn’t know. Not much of an alibi though. My Dad was questioned. He had a workshop at Riddlesworth. Sometimes he went by the Hall and sometimes on the main road. Why did he do which that day? He was in the same boat as the postman.

In the evening of that day she was found, just alive, assaulted and knifed. She was found within two hundred yards of the Hall. It was reckoned she had been there since before 9 o’clock in the morning.

I suspect there was a degree of suspicion around everyone who worked there. The culprit was a soldier from the Riddlesworth camp. He had followed her. A detective on the case told Dad that the culprit was first suspected when he was one of a gang digging a trench. The detective and an officer walked towards the gang. One man did not look up. He later made off, but was found with tiny fibres of her pink coat mixed up in his uniform. He ended his days in Broadmoor.
Little Pat: The Riddlesworth Evacuee Murder
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/little-pat-darren-norton/1145958547

RIP Little Pat.

Continued at…
Gasthorpe Tales 003
https://gasthorpetales.substack.com/p/gasthorpe-tales-003

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Gasthorpe Tales 001
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