Gasthorpe Tales 003

“If I go, my gun goes. He may be armed and he may be crazy. We don’t know.” More from the sleepy Norfolk countryside.

Governess Is Attacked
The village school was half a mile down the road from our houses, fairly isolated, but in view of the butler’s cottage, with the church, rectory and Hall a quarter of a mile beyond. Once in the dead of night Dad heard shouting outside. He opened his bedroom window and could just make out the figure of the Governess, I believe in her nightdress, with her bicycle. She would have been difficult to see in the dark.
“Please help me! Someone has broken in and attacked me!”
I cannot remember that she was hurt, but I know that she, a physically substantial lady, was very frightened and shocked. She came into our house. Dad phoned for the policeman who came with great speed. The two men were about to set off in search for the offender, when Dad picked up his gun.
“You can’t bring that,” said the bobby.
Dad replied to the effect, “If I go, my gun goes. He may be armed and he may be crazy. We don’t know.”
He took the gun, but they found no one.

It was later discovered that on the same evening at the boarding school a teacher had been attacked while asleep in her bed. She happened to be a P.E. (Physical Education) teacher who threw the offender in self-defence, but he escaped. The man was not found. Everyone thought it would never happen again, but sadly it did. They could get no one to do the job of Governess. The little school closed and the children were bussed to Thetford seven miles away.

The schoolroom became a full-time village hall. When the gamekeeper retired the schoolhouse was enlarged and his family lived there. He had a wife and five adult children, three of whom lived at home, so they felt safe from potential attackers.

Some Other Children
Walter came to live in the village when he was a skinny seven year old. He insisted he did not have a father. I insisted he must have. He meant legally and I meant biologically. We were both correct. His mother had married a widower who had a son and two daughters of his own; Alice, Phyllis and Henry. Walter had his own sister Joyce. Only Walter and Alice were young enough to be of ‘playing’ age. They all lived in the end cottage of a terrace of three along Farm Road; the road directly opposite our shop door. In the middle one lived Kathy who had little spare time because she often helped her mum with housework and when she did come out, had a younger brother and sister to look after, so was seldom free and alone. The end cottage was inhabited by a mother, father and adult son, so no playmates there.

Rosie, Kathy’s age, was often free. She lived in barrack Square. Her father Jack didn’t have a job because he had a war-wound from the 1914-18 war, so had a pension. He had a pony and cart and carted wood and anything else. He also, like most other men, had a large garden and allotment where he spent much time and produced masses of first class vegetables. Rosie and I spent many happy hours together. One day we went to his allotment and helped ourselves to his delicious young, succulent peas. We had a feast. After the event I remember Jack coming into our shop and telling my mother how some young scoundrels had been after his peas and even left the pods on the ground. We both knew our secret was safe. Rosie would have been in deep trouble at even a hint of the truth, as would have I.

A quarter of a mile out of the village and up the hill was a pit in which trees and bushes grew. I expect it had come about due to digging for sand many years before. In our time it was a rubbish dump. There were tins of all shapes and sizes, mattresses, bedsteads, be-holed tin baths, watering cans, pots and pans, paint-cans, old boots and shoes, chairs, sofas and rusty bicycles. Most things were both be-holed and rusty, but even rusty cans hold water. We played in the pits building huts, playing at mothers and fathers and making mud pies. Sometimes there was plenty of mud. On dryer days we took water from the tins. If we cut ourselves on the tins we licked the cut better and never confessed where it had happened because adults did not have our affection for the pit and it might become banned so it was much better for it not to get mentioned. As it was we tended to walk the back way to the pit, away from prying eyes, just in case someone realised where we were going and mentioned it in the wrong quarter or to someone with not enough to think about it. On at least one very dry occasion, when even the tins failed us, we each had a pea in a tin and used that. As far as I remember we each squeezed enough to have our own supply.
To some people this must read as disgusting, but we were as we were and it was as it was.

One day we decided to make our house the other side of the village. We got a couple of carts from somewhere, probably provided by Rosie, and piled them both with the necessary goodies from the pit. We were on the road at the bottom of the long slope of a hill going away from the pit when we met my mother standing in the road with her arms outstretched as she pointed back up the hill.
“Take it back! Every bit. We don’t want that rubbish down here.”

We made mild protestations, but took it all back and unloaded it whence it came. Another day we were on our way back from the pit, coming down the hill when we heard a most unusual noise. It was bagpipes. Some Scottish soldiers were on the march. I stood on the road side and uttered out a loud, incredulous, “There’re wearing skirts!”
The soldiers laughed out loud. It was a kind, friendly laugh. Almost immediately I realised it was a Scottish regiment, but I expect it was the first time I had seen a man wearing a kilt and certainly never before had I seen a multitude in skirts.

The long hill to the pit was called Harling Lane. There was a stretch of grass on either side and beyond that a line of trees and bushes which included crab-apple, hawthorn, oak, bramble and I’m sure many others. Beyond the trees were fields. We frequently climbed the trees. One day Rosie and I were climbing when Rosie uttered a very odd noise. I quickly looked to see her sliding down a thorn tree. Next she was crying and screaming. I looked at her torso which was a mass of scratches and blood. Still crying, I took her to my home. My granny who lived with us soothed and bandaged Rosie who eventually stopped crying. Someone sent for Rosie’s mum, Aunt Bertha as I used to call her. I can’t remember Rosie being told off then, but I do remember that hurting yourself was less likely to be met with sympathy from adults than anger. Wounds meant time and perhaps expense and so you were expected to be sensible and not go looking for trouble. Rosie went to neither doctor nor hospital and healed quickly. I expect the cuts were very near the surface, but the mess and expanse were considerable. To shoot forward 20 years for a moment, when I married, Aunt Bertha gave me a very effective pink satin tea cosy. It’s given years of wear and now been replaced, but it remains with us in a cupboard. My artist son asked me, “Are you going to frame it?”

Several of us regularly went to church, further down the road from the school. At first we had a Sunday School teacher who read us stories, then we advanced to another lady who told longer stories. I think she gave up when she married. We were then left with the elderly vicar who talked to us us in monotone. I think he was less interested than we were. He had many of us confirmed, all in one go by the bishop at Thetford. Perhaps it was a way of letting go the Sunday School classes. I had to go to church regularly until I left school at 18. My parents only ever attended the Harvest Festival an such like. On inquiring why I had to go when they didn’t, I was told, “It does a little girl no harm to go to church.”
It was pointless to argue. I stopped going when I left home. I was grieved that my brother was not made to go with the same insistence; because he was a boy I expect; I don’t know why.

Now each Wednesday evening there was a chapel service held in one of the cottages. It was an ordinary front room. The man of the house was a shepherd. His wife was softly spoken and smiling. His grown-up daughter was very nice and played the harmonium. We called it the organ. It had two pedals and lots of stops. I loved the hymns. A young preacher came from Hopton a few miles away. He was handsome and smiling. He spoke to us, the children, and each week told us a lovely story and then sang choruses with us and taught us new ones. Everyone in that room smiled. It was such a happy room. I went there because I really loved going. The daughter was called Ena.

Ena had given me her doll’s pram when she was too old for it. I loved that too and used it all the time. When I grew up Ena came to see my Mum and asked what had happened to the pram. There it was still was in good condition. Ena joyfully took it for her little girl. At the time of the chapel services, when it was Ena’s birthday, all the chapel goers, including myself, had a party with races on the meadow. Another lovely time. The family left the village, I forget why, and lived only a few miles away in Garboldisham. The services stopped. This was about the time I went to grammar school because the girl who came with me to school, moved into the chapel house.

Continued at:
Gasthorpe Tales 004
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