Gasthorpe Tales No: 001

A taster of my childhood life in a Norfolk village about 1930.

These are memories as seen through the eyes of a four-year-old upwards. I wrote them down because I would now like to know more about my parents and grandparents and it’s too late to find out. This will help my children to do just that if they so wish.

Suggested note: I began making notes over 20 years ago and today have a couple of folders of hand written and typed material. It’s all a bit higgledy-piggledy, but with the help of a younger family member, I intend to publish as much as possible. I have been urged and reminded many times down the years to do this, but thought I’d wait for my 90th birthday!

Gasthorpe
Midnight, dark and stormy. A knock on the door.
“Who can it be?”
It had to be desperate. A hesitant, perhaps fearful move to open the door. Once opened a rather bedraggled woman was seen.
“Can you get me half a dozen Oxos?”
The look of surprise perhaps made her add, “I have just had a child.”

The woman lived a good two miles away on a heath with no made-up road. The first half mile of her bike ride to the small closed shop would have been across heathland and last half mile of her return was going to be the same. She had a husband. I know no more. A good twenty-five years my father related this incident to me. He was the person who opened the door and still remembered it most vividly.

We lived in a tiny village, well hamlet I suppose, named Gasthorpe; it had a small shop and Post Office which my mother kept, and a farm, plus a very ruined church, the tower being very visible across the fields. One of my earliest memories is running around our living room table unable to see over the top and another is hearing the postman telling mother there is a war on. Hence, coupons, rationing, people going into the forces, shortages and the looking forward to the glorious future of Peacetime, were always in the background and a constant subject of adult conversation.

Knettishall
The next village Knettishall had a farm, just like Gasthorpe, a ruined church, a heath and a swimming place in the river where there were sluice gates. We knew it as Red Arch because of the attractive flint and brick road bridge over the river, the Little Ouse, which is also the county boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk.

Riddlesworth
Riddlesworth had a farm, a functioning church, a village school and Riddlesworth Hall. All three villages ran as one community and all the land was owned by one man, the squire who lived at Riddlesworth Hall. We all went to the same school, same church, belonged to the same cricket club, football club, went to the same whist drives and socials and were directly or indirectly employed by the same man. The school had one school room, a cloakroom, a shed, outside loos and two teachers. Later when student numbers decreased, the two was reduced to one.

During WWII changes came about. The owners of the Hall, who had two additional country estates, had the choice of letting the building to the army or a boarding school. They chose a school. 13-18 year olds who had boarded in Felixstowe on the east coast, moved in. Each Sunday all the pupils attended Riddlesworth Church, just across the road, and each pupil put a three-penny piece into the collection box, so the income must have soared. It’s an ill wind that blows no good!

The family from the Hall went to live on the Devonshire estate. If they were not living at Riddlesworth they would not need a butler. My parents were friendly with the butler, Sid Smith, and my brother friendly with his three sons. I adored the butler. He was friendly, jovial and had the gift of the gab with a keen sense of the narrative. We were to miss him. His two younger sons went to Thetford Grammar School as did my brother. They all cycled the seven miles daily. The fee paying must have been very difficult for both sets of parents, but grammar school was then essential in order to take exams. My brother must have missed them very much indeed, but I cannot remember him saying anything.

John the youngest son of the butler was a bit of a rogue and jovial like his dad. Years later I was to hear him wonder how their mother, Nora who was Welsh, always made them wrap up well and was concerned regarding their health, yet never said a word about their guns and general desire to hunt. They were often a step ahead of the gamekeeper. Slightly older Fred seemed to do all John did, but was quiet about it. The eldest son Bill was away in the forces and had a fiancé. Bill brought her to see us one day. They, Mum and I sat in the front room and had tea and biscuits. Biscuits were a treat because they were rationed. I loved them and obviously ate more than my share because when the visitors had gone Mum told me off for being so greedy. Butler Sid used to cycle to the next village to the pub with my Dad. One of Sid’s jobs at the Hall was each morning to iron a ten-shilling note and put it in the top pocket of his boss’s suit jacket. One morning Sid was a bit behind schedule so decided not to iron the note. Sid had a fine of the narrative and I never tired of listening to him. He told us, “Would you believe that old bugger noticed it?”
Sid was reprimanded.

Another duty was to stitch the daily paper together. Sid held a very important position at the Hall being the very top employee. He was very much a gentleman and knew all about the wine cellars and their contents. He was a true connoisseur. John must have inherited his dad’s talent as he became a very successful insurance salesman and an international preacher. Sid and family had a nice house halfway between the village school and the church; the hall being opposite the church.

Mum had a busy time running the Post Office and shop. When I was 6 she became very ill with pneumonia of both lungs. Tentative arrangements were made for me to live with an auntie in Ipswich should Mum have died. Now, it is very horrible to think how very different my life would have become: the said auntie did not like me. While Mum was in hospital my gran looked after the shop, but she could not manage the Post Office as well so the butler’s wife Nora had it.

A manager or bailiff ran each of the three farms. Later they became tenant farmers. There was one farm in each village. The war made a big difference to our little community.

Part of Knettishall was heathland, where the lady wanting the Oxos had lived. By the time the aerodrome was built, those houses were no more. I was told the owner wanted the tenants out, but they would not go, so he pulled the houses down; of course not with the tenants inside. Up there edging onto farmland was a sandpit, part of which had been exhausted and was being used as a dump. The American aerodrome used it and among the rubbish one could find lots of goodies including canned food and oranges. The story went that if one item in a case was bad, the lot was thrown away. Locals picked them up. A few of us children would walk up there and our findings sometimes included wrapped condoms (French letters to us). We had never had balloons, but we did then. We used to blow them up, tie the ends and send them off over the heath; another activity that did not reach parental ears.

I believe that some local men would handed over money if given them. I never contemplated doing that. I’m sure the said men went up there to help themselves. We made friends with some airmen, even taken into planes. I remember playing hide and seek in a Super Fortress aeroplane. At Christmas time the Americans threw a big party for all the local children. The details I forget, but the generosity I well remember.

The girl’s boarding school at Riddlesworth also gave a lovely party for the village children. There was really nice food, a super tree with named presents for all and a Christmas play. All of this added up to magic for us. It reached the head mistress’s ear that some or one village child had said they didn’t mind not having the Riddlesworth one so long as the American one was still on. I can understand her hurt feelings because she tried and succeeded in throwing a successful party. Perhaps someone did make a derogatory remark, if so it was really silly because we were all glad of both and they were merely different, not inferior or superior. The remark reached the ears of the Governess at the village school and she pointed out how ungrateful and thoughtless the remark had been. Both parties continued to happen. It would have been sad to lose either; we had so few material things.

As a 3 to 4 year old I remember being carried on the back of my mother’s bike in a purpose made carrier to see her cousin at Barningham Road, Market Weston. At the time the road from Knettishall to Coney Weston was a tree lined track with grass down the middle. The aerodrome and wartime saw it tarred. Until the war came and the aerodrome was built it was all farmland and did slowly revert to just that after the war apart from a strip of runway which was conveniently left for access, and not being a public highway, has become a favourite place for learner drivers. Note: sadly today, the access has been gated off by the local land owner.

Continued at:
Gasthorpe Tales No: 002
https://gasthorpetales.substack.com/p/gasthorpe-tales-002

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Introducing Gasthorpe Tales
https://gasthorpetales.substack.com/p/introducing-gasthorpe-tales