Ron & Margery Milton

The population of Hinckley when I remember it was about 11,000, it was just a small – well it isn’t a big town now – but it was a really small market town then. Where the police station is now there was a big manor house and it stood quite a way back…it was really a sanatorium, TB, things like that. People used to be afraid to walk by…there were all sorts of stories about the place…well the people there, as though it was their fault they were there – well it wasn’t obviously.

Watercolour of St. George Ballroom. George Hotel

Albert Attenborough

You’d play in the streets. You see the streets weren’t very wide. You’d get an old shoe polish tin and you’d get a bit of lead and put it in and hammer the corners down and you used to throw it – called tin-high hockey. Queen’s Park – that was about the nearest and then the one opposite the old gas works…Rugby Road. There were a huge tank there from the First World War that kids used to play in. Course at the top of Mansion Street, in Mill Hill, there was the skating rink. Now that was the finest skating rink in Leicestershire because under that floor was a rubber base. That, unfortunately, got burnt down. As I say, you couldn’t afford to go and do these things, you could only go and sort of gaze and look at them.

First World War Tank in Queens Park

Ron & Margery Milton

St Mary’s is obviously the main church. Holy Trinity was built in 1909 – where the leisure centre is – that’s where it was originally. That was like a big hall with a gallery round and it was always said that the architect had plans at the same time for a theatre somewhere and he got the plans mixed up and that’s why it was such a big hall with the gallery round – now what truth’s in it I don’t know but that’s what we’ve always been told.

I can remember Hurrell, when we were youngsters. Hurrell was here during the First World War, and Griffiths was at Holy Trinity. They were both in the parishes during the war. I always remember Griffiths, when I was in the choir, listening to him reading out the list of casualties that had happened. Griffiths was quite a gentle, kind man. In fact, he was his own worst enemy in many ways because he was always helping people, in those days there was no keeping of accounts in the church, the vicar had the money. Whatever money came in and he used the money – I don’t mean he used it fraudulently – he used a lot of it particularly during that war to help families, and it wasn’t until after that that they called a parish council to attend to those sort of affairs.

St Mary’s Sunday School used to go up to where the John Cleveland is now, up Butts Lane, and in some fields…they would do more or less the same sort of thing. Once a year and then you’d have what they called a Christmas Sunday School treat. In which you’d go to the hall, you took your own mug for your tea and then again you’d have bread and jam and a piece of cake. Then after you’d finished your tea you’d take your mug back home and then you went back for games. You imagine doing that now.

In those days the treats, as they were called, were the main attraction annually. The free church treats were a big day. They were always the first Saturday in July and each chapel would have a tableau, a huge lorry or something with a biblical tableau on it and there was quite a bit of competition, and ill-feeling unfortunately, between the chapels over these because they were judged. All the little girls used to have a new dress for that day and they’d have garlands of flowers, they used to go round the houses collecting flowers to make them – and perhaps young mothers would have a baby in a pram and that would all be decorated…anything was decorated. It was very competitive.

Ron & Margery Milton

We used to meet at what was the parish hall then, at the bottom of Trinity Lane and we’d march to the top of what is now Hollycroft, singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ more often than not, and then Pickerings vans would come and we’d all get in the back and be taken to Wykin, into some farmer’s fields and that was it. There’d be a sweet stall and then you’d have your tea which consisted mainly of a bit of bread and butter or bread and jam and a piece of cake and we played some games.

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Ron & Margery Milton

There was the Co-op gala. That was on a Saturday once in the summer and you’d meet in Castle Street and be given a bag with your tea in it – quite a substantial one from them – and we used to go out of the town walking, of course. I don’t know where we finished up, some field somewhere, have organised games, races, that sort of thing. That was quite a thing.

August 26 was the big day – the Horsefair. All the shops were boarded up and they used to run the horses up and down in what is Lancaster Road and up towards Station Road. One horse was run up and down and it was bought and when it got to the top of Clarendon Road it collapsed and that was it…it had been too much.

Tinkers used to bring them you see, brush tinkers and people like that. I know some of the lads up Priesthills Road used to have a whip, they were some of the better off ones, they just played with it, it was really quite a day…it was quite an event. That’s why that bit from Station Road down to Lancaster Road is called The Horsefair.

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Albert Attenborough

The first holiday…the first time I saw the sea was when I was 14 and that was because someone took us out, some organisation, and I think it were the Co-op, organised a trip. They took us all in buses…that was Skegness. You wondered what the devil it were – just amazed at all that water. We’d never been, you couldn’t go any further than Hinckley, because you couldn’t afford it.

Margery Milton 

Trinity School was one big room divided into three classes with a screen. The first thing you did – we had these square sand trays to play with. As far as I know there was Miss Stafford and Miss Abbott, I used to walk home with Miss Abbott, of course they had long skirts then, hanging onto her skirt, I was only four mind you, I can remember that very clearly.

A dress, possibly a calico type material, a white pinafore always, and a piece of rag pinned to your pinafore, that was your handkerchief. You used to take some bread and lard possibly, or dripping, wrapped in newspaper, that was your lunch. They’d be your ordinary dress, you couldn’t afford extras. We had basic needlework classes when we were at St Mary’s school, we used to have to go up to the council school for cookery, the boys would go to woodwork, and we also did laundry up there. Not a lot. I know, for instance, I took a baby’s dress once, handkerchiefs, only small things and they were washed and we had to learn how to iron them properly.

The pen then was a pen with a nib that you could pull out and put another one in…you dipped it in the ink well you see to get your ink on, oh yes, it made a mess. I know I wore black stockings at that time and I used to wipe the nib on the stockings. You weren’t supposed to but I did. One pupil would be detailed to fill the ink pots. Boys and girls sat separately you know – same room but separately. When we got to St Mary’s we didn’t use slates did we? Only in the infants. I liked arithmetic and English composition, I would have liked to go into an office but it wasn’t as easy in those days, there was no help. I just missed getting to the grammar school and that was it.

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Ron Milton

Short trousers, a jersey serge type of material, not cottony things. The most uncomfortable thing I wore as a lad was a collar – celluloid collar – I used to hate it. One was celluloid collar another one was a starch collar, separate, of course, all collars were separate in those days. The three R’s mainly, reading, writing and arithmetic. You had to do what they
called copybook writing, you know, really nice writing. When I was at the infants school, I’m left handed and everything I did naturally was left-handed but when I started to write left-handed that was knocked out of me, I was made to write right-handed. If you had the cane for anything, if you went back home and said that you’d had the cane, ‘Why?’ and you’d done something wrong you’d probably get another one.

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Gladys Mansfield

I went to Miss Wrigley’s school in Hill Street, it was a private school – two Miss Wrigleys, two sisters. Seven I started going there. The private school was quite good really, I learnt French and all the rest of it. The only trouble was with my father’s ill health they couldn’t afford to keep me there, I had to go to the council school.

I’m afraid it was a bit of a stark awakening when I went to the council school. There’s one thing they did teach you at the private school – I learnt a lot more there than I did at the council school – for one thing, I could write and when I say write I mean write. I was back at the council school, of course I get me paper, starts writing. The teacher says, ‘You can’t do that, you must do the same as the others.’ I had to go back to printing. I thought it was a bit stupid but there you are. I never really settled in because everything was so strange to me, you know. It’s a lot different…from a small school of about 30 to a big council place, I was really lost. I was only there for 18 months… we moved to Barwell so I had to go to Barwell school. It was a very nice school, small, and I got on very well there.

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Anon

When you were on your last term they’d take you round the different factories to show you what they done. Just when I were leaving school they started night school and the technical college were just build and I learnt the overlocking there.

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Margery Dorman

Most of the girls went in the hosiery factories and I did and I enjoyed it. There weren’t no choice. The first one was down Station Road at Hood & Masons – it’s gone now, the building’s there. Stockings. I enjoyed it really, we hadn’t got the discipline we had at school. I mean, we were thrust into the adult world immediately. I always enjoyed needlework and I went in as a mender, with a needle, you know.

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Albert Attenborough

Weren’t many things as careers. No – you didn’t get any desires like that. The first thing was that you’d got to go to work and earn some money.

Marget Dorman (b.1915)

Few people stayed on after the age of 14. Most had to find a job and earn some money. I never did take to school life…I were glad to leave. They were very strict in those days you know, very strict. You know St. Mary’s church, that’s the school, near it. I was there ’til I was 13 then they moved us up to the council school. Today the children aren’t frightened of the teachers are they, yet we were, we were scared to death! Whether it was because of nervous disposition or not, but they held us in place you know. There’s not enough discipline today is there?

Hinckley Grammar School
(Now Mount Grace, viewed from Leicester Road)

Francis Laker

I first went to school, Trinity School, where the Leisure Centre is. That closed down and this (Westfield’s) was built and we came here, 1933. Miss Brown downstairs in the Infant school, Miss Everett and Miss Jones. Up here was Miss Greenwood at the end, Miss Sharp, Miss Harris. Then she left and Mr Beazley came and Mr. Simpkins. I loved it here, it was grand. I didn’t like the council school for girls up Eleanor Road – too strict. Well, probably we deserved it – talking in class, standing in the corner, making a blot on your paper, I had the cane for that.

We never had school uniforms – we couldn’t afford it if we had. If you paid and went to the Grammar School you had the uniform or private schools but otherwise no. And you always had to have your hands inspected every morning to see if your nails were clean – turn them over – if you didn’t you’d have a rap on the knuckles, shoes clean. I don’t know, I think it learnt you respect, take care of yourself.

Marie Phipps (b.1918)

It was much about the same – except for the extra buildings (Burbage). We used to come all in the fields and that, we used to go right down to the Soar brook and play – we used to play for hours down there. Used to sit with tramps under the bridge and they wouldn’t hurt you. If they’d got their sandwiches with them they’d open the paper and share them with us. Half past four they’d say, ‘Now then boys and girls come on, your mams’ll be looking for you, and don’t stop on the way.’ We were off all day – our mothers had no fear .

We had to do as we were told, you daren’t cheek my dad neither but my mum were more so than my dad. I was always suffering from nerve trouble and that. They need to give us all sorts, Fennings powders, fever powder…every morning we used to have brimstone and treacle – for your blood. It weren’t very nice but they used to give it to you, and they used to make us stinging nettle tea…we used to take it as pop.

Up by the station, you know where the new bridge is now there used to be a old bridge, used to go up the steps to it. There was a lot of stone steps up one side and down the other end. Youngsters used to go down there in their courting days. We used to play down there haymaking time, when they used to make the hay and that, we used to have hours on it. Did we help? We hindered! They’d stack it up and we used to go round and chuck it all about and they used to run after us and clout our ear holes if they got hold of us. We used to have some fun.

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Gladys Mansfield

Lived in Castle Street at the outdoor beer licence. They had got a little room at the back called a cosy room – it was only a small room – and some of the old ladies used to go in there for a little drink but it wasn’t classed as a pub exactly, you know. It’s still there now, it’s a butcher’s shop in Castle Street, you walk right through to the other end, to the top of the hill…down that alleyway and the police station used to be straight opposite then.

When I was young it was church, church dances and G.F.S. – Girl’s Friendly Society – my husband were in the Men’s Fellowship.

Kath Paul

I was born while my father was in the forces in the First World War. I was six weeks old when he had to go abroad. He came home when I was two. ‘Course my eldest sister died and my youngest sister did so there was only me to be brought up. I think that’s why they smothered me, say. When he was taken prisoner he was in the trenches and the rim of his tin hat was round his neck and it affected his hearing. Apart from that I don’t think he had any more injuries.

I was born in Trinity Lane. It wasn’t too bad, all the kids all played together, you know. Take for instance when they had Guy Fawkes night. We used to have a big bonfire at the top of Cheshire Street and then you’d perhaps go further down Trinity Lane and someone else’d have a fire then the police stopped it because it was dangerous.

Mrs. Payne

It was very old, there was some lovely old cottages by the church, beautiful old cottages, and the Hinckley market, they had that still on a Saturday and a Monday and they had those kerosene lamps and everything, they weren’t all lit up like they are now, and they went on until it was quite dark at night. We used to go on Monday and get various things that…you know, fish and meat and things like that you could buy on the market so much cheaper.

The policemen were very friendly, there was always someone around on the beat. If we were going home now, top of Ashby Road, from there that’s the cemetery, you know, it were very lonely going home. We had to be in by ten o’clock at the latest, we were never allowed out after ten and the policemen would probably be changing their beat at ten and often they would walk down the end of Barwell Lane with us.

Our father used to allow us to go on a Saturday but if we were going to a dance we’d got to say exactly what time we were being home and he’d meet us.”

Margery Dorman (b. 1915)

I was born in Queen’s Road. It were pleasant, we’d got the Queens Park at the bottom of the garden. They were all terraced houses…there were an off-licence, four sweet-shops. My father was a master painter and decorator. He also ran a dance band. He taught the violin to people. He were always working – if it weren’t in the decorating it were at the violin, you know, he used to take pupils in. I tried to learn the piano but I weren’t very interested in it. We used to have lovely sing-songs around the piano and the violin. I remember him playing, having dances at the Co-op Hall in Burbage. I think there were about six of them altogether.

Queens Road, Hinckley

You could go out to play, not worry about anything. We used to go down Sketchley Brook, you know, you used to think that was a big thing. There used to be a band in the park every Sunday, in Queen’s Park. It were nice, there were a bandstand in the park. In the summer – I don’t suppose they did in the winter.

I remember when we first had radio – my brother made it, cat’s whisker

they called it. We used to all get round with these headphones on and we thought it were marvellous. We had this great big pole at the bottom of the garden, yes I can remember that, it was so unusual.

She’d (Mum) been an invalid for years, she had dropsy – I don’t suppose you know what that is – she used to fill up with water. Dreadful. You used to have to draw it away from her. I remember you used to put plugs in her body and it used to fill the bucket, daily, dreadful disease. We didn’t realise life was hard you know, it didn’t seem to make much difference to us, my dad had always got plenty of work you see. We enjoyed ourselves – went dancing every night. There weren’t so much of it to spend money on was there really. We used to go to the cinema once a week and that was the highlight of the week.

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Gladys Mansfield

In Canning Street we used to play. There was a great big piece of ground then, course its all been built on now, called the Orchard. We used to have the bonfires on there. There weren’t no through road then, there were Brewin’s farm and his orchard along the top of there and big high rails, top of Canning Street. You could only go so far up Cheshire Street and then you got to Mill Hill and that was the same. I can remember there used to be a big gate and you could go through – it was a drive and we used to go up for the milk. To Brewin’s farm, top of Mill Hill. That’s all been knocked down now. Milk straight out of the old pail into your jug.

Arthur Moore

The Hinckley Territorials – I can remember coming down and watching them coming out of the Palladium as was. There were rationing. I’ve known when I was up at six o’clock to go down to Aldridges, the fish monger – he used to sell rabbits as well – waiting for them to open to get anything, a rabbit or anything. By the time I got there there might be a big long queue. Many a time I’ve got right up within the last twelve or 14 and they’ve sold out so I’ve had to go home – nothing.

My father was in the First World War. He was a miner so he needn’t have gone. He volunteered and was in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He used to buy me stacks of cigarette cards that he used to save off the people. He brought a German officer’s field glasses back home with him when he was on leave. Of course I asked him how he got it, he says, ‘Well I was that good to him, he come in he had frost bitten feet, and I got him whatever he wanted. I were looking at these glasses…and he said, ‘You have ’em,’ and he showed them to me.’

He brought them home and could tell the time from Nuneaton, Tuttle Hill – it were high up Tuttle Hill – when the sun was on Hinckley church clock we could tell the time. I can’t remember a big lot of celebration just bonfires and effigies of the Kaisers – we never had street parties like World War II… The Sunday School gave you a mug.”

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Ron Milton

I can remember the outbreak of the First World War, definitely, it was August 4 and it was a very hot day and I certainly remember the Armistice because that was a wash day. During the First World War things were hard to come by, vegetables and that, word got round that there was a certain shop that’d got potatoes and I went up to get some ‘cos they were valuable then. Of course, it made me late for school. We used to queue at the Co-op up Hill Street for tinned jam – the word went round that they’d got some…I’d go up there, you’d stand in a long queue you know. At the bottom of Priesthills Road, over the road was Clarendon Road, there was a big house there with a stone wall round it. On there was posted Kitchener with his finger pointing, ‘Your country needs you’.

Dorothy Houldcroft (b.1907)

I was about 18 (1925) and of course in those days I only used to see him at church – we were both church goers and at the family dances, you know, the parish hall, cos we were both keen on dancing. We didn’t really go out together till I was about 20. Then we got serious, went on holiday, that’s when we got the letter from his father to say he’d bought us a farm. Of course we didn’t realise what it was like – it was about 128 acres. We didn’t get married until the farm was ready to go into -1930.

When I saw it of course my heart sank a little bit, but I thought, well, you know what is…love is blind isn’t it? So I took it on. This is why I’d never let my parents know, not even Sam, what a shock it was to me, because I never had to do anything, I’d never cooked, I didn’t know much about flowers – we had no garden, at home it was all business premises, a big yard, we’d got horses and stables there and everything. So of course it was all new to me and it was a bit of a shock I can tell you. But still, I was determined to make a go of it, which I did and I can do most things now.

It was all fields and it was all pasture land. There was no ploughed land until the war came. We came into the farm with 49 cows which his father had bought for him and a few poultry and he’d got his own horse. Sam was a rider and we’d got a dog, Jumbo, and that was about all when we started. I had to look after the poultry and I was terrified of them, I really was, especially the cockerel who used to sidle up to you and they’d got spurs – they could really hurt you. We had to work hard – we used to get up at five in the morning and we should be asleep by nine o’clock, The lamp would all flare up, we’d forget to turn the wick down. It was all candles you see, and pitch darkness. I’d had lighting at home, I never put a light on in my bedroom, the lamps outside all lit it up, but there I was in total darkness with candles and lamps, so it was a bit traumatic actually for me.

(In 1930) It was a very bad time, really bad. There had been the miner’s strike and you know…we’ve been to town with only 5p in my pocket…it was a shilling in those days, and we used to often have to walk over to my mother’s because we couldn’t afford petrol for the motorbike, and it’s a long way.

Now Grandfather cleaned the well out, but what we didn’t realise see, it was a spring well you see and it was really for cooling the milk, it was in the cooling house. I’ve got snaps of our little party on the lawn…that’s when we had to put the copper on and that’s when we realised what we were drinking. And of course you didn’t see the water you were drinking when it was in a kettle – on top of the water it was just like a chocolate scum and of course we had to skim it all off before we dare let anyone come in and see it. So they never really knew what they were drinking and that’s when Sam went up to the council and got the water laid on.

An old range in the kitchen and of course we had to fill that with coke. I had to cook on this, it was an…old fashioned black leaded grate which I hadn’t been used to, so I made lots of mistakes I’m afraid in my cooking – he was very patient with me really. You see it was wild then, pasture land and we grew lovely mushrooms and he brought these in for me to cook, and I said, ‘How do you want them cooking?’ and he said, ‘In milk.’ Of course I didn’t realise that you cook them in a drop of milk with butter and I didn’t like to ask so I did them in a saucepan of milk, so when he came in for his breakfast I actually gave him this basin with these mushrooms floating on the top…which was hilarious. I had to learn by experience.

I wanted a bit of colour in the garden – it was Grandfather who came and helped us. And of course there were no toilets, there were earth toilets down the garden and we had to go down the garden path at night time with a candle or a lamp. I didn’t realise this – he (Grandfather) made a vegetable garden – he grew the most marvellous vegetables, I didn’t realise from these ‘closets’ they call them, and we used to have lovely celery. When I knew what was going underneath them I wouldn’t eat it!

They had to milk by hand, twice a day, morning and night, but you see we’d got a fella named Albert who used to come from the village. He used to walk over at half past four in the morning to start for five o’clock. He helped with the milking. I never had anything to do with the cows, I was too terrified of them.

Of course we had tragedies I’m afraid. We’d got a big Hereford bull which Grandfather used to take out to water. Well this particular day he’d gone to get the bull out and they have a staff on them you know, like a ring on their nose on a big long pole, and this bull, I don’t know why, he turned on my husband and he got him down and if it hadn’t been for the dog he wouldn’t be here today. There was two more farmers killed that year by a bull. The dog barked so much the he managed to get up and he got into the stable and went to pull the door to and realised he couldn’t, it had broken his shoulder. He shouted…and I came out and this bull was careering about with the dog after it you see. I couldn’t get to the stable – we’d got the phone by then – and I called the doctor. When they got him out of the stable his clothes were ripped and his body was black with bruises. They rushed him straight off to hospital and I think he was there for months and months. His brother came over to stay on the farm with me…that’s how we had to manage for a long time.

There was a duckpond in the yard. Now what happened when this bull got out, he careered into this. There was only a chestnut paling round it and he broke one of the staffs, left a gap about like that. That was the cause of another accident, tragedy. I had twins, a boy and a girl and being in the house we set a girl on and she was a marvelous girl, she took on the cooking, and everything, and enabled me to look after…Keith was only a year and eight months when I had the twins. One day, it was Frances’ day off and it had been raining all day…and I let them go out. Frances had been in the habit of looking after them after tea, Sam said, ‘I shall be in the cow shed I’ll keep my eye on them.’

Robin must have caught hold of this piece of wood that had been broken with the bull and he fell in the water. My husband heard the splash and went to get him out but you see, weighted down with clothes, he was too late, and he was dead. Now that was a terrible shock.

When the land girls came the first girl I had was named Margaret and of course I treated them like a daughter, and to this day I still see Margaret and I still see Cath, they come to visit me.

We couldn’t get help you see…the men who worked for us had to join up so we had to have land girls. A farmer was needed then, that’s when our farming started to go up, ‘cos they needed the farmers then. And this is when they started to plough up you see, I mean, it was pasture until then. They wanted the corn you see, and that’s when we really came into our own, and that’s when the Milk Marketing Board started and we were able to sell our milk to the Co-op. He formed a milk round ‘cos we couldn’t sell milk. We used to make butter, I had to learn how to make butter and we used to sell that to our pals. It was definitely very hard work.

During the war years we were all in the black out – you had to black curtains you know….that was terrible for us – we were in the path of the planes going over to Coventry and I shall never forget the night Coventry was bombed so badly. We’d got some friends over from the neighbouring farm had come to stay, you know, for the evening – they never went home…we sat up all night. The children, we put a mattress under the kitchen table…if we went we all wanted to go together, and these planes…we had a huge bomb drop in the top field by the A5 near the railway. There was seven on our other fields, and the noise was terrific. These planes used to come over droning you know…and we all dived underneath this great big kitchen table. This particular night when Coventry was bombed so badly, it shook our house and it moved all the door jambs of the doors, broke the glass – we had a lucky escape really because we were in the midst of it all and there was not shelters for us there. I shall never forget that night really it was terrible. The children were there asleep through it all on a mattress. The war years were very bad really for the planes…we never knew when we were going to go, we never slept upstairs, we couldn’t, we daren’t, we had to stay downstairs so we made the lounge into a bed-room.

Although the war years were bad for the bombing we were very fortunate because you see we could kill our own pigs, which we did, and my husband knew all the trades-people in Hinckley, and we could get anything bartering; a bit of pork, a bit of bacon, bit of gammon…we had hams hanging up you see, a flitch of bacon and I’d got a bacon machine in those days to cut the bacon.

Mr Newey at Nuneaton was our vet. Of course he was a friend of ours so he used to come up any time whether we’d got anything wrong or not. We used to go to the dances with him and the Hunt Balls and end up at their house in Nuneaton for a cup of coffee, get home here about 5 o’clock and Sam would start milking. How we did it I don’t know. And of course in those days you know, to get ready to go to a dance was a two hour job because we used to have the bath in front of the kitchen fire, big zinc bath you see, fill the copper to get the water.

It was during the war when he bought the first combine and bailer, they cost a lot of money…when we had to plough up. For a start it was all pasture…you only needed a tractor, that was all.

It was all done by hand, horse and cart (harvesting). We used to get regulars who used to come down to the farm, just for those sorts of jobs, and you see muck-spreading was all done by hand. They used to get blisters on their hand, I used to treat them with iodine. It was hard work it really was. I used to walk down the fields with a big enamel jug…with the tea, two or three times a day when they were harvesting, and when they were threshing – we used to have threshing days then whereas now there’s no such thing as threshing as it’s all done by the combine. It was this big machine that used to come to the farm and thresh your corn – separate it. That was all done by hand and it was a dirty, dusty job – you used to get hayseeds in their trouser turn-ups and hay in the house. The combine cut all that out.

The oats had to be ‘stooked’ then, about four bundles and you stacked them up you see. It was really hard work in those days – the young ones don’t know what hard work is today.

Keith used to collect magpies’ eggs and he hatched one out and he reared it. We called it Joey. He used to fly in and out of the house and we used to put a bowl of water outside for it to have a wash and then it used to come in and sit on Grandpa’s knee while it preened its feathers with its beak, and it’d sit there – you mustn’t touch it or it’d fly away – it used to fly in and the things it used to do, ‘cos they love shiny things, so we had to learn to put everything away in drawers. I lost a lovely ring that came from America…I left it on the dressing table and we never did find it – Joey had taken it.

Do you know, a magpie can talk as clearly as a human being. Keith was running down the garden and the magpie was hopping after him trying to peck his legs…and he kicked at it. ‘Go away, go away,’ he was saying, and the bird – these were the first words the bird said – ‘Go away, go away.’ And I was so thrilled I said, ‘The bird’s talking, the bird’s talking.’ And after that, that bird could say anything. It used to go upstairs through Grandpa’s window, and Grandpa had got an iron bedstead and it’s sit on top there and he could see himself in the dressing table mirror. We used to creep us, we didn’t let him see us, and listen to him. He’d say, ‘Pretty boy, Joey,’ and all the things we’d taught him to say, he’d say. He was a lovely bird, we were thrilled to pieces with him. And then one morning he got out of his depth in the water trough and he’d drowned. We all cried, the kids broke their hearts, we thought the world of that bird. They speak – he was as clear as I’m speaking to you.

All pictures in this section were photographed on Hinckley and nearby farms at the beginning of the 20th Century

Ethel (b.1887)

The first time I went from England to Johannesburg, Pretoria, was from Chatham Barracks. Mary was about 9 months old…we had to go out there hurriedly, something was on there. It’s a very nice place…a lovely country.

Proper houses, the people who were out there first were the Dutch people. They were quite nice people too, someone you could speak to. Breakfast in the morning, have your bath. Then you go out and do your shopping. If you want anything from the canteen, they’ll send it up, you go down the canteen and order it. Then the day’s your own ’til lunch time. All I do is to cook the dinner, and dish it up because I won’t let the boys touch it. They clean the vegetables and that’s all I want, after that I won’t have them in the kitchen. All the married women there…they had an easier life, they made the blacks do it – they were Welsh, they were artful. My mother used to write to me and say, be careful of what you eat and look at all you food that is prepared for you. I do the cooking but nothing else in the house.

The Dutch and what blacks there were in quarters had to pay for what they wanted before they got it – there was no trust. They army had nothing like that – we used to make our order out and phone it through to London – clothing and everything we wanted. To dress a little kiddy, say a twelve month old, it cost you to buy from the Dutch in the drapers shops about £7 – not worth it – it’s hideous, a lot of money. ‘No fear,’ I says, ‘I’ll send to London.’

As regards working – I didn’t. All the housework and shopping was done, I used to go out and do the shopping and they’d send it up from the canteen, one of the soldiers would bring it up.

They’d got their verandas all round the house, and they’d got their beds…swing cots, you know. People…they have a bath…no one could see them not even the people in the house, they’d get out of their bath, get into their swing in the hammock until they’re dry and then get up and dress.

You’d got your own quarters, army furniture, arm-chairs for the grown-ups, what they call saddle chairs and you’d got your beds, blankets and sheets, everything provided. When you pack up and you’ve got to go to another country to do service you leave your things behind, you mustn’t take anything with you, and if anything was lost we’d got to pay for it.

They’d tell you, keep the children away from the huts, I mean their prisons, where the snakes are, keep them away from there…cobras, pythons, cor they are a size. They’d go under three houses together. You’d stand there and have a good laugh at them – one of the sergeants came along and says, ‘You wouldn’t laugh at them if they were loose.’

The only thing you’d find is, if a snake had got out you might find a dead body…but you could always tell because they’d been poisoned or else they’d get a tail end of a snake – they’d leave something from the snake.

The amusements they used to have, the boys, was to get a snake and dig a deep pit and put a snake in and a couple of scorpions and see them fight ‘cos the snake can’t get over…it’d get it’s head up to make a bite. The troops liked that every evening, they never missed. All those who wanted to go for a long walk across the veldt and then they used to come back again, ‘Sit down before we have our supper,’ they said, ‘and we’ll watch these.’ Nice, gentle swearing, the sergeant major says, ‘You’d better be careful, the flag’s wife’s over here. Tell the boys to keep their dirty news to themselves.’ I’ve had a good many laughs out there.

The only thing we didn’t agree with, say the Dutch and the blacks, if they’d done anything they were put in prison, an underground prison. They used to make them send them down, undo the gates, they had to…catch as many snakes as they can while it was daylight for the people who were working in and out so any of them won’t get bitten by them.

Underground, I don’t know what they were after, whether they were looking for diamonds…I don’t know…I wasn’t interested enough to ask. If they robbed, burglaries…if you could catch hold of them they’d give them any…God’s quantity of punishment for perhaps a trifle…silly little things. My husband said, if that had been our men they’d have thrashed them and let them go, but they don’t do that out there, not what we call punishment. The Dutch would think no more of getting the blacks together and shoving them down in with the snakes. That’s the difference with the two, the blacks wouldn’t do that.

Thunderstorms and lightning – it’s a picture. See the sky, it just seems as if it’s going to come down on you, and when the thunder goes…talk about the army drums, that’s how the thunder sounded there. ‘Course it’s all open plains.

A different view altogether in China, straight across China…Peking. Yes, it would be about 1910. They don’t tell you what’s going on, you’ve got to read it in the papers. We went from Johannesburg across the water to China we landed in Peking; we were stationed at Peking, Shanghai and the other places – there were nine of them.

The people were all right, if they hadn’t been as friendly it wouldn’t have been so nice. I think myself, ‘cos that’s me, I’m a bit suspicious of people. I liked them (the Chinese) I got on very well with them. They wouldn’t let you hit the children. They’d got their own place, they mustn’t come into our part. Only those you’d got, if you’d ordered a cook for the duration. I had a four room bungalow – two bedrooms, sitting room and a dining room, all furnished.

You could watch them…but you mustn’t go into the gate, Peking’s gate…it’s all gated in. You can see them do marching and they were cruel. They’d got these boys…my husband said they were twelve years old…just time to go out riding on horses and if any of them fell off they put the whip on them, it was like a cat-o-nine-tails, leather on the end of a stick. They were in Peking, a different part…they buried the Prince down there when we were there. The Prince, the son died, a young fellow of about 25 I think he was. He died and they had this black thing put across the railings so no-one could see the mourners I suppose.

Only one parade – I think it was the day my girl was christened – and the royalty came and that was a little while after the son, the heir to the Chinese throne, he died. Bags of flowers, people in their cars, and I don’t know how many trying to walk behind…it just looked like coming from a football match, whole crowds of them.

Oh yes, it was a marvellous place (The Great Wall). You wouldn’t think they could ride a car on it. Motor cars – on the top – I don’t know if they do it now. You’d got to watch out though, they were a bit of a careless lot.

We used to go into the church – well, what they call a church. They used to have animals in there, mixed up with people, it used to stink like anything. I said, ‘I’m not going to church today.’ I got out of it – I went twice.

A medical officer said don’t let the children go near the Chinese children ‘cos any disease he says they’ll only take it, keep them away. So the children would run over and I’d say, ‘No! No!’ Our children would have played with them nicely, I said, ‘No you mustn’t, they are sick and you don’t want to take pills. No, well you mustn’t go near them.’ That’s the way we used to stop them from going ‘cos otherwise they used to sneak out through the legation, get out in amongst the Chinese town. They’re all singing and dancing there and of course our kids would do the same.

I liked Peking because you were in with the elite – toffee nosed. Chinese – the old men are worse than the young men. Crafty – the look on their face. I came in, he (her husband) says, ‘Did you have a nice afternoon?’ I say, ‘Those crafty old devils.’ He said, ‘What have they been up to, say anything to you they shouldn’t?’ I say, ‘No, it wasn’t for the sake of getting pinched.’

There was no association. If they had have done they’d have had them up. They were very strict on anything like that. Unless you actually live inside with them you don’t know what’s going on.

Hinckley Territorials answering the ‘Call of their Country’ 6 August 1914

We were getting all ready for a dinner and dance with the Germans. They came to us the night before on the Monday, on the Tuesday we were going to them. A cable came through from England, stop all leave at once, get packed up. The next thing we know we were on our way up here to England to fight – The Great War (World War One).

Well, the telegram came. We went by boat from Peking, then we had nearly two days journey in the train. I didn’t mind, I was longing to get there and see my people. I had three killed in one week – my father’s nephews. There was Will died on the Monday, on the Wednesday Charlie died and on the Friday or Saturday, I’m not sure which now, Douglas died, all within the one week. They were fighting – the ’14-’18 war.

Frances Laker (b.1928/ female)

We lived in Mill View, that was all right there, we used to have bonfires, you know, all the kids round, roast potatoes, chestnuts, everybody mixed. If anybody was ill the next door neighbour would say, ‘Well I’m going into town – anything you want?’ or, ‘I’ll clean up for you,’ and you used to do the same for them.

I remember once we had a dog give us, and he came off a farm and it’d got ringworms and I caught them – then you had to pay for a specialist that was two guineas a time, that was a lot of money. If you was ill you had to pay for your doctors. I remember once my mother sent for the doctor. I wasn’t very old and I couldn’t stand up, I kept tumbling everywhere. Dr. Murray looked at me, ‘The girl’s drunk.’ My mother had made some elderberry wine and you put a big punch in, you know…and I’d only been sitting there sipping it and sipping it. Course, Mum couldn’t understand it ‘cos I kept tumbling all over the place.

Feverfew we used to have for headaches and comfrey was another one, comfrey leaves for bruises. Marshmallow we used to use that a lot – I don’t know what that were for, and bread poultices, you know, if you’d got a thorn in your finger it started to fester, and you got some boiling water and this bread and they put it in a white cloth and…oh it was red hot, they put it on, tied it round to draw it all out…and boils, they used to do it for boils as well. I know if you had a wart – it was rub it with a piece of raw meat and bury it in the garden and don’t tell anyone where you’d buried and the wart’ll drop off. Oh dear, silly things.

Scrumping apples – policeman used to box your ears, ‘Don’t do it again’, you know, ‘No, we wont do it again’. Putting buttons on people’s doors and a bit of cotton and hiding and tapping the window…if my mother got to know the cane used to come out, oh yes, across your bottom. Bulimore – he used to clip you round the ears if you didn’t behave yourself.

I remember my mother taking me to the old police station in Baptist Walk because I’d run away from school one day and of course she’d had a word with this Bulimore, you know, ‘Have a word with her, frighten her so she won’t do it again!’ And all the guns, and there were a cat o’ nine tails up there and he said, ‘If you run away again you’ll have that.’ I never did run away again. The birch, I say that up there, because they used to have them on the wall, all on displays.

We used to sit and make peg rugs at night in the winter. You had a fire grate up there, I mean, if anybody was really ill for a length of time I think we had a coal fire in there but I can only ever remember it being used once when Mum was ill. You couldn’t afford to have a coal fire upstairs and downstairs as well. I don’t think you feel the cold when you’re young – even when you’re courting and it’s snowing – you stand there don’t you, you don’t feel it do you?

I was in Baddesley Ensor, cycled over there to see my grandparents. The war was declared when I was there. When Granddad said – they’d put it on the wireless, you know, it was accumulators and batteries – he said, ‘War’s been declared,’ and I said, ‘Will I be all right to get home? Will they bomb before I get there?’

Everyone mixed, it was merry times – live for today, don’t bother about tomorrow. I think it broadened the outlook. I mean you’d get different nationalities here and up at the aerodrome – Bramcote Aerodrome – you’d get different nationalities up there, you’d got the Belgians, French, all sorts up there. When you used to go dancing you’d meet them all. Go to Nuneaton, go to the dance there and miss the bus and have to walk home, that was nothing. Well if my mum was nights she didn’t know what time I got in did she. If she was at home I used to take my shoes off to go up the stairs quietly you know. I always used to drop my shoes at the top of the stairs and then I had it.

I worked in a shop and then of course the Labour Exchange told me I’d got to go to the railway and I went down there. You used to see the troop trains come in. Some of the fellows used to shout to me, one of them lived in the street below us although I didn’t know him. He says, ‘I know you, you come from Hinckley. Will you go down and tell my mum I’m going overseas?’ And he lived on the corner of Well Lane…he says, ”Cos I can’t write and tell her I’m going.’

Cleaning the carriages out near Nuneaton Trent Valley Station one day, Edie, one of the girls, she used to do the oiling and the King and Queen were coming and everywhere were all spick and span. The platforms were all clean and Edie goes for this oil can and drops it all down and she had to scrub it all up before they come. Oh, there was panic stations. And the King stopped and he was made up, he had more make-up on than…the Queen. Didn’t half make them up.

The Bulls Head at the bottom of Castle Street