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MEMORY LANE
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 04/02/2012, 7:23 AM
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Terry Basson
 
Joined on 25/03/2011
Bath
Posts 22
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No, I have never been angry with Herbie
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My wife's story really began, one Sunday morning at St Mary’s Church Benhall back in 1941. The Vicar announced from his pulpit, that the Government wanted host families living in the country, to take children into their homes to help them escape the bombs of London. Mr and Mrs Read put their hands up and agreed to host a child and waited patiently for the evacuees to arrive. About a month after they had volunteered, the vicar called Mrs Read saying,
“ Ella, please come and choose a child to take home.”
Ella was shocked and replied,
“Vicar, I could never come and select a child like one would cattle in a market. Just send me a little girl to my home is all I ask”.
Jean had found a splendid home from home staying with a couple who ultimately loved her like their own child. Jean stayed with them for over six months and then every school holiday after, she spent her six weeks with them. When I married Jean her adopted mother and father from Benhall Green attended our wedding. I understand this was the first time that Ella or her husband had ever travelled more than 30 miles from their home in Suffolk.
Herbert George Read and Ella Mary Read lived at 18 Benhall Green around 3 miles from the town of Saxmundham. It was a tied cottage owned by the landowner where Ella worked in service to the family. Herbie, as he was fondly called, worked on the land.
They were a childless couple but they had a favourite niece Sylvia Smith; their home reflected the hard times they lived through.
Home made carpets amounted to nothing more than a square of Hessian and cut up bits of coloured material from the ragbag. These bits of old clothing were pulled through a Hessian layer with a sacking needle and patted into order. These were wartime carpets that Ella made from time to time. Come each spring, she bashed the winter dust from them against the outside wall and then a flick of the broom over the brick floor, which trumpeted loudly. “Springtime has arrived!”
In those days, no services were laid on within the property. There was just one cold tap outside, near the back door. Nearby stood a large a timber feather-board clad washroom, built on study brick foundations. A washing copper boiler stood in the corner of this outside building, along with the ubiquitous ‘Wooden Dolly’, (a device for agitating the water), standing on guard, awaiting a handful of kindling wood and a flame from a match to begin the Monday wash! Reckitt and Coleman’s ‘ Dolly Blue bag’, greeted each boiling wash, to bring out that perfect whiteness.
Ella also cooked in this washroom on two paraffin-cooking stoves, which stood on the brick floor. These two very flat wick cookers produced some wonderful steamed suet puddings ; Steak and Kidney being among my favourites. Much tender care was bestowed on these little paraffin stoves. The wicks had to be kept neatly trimmed and the brass polished bright like a soldiers helmet.
The toilet was down the garden, the ‘Thunder Box’ as Herbie used to call it. The wooden toilet seat was scrubbed white and the contents in the bucket were emptied daily into a large previously dug hole in the long back garden. This area of the garden was rotated each year, with vegetables growing over last year’s disposals. Crop rotation, of sorts! Around the ‘Thunder Box’ grew tall, sweet smelling Balsam flowers. The bees loved these tall plants; you could hear them buzzing when you took your seat in the outside loo. In those days, the toilet roll, it seemed, had never been invented. It was just a nail with bits of old newspaper cut into neat 9”x5” portions and held together with rough string and hung over a nail driven into the back of the door. Recent news updates were often read in strips of 9x5 newsprint, whilst listening to the buzzing bees over the flowers growing close to the wooden hut. The ‘Thunder Box’ actually meets all of today’s environmental considerations. Recycling our waste, maintaining a clean environment, planting flowers to encourage bees to pollinate our vegetables and fruit. Such was the outside loo at 18 Benhall Green in 1940 – 1960.
Herbie kept a few laying hens in the back garden which were Rhode Island Red/ Light Sussex. This cross was known as a dual-purpose fowl. They were good layers and a table bird when their laying days were over. Old, fat hens were sought after for the wartime stew pot. In the days when I got to know Mr Read, he had some problems with bending low. So when he needed to crouch down to retrieve an egg from the inside nest box, he improvised by tying a tablespoon on the end of a broom handle. With this to hand, he would deftly pick up the newly laid egg in the spoon turning towards me with a smile on his face,
“ Not a bad size Terry”?
My reply although never heard, was always encouraging.
Herbi was as deaf as a post, this I was told, was due a kick to his head from a farm horse, many a year back. If you wanted to have a conversation with him, you needed pencil and paper. In the house Ella always kept small bits of plain paper to write upon, ready for such occasions. These were tucked away behind the biscuit tin ready to hand. After Ella retired from the big house where she had worked many years in service, she was offered the cottage for a very reasonable sum. She purchased it outright from her life’s savings; some of it was in gold. There were sovereigns saved during years of prudence and yes, she kept them in that biscuit tin, near where the scraps of writing paper were kept.
Ella was full of country stories and a joy to listen to, among many I have never forgotten. One evening, Herbie came home from a day’s work hoeing weeds from around crops growing in the field, with his old friend and neighbour Mr Sharman. On arriving home he grabbed a piece of paper and began writing frantically,
“Why has Mr Sharman not spoken to me all day in the field?”
Ella read this note quickly and rushed to the back gate and called Mr Sharman back asking,
“ Herbie is very upset because he wondered if you were angry with him, as you have not spoken to him all day long”?”
Mr Sharman came back towards her with a look of guilt written all over his face,
“ No, I have never been angry with Herbie.”
The reason, he went on to explain,
”I had forgotten to sand down yesterday’s conversation with Herbie from my Hoe handle last night”.
When this was all revealed to Herbie, all three had a hearty chuckle.
The Co-op grocer called once a week on his horse and cart, He carried a large wicker basket in which last week’s order of Mrs Read’s was carried. He lifted the Suffolk latch on the back door
Greeting Ella warmly.
“Mrs Read, I have some special offers this week to tempt you.”
This sort of conversation went on each week. Ella gave the man her latest list of things she wanted him to bring the following week. Today’s delivery had been costed down to the last penny. The money was always waiting on the kitchen table but the rounds man never ever counted it, he knew it would be the correct amount of money when dealing with the likes of Ella.
The larder was located between the kitchen and the living room. It was large in comparison with the overall square footage of the house. The floor was tiled in traditional red Suffolk Pammet sets. Large shelves hung all around the walls with thick white marble worktops keeping the fats and cooked meats cool. Up on the shelves stood Wedgwood blue and white plates standing on edge in rows against white washed walls. It was a place of great importance to Ella’ so much so that in 1965 the council offered to connect main drainage to the cottages. Ella flatly refused! When she told me about this offer (which I had thought was heaven sent!) She grabbed hold of my hand and said,
“Terry, do you know where they were going to put the toilet?’
She pulled me towards her larder,
“In here they were gong to put that dirty thing!”
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Lets Talk Forum... » GENERAL FORUM C... » MEMORY LANE » No, I have never been angry with Herbie
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