Babs Samways

Tuesday 2 July 2013

??My Grandfather would tell me many stories about his youth and would always remind us the family had lived in Ardington for 350 years. ??He was interviewed for the North Berks Herald after he had been retired for many years and there was a photo of him and a small article written about how he started work at the age of 10 as a plumber.

Apart from the years he was away from the village, as a private in the Royal Berks reg during the First World War, he worked for the estate.?? He was the second son of George and Louisa Prior and was born at No 43 Townsend, one of five children: Allan, Wilfred, Arthur, and Francis a daughter. There was another son who died quite young but I haven???t been able to find any trace of him.

Allen eventually ended up living in Hermitage east of Newbury. ??I only met him once.??He was the very opposite of Granddad as he couldn???t have been taller than 5 ft 6 inches.

Arthur married and as far as I know ended up in the West Country running a chicken farm.

Francis, the only daughter, married a Mark Curtain and lived in Wantage. He worked at Our Ladies Convent. They were both tall and she looked like my Grandfather. I know that she had three daughters – Louise , Irene and?? Gwenith who died very young and is buried in Challow churchyard.

Another addition to the family was a very small boy that was called Earnest Lewis entered in the census of 1881 as a boarder. He lived with the family until he was about 24 and then having bought a bicycle he road to London to spend many hours at Somerset House to try and find out who he was.?? He never managed to find out but worked as another plumber

As to the other Priors I have no idea how many children they had,

Wilfred married the girl next door, Annie Elizabeth Williams. Her parents were?? Jane and George.?? He died and the family emigrated to Canada.?? Granddad refused to join them ???

Married, they first lived at Lockinge in one of the first cottages on the left as you enter the village, and there they had several children, my mother being the eldest.???? She told me she first started school in the Lockinge school at the top of the village street.??

I suppose because Granddad worked in the estate yard in the village of Ardington they moved into the cottage opposite the one he had been born in No 43. ??By then his mother Louisa had been widowed, and was living with his sister Francis and the second son of Earnest, Victor Lewis.???? He stayed with them while he was at school and only returned to London once he was old enough.

Wilfred and Annie had seven children in all.

Winifred married, Wilfred son of Earnest Lewis 1929.
Dorothy emigrated to Canada age 12???? to join the Williams family.
Edith married Wilfred Faithful of Shaw, Newbury.
Arthur emigrated to Canada age 10.????????????????????????????????????
Kathleen married Charles Lewer from Reading and they lived in Carversham for the rest of their lives.

Wilfred was called up at the start of World War 1 and served at the front, almost being killed when he stopped a bullet but saved by a metal mirror in his top left hand pocket.??He was injured and sent to Ireland to recover.?? He was there for about 6 months.??There was photo of him, standing with a group of nurses dressed in a royal blue uniform, kept among the family photos.

He came home after the war and his family was enlarged.?? While he was away my grandmother had to manage as best as she could and life was very hard.?? At the front of the house was a large wheat field.?? Every year the family would have to glean whatever ears of wheat could be picked up after the field was cut. It would be taken to the mill, threshed and fed the family in bread for a year.

Two children were born after he came home.

Wilfred married twice died in Peppard, Reading?? in 1948.
Iris married Alec Kimber from East Hendred in Ardington church 1952.

Granddad lived in the cottage No 46, until he was taken to live with his daughter Kathleen in Reading at the age of 90, and started work at the age of 10 (both of my grandfathers did) and learnt to be a plumbers for the estate.

He would tell us children stories of what life was like.?? It was very simple, the only amusement to be had was in the reading rooms next to the church.

The vicar gave his time several times of the week to help the boys with their education. Wilfred always wrote with a most beautiful copy and I can see him now writing to Arthur and taking what seemed like hours.?? In the front of the house was a very deep well.?? All the water we had come from it and he told me that he had helped dig it out.?? With my Gt Grandmother living opposite there was a close relationship between them and it was a big family when all together.

Wilf as he was called had to walk many miles to the job he was working on.?? I can see him now every night getting his bag of tools ready and a carrier bag of American Oil Cloth for his lunch, containing two bottles of cold black tea unsweetened along with hunks of bread no butter (during the war there wasn???t any) but accompanied with great lumps of pig fat wrapped in a piece of last weeks margarine paper.

It wasn???t until after the war transport was laid on to drop him off at the place of work. Until then he had to walk, starting very early, to get to his place of work by eight o???clock.?? The area he covered was anywhere from Drayton in the north to East and West Isley, Farnbourgh way up on the downs.?? He had to carry his tools on his back

He was a big strong man, tall with a moustache and had the bluest of eyes, and a good head of hair. A very keen gardener, he worked two allotments on the Puddle Dock lane.??During the war the household consisted of six of us with my mother and the three of us children plus Iris.?? Annie died in 1936

I can never remember us being short of the essential foods. All the vegetables we needed were grown either on the allotment or in the garden.?? Apples, loganberries, and strawberries grew at our feet.?? Not a scrap of wasted soil to be seen.?? Of course we had no running water, gas or electricity and the toilet was at the bottom of the garden. Granddad would get up at the crack of dawn to empty the pan and was never seen doing it.

He had been retired many years when it had been discovered there was no record of where the pipes had been laid on the whole of the estate. Wilf was asked by the estate office if he would go around the whole estate with an architect in order that a record be made of exactly where the pipes had been laid.?? They picked him up and drove him everywhere to do this and he was employed for six months.

He was a wonderful man, and I hold him in great esteem.?? He gave my mother a home when the war started, and looked after three small children when it was needed.?? He was always there and even lent me enough money to buy my first babies pram. Goodness only knows how he ever managed to save any money, I???ll never know.

He died in Feb 1971 and was the last of the Priors to be buried in Ardington Churchyard, alongside my Grandmother.

1930 – 1939 | Babs Samways

1930 – 1939 | Babs Samways:

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The attached photo is of my Brother John and Cousin Heather. The girl
in the centre is me.

1930/1941 | Babs Samways

1930/1941 | Babs Samways:

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To continue my story , I can’t remember having a Christmas at the Reynolds in the Bognor Regis house so I suppose our parents had collected us and we returned to our Flat in Balham.

We were sent to a Catholic school on the opposite side of Balham High Street, about that I can’t remember much because shorty after we were driven all three of us ( Micheal as well, he wasn’t even at school )`down to Eastbourne and stay with lovely people a Mr and Mrs Barnes and their two children Joan and Lesley both around our ages

The bungalow was at Langley Point down a narrow dusty lane .

It was a red brick house with the door and bay windows on either side painted a very bright green, I remember a short distance down the lane a high chain link fence was on the opposite side with a very dark looking stretch of water , we would. peer though it and look for the eels that were supposedly in it ,every thing looked very very dark and eerie certainly something for us to be scared about.

Mr Barnes was such a jolly man and Mrs Barnes was kept so busy as shortly after we arrived three more children arrived ,all boys that went by the name of: O Brian, Terrance Michael and Brian, I always thought fancy having a name like Brian O Brian, a proper tongue twister.

All ten of us squeezed into that small three bedded bungalow , I can only remember the kitchen with a round table and the boys bed room , all the beds were pushed up together and to get at the window we had to clamber over each bed to see out , I must have had a bed in Joan’s room .

At the time we were staying there we were told that a Dutch cargo ship had been bombed just off shore and we could see it quite plainly from the beach when we walked down to it.

After it had been bombed many of the locals had gone down to the shore to see what could be collected and Mr Barnes came home with a very large Dutch cheese in the round wooden cask it had been packed in also a wooden box packed to the full of linen covered buttons , the type Mummy stitched on to my liberty bodice , how I hated them ! they were also used on pillow cases or a bolster to keep them closed when a pillow had been inserted.

I can’t help but think now a days what a useful thing it was to do, we couldn’t buy them today , I did find a few sometime ago at a boot fair , some old lady must have passed away and they had been turned out.

Mr Barnes would place the cheese on the table and large lumps would be sliced off at meal times with us all sat around the table mouths open ready to devour some.

He was a self employed man and ran his own cats meat round , having a pony and yellow trap that was stored at the bottom of a very long garden, in turn we were allowed to help him at times and I can distinctly remember his cooking up horses legs in a number of coppers, these were then once cooked loaded into the trap and in turn at weekends allowed to accompany him selling it.

He would stand on the platform at the back of the trap ringing a hand bell calling out ” Cats Meat any one for cats meat , who ever was helping him at the time would run to the doors handing over the sliced horses flesh wrapped in news paper and collect the threepence that was it’s worth.

As it had been a Catholic school we were sent to in London we went to a convent in Eastbourne for our schooling and the nuns taught us , the two Michael’s weren’t old enough for school so were sent to a nursery for the day , the four of us we the evacuated all went together so I suppose the Barnes children were C of E.

It was a hot summer while we were there and I was given my first communion I remember it had been a problem to find a white dress so the nuns had to help out, after the service we all had a lovely tea on the lawns of the convent, I remember all the girls dancing around the lawns feeling I’m sure like princesses.

Then we had a blow , Mummy was going to fetch us we had no idea why but it was because we were all going to be moved to somewhere in Wales the long awaited bombing had started and the south coast of England was in danger of being invaded by the Germans , “What a stupid thing for the government to do send thousands of children to the south coast out of London where there was every chance of being invaded on the coast .

The taxi arrived with Mummy, (no Father) and we were told that night we would be staying in the flat at the bottom of Bedford H ill that belonged to the mother of the other three boys no explanation was given and we were tucked up into strange beds for the night.

The following morning it was up and walk to the brow of the hill where a very large pantechnicon was parked outside our flat,men were stacking all our furniture into the vehicle, we were all going to stay with granddad !! in Ardington , we were so happy to be going there as in all my life there had never been anywhere that was a nice as granddads cottage.

There was only one thing that quite upset me and that was Johnny had been allowed to sit in the back with the men all the way, sat in one of out armchairs and I was squeezed into the front along with Mummy, Michael and the driver .

Down the Great Western Rd we drove, having driven that way many many times before with my father driving, we knew by now the way and was always looking out for our favourite spots , we were one of the very few that owned a car , I’m sure thanks to my mother who worked at cleaning jobs to pay for them.

At last we could see the barns at the bottom of East Hendred Hill we always looked for them as we knew within minutes we would be there .

I will follow on from there next time .

September 1st. – The Start of the War | Babs Samways

September 1st. – The Start of the War | Babs Samways:

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Where to start?

Today being the 1st of September I thought it was about time I got going on telling everyone about what it was like to be evacuated seventy years ago today.

I was in bed listening to the radio when the announcer reminded me of the date , I then thought yes time to get started .

Our mother had some days previously taken the three of us, my brothers, Micheal John and I to somewhere in Balham where gas masks were being distributed , we were fitted for them and even today I can still remember what it was like to try and breath through it, it was dreadful and after all this time I stillcan’t bare to have anything place over my mouth.

She took us to a shop to buy a gas mask case in mock black crocodile skin which we then slung around our necks feeling very important.

A day or two later John and I were taken to the railway station at the bottom of Bedford Hill , we lived in a basement flat No 131,in that street so only a very short distance to walk , full of excitement we boarded the train being given several items for the journey , a bottle of milk and two packets of what seemed to me dog biscuits, they were certainly hard enough , I remember sitting on the seats of the carriage swinging my legs in great excitement.

We were going to the seaside .

I was nine years and two months old and Johnny as we called him in those days would,be eight in two months time October the 31 , the carriage was full, with children being taken away from what it was thought a city about to be bombed flat.

I remember clearly being taken like a herd of cattle to a school in Bognor Regis where we all sat waiting for someone to collect us. Johnny and I mated up with a couple of boys Freddy Case and Billy Bosher , A tall woman dressed in green with a wide brimmed hat on the top of her head collected the four of us and walked us to our accommodation. The two boys to be lodged in the next street to where we were to go us.

We arranged to meet them the following day to go and find the sea.

I remember the two of us walking to the house that we had been to the previous day to meet up with the boys , however I am running away with myself in haste to get this all down.

The people we were billeted with went by the name of Reynolds, they had two children, a boy and a girl, who’s name I can’t remember. A bed had been made up for us in their room. I remember suddenly realising I wasn’t going home and, standing in the room we all lived in, burst into tears. As I sobbed Johnny wrapped his arms around me saying ,” Never mind Babsie I’m here “.

I cried I want to go home to Mummy.

The very large Woman who had a wrap around apron on, looked down upon us and frightened me to death. We were given a bed in the room and I sobbed myself to sleep.

The following day the two of us set out to find the other two boys and the four of us trotted to the sea front .

We came to the pier with great excitement,”We were here” ! and almost forgot we were away from home , such an adventure , John and I wanted to go on the pier but the other two boys wanted a donkey ride each of us having threepence each. We watched the other two ride the donkeys, it was raining and thought how silly to get wet .

In the centre of the walk way on the pier stood a very large Jute Box , it had about five girls stood around it and over and over again they played Gracie Fields singing ” Wish me luck as you wave me good by”.

It was only a day or two later a letter arrived from Mummy and I remember reading it and busting in to tears , We had been given a number of self addressed stamped envelopes to write home.

It was only after Mum had died I was in the cottage sorting out her papers when I came across one of the letters very badly written saying “Mummy I hate it here please take us home ” It was such a shock to find that she had kept it all those years, I had a job to not cry.

Another thing I remember was only a day or two after we had been left at this house the grown ups all went out leaving us alone , I suppose people did in those days, went to pub but leaving kids at home .

It had got dark and we switched the light on in the room we lived in when there was a loud knock on the door and a Man called out ” Switch those lights out ” the four of us were terrified not knowing what to do so grabbing all the coats we could find slung them over the expanding wire that the curtains were hung on and sat there waiting for the Reynolds to return.

Not a nice woman Mrs Reynolds.

I remember Mummy and Daddy came to visit us and Micheal who although had been evacuated to somewhere with a nursery had been collected and taken back home. He had been given a bar of chocolate in the car and it was all over his; face, coat, leggings, and hands, after they had gone home Mrs Reynolds looked down at me and said ” What a Dirty little baby that was”.

I was very cross at her saying that.

It wasn’t long after that before we were collected and driven back to Balham .

Just a Starting But There’s a Lot of Interesting Stuff to Come | Babs Samways

Just a Starting But There’s a Lot of Interesting Stuff to Come | Babs Samways:

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I’ve always enjoyed writing and gradually built up the confidence to do that in a place where other people can share my memories and thoughts. Now with Posterous I can do precisely that. I hope you’ll stop by, take a few minutes to read what I’ve said and maybe add your own thoughts. Babs