Growing up In Post-War Langford
This is part of a much longer document sent to Langford History Society by Philip Wright, who was born and brought up in Langford and is now retired and living in Lincolnshire. He also sent some photographs which are included in the story below.
In the beginning
I was born on 1 March 1939 (St David’s day) and I can’t remember much before 1944.
I was born at 8 East Road, Langford. The house was a three up/three down end of terrace row that belonged to my Great Uncle Charles Wright, a builder, who also lived in Langford. I lived at No 8 for about 14 years with my Mum whose name was Evelyn but everybody called her Ev (maiden name Underwood), my Dad, Ronald Alfred (Ron) and my brother Denis Arthur who was 10 years older than me and his birthday was March 11. Before Denis was born, Mum and Dad had twin girls that lived for only a few days but they never spoke to me about it.
My grandparents
I never knew any of my grandparents although I can vaguely remember going on the bus to Girtford near Sandy to see one of Mum’s sisters called Aunt Doll (Dorothy) and there being an old chap there with a grey beard who I think was Mum’s Dad. He died when I was four.
I got a good impression of Dad’s Mum as being a stern woman who wouldn’t tolerate nonsense in any shape or form – Denis getting into trouble with her several times. She lived at 8 East Road before Mum and Dad and she died of cancer there. Dad told a story about her and some fatty beef she got from a butchers in Biggleswade. It was a Saturday and the beef was for Sunday dinner. When she got the beef home and discovered that it was fatty, she put her hat and coat on and walked the three miles back to Biggleswade and into Mr Warren’s butchers shop which was full of customers; she plonked the beef on the counter and said to Mr Warren ‘There you are Mr Warren, you can take your piece of fatty beef home and cook it!’, and then walked out of the shop.
No 8 East Road Langford
The house didn’t have a bathroom or hot water and all of the rooms were small, especially the loo which was outside attached to the garden shed and was a smelly bucket with a wooden seat and daily newspaper (the Daily Herald) torn up and hanging on a nail for toilet paper. The bucket got emptied once a week by the men from the Council called the night cart. They used to arrive in the middle of the night and wake everybody up. In the early days the cart was pulled by a horse and apparently on one icy night the horse slipped on the ice and tipped the cart over!
There were two bedrooms and a box room with a bed so I shared a bed with Denis.
I had a bath on Friday nights in a tin bath in the kitchen filled from a copper boiler. There always seemed to be a lot of visitors on a Friday (mainly wanting owed money because it was Dad’s payday) who had to pass through the kitchen to the sitting room.
We had a front door but it was never used. There was also a ‘front room’ which was only used at Christmas and this room was like a magic room to a five year old, with a posh suite of furniture and fitted carpets and ornaments that people had given as presents over the years. It made Christmas even more magical because a coal fire was lit in the fireplace. Thinking back, it didn’t make much sense because the rest of the year was pretty cramped.
East Road was a straight country lane that didn’t go anywhere and was about half a mile long and had mainly fields both sides apart from our row of six houses on one side and six rows of four council houses on the other. Opposite us in the first block of council houses lived Mum’s sister, Aunt Floss (Florence) and Uncle Bert Foster and their two daughters, Daphne and Audrey. As a toddler, I used to spend time at their house, running across the road to see them (there wasn’t much traffic – just the odd horse and cart) and was greeted with the cry ‘Here he comes again!’ We got on well and at Christmas they would come to us on Christmas Day afternoon and evening and we would go to theirs on Boxing Day.
On Christmas Eve, Dad, Denis, Uncle Bert and Geoff (Daphne’s husband), used to go to the Wrestlers pub in Langford and come home very merry. They could be heard singing halfway up East Road and it was the only time each year that I knew Dad to get tipsy – I don’t suppose he could afford to the rest of the year. One of the traditions at the Wrestlers at Christmas Eve was to fill a ‘guzunda’ with beer and cooked sausages for the more daring to have a free drink and eat from!
Also on Christmas Eve the Methodist Church choir went round the village carol singing and arrived at East Road about midnight. It was quite magical because by then I would be in bed waiting for Father Christmas to come and then to hear all the familiar carols being sung in the road outside. Bill Rook had a powerful bass voice and could be heard above the rest. The next morning the Salvation Army would play carols and both would come knocking for donations.
Many years later when I became a member of the choir and went carol singing, I remember Denis and Dad joining the choir half way round, much to my embarrassment, because they had just come out of the Wrestlers and although Denis had a good bass voice, Dad usually sang out of tune.
In those days nobody had a car, telephone or television but every house had a piano. East Road remained fairly static and nobody moved away and so you got to know everybody in the road and their children and they seemed to go to the Methodist Chapel or Sally Army. Some Christmases, the neighbours would come in and I remember Denis’s girlfriend, Cynthia Bates, who had hopes of becoming a concert pianist (that’s why her Dad stopped the relationship) playing the piano and Jess Smith playing the violin and everybody singing. Wonderful!
At the other end of the row of houses from us lived Mr & Mrs Smith, to me a friendly elderly couple who welcomed everybody into their house. They had three grown up children – Nancy, Kath and Bob. Nancy married Tom Chessum who went into partnership with Dad to form a small building firm called Chessum & Wright, employing half a dozen bricklayers and labourers.
Tom did most of the admin and pricing and Dad did most of the work. I was friendly with Richard their eldest child. Kath married the aforementioned Jess Smith and Bob was a jovial person about 12 years older than me. He was blinded in one eye whilst playing as a child. We played in the village cricket team when I was about 19.
To paint a bit more of the picture, three doors from us lived Mr & Mrs Brown, who were strict members of the same Wesleyan Methodist Church (we used to call it chapel). Both Dad and Denis had their funeral memorial service there. Mr Brown used to run the Band of Hope on Tuesday evenings and show picture slides of cartoon characters, followed by prayers and orange squash and a talk about the evils of alcohol.
Mr & Mrs Brown lived a very sober life, following their Methodist beliefs. Mr Brown worked at Langford Miil driven by the River Ivel, where flour was produced from the local wheat.
The garden at 8 East Road was big because it was the end house and had land at the side. Dad was a keen gardener as was his sister, another Aunt Ida. The garden had vegetables all year, a big orchard with grassy play areas, fish pond, rockery, nut trees and sheds. Dad built a brick air-raid shelter for protection during the Second World War, partly underground in the garden and was used by us and the neighbours when the air-raid siren sounded. To a toddler like me it was a creepy sort of place that was dark, smelly, damp, and the steps leading down into it looked as though they were going into hell. During the wet weather it partly filled with water and had to be hand-pumped out before it could be used. Then it attracted hoards of frogs and toads who liked the fish pond as well. I remember one year, there were so many frogs, that we had to kill them by treading on them. What a mess! The bomb shelter was covered with earth which made a mound for a rockery which Dad planted up to look attractive. I have a photo of the fish pond with the East Road gang on the little bridge that Dad built. I fell in the fish pond a few times and on warm summer Sunday afternoons, Mum and me would have our tea by the pond, before Dad got up – he always went to bed Sunday afternoons.
On some Sunday evenings after tea Mum and me would go for a walk along the lane and meet and pass the time of day with the neighbours. East Road was a narrow country lane that only went to the railway line and after that it was a farm road that went to Cott Lodge which was a derelict house that got bombed in the war but it still had fruit trees growing and brambles and weeds. In total about a mile long. Mum and me walked as far as Cott Lodge picking wild flowers and grasses and eating blackberries and dewberries from the roadside ditches.
On Church Street opposite the Plough pub was a small general shop run by Ida Bryant and her little old mum. I had to go to the shop for Dad’s tobacco and when I asked Ma Bryant how much that would be, she said ‘That’ll be fer an ferpnce aipny.’ Translated, it was four shillings and four and a half old pennies. Our groceries came from Hawkins Shop in Langford and Violet Gentle came round on her bike on Tuesdays to take Mum’s order for delivery on Friday.
Dad employed Ernie Handscombe to do the carpentry and joinery work on the building sites and Ernie was also the village undertaker.
The railway line was the focal point for the East Road gang, gathering there mainly to ‘train spot’ with the Ian Allan ABC of railway engines that worked on the LNER line. The little book was published every year with names and numbers of all the engines – the aim being to cross off as many as possible that you had seen or ‘spotted’. It was all steam engines then and we used to put pennies on the track to see how much the engines would flatten them. Sometimes the girls would come up there as well.
My first real friend as a toddler was Gillian Rogers, the little girl who lived opposite and whose big brother, Clive, was friends with Denis. She also had two older sisters – Megan and June. Gillian and I used to play together and occasionally played football. One day she fell over and both started laughing but Gillian was crying because she had broken her wrist in the fall. We would also play hide and seek, mums and dads and other children’s games.
The East Road gang grew up together and consisted of Richard Garner (next door neighbour), Gillian Rogers, John Smith, Richard Chessum (who didn’t live there, but his grandparents did), Muriel Brown who lived opposite and a few years older, Mavis Brown (not related to Muriel), and various hangers on who lived in nearby streets – Barry Breed who later became my best friend and me his Best Man at his wedding.
On 5 November in the village there would be four or five bonfires in different areas and a bit of competition to see who could build the biggest and best. It kept us busy after school and weekends for several weeks and we would gather stuff using prams, wheelbarrows, trucks etc and would go round the houses knocking on doors and asking everybody if they had anything. Sometimes we got things and sometimes we were told to come back later.
I think people used it as a reminder to clear out sheds and attics that had not been touched since last year. When we had finished the evening’s collection we would sift through it to see if there was anything worth taking home. We also made a guy and sat him in the wheelbarrow and went round the houses asking for a penny for the guy. We saved the money for fireworks. One year somebody from another gang lit our bonfire before the day, much to everybody’s disappointment.
The bonfire was built near the track running past Dad’s sheds and I can see him now feeling the wooden shed to see if was about to catch fire. We all saved money to buy fireworks and the whole street turned out for the show and bought soup and cakes to eat during the show. The next evening because the fire embers were still glowing, we all met up again and baked some jacket potatoes in the fire and ate them for our suppers with some butter – probably the first barbecues we had.
We played football and cricket in the road with a tennis ball and used garden gates as goals and wooden boxes as wickets – it served me well later on, teaching me ball sense and cricket skills.
One day when I was on my own in the back garden orchard, it must have been early autumn because there were a lot of fallen apples about. I had seen some cricket and marvelled at the throwing ability to the wicketkeeper from the boundary. I looked at the apples and wondered if I could throw an apple over the roof of our row of houses. I wasn’t too sure of myself but plucked up the courage to have a go. So with my best throw the apple soared right over the top of our roof much to my delight. Mum then called me in for my tea and a few minutes later there came a knock at the door. It was Vera Brown from the row opposite saying that somebody had thrown an apple through her front window and it looked like one of our apples. She wasn’t very pleased and my only comment was ‘Why does everybody think it was me?’
Langford Primary School
I went to Langford Primary School which was about 10 minutes’ walk away. My first teacher was Miss Lowry and the headmistress Miss Bowen. She was matronly, not young but I liked her. In my middle years there we had a man teacher and did the school play, ‘Wind in the Willows’, in the Church Hall, called the tin room because it was made of corrugated iron sheeting. I had been given the part of the horse and we had to make a horse’s head out of cardboard to wear in the play.
All the boys played football at playtime in the playground and everybody knew everybody. I had a disagreement with one of my mates, Brian Handscombe, about a football match that we organised against Henlow, the next village.
To resolve it, he said the only way was to have a fight. All the school got to know about it and when I arrived it was like a circus ring with everybody sitting down, ready for the fight to begin. It turned out to be a bit of a non-event because we finished up wrestling each other to the ground and then going home.
My first girlfriend was at school and her name was Olive Sargent and we liked each other and made up foursomes with Brian Handscombe and Eileen Bygraves.
Dad never came into school at all and Mum came once to a Christmas sing – parents usually never bothered the schools in those days. I took the 11-plus exam at Biggleswade Secondary School and passed to go on to grammar school. Up to that year I would have gone to Bedford School which was a reputable public school, but the Education Authority had started to build a new grammar school at Biggleswade called Stratton School and that is where we went as the first pupils there.
When the letter came to say I had passed, Mum couldn’t believe it and Dad bought me a new bike. Even Nancy Chessum gave me some money when she saw me next time in the street. I think she was a school governer.
Holidays
We didn’t have regular holidays, just days out with the Sunday School to Skegness, but when I was 11 Geoff organised a holiday in Blackpool for a week with Mum, Dad, Aunt Floss, Uncle Bert, Daph, Geoff and me at a typical landlady’s guest house. We went there by taxi and I thought it was wonderful. Food was still not plentiful, but for one evening meal we had roast pork and veg, with a big bowl of apple sauce. We knew we were going to get a sweet because the spoons were laid out. The landlady came in with a jug of custard and looked at the table and asked where the apples had gone to go with the custard: everybody was speechless when they realised what had happened. We just had custard for sweet!
Life in the Village
After school we all met down the playing field for a game of football. Somebody would bring a ball and the chosen captains would take it in turn to pick a player for their team and we played till dark then went home.
On Mondays, it was Youth Club at the Chapel from 7 pm till 9.30. It was a great social activity for the girls and boys. We could play table tennis, billiards, darts, card games, and there were books, biscuits, orange squash, all organised by two or three adult volunteers.
In summer, Denis and his friends (male and female) played tennis on the vicarage lawn. They had to mow the grass, mark out the court, put the net up and provide the balls before they could play – all with the blessing of the vicar. I used to go down and be a nuisance to them but they would send me down the village to buy ice cream to get me out of the way and I would get an ice cream. This gang then formed a proper tennis club when the Playing Field committee built two hard courts and a small pavilion on the playing field. About ten years later I became secretary to the club.
Jack Street was football youth coach and he organised Saturday matches and practice sessions and there was great competition to get into the team. I managed to hold a place as No 7, outside right, based on my football hero Stanley Matthews from Stoke and Blackpool. I later followed Lancashire County Cricket team because Blackpool is in Lancashire.
Also in summer was the annual village flower show with many things going on in different places like boxing matches, fancy dress parade, and silly cricket matches. Dad was on the committee and entered into the spirit of things with flower and vegetable entries and fancy dress. There is a photo of him and Bob Smith as King Farouk and his bride.
I also used to go fishing in the river at the mill and the gravel pits on Henlow Road. The mill was mainly roach and chub and the gravel pits only tench and dace. Also in summer I learnt to swim in the gravel pits but was never very confident.
Illnesses
I don’t remember many illnesses but I recall having chronic toothache because dental care was unheard of and Mum, Dad and Denis all had false teeth so there was no help there. I tried all sorts of things to cure it like putting aspirin and tobacco in the hole where the decay was and the school dentist was awful and wouldn’t give any injections when doing a filling, so I didn’t go till I was about 17.
Stratton School
When we started at Stratton which was a grammar/technical school, only four or five classrooms had been built and there were only five teachers – Headmaster, Mr Blayney, Mr Coupe, Mr Howe, Mr Greener, Miss Friend and a sports master. With me from Langford Primary School were Barry Breed, Brian Handscombe, Marie Brown and Barry Wheeler. Some had school uniforms and some didn’t.
We had to get the school bus from Langford to Biggleswade and on the first morning we were all very nervous waiting at the allocated time and place. We were even more nervous when the bus went straight past without stopping and it was left to me to ring the headmaster to explain because we were the only family with a phone.
We were allocated classes according to how we had done in the 11+ and I was placed in the top class. I struggled there and the fact that I couldn’t see the writing on the blackboard didn’t help. The French teacher Mr Greener noticed it first and sat me on the front row. I was sent somewhere for an eye test and have worn glasses ever since. I didn’t do very well in the end of term exams and was moved down a class the next year.
I did, however, play for the school cricket team and sang in the school choir and enjoyed most sporting activities including rugby and athletics.
As the years went on I found my level at the school and tried my best and generally enjoyed school. One year our form master was Mr Wagstaff who taught mathematics and I got on well with him. At the end of one term he mentioned me as a ‘role model’ because I had done well in both term work and exams, coming fifth in term work and seventh in exams in the class. I didn’t achieve much in GCE ‘O’ level getting passes in English Language, Mathematics and General Science. But with hindsight these subjects have held me in good stead.
At the end of the fifth year I was in a quandary because I hadn’t done well enough to go on to ‘A’ levels and I hadn’t got a job, so I carried on to sixth form to get more ‘O’ levels. Mr Wagstaff was also our careers master and early in the autumn term of the sixth form he had seen an advert for an engineer learner in Bedfordshire County Surveyor’s office and said he thought it would suit me and that I ought to apply, which I did. I got the job and left school.
The school dentist paid us visits and he was awful. I had sensitive teeth but he would not give any injections or painkillers and it was murder. He put me off dentists for many years.
I joined the school photography society and did my own developing and printing.
Life at home
During the school summer holidays I would work for Ezra Street on his farm land with other boys from the village, picking potatoes, pulling runner beans and sometimes taking the horse and cart to the station to load veg to market. We got paid one shilling an hour for 40 hours a week which was £2. I was shocked when Mum asked me for some money for my keep! We had some fun on the farm and got into trouble now and again.
When Denis completed his two years of National Service and was back on civvy street he worked for Dad (Chessum and Wright) as a bricklayer and on Saturdays went to the dances at Hitchin with his mates – Herbert Dilley, Richard Smith, Clive Rogers and Norman Smith.
About 1951/52 we were still living at 8 East Road. Dad approached his Uncle Charles to see if he would sell him some of the garden to build a bungalow. Uncle Charles agreed and so plans were drawn up for Dad to build the bungalow in his spare time.
It took some time to complete and was a really nice design – three bedrooms, bathroom, central heating, utility room. The roof tiles were cedar wood shingles that changed colour slightly depending on the moisture in the air and Dad named the bungalow the ‘Grey Ibstocks’ from the name of the bricks he had chosen. We thought it was lovely and a big change from No 8. Dad still had quite a good sized garden.
Denis helped to build it and I tried mixing mortar and fetching bricks but I wasn’t up to it at 14 years old.
I still had mates down at the playing field especially Barry Breed, Michael Dear, Richard Garner, etc. Larry Piper had a small row boat which he kept tied up on the River Ivel and we used to mess about in it. One day in summer it had gone missing and we thought some boys from the next village, Henlow, had taken it. Mike Dear and myself thought we knew where it was and would get it back. So one evening we met up and cycled to the Langford Road Bridge, put our bikes under the bridge and walked about two miles along the river bank to Henlow and found the boat.
We untied it and rowed it back to Langford and tied it up under the bridge. By this time it was dark and getting late but we hadn’t got watches so we didn’t know the time. But we were not worried because the mission was accomplished. When we got to Mike Dear’s house we thought there had been an accident because there was a small crowd of people outside his house. I was surprised when Dad called after me and followed me on his bike.
We hadn’t told our parents where we were going and it was about 10 o’clock when Dad made some enquiries from my mates and was told about the plan to get the boat back.
He feared the worst and went to see Mike’s parents. He said he was never more pleased to see two cycle lights in the dark in the whole of his life. On the school bus next morning, Mike and I were the village heroes.