Sunday

A Step too Far! Living at the top of Meriden Hill in the 50s and Sixties

No gym membership was needed when you lived in Millisons Wood! I walked up and down the hill twice a day to the Village School and four times on a Sunday to sing in the choir. Sometimes I would walk down to the Youth Club on a Friday night run by the lovely John Patrick. How I envied all my friends lucky enough to live right in the Centre of England! I was born in August 1952 and Nurse Hartwell battled up the hill on her trusty bike to attend to my Mum, Joan Jackson. My Father, Ron was well out of the way in the garden! Imagine Mum’s surprise when, in her hour of need, Nurse Hartwell sat and listened to ‘The Archers’ in our front room before climbing the stairs. We lived at the last house on the left hand side before ‘The Wood’; this was something that would be of great consternation to me as I grew up. Mr Tuckey kept his animals down at the bottom and they were known to get out from time to time and frighten the daylights out of me. My grandparents, Eva and Cecil Mitchell, lived opposite and had a wonderful thing called a television! ‘Crackerjack’ on Friday teatime with a buttered crust of a new loaf from Hems’ shop was complete heaven. On a Saturday, for a treat she would sometimes take me on the 159 Bus to Birmingham and I thought that was wonderful. Mr and Mrs Probert lived next to them and were kindness itself. Later on John and Margaret Patrick moved in next door to them and at about the age of nine or ten I played with their two girls, Cheryl and Melanie. Grandma would have a little red book she kept for her weekly shopping order from Hems, she kept a note of every penny she spent as money was tight. She worked a night-shift at the Triumph to make ends meet as my Uncle Ron had passed his 11 plus to Bablake School and the uniform was a huge expense. Coming from Leeds, her Yorkshire Puddings would have put Jamie Oliver’s’ to shame and we always had a huge plateful with gravy before the meagre main course. Dad was good fun and made go-karts made of old crates and pram wheels, hobby horses out of broom handles and stuffed socks and balsa wood planes for any child in the street who didn’t have very much. Often there would be a knock on the door and someone would ask if ‘Mr Jackson was coming out to play’. Our back garden was very long and backed on to a field at the back of the Triumph factory. The perimeter fence often had to be scaled if the model planes floated over by an inexperienced ‘pilot’ and had to be retrieved. School days were mainly happy! Classmates included, Lesley Golding, Trevor Wrist ,Ian Pitman, Richard Trigg, Helen Hulse, Gillian Threadgold, Johnnie and Patsy Wilcox, Kevin Lord, Angela Hughes (her father kept the Bull’s Head and was allowed to stay up quite late) Ilse Kuplens and her family had moved from Latvia and lived in a tiny flat in Darlaston Hall. I loved going there because she would cook potato omelettes for me. The little outbuilding in the grounds was reputed to be haunted. She is now a Preacher in Canada I believe and still has her long plait. Angela Purdey was a super friend and lived in one of the cottages facing the Green. She was lucky enough to have a record player and a copy of Helen Shapiro’s ‘Walking Back to Happiness’ released in 1961. We played it to death. I remember the little milk bottles lined up by the stove in the classroom with their little frozen foil tops all pecked by sparrows. Well behaved kids were allowed to count the dinner money in Mr Fallowell’s office. Mrs Standing taught us craft skills and her standards were so high I remember doing copious unpicking before the sewing passed the test. (My Mum still has the cross stitch knitting bag) A teacher from Shropshire (can’t remember her name) taught us about living things and gave each of us a tiny geranium cutting to look after. Very special.

This article is part one of a contribution to the Mag by Angela Wheeler, daughter of Mr and Mrs Ron Jackson, she writes “apologies if I have missed anyone or left out anything that is of significance. If any reader remembers my Mum and Dad please drop them a line to 2 Riverdale Close, Fordingbridge, Hants SP6 1LJ”