The ex-Launton Boy recalls episodes from his youth, from Launton Lines June 2023 Issue 272

Memories of an ex-Launton Boy

This month the ex-Launton Boy is in a sad and reflective mood. Sad because of the report in last month’s issue about the rubbish (and especially the nitrous oxide capsules) found in the revised road layout around the bridge that replaced the level crossing on the way to Poundon. And reflective because he recalls the times he spent, with village friends, playing in the area around the crossing, which leads him to think about the “Saturday Jobs” that young people did back then to earn money for entertainment. And he admits to being a fairly serious train spotter when young. He wonders why it is so hard for young people nowadays to create their own constructive entertainment. He asks “Where will it all end?”

I was saddened to read pages 34 and 35 of May’s issue.

In the first instance, my not having visited the village for some time, other than to place flowers on the grave of my parents, I am trying to imagine the layout of Station Road by what was once Launton Station level crossing, now that it has been altered as part of the new East/West Rail under construction. It is an area which brings back many happy memories for me, some of which I have already alluded to in earlier editions of Launton Lines.

For example, at the back end of what was once a small buffered sidings there was among the dense undergrowth a steep mound which was probably the spoil from some excavation in the past, but which, to we young Launton boys and girls, was a fortified castle where we would play either ancient knights in shining armour, or cowboys and Indians, or even soldiers at 20th century war. Then there were the occasions when we would help with opening and closing the level crossing gates each time a passenger train stopped by or a freight train went trundling through belching smoke and hissing steam. And depending on which relief station master was on duty (after the Kayla family left the station master’s cottage, which was immediately beneath the station ticket office on the Marsh Gibbon / Stratton Audley side of the track) we would get permission to help pull the signal levers. The furthest signals away from the station were by far the hardest and toughest levers to pull.

Come September time, we would be armed with baskets and large cake tins, rummaging in the hedgerows at the sides of the railway embankments, which was the place to find the plumpest and juiciest blackberries. And in the days before laws were introduced to stop the practice, we used to pick bunches of wildflowers on Sundays to take home to mum.

Then there were the anoraks among us, me being one of them, who were keen trainspotters. A queer bunch, some might think, whereas in fact we were far more knowledgeable and sophisticated about the steam locomotive numbers we collected than those who chose to collect motor car numbers instead.

Then as we grew into our early teens, quite apart from making sure we did our school homework before anything else (at least some of us did) then at weekends and during half-terms, we would get ourselves a paid job of sorts.

My brother Cliff worked on Deeley’s farm, where he subsequently took his first job when he left school, whereas I did odd jobs about the builder’s yard and on site, where I eventually took up an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner. The girls would find themselves doing shop work during such periods, many of them at Woolworth’s, all of which was for limited hours in keeping with the law as far as aged under-sixteen’s working hours were concerned.

That gave us a bit of pocket money to facilitate going to the Regal Cinema in Bicester to be entertained until we were old enough to frequent pubs and go to dances up at Graven Hill.

All this would be interspersed with such simple things as bike rides; my brother and I having cycled to Didcot in one direction and Princes Risborough in the other to do a spot of train spotting. Quite apart from the train spotting, it was good exercise and loads of fresh air (less traffic on the roads back then), all good healthy stuff.

So when I read about Nitrous Oxide canisters being used in the first place and then being dumped on the edge of the village I loved and grew up in, I ask myself, “What the hell has gone wrong with society that this kind of thing is now happening, not just in Launton but throughout our nation?”

Hats off to Jules for taking the time and trouble to clear up after these reprobates and life-wasters, for wasting their lives is exactly what they are doing by snorting chemicals of one sort or another and leaving others to clear up their debris, whether that be spent canisters or damaged lives.

It’s as if many of the youngsters of today are unable to create their own constructive entertainment; they have instead to rely on artificially and chemically produced ‘highs’. Then of course, they continue such habits into their adulthood have children of their own and present to them such poor role models in themselves, begging the question, “Where will it all end?”

Maybe I have been looking at life through rose-tinted spectacles (although I did put a few years in serving in the armed forces), but it’s the sort of behaviour I once thought belonged in ghettos and the poorer parts of towns and cities, and that villages and villagers were more sedate and mature. But then, so many villages are no longer the villages that I once knew, but more like displaced suburbia with massively changed attitudes to those I grew up with.

I do so much hope that Launton especially is able to clear up this substance misuse problem, and sooner rather than later. Quite apart from officers of the law being involved, it needs the whole village to come together on this and conduct a real clean-up campaign.

I wish you the very best of luck!

Keep healthy and stay SAFE!

Tony Jeacock MInstRE| The ex-Launton Boy | June 2023