Three Kids together...................

First of all a story about Cooper and I am so sorry I have no picture for this one. Cooper had been very naughty and wore his mother down. So I thought I was being nice telling Gabby and Tony to go off for a meal together and I would see to Cooper. Won't go in to the proceedings that got us to that point but anyway. Cooper was sent to bed so all I had to do was keep him there. No small task I might add but all went well, he cried for mum and I said too bad she has gone out with daddy so go to sleep. Lights off and doors shut. I went to bed at 12.30 because they had not come home yet and I was nodding off. All was quiet. Heard them come in around 2.30am and went back to sleep. Well...........apparently date night did not go well as they ran out of gas and had to walk home. The lights were on downstairs. When they got themselves sorted out and back home again it was to find Cooper asleep on their bed............the room was a disaster, he had got into Gabbys makeup, got it all over the mattress, the carpet and his body. He looked like the tin man after covering himself in silver cream shadow. We didn't know any of this till later but Gerry saw him come up to the bathroom. He asked what the heck Cooper had got into and I could not think what it could be. I knew he was asleep when I went to bed. They were pissed off at him to say the least and were apparently scrubbing carpet etc till 4am. Soooooooooooooooo.......today they had a reprieve and we took him with us. We had Tristen for the day/night and Reina had asked to come over while Laura worked....................so here we all are.
First off we stopped at Gallagher's to get a pie and some donuts. I also got some bread

I thought we would go to the lake but they wanted to go to the Dunes so that's what we did.

They went up twice..........that dune is half the size it used to be. Now you can see way back, you can even see the spot laura and I sit at the top when we hike in.

At the top.......and then to run down and roll

Thought that would wear them out but oh no..........so off to the park. I thought I might walk on the beach at Empire but the water was up to the rock barrier. No beach and what there was further down was packed. So the kids played at the park and I took a few pictures.


It will be nice when the tourists all go home and we have our beaches back.

The water was so pretty even so

The kids were really good, Cooper was better than we ever expected after the last few days. We stopped at the Hayloft for supper.

Cooper had popcorn chicken, Reina a chicken finger dinner, Tristen a burgher and we had Burrito's .................not as good as usual but we were hungry so it was OK. I didn't complain. Our Margarita's were not good either so they didn't charge us for those. We didn't drink them.

Hi mum. Cooper got his hair cut by his dad today, probably got all the makeup out haha.

Then they wanted quarters and I found out why after the fact

So that was our day. This morning Tony told us about a garage sale so we went over to that and I got a couple of scooters for the boys at 2bucks a piece and a Pogo stick. That should keep them busy. Right bow Reina and Tristen are on the front path riding the scooters. Cooper was soaking in the tub, sure wish I had got a picture of his Tin Man rendition.
Up early tomorrow because we have Ryland. Brody and Blake for the day. Brittany has a strange schedule. Well that will be 6 kids in the house so pray for me haha.Reina and Tristen are spending the night. Should be a riot.

Old Times.................

I have been talking about my childhood and my village when I was young. I still have a few things I had wanted to write down while I was thinking of it. I may have said all this before but I don't remember. The early years in the village I remember the gas lights in the High Street. We love looking at the old pictures and remember it all with rose coloured glasses I have no doubt. I will be honest and say that the houses that were torn down, that amounts to just about the entire village, they were damp and probably not worth the expense of repairs. Still, they could have tried.

I remember old Victorian wash houses in the back of some of them. The water being outside as well as toilets that were the old hole in the ground kind. The biggest loss was the Tithe Barn. When that farm was sold to put in a new housing estate it was the biggest shame. A huge old Tithe Barn, 400 to 500 year old timbers.

My Dad wrote down some of his memories for me. The village had not grown or changed a lot during his days until mine. We had a village police man, Trevor Davis. We met him due to an incident that happened in Dunstable. My dad and I were in Dunstable shopping I assume, who knows, I just tagged along. Anyway, we were crossing the road on a Zebra crossing and a car did not stop, it almost hit us. Someone got it's number and at some point the police came to our house. That's as much as I know. It so happened there was a young constable who saw the incident so it was a no brainer. Trevor Davis came to see Dad about the report. They hit it off and after that he was a regular visitor at our house. He would do his rounds on his trusty bike, all the kids called him Speedy. I won't name names but several of the boys on Bidwell Hill got to know him really well, so when he was there he would stop in for a cup of tea. It became a ritual that when he did his evening run down Bidwell Hill to be sure the Red Lion was closing on time he would stop in on the way back. Especially in Winter when it was cold. Mum would make him a cup of tea and Dad would top it up with a good shot of whiskey. I bet some times he would be quite warm on those cold winter nights. The Red Lion or The Old Red Lion.

Trevor Davis took his family to live in Australia when everyone was emigrating. My Uncle Cecil and his family went too. There was an offer back then that many could not refuse. A new life and job guaranteed if they had a young family out in Australia passage paid if they would stay five years or something like that.
In Dads day the village copper was kept very busy with his family. Dad says that he was often dragged home by the ear to face the wrath of his father Burt.
Maybe the world would be better if the police were allowed to do that these days. No need of guns when they had the kids under control from an early age.

One day Dad was being a little pest along with his brothers when he ran out into the road. He was knocked over by a car, he was unhurt but when he got up and brushed off he was thunderstruck to see The Duchess of Bedford bending over him. She was very concerned and they took him home to his parents who would no doubt be all a dither being visited by the Aristocracy. The Chauffeur would have presented him to his Mother and checked over to be sure all was well. She followed up a couple of times to be sure he was OK. He never forgot that as I am sure my Grandmother didn't either.
The Village Pond.

I remember so many changes in our lives back then. I remember the polio epidemic when we were told to avoid stagnant water (think Blue Waters) and streams. (Washbrook) one young girl caught Polio and so it was a threat we understood. We got vaccines on a lump of sugar. Shots came much later. The sugar cube was not bad. We were used to getting Cod Liver Oil on sugar lumps. Think "a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down......" yes it does. When the dang Smallpox vaccine came out it was a much different story. We went down to Doctor Millers surgery and he rolled up my sleeve dabbed it with alcohol, broke a glass test tube and proceeded to scrape the skin off my arm. He then blew the vaccine into the scrape and scraped it again. I do remember holding on to the door nob and kneeling on the floor screaming (no doubt) it was a green door.

My Dad was a real little devil. The things he did back in those days would put a child in jail these days. Back then the village copper took care of things in his own way. Some of his stories are funny but still, that family had to have been the bane of the village copper. Boys could be boys back then and families helped each other out. I know my Granddad would go out poaching sometimes to get the family through tough times and my poor Grandmother must have had a hard life. She was a trooper though. The village was made into a camp for the soldiers during the first war and were camped on the village green. They made trenches back of the Tithe Farm so they could practice trench warfare.


At some point my Grandparents had soldiers billeted at their house. She always kept a large pot of stew on her stove that had stuff added to it all the time and was a constant on the black wood stove in a very large fire place. I loved that house. I guess I got attached to houses. I have probably talked about this before as well, but that house was huge. The bathroom though, wow, concrete floors and bare brick with gaps under the door that led to the porch where the toilet was, at least it was a flush toilet.

My Grandmother had 4 boys in the army during the war, all away. Some fought in the desert and my Dad went to Singapore where he was taken prisoner. The boys did not like their father from all accounts, they didn't like his drinking and his treatment of their Mother but I feel that he too had a hard life. The boys were by all accounts difficult to say the least and he had a large family to feed in a very difficult time. If he had to resort to poaching then things were not easy. Thing is my Grandmother would have to go down to the pub to get his paychecks before he spent it all in the pub. His brother Buster Hines raised Aylesbury Ducks and worked on the farm down Bidwell. Mr Greens farm. The days after WW1 were probably more difficult than after the 2nd war because things changed drastically after WW2. Women had been used to working outside the home and there was no going back. Before that a lot of women worked at home in their spare time (as if) plaiting straw for the hat factories in Luton. Whole families would do that for money to help out. Life was hard enough.

My Mother worked in the local Laundry for some time before moving on to just about every store in the village at one time or other. My dad worked 7am to 7pm most days and on weekend would do gardening for people. He liked that. He started out after the war as a lathe operator and ended his working life as the buyer for his company. He was shop steward and rep for the labour union. He loved politics and ran for local office at one point. My Mother did not like that.

So from the time I was young I had to stay at someones house before and after school. At first I stayed next door with Mr and Mrs Tompkins. Thinking back I must have been a fussy eater, I hated her pot roasts. They stick in my mind for some reason. Later I was able to stay at my friend Sylvia's after school and I didn't like her mums cooking either. So I must have been really a brat come to think of it. Then Sylvia and I fell out one time and I went home. Mum came home to find me in the outside toilet during a thunder storm. After that I was allowed to stay home on my own. Mrs Bird would pop around sometimes to be sure I was OK.

The neighbours were like that. Everyone helped everyone else. Everyone was close. In fact when I got appendicitis Mrs Bird rode with me in the ambulance, my mum was "squeamish" and met us there. She tended to avoid situations like that. I was sick one time and in trying to get out of the bedroom I threw up on the wall. Stood at the top of the stairs and called for help. Threw up again down the stairs, Mum came to see what was up and threw up right on top. Poor Dad had to take care of us both.
Mrs Bird was a trooper, she called in on the elderly and did shopping for people who were not able. She wore slippers all day because her feet hurt and she had an old baby pram that she used to cart the groceries back and forth. When I had Laura and was unmarried, my Mother disowned me, I went to London to a Mother and Baby home (another story) and yet, the neighbours all rallied around me and supported me when I came home with Laura. Thats how it was back then. It took a village to raise a child.

Country Life....................

"... she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in."
Flora Thompson,'Lark Rise to Candleford'
This was my childhood........this is what I miss. In Michigan where we have bears (that I never get to see) and even a Panther (that I have yet to see) and crazy people, well, it's not safe anymore to do the things I did as a child.
we lived in a village between Luton and Dunstable. My grandmother lived on Dunstable Road not far from the hospital. She was a housekeeper for a local family and I loved her house. The back of the house (my Granddad named Minerva after a ship he sailed in during his Navy days) faced the hills. The chalk hills of Blows Downs or the Chiltern Hills I suppose they really were. I spent a good deal of time there on my own. Nothing like laying on the sparse grass of the chalk hills with Harebells blowing in the breeze, making shapes in the clouds and listening to Bees buzzy in their daily chores. I could lay and dream undisturbed and wonder how many others in times long ago did the same thing.

I would catch the bus up to Shelly Rd and walk over to my Nan's house. After awhile of bugging her I would go up to Skimpot Rd or cut across another road that ended up at the same place. I found my way on my own from an early age and never got lost. I would then saunter across the Downs to my Aunt Ivy's house on Downside Estate in Dunstable and eventually get a bus home. Goodness knows what they all thought because no phones and no way to let them know, I would just show up and walk in. Times they sure have changed. My parents would be at work and never knew where I was, and as far as I knew never worried. No one could let them know. I knew to be home by supper time I suppose or dark, whatever came first. How did we manage without cell phones, or even a house phone?

Some days if I was not down the farm I would wander the fields behind our houses. There were chalk pits back there. Very dangerous but us kids never cared about that.
Dunstable is a Market Town, that means it was given a charter to hold markets, at least that's a simple explanation. The Romans built a road from the south to north of
England and it was called The Watling Street. It ran straight through Dunstable behind the chalk pits and onwards. Later to become the A5. Well in the olden days the hill back there was so tough to navigate that horses and wagons, stage coaches would get stuck, and so they made the "Chalk Cutting" to make life easier. Back in those days we had a notorious Highwayman named Dunne, they say maybe the towns name originated with him. Dunnes stable?
Henry 1 or the Conqueror as he was fondly (not) named made life difficult for people back then and so many turned to Highway robbery. We all, at least most have heard of Dick Turpin. Well Dunne was our local hero.
Anyway, I digress. The Chalk Cutting made it easier for the traffic that came from a busy Market Town and travel to the North and South of England.

Back in the days of the Roman occupation the locals were Saxons mainly at least around our way. There was a small settlement at Puddle Hill where the chalk was being dug later by the Blue Circle Cement company. They made a great playground for us kids. Some of the chalk pits held water and there were rabbits and all sorts of wildlife there. We were taught in school to find fossils in the chalk and had a day there looking for them. I found a huge one when I took Gerry to show him exactly what I meant.
Again I digress. One day they were digging the chalk out extending the boundaries and low and behold a human skull fell down into the quarry. Guess that guy was freaked out.
I know I was because Dad took me to see the excavations, I had nightmares of that skeleton chasing me down the playground of Top School all the way home.
Still later on the pits were a favourite playing area and more than that was Blue Waters just a little further away from Puddle Hill.

The thing is, my Dad was raised in Houghton Regis as was his father and all before him. How I would love to know how far back we went in that general area. I got back as far as 1745 I think. I bet if I got DNA done I would have a good old mix of Roman, Viking, Saxon and Celt in my blood. That's what the English are made of.
This next picture is of my Grandfather's (on Dads side) house.

I never knew them but he was a Shoemaker and apparently my Grandmother was not approved to marry Bert Hines who was just a laborer. The Hines were all farm laborers one way or other. He also enjoyed the pubs a bit too much apparently. So Great Grandfather Spittle was not happy about the match. They had 10 children including my dad. My Dad played in the same places I did, went to the same school and wandered the same fields. Back in his day the Windmill was intact in Mill Lane and the cement works were not yet there, there were fields instead and those fields tilled by Shire horses.
The fields and mill before the Pits were dug out for the cement works

After years

My Dad would have known these places before and after. We could walk to Dunstable via Houghton Road as we did to go to school, or to go to town we would more often walk
"Up Dog Kennel" named for the places that Colonel Part would keep his hunting hounds. It was a nice walk, you could see way over the Pits and over the railway line where I was found after I ran away. We lived at St Omere then so I could only have been about 3, not sure but apparently as the story goes I took off with a little boy down the road and my dog Gerry. I was playing down on the tracks when found and accosted. Gerry was not at all happy and my Mother would have smacked me but he took her hand they say. Later years we would enjoy standing as a steam train would go under the bridge. We would come out of Dog Kennel walk by the Grove House Gardens.

Lovely memories of those gardens and playgrounds. The Priory Gardens are at the other end of town and I will talk more about those another time.

On the farm........................

When I was first starting school I was introduced to Margaret Dryden, her mum knew my mum because my mum worked in a village shop. Grove Farm was located down Bidwell Hill past the Thorn turn and at the bottom of Lord's Hill. They had 1/2 mile driveway to the road. Well to catch a bus into the village to go to school they had to walk the drive and wait at the end and flag down the bus. As it was usually the same drivers they knew to look for them. The morning bus came too early for school and so it was that Mrs Dryden asked my mum if Margaret could come to our house to wait and walk to school with me. So began a life long friendship.

Margaret would also stay at my house until it was time to get the bus in the evening to go home again. Rather a bleak walk up that drive come winter but that's the way it was. During the school holidays and weekends I spent a lot of time down on the farm. I could walk down there, maybe 2 miles and stay all day before walking back home again. Sometimes I would catch the bus. I learned so much during those times. Margaret's Dad never left the farm. He had lost a leg some time and he had a cane. I can see him now with his cap and boots, waistcoat and looking like a typical farmer. He never spoke to us kids, nor us to him. That included his three younger kids. Margaret had an older brother Brian and two younger siblings, Jennifer and Roger. I never heard any of them speak to their dad. I am sure they had to at some point but not in my hearing.
Margaret, Jennifer and Roger.

Margaret and Me

Mr Dryden did buy them a pony, named Lucky. It was a Welsh pony and seemed wild. He he.......well it sure didn't want to be caught and they would spend quite some time chasing Lucky around with a rope. Once in awhile Lucky ran out of luck and got saddled. I rode him once and off we went up the drive took me half way around a field to turn him back to the farm. Thank goodness Lucky didn't feel like running otherwise I would have been done for.
Margaret and Lucky.

Roger holding Lucky so he doesn't run off with me. I had never been on a horse before and Lucky didn't know what he was doing either.

We had all kinds of adventures. We got to raise baby sheep when rejected by mum, they would be brought in and sleep in front of the fire in the living room. Giving them a bottle and a snuggle was so sweet. I saw a lamb being born one day..........we loved to collect eggs from the resident chickens. The kids were able to keep any baby chicks they found and raise them to then keep egg money later on. It was free range and so we would get the eggs from nesting boxes from under hens sometimes and also search for those who lay elsewhere. The hay stacks and hay barn were prime locations.

We loved playing in the hay barn. The big old beams were great to walk on when the barn was full and swing on when not. We would hide kittens when we found those so the dad would not drown them. He would not do that once they were old enough and have their eyes open so we would hide them till then.
Some years he had baby cows, must have been veal but we knew nothing of that...........he sometimes kept cows probably for meat later but again we didn't know any of that stuff. We were indeed innocents. The sheep would get dipped and shorn and someone would come in to do that. Fun to watch. Then the sheep went to market along with our little wards.
Dunstable Market. I was so naive as a child and loved the cattle market days. Now not so much. Dunstable was a market town and had a great market every weekend.

Brian, the older brother worked all his life on the farm, he would only go as far as the Red Lion about a mile from the house. He had a friend Andy who also worked on the farm. We thought he was gorgeous and I think all us girls had a crush on him. Funny thing is when we were older he hit on both of us telling the other to not tell anyone. Margaret ended up marrying his brother Eddie. Anyway I don't know what happened to Andy I lost touch and heard he died quite young.
Margaret and Eddie's wedding. I am bridesmaid

I loved Harvest time. We would get to help. The combine would cut the corn (wheat) and the straw would get baled and we would ride on the baler and shove it off the back. We just liked being with the guys out in the fields. Summers were heaven for us. We could walk for miles and never be bothered.
Not us but something like this.

Mr Dryden would go about his work and we seldom Saw him, but his work was never done. Fixing the hedgerows and ditches when there were not animals to be cared for. The English hedgerows are a work of art. The ditches had to be kept clear of debris and the hedges so thick that no animal could escape through them.
The cows were sometimes allowed in the woods. Just a small spinney but we loved playing in it. The back field was on a hill and at the back of that a lane went all the way back to Sundon Rd. There was a dump back there and lots of rubber that would be set on fire. No idea whose that was but one day me and Roger had a long piece of rubber that was burning in the middle well we both pulled on the ends and it broke splattering burning rubber on my forehead. I have a small scar to prove it.
Margaret and myself at the Norfolk Broads one summer

Farm life was fun, some years the Gypsy's would come to the village and camp across the road from the farm on Thorn Turn. I remember getting a set of pram wheels out of the hedge one year from stuff they left behind. These days they call them travelers and they have campers not horses and gypsy caravans. Every miss deed was always blamed on the Didicoys who would come house to house selling pegs from baskets, ladies in long skirt and head scarves. The men would sharpen knives and things like that. They always seemed to leave a mess though and are still resented and still show up in the village now and then, but now have assigned places to park rather than in farm fields.

The Washbrook was a small clear stream that ran under the road at Bidwell, there famously my Uncle Alan was washed of sewage when he fell in with his Sunday (wool) suit on while birds nesting. We would catch tadpoles and newts and paddle in it.....not so adventurous as my dad was. We also played down the Blue Waters and caught Sticklebacks. We would climb the shear chalk cliffs and look for fossils. Apart from the farm I would walk miles and miles on my own all the way to Tebworth and back down Lords Hill sometimes stopping in at the farm for a drink of water. We would stop at anyones house or farm when we were kids and ask for a drink of water. The ladies would always give us one too. I remember getting stung by a wasp and knocking on a farm door to tell someone. My finger was swollen and the farm lady put a blue bag on it to take the swelling down. I have no idea who she was and she didn't know me. That's how it was back then.
Vacation time again at Yarmouth with Margaret, the year I met Graham.

When we reached our teens things changed. We discovered boys. Margaret would come away with me when we went on holiday. We would go to the Norfolk broads for two weeks every summer and she always came too. Then once we were working she spent most weekends at my house instead of me at hers. We would go to London and most weekends go dancing. We would go to concerts and see all the big bands of the day (the 1960s we were soooo lucky) dancing and boys took over from farm life. We enjoyed it all. I left school as 15 (only just 15) because Margaret was already working by then and had money. I needed money not school so that's what I did. Silly me. Eventually Margaret got married. I went to live in London for a time and life moved on. Margaret and I are still in touch. I saw her last when we went home when Mum died but thanks to Facebook we can talk any time we want.
Grove Farm


Life long friends are the best.
Norfolk again. A small village called Wroxham.

Maybe I will write more stories. Always good to remember friends These were taken when I went home when Mum died..............I think I will always have to visit the farm when I go home. Cant forget those good times.