Barbara Murfin nee Sarney born 1940s
The Temperance Hall was the biggest room in the village. The Village Hut or Memorial Hall, behind the Methodist Hall, had long gone having been demolished and scavenged for firewood.
The Temperance Hall, owned by the Independent Order of Rechabites so I believe, was a teetotal establishment. You entered the Temperance Hall up some steps, and on either side of the front door were two rooms. The one on the right going in was a kitchen – a cupboard with glasses, plates, cups and saucers, a sink and cold tap and the faithful old hot water urn, the other a store room.
The room seemed very dark, the big windows being high up the walls. Pictures depicting Bible passages were between each window. There was a small raised stage at the end, with a curtain, with 'dressing rooms' behind. The toilets were also behind the stage. The high ceiling made the electric lights seem very dim at ground level. Oil lamps on pulleys hung from the ceiling of the main room; they could be raised and lowered to fill with oil, light, or to extinguish the flame etc. When they were taken down, to be replaced with electric lights, my father procured one and it hung over our dining room table, converted to electricity. I don't know what happened to it when Mum sold the house.
My first memories of the Temperance Hall were the Baby Clinic, just like Call the Midwife. Here, in the 1950s you were issued with your rations of fortified orange juice, so much per child, and Marmite, a small but tall yellow tin of Marmite (Vitamin B). I was 16 before I knew Marmite came in jars. And of course your cod liver oil and malt. The orange juice, in a medicine bottle with a cork, was awful.
Later came countless crocodiles from school, injections for diptheria, whooping cough, German measles, some pox or the other, it could still have been small pox then, polio jabs came much later at the next school, tuberculosis jabs were at senior school.
The Temperance Hall did its bit as a collection centre for the Norfolk Floods in the 1950s. After the war and clothes being on ration, nobody had much at all. Often children’s clothes were remodelled from grown-up’s clothes. Woolies, when they got a bit faded in colour were dyed. But the village gave what it could. I remember Mum pushing our big old pram up to the hall, with some bits and pieces that could be spared, and some tins of food.
General and Parish elections were also held in the hall. When Dad was up for Parish elections, the Parish concerns were playgrounds, allotments and cemeteries in Chepping Wycombe. We helped by sitting in the room at the back crossing off numbers collected by the people at the front door. If there was someone Dad thought might vote for him, he would whiz off in the old motor bike and sidecar, to bring them to vote. He was busy all day. But the tactic worked because he was elected. It was not the only time I sat as a small child 'helping'. He then campaigned in 1955 for street lighting and footpaths, and we still have the poster proclaiming the event.
The Youth Club was also held there. Boys in ‘Drapes' and winkle-picker shoes, girls in full skirts clinched in at the waist by wide belts and pretty blouses on top. Girls shoes were quite moderate in heels as you had to walk to and home from the club. The fastest thing any of us had was a bicycle. Entrance was 3d. An Oxo cube and boiling water was 3d a cup, the same as Beef Bovril; only beef was available in those days. Orange squash was 3d a glass. The wonderful thing was that they had an electric record player AND the latest records. When I first went to the club, Diamonds by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan was top of the charts, to be knocked off later by a group from Liverpool called the Beatles. Table tennis was a much loved sport, the boys being very competitive.
My time at the Temperance Hall Youth Club was very short because while they were building the new Carrington School behind the Methodist Hall, they were also building a Community Centre for the village.
In the village there was quite a strong band of people called The Independent Order of Rechabites. This was a friendly society, saving and lending money. You paid in a few pence each week and should you then be sick and off work you were able to claim a small sum of money to help. If there was a loan on our house ‘New Prospects’ in Blind Lane, to help with the purchase, then it possibly came from the Rechabites. It's where Dad got his mortgage to buy Virginia Cottages in the 1950s. Dad never intentionally touched a drop of alcohol in his life yet anyone who knew him would find him intoxicated with sheer fun. A trifle did get him once though. Thrift and the idea of temperance were an important issue. It seems it's now called Healthy Investment (Google) and a requirement of getting a loan is still to sign the pledge. There is a village photograph of a great number of people sitting in front of the OLD wooden village hut, behind where the Methodist Chapel now stands. They have around their necks the regalia of the Rechabites. White embroidered sashes with gold braiding hanging from the sash.
The Rechabites were from the Bible and were a nomadic group of people who abhorred the demon drink, 'the work of the devil'. The Independent Order of Rechabites had quite a following. Flackwell Heath belonged to the Berks, Bucks and Oxon, Edward Royd Tent. This was following in the nomadic Hebrew tradition of the Rechabites whose meetings were called tents. Mr Reg Wilkes of Flackwell football fame was a major part of the Edward Royd's tent being a trustee of the Temperance Hall.
We had a very charismatic leader/secretary in a chap called Albert Pimm. He had an office in Maidenhead but lived in a very tiny cottage you stepped down into, with very low ceilings at Bourne End. Mr Pimm aka Pimpom (the Sarneys were great at nicknames) was about 6 feet 4 in height. His little cottage was in the row next to the Walnut Tree in Bourne End. A Rechabites sports day was to be held at Herne Hill: this would be about 1960. Mr Pimm wanted as many children as possible to take part. Medals would be awarded and refreshments served. We had about eight weeks to ready ourselves. Most of the youths from the youth club turned out on the playing fields in Straight Bit. With a yard stick and a spade to turn a marker in the ground, the white liner from the Cricket Club under Ken Crooks guidance, a 440 yard running track was established on the playing fields. We practised hard, relay baton changing and a fast start. Herne Hill, a cycle track for the 1948 Olympics, was in a very sad state of repair. No matter, we had a great day. Our youth club fielded most ‘performers’ as it would not be right to call us athletes. We won most medals and had a grand day. Sadly that was it. The playing field running track returned to cricket and no one bothered any more.
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