Barbara Murfin nee Sarney born 1940s
The village of my youth
Main Drainage came to the village when I was seven, in 1955. Apart from pneumatic drill, the ditches were all dug by (mainly) Irish navvies. They had one or two bits of mechanical diggers but very crude. A steam roller powered with diesel, dripping water on to the tarmac, trolled backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards over the freshly laid hot tarmac. The newly laid pipes were not going to get out without a fight. It did not seem to take them long to get through the Common. I don’t know how long it took to go through the complete village. The metal pipes were about 8 feet long and 9-12 inches across. Each pipe had straw twisted at each end to hopefully prevent damage. One kindly Irish man gave us the straw for the rabbit we were looking after for a friend. Next day he rushed to the back of our house and asked to take it back, his boss had said it could be contaminated with myxomatosis. So he took it away again.
My brother David had been fascinated by the thumper plate which was used to compact the soil when replaced in the trench. He was only five and no way could he reach, but the kindly Irish man lifted him up and somehow between them did some thumping. As our pipe had come up Treadaway Hill, for ages I had horrid dreams about Loudwater being flooded by our waste water, thankfully just the stuff of nightmares.
As the rates on Virginia Cottages had gone up Dad had to increase the rent by 10d (12 old pence was one shilling, now 5p) on each of the three cottages. He paid the rates on all the cottages. That did not go down well at all. I think rent was about two shillings at the time – 10p now.
The first sign of the village growing was when Fennels Farm was built on. Fennels Way sort of petered out at the middle entrance to Fennels Wood, it was not connected to Oakland Way. In fact there were bollards to stop you driving through but walking or cycling was okay. There was a bit of a gravel track to what is now Bernard's Way. The houses from Fennels Farm Road and Southfield only had access off Swains Lane. It was some time before the connection to Oakland Way was made.
The Polish Camp or the Hostel, now Oakwood, was demolished. I can remember people living in the long wooden huts, raised slightly from the ground. If you continued through from Treadaway, through Fennels Wood to the very end of the wood, you would walk past the camp and onto Ring Road.
At the other end of the village at Northern Woods, a very large dormer bungalow with massive grounds, called Strathcona, became a building site, new housing for the growing influx of people.
White Gates Estate and the NEW concrete water tower were taking shape at the Northern Woods end of the village. White Pit Lane was widened as far as Philip Drive, then it reverted back to its original narrow width, possibly because of the railway level crossing at the bottom of the hill.
There were still roads so little used in the village they had grass growing up the middle. The main roads, however, were widened taking much footage from many gardens and streetlights and pavements were threading through the village. The old allotments were sold for building, Highlea Avenue was created and the new allotments were formed where they are now at the end of Chapel Road. On a clear day, standing beside the allotments, it was said you could tell the time from the clock on the Ascot Racecourse Stand, the old one.
The village was growing at a fantastic rate. George Hawtree, seemed to spot plots of land for development before anyone else. Houses were being built as fast as could be.
Stan (Dixie) Smith sold his orchard, the few caravans that had nestled under the trees were long gone. Lotty who lived in a van the other side of our bottom hedge had moved up to the council estate. The orchard is now called The Meadows, not very thoughtful naming! It's the only cherry orchard I remember. Dixie's trees were old, tall and meant difficult picking.
My village time was coming to an end. There seemed to be less time getting home from my work in Windsor to coincide with Community Centre events. I became less involved in village life.
All of Jennings field, Straight Bit, were now covered with houses. The foot path that had crossed the middle of the field was moved to the side. There was no way that you could get off the bus, walk to the path, cross the housing estate and be at the Green Dragon before the bus any more.
It seemed the village was becoming a dormitory for the workers of the newly named Heathrow Airport and we were inundated by Dan Air pilots. Gradually there were bits all over the village being built on, farms, fields and large gardens too. But we were well off for shops.
Sally Scagell nee Peace born 1950s
Memories of my Flackwell childhood
My earliest memories are of the house and garden in Flackwell Heath where I started out in life although, to be precise, I was actually born in the old Wycombe Shrubbery Maternity Hospital on Amersham Hill. The view that would have met my newborn eyes as I was held up at the bedroom window in Fennels Way would have been of the cows in Fennels Farm fields, opposite, and the distant view of the rooftops of the council estate along Oakland Way.
Both my parents were born in High Wycombe, my mother was a member of a furniture making family, and so our connections to the town were deeply rooted, with aunts and uncles, cousins and cousins-once-removed scattered liberally across the Buckinghamshire landscape. All my parents’ generation had gone through the war and my older sister, Wendy, and I were brought up against a background of lingering wartime austerity, Wendy being one of the last babies to experience rationing.
My parents started their married life in Marlow, but moved to Flackwell Heath in 1955. Flackwell Heath was still a quiet backwater, lying virtually undisturbed in the Chiltern Hills between Marlow and High Wycombe. Much of the land was farmed and there still existed some of the orchards for which the village was famed. Access to much of the area was by tiny country lanes and the main routes – Treadaway Hill and Blind Lane – were narrow and steep. Loudwater railway station, on the Wycombe to Bourne End line, was popular with local London commuters, the M40 not yet having been constructed and the idea of ‘one family, one car’ still a distant dream. The connecting road to Daws Hill Lane was still to be built and the only way to get to Wycombe from that end of the village, if you wished to avoid the London Road, was down the lane past Hard-to-Find Farm to Winchbottom and along through the woods until you saw daylight again at the American Air Force base. This was a circuitous route to say the least and so the main route to Wycombe was down Treadaway Hill, or one of the tiny lanes which ran down the chalk hillside into the Wye Valley, and then onto the London Road below.
Flackwell Heath was divided into two parts, Northern Woods at the top of Whitepit Lane, and the main village at the top of Treadaway Hill. Neither the Carrington nor the Juniper Hill schools had been built and the children of the village were taught in the small Victorian school house on the corner of Swains Lane. The village centre, (already well endowed with four pubs not to mention another two – one at either end), had a general store, originally known as Jennings and later Luttmans, which was part grocers, part butchers, part bakers and part post office. There was also Wilks drapery shop, Stapeleys the chemists, Chettles the newsagents and a little shop near The Magpie pub for miscellaneous items and always referred to as Dolly Walker’s. However, for serious shopping you needed to catch the No 25 bus into Wycombe. (High Wycombe in those days was still relatively small compared to the urban sprawl that it has now become. There was a cattle market by the Guildhall, a street market in the High Street twice a week and there was half-day closing on Wednesdays).
As children we seemed to spend much of our time gathering sweets from elderly neighbours. Mr Fabel, next door, always gave us Murray Mints or boiled sweets (this was in payment for removing the newts from his fish pond), and Dr Lowe’s mother-in-law, in the house next door to that, always had lovely chocolate home-made fudge on offer. There was also a Polish man, from the hostel at the end of our road, who would set up a barrow by the side entrance to Fennels Woods at the weekend and sell Polish fudge. It was the best vanilla fudge you ever tasted with my mother’s coming a close second.
When I was about five the new parade of shops was built on the corner of Swains Lane in Flackwell Heath and Gaieties became the centre of our lives. Until then most of our pocket money had been spent on a quarter pound of sherbet lemons or a packet of Spangles from Chettles. Gaieties, however, sold toys! On Saturday mornings we were regularly to be found looking in the shop window, deciding what to spend our pocket money on. If we had managed to save up half a crown (12½p) we thought we were lucky.
Regrettably we still continued to stuff ourselves with sweet sticky candies and even the terrifying visits to Mr Jolly the dentist failed to stop us. Mr Jolly had a dental practice opposite the Rye and we attended regularly for check-ups. This was before fluoride was discovered to be so beneficial and so virtually all my generation have mouths which contain more metal than dentine. In spite of the National Health this came at a price – our sanity! There were no anaesthetics or gum-numbing injections on offer unless you were going to have a tooth removed so a filling usually meant suffering real pain. In spite of his name, Mr Jolly did not suffer wimps gladly and I dreaded the six-monthly appointment. I remember being returned to school my eyes full of tears and, unable to see through the blur, I walked straight into a lamppost and nearly knocked myself out – a trick I should have applied earlier on my way there.
The highlight of village life was when the fair came to the recreation ground and I spent all my time, and all my money, on the roundabouts. A Mrs Beach ran the carousel and I recall my father getting us a free ride. Flackwell Heath Carnival was another event which we looked forward to and I remember my cousin and I dressing up as Hansel and Gretel and being pipped at the post in the fancy dress competition by World Cup Willy. That would have been 1966. My sister and I both won prizes in the painting and photography competitions however. 'Off to Cherry Fayre' was one of my drawing competition entries.
Other pursuits included playing on the swings in the recreation ground, a walk through Fennels Woods to the Mead along London Road or a bus ride to Wycombe and a visit to the Rye (both journeys accompanied by adults). We were fortunate that my father had a little Ford Popular and some weekends we would be taken further afield to Bekonscot Model Village, Ruislip Lido or Burnham Beeches.
Sadly, school days are remembered with less pleasure. Both my sister and I started school life at St Bernard’s Convent on the London Road. We would be driven there each morning by my father on his way to work in High Wycombe and collected by my mother who came down by bus. I was only there for a couple of years when it was decided that I should go to Wycombe Preparatory School. I would have been six by then and considered old enough to make the journey by bus along with two of the neighbourhood children who were a couple of years older. It cost six old pence on the number 25 bus from Flackwell Heath to High Wycombe. We were met at the other end, in Easton Street, by Miss Morris headmistress so that she could see us safely across the road.
The move to Wycombe Preparatory saw me having piano lessons with Mr Bailey at the Bucks School of Music but I got bored with playing scales and eventually gave it up, much to my deep regret in later life. I had greater success with my membership of the Junior Red Cross Society which I joined when I was about 13 in Bourne End, rising to the dizzy heights of senior cadet and gaining my Grand Proficiency medal.
Home life in the 1950s and 60s was very different to the way we live today. There were no supermarkets and few labour-saving devices. Even a fridge was still considered something of a luxury. Middle class women of the day were not expected to go to work but were required instead to be efficient and economic managers of the home. Thus my mother busied herself with home cooking, dress making, gardening and, of course, washing and ironing. Although sheets were sent to the Marlow laundry there was no quick answer to the enormous pile of ironing except the introduction of the steam iron.
Marty, our daily help who lived along Buckingham Way, did much of the cleaning and tidying and her husband helped with any odd jobs around the house and garden when required. Molly Martin, for this was her true name, became a second mother to us, babysitting in the evenings or at weekends or taking us to the Christmas pantomime in High Wycombe. Mr Martin worked full-time in the furniture industry so for serious decorating work Mr Savins was called in or someone from Hughes the builders merchants in the village. There was also a builder called Mr Field who would stop to eat his packed lunch, of wholemeal cheese sandwiches, in our kitchen. He would sit in the dog’s chair, though nobody liked to tell him this, with both the dog and me looking hopefully up at him.
My mother usually ordered her groceries by phone (we shared a party line with next door) and they would be delivered to the door on a weekly basis and paid for by cheque. These were the days when it was common practice for a hardware van, vegetable or drinks lorry to stop outside the door in the hope of selling their wares. Marty always bought her soft fizzy drinks from the Corona man but alas he never came down our road. A Mr Clark owned the hardware van and my green plastic potty came from him, I remember being mortified as I was handed it off the lorry! So I guess I would have been about two or three years old. A Mr Horley delivered our groceries, and most other requirements could be dealt with over the phone.
My mother also acted as nurse and matron during our bouts of childhood illness. We had the usual round of infections – Whooping Cough, Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps, German Measles, Tonsilitis etc. Both Wendy and I had our tonsils and adenoids removed – it seemed the natural thing to do in those days – and we took it as a necessary part of growing up. Fortunatey we were operated on at a hospital in Windsor, unlike my mother a generation earlier who had them whipped out on the kitchen table! We also had our fair share of broken bones and I well remember the painful journey by car into Wycombe, over the bumpy Loudwater level crossing, to the old Wycombe Hospital at the bottom of Marlow Hill. The hospital was very small in those days. The floors were wood or linoleum and the corridors were cold and bare, painted green from floor to waist height and then cream to the ceiling. It smelled of cold tar soap and disinfectant.
As already mentioned, my sister and I didn’t attend the village school so we had few local friends of our own age to play with but one day, while we were searching for a lost tortoise in the woods, we met Susan and Linda who lived along Oakland Way. I thought Susan to be very grown up because she ran errands for her mother and we would queue up in Luttmans waiting to be served. There was a chrome shelf in front of the counter which you were supposed to rest your shopping on but we would sit and slide up and down on it instead. I recall we spent much of our free time from then on dressing up and swapping dolls. It was Susan who introduced me to the Saturday morning Cinema Club at the Odeon in High Wycombe. You were lucky if you could watch an entire film without getting a handful of sticky popcorn in your hair from the kid behind.
Hair washing nights, when we were very small, were looked upon with a sense of foreboding. There was no conditioner in those days and our hair would easily tangle. We had no hair dryer and would have to sit in front of the coal fire to get it dry whilst we watched TV and ate Marmite soldiers. When we finally did acquire a dryer it would affect the power to the TV and we couldn’t get a picture. Our television in the early days was small, monochrome and only had one channel, the BBC. We would sit glued to Children’s Hour and watched all the favourites of the time – Muriel Young, Wally Whyton and Pussy Cat Willum, Leslie Crowther and Peter Glaze in Cracker Jack, Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Christopher Trace in Blue Peter, Johnny Morris in Animal Magic and Desmond Morris in Zoo Time. Later, of course there was Dr Who which I usually watched through half shut, terrified eyes. You couldn’t become addicted to television then because it simply wasn’t on for long enough. We switched off anyway at 6 o’clock when the news came on – the news was boring. During the 60s the news bulletins were all about Vietnam which, to a child, was all a long way a way and wasn’t happening to us.
At about this time my mother bought herself a Mini and with her greater mobility she was not only able to collect us from school but also able to take us somewhere nice on the way home. Sometimes we spent summer evenings swimming in the outdoor pool on the Rye in Wycombe, or in the lakes at the recently converted gravel pits in Bourne End, but best of all we liked Burnham Beeches with its swimming pool and the fairground next door. Our proximity to London meant that once in a while we took the train to Marylebone for a day out. I have an early memory of my father’s excitement at taking a diesel train as opposed to the old steam one.
I remember seeing my first colour television set at the Ideal Home Exhibition, probably in 1967, and there were long queues to watch it in the House of the Future. And the future wasn’t very far away, we bought our first colour set in 1971, the year we went decimal, the year I took my O-levels, the year my father retired – and, almost simultaneously, my childhood was over.
Photo courtesy of John Durham Photo courtesy of John Durham
