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Barbara Murfin b. 1940s
After six years and two children my father, Sim Sarney, at last found a cottage owned by Mr. Peter Jennings situated on the Common. Exactly, Sim said one mile from the
water tower, and Prospect Villa, his first home. This was the furthest he ever moved in his life.
With what ever small amount of furniture and possessions they had, carefully piled up on the back of Carry Carr's motorized coal cart. Carry Carr’s Coal's business was
conducted from his back yard on Northern Woods Road. Half way towards the Green Dragon on the opposite side of the road to Prospect Villa. The kids and small bits in the
side car, wife on the back of the old Matchless Motorbike they set off to ''Foreign Soil''. The middle of the village and into the Parish of Chepping Wycombe.
As far as driving was concerned in the late 1940's Sim never passed a driving test. He never took one. As he had started to drive during the war his driving license was
granted automatically.
The little procession of lorry and motorbike arrive at a terrace of four cottages, all two up and two down. A lean too kitchen and a loo down the garden. The loo was a
water flushed and there was a cesspit further down the garden, emptied by the council. Not like the cottages the other side of the Common who relied upon ''the midnight
wedding'' to call, once every couple of months, men would physically wheelbarrow the waste to a cart for disposal. I remember it as a pony and cart at first in 1952.
Why midnight wedding I have no idea it's just what it was called. They did not have flush toilets until mains drainage came to the village in 1956.
The move to the cottage was the start of Sim's third love. His wife, his family and his cottage.
Within days permission from Mr Peter Jennings had been granted, the kitchen roof had been raised. Sim was 6 feet 2 inches. The kitchen roof about 5 feet 9inches. Sim was
far to tall to stand and wash in the kitchen sink. It was an easy job the roof was only corrugated iron. The other drawback no hot water. The only water to the house was one
cold water tap in the kitchen, hot water came via the kettle.
Sim inventive as ever decided the kitchen would also serve as a bathroom. The room was about 6 feet x 8 feet. The ceiling when raised had been covered inside with plywood
or some such. The kitchen now quieter and warmer.
No one used front doors, always the back. To get into the house you walked down ally at the side of the house, through the gate, past the kitchen window of No.4. Around the
corner up the kitchen to the door which was in the corner where the kitchen joined the house. No 3's door was oppositeno 4’s. 1 and 2 used the pathway at the other end of
the cottages near the Tips. 3 Horseshoes. I expect a few years before the Sarney's moved in, food would have been cooked on the range in the 'middle' room and the kitchen
would have been a scullery, just used for washing up, washing and human washing.
Now the roof was more suitable and a much bigger window installed it was quite a useful room. The back door opened inwards. Behind the door was a chair, next to the chair
a washing machine with a mangle, later updated to a Hovermatic. A 90 degree angle made up of a wooden draining board flowing into a huge deep white 'stone' sink, under the
window. Then raised in the air to the kitchen roof an emersion heater. A small enamel bath half under the emersion heater. A legless enamel topped table on a board covering
the other half of the bath. Bathers sat in the bath, legs under the emersion heater your head rested on the gas cooker. A hole had to be chopped into the wall to accommodate
the cookers oven knob. You turned the gas on by the knob, lit it with a match, and the regulator was above the solid oven door. 90 degrees again and you were at the middle
room door. The 'raw' bricks were painted a green colour, I can't really describe the colour. It was quite bright but neither emerald or evergreen. Public toilet colour was
more like it, but I suppose in 1952 you had to buy what you could get. There were far more important things needed in those days. The top half was painted gloss cream. The
outside toilet was the same.
Friday night was bath night. Tea first, then the table was lifted off the bath, and placed in front of the middle room fire, towels piled on top. The board over the bath
stood outside. A fire roaring up the chimney. Barbara Senior, had first bath. Then me, little Barbara. Sim then poor David. David was still so little I think he was mainly
washed in the sink. Like most children in those days. Children washed and packed off to bed. The bath was luxuriously emptied by just pulling out the plug. I don't remember
ever having to use the tin bath from off the kitchen wall. Us kids would be washed in the sink and I would not be surprised if during a trip to Grannies at New Prospects,
Mum and Dad took the opportunity to have a bath there, until we were grand enough to have our own.
There were two rooms down stairs. The middle room in which we had a drop leaf table and four chairs. The cupboard under the stairs was both pantry and coat cupboard. Up
stairs Dad made the front room upstairs into two bedrooms putting a partition across the room so David and I had our own bedroom with half a window each. There was room on
my side for a shelf one side of the fire place and a little yellow kidney shaped dressing table with a little yellow curtain the other side of the fire place. My bed was
one side of the partition David's the other. He also had a huge side board in his room. Poor boy he was 16 before he got a private bedroom. David always had to live in the
passage. I had to go through his room to get to mine. Later Mum and Dad had to go through his room to get to the new building to get to theirs. The front room down stairs
was used all the time, no best room for us.
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