Ladies' Guild Meeting - May 2010
The Hall was abuzz as the ladies waited for their fish and chip supper, prior to the AGM.
After our normal meeting – Phyllis, Janice and Roger (our ex vicar) presented ‘Streatley Remembered’.
Phyllis kicked off what was to be a most interesting, informative and amusing evening. Phyllis moved to the village, with her family, from Barton when she was five years old, to look after her ailing grandmother who lived in the cottages in Church Road.
She started her memories from Princes Corner, where the village shop/Post Office was for many years. She then brought us further up the lane to where the Baptist Church used to be. It was also used as an overflow classroom when the village school could not accommodate all the pupils. Apart from the local children, pupils walked from Sharpenhoe. During the war, evacuees from London also attended. In later years, Mrs Manning ran a library in this building. When it closed, it became a Pottery. The potter made many lovely things including house signs, many of which can still be seen round the village today. Unfortunately that closed and now the building is offices. There is a small pond on the corner of Bury Lane and on the opposite side stood the Red Lion public house (although Phyllis does not remember this). The pub was converted into two cottages and a cobbler lived in one of these. He soled and heeled shoes for seven shillings and sixpence (now 37½p). At the top of the hill stood six cottages, where a funny man called Merry Miller lived. Eventually these were pulled down and a bungalow was built for Mrs Manning a well-known lady in the village. At the top of Stanley Road was a small pond and on the other side was Mr Kingham, the blacksmith, who always wore a sweaty red handkerchief on his head with knots on the four corners. Phyllis recalled how she loved watching the horses being shoed and feeling the heat from the fire. He made many things including the altar rail that still stands in St Margaret’s Church. Next is the village hall. The original one was an ex-army hut which came from East Hyde. Members of the youth club went on a lorry to collect it. Many good times were had in the hall, especially when the silent films broke down and the lights went out.
Further up the road was a larger pond which came right up to the road and the steam engines filled up with water from there. In the winter it froze over and the village children played on it. Across the road was the village pump. Phyllis recalled seeing her father with a yoke across his shoulders with buckets hanging down. Imagine the excitement when piped water arrived in the village. The original Chequers public house was burnt down in 1908. In front of this stood the Mission Hall where people worshipped as the church was in ruins. The hall was used for parties, Whist Drives and by the youth club.
Where the new churchyard is now stood greenhouses for a few years, then they were pulled down and Churchill Close and a few other properties along the main road were built. Further up the road was the village school which holds many memories. This was demolished in 1986, just before its 100th birthday. Just past the school lived a man called Penny Lemon who made sweets, honey and bulls eyes which he sold to the children. At the end of the village where the Markham Hills begin, there stood a light house and a Noah’s Ark. The light used to shine to another up Barton Hill Road.
On the Clappers stood a tram, where a family from Luton called Dandy came and spent their weekends! There was also a little spinney called ‘Crack Fart Spinney.’ In one field was a shire horse called Roger and when you walked by the gate you knew he was there because he suffered badly with the wind.
One year, in June, a Dutch aeroplane crashed in a snow storm on Markham Hills and 24 years ago another crashed at the top of the Cutting. This was one of ours. Every year a big Village Fete and Gymkhana was held in the field behind the village hall. Many village men used to clean the paths and gutters from Bramingham Lane to the Limes Works in the Cutting.
Many delivery vans came to the village including the baker, milkman, butcher, grocer and fish and chips. Also a man with a horse and cart came selling corn. The most important night of the week was Friday not just for Amami shampoo night but the night the Violet Cart came round to empty the cesspits. Everyone rushed to close their windows.
Janice came to see her new home in the village on Christmas Eve 1959 but did not move in until 8th February 1960. Her husband rang her up in Lincolnshire to say he had put a deposit of 10 shillings down on a bungalow in Streatley. The property and garden needed lots of work, including seven doors to be painted off the hallway! She had not been in long before the travellers of the road found her and were always calling for cups of tea, bits of cheese or a piece of cake. To get to her bungalow they had to come via the cesspit.
Janice soon became a member of the WI and has had many exciting adventures and fun with them and still enjoys being a member today. She recalled one occasion when on a hot summer’s day the WI met at Betty Robinson’s farm where there was a lovely swimming pool. Her husband Roy came to collect her and seeing the pool was very tempted to have a swim. However, he did not have his trunks with him. A member of the WI suggested he took his pants off and turned them round; fancy such a suggestion from the WI! However, Janice cannot recall whether he did this or whether Betty found him some trunks but he certainly had an enjoyable swim. When Janice’s son was 4+ she enquired if he could start school. Miss Lewis, who was Headmistress and teacher agreed. Janice took him along and stayed to help him settle in. She was very sad at leaving him but when she arrived home there he was under the kitchen table. Feeling concerned, she contacted Bedford to see if there was anything she could do to help Miss Lewis, as she had her SRN and NNEB certificates. Following a meeting with the school’s governing body, she began working at the school with the under 7’s whilst Miss Lewis took the 7 to 11 year olds. Janice worked at the school for 3½ years. Following that, she started a little playschool in her home and was allowed seven children plus one of her own children. This was held on Monday and Friday mornings. The children paid 5 shillings and the Vicar, Rev Bliss, sent his two boys along. The garden was made safe for the children and equipped with swings, slides, a sand pit and little tricycles. In the hall, she had a big tin bath full of water where the children played if they could not go out. It was not long before the tiles in the hall were lifting up and her husband was very puzzled as to why. The children were taught to read the Janet and John books, they went on nature walks and they fed the geese and ducks in the village pond.
Janice was very sad when the village school was demolished. Shortly afterwards her husband asked what she would like for her birthday. She told him a brick from the old school. He fetched a load, many of which can still be seen in her garden today. I asked a lady from the village if she had any special memories and she said Janice Waters, the nurse, who used to patch up the village children when they were hurt. She was a great caring person (and still is) and nothing was/is too much trouble for her.
Roger then gave us a different view of the way things have changed in Streatley by looking through the Registers of Marriage. Although the church is 800 years old, the first register started in 1837. On the first page were eight names; only two were signed, the remainder were marked with an ‘X’; a sign that many could not read or write at that time. In the early days, most occupations were tied to agriculture and people would only marry someone else in Streatley. A breakthrough occurred when a villager married someone from Sharpenhoe and then someone else married a resident of Higham Gobion. This was quite a big step. It was 1872 before Luton appeared in the addresses. On 25th December 1882, a Blocker appeared. Hat making was moving into the area and Luton was appearing more often. On 7th April 1886 a gentleman from Ashton-under-Lyne marry a Streatley girl but the first wedding of a Londoner, a watchmaker, didn’t appear until 1890. 1894 saw the arrival of the railways. Occupations now began to show plate layers and other railways professions. We were now moving into the modern industrial world. The last ‘X’ appeared on 21st September 1904.
The church was closed from 27th December 1915 until 25th February 1939. By the time it reopened, the world had changed. The railway workers had gone to be replaced by the first Motor Engineers. In 1939, Warden Hill became part of Streatley and in 1947 we had our first GI bride who married an Aircraft Engineer. The Parish was now very different. From 10th June 1950 until 1963 no farm workers appeared in the Registers. We now see entries for Air Traffic Controllers and Air Stewardesses.
1984 was a crucial year for change with the first wedding on 22nd September of someone from Blakeney Drive. 10th November saw the first wedding of a Computer and Word Processing operator. At this time there were a hundred weddings a year.
My, how times have changed but what a wonderful way to show the changes.
Our thanks to Phyllis, Janice and Roger for a most informative and entertaining evening and for sharing so many happy memories with us.