Part 2

Author: What did the children do in the summer? They're just breaking up now for the six weeks holiday. Did everyone have to help out on the farms and things like that?

Mr Chandler: Oh Lord, Ar We 'ad to 'elp out on the farm. There was no recreation at all, you never thought, the only games, if you had a football, after you'd helped your, in my case it was me father. I mean there was six of us in family, I had four sisters and one brother.

In 1914 me Dad was in the war then, still farming but he'd got a cowman working for him an' 'e volunteered to go in the war, in the 1914 war, cause he'd heard from his mates that they was 'avin a good time with the women in France! So, he thought 'Right I'll go and join 'em' and he did! He was drafted straight away into France. He was told, like, by his mates what a good time they was 'avin in France. And he used to come back and tell us, when he was made seargent, how he used to march his men up to the brothels and see 'em in the brothel and he'd wait outside and wait for 'em. I couldn't see me dad doin that! Laughs.

Author: To go back to the school holidays, then, what sort of tasks did children have to do? I know they had to gather in the ...

Mrs Page: ..hay. They had to gather in the hay.

Mr Chandler: Well, the villagers, like in Bilbrook I'm talking about, when you broke up for your holidays in August like, we used to have a months holiday. Well, we all had to work on the land and there was no other recreation at all because there was no, apart from me dad bought us a football and all like that. We used to play...he wouldn't allow us to play in the fields, because of kicking the ground up. We used to play on the village green, here. The was about a dozen of us lads, that's all the was. And we used to play football late til dark at night and so forth.

Mrs Page: Well, it was safe then, whar it?

Mr Chandler:Yes, ye, The was very few girls about as I can...you know.

Author: Were they kept at home, the girls?

Mr Chandler:Well, I'm just trying to think, I don't think there was hardly.. only about a couple. There was Eva Lewis, as one, she's passed away about two years ago. Er, what was 'er name as used to live at top of Joeys Lane that house on the right hand side as you're goin up? The house on the right hand side, going up Joeys Lane, ere? Erm... just trying to think of her name. I was very sweet on 'er although I was only fourteen or fifteen.

Mrs Page: Yo'm a right 'un forgettin' 'er name!

Mr Chandler: Eh?

Mrs Page: Ah say, you'm a right 'un forgettin' 'er name! Mr Chandler: Your talking about forgetting the names. You know I've got, I've got eight grandchildren, twenty... wait a minute, eighteen, I've got twenty-two or three great-grandchildren as well. And you know, how do you expect me to..

Author: Do you remember when the shops were built in Duck Lane, were they built where the duck pond used to be?

Mr Chandler: Ah, the shops, yes I had one of them, the butchers shop. I had that for about fourteen yours.

Mrs Page: They started building them when we moved 'ere. I was 17. (1955)

Mr Chandler: I was just trying to think who it was as built them. 'E 'ad a job t' sell 'em. I bought the butchers shop (Where the Florist is now - on Duck Lane). Broadbents, the footballer, he bought the one next door to me.

Mrs Page: Yes, Peter Broadbent.

Mr Chandler: And then there come the betting shop. Then there was the Television shop, that didn't last long, he went bump! And then there was the end shop there well, they couldn't sell it, so the, he let it.. What the devil was his name as built them houses? Aw Gods Truth...I can think on it

More To follow...