Family Memories Cinderford

Outside Activities

Here are my memories of outside activities during school years 1917 to 1926 at Cinderford. School to us in those days was not everything. There was much for us to enjoy and do in our outside activities.

There were many occasions when what we would today call "field days" took place. St. Stephens and the Baptist Church Sunday School treats, the Band of Hope, all with their processions to the Town Field where amusements, tea and cakes were provided. I once found a ticket for the Baptist treat, tagged onto the end of the procession but on being asked whose class I was in I had to disappear rapidly.

The Cinderford Flower Show was a great occasion. My father was Secretary of the Poultry Section and I remember the importance of collecting the eggs from the cages on each of the two mornings. There was the Cinderford Town Rugby Club to watch and amongst ourselves to try and emulate. The Cinderford Town Silver Band practised each week outside the "Red Lion" which was only a little way up the street where we lived.

There were the Annual Choir Outings, at first by horses and coach to Gloucester and later by motor transport. On one occasion I broke my arm at Bishop's Cleeve and had to journey back in great distress before it was set by Dr Bangarra, the Cinderford Indian Doctor. Garden Parties also took place on the vicarage lawn to which the choirboys were invited. Apart from the refreshments, these were not very exciting.

We had a local Boy Scout troop and one year we pulled and pushed our trek cart to May Hill for the Annual Camp. The site was on the land of Squire Ackers of Huntley Manor. We made visits to his swimming pool and also took part in the local village fete held in that particular year in the grounds of Huntley Manor. It was there that for the only time I met my cousins, two sons of Aunt Polly Bullock of Longhope.

These activities were organised but those of our own making we liked best.

At an earlier age, there was going by horse and cart to collect furniture for sale or auction at our shop. The lady driver once stopped in the road in the woods saying she had to see someone down a track. I could see no-one or any houses. The reason for our stop intrigued me for a long time.

When my father had been shooting there were rabbits hung around, and I would watch how they were skinned and their coats made into warm winter muffs.

There was pig-killing, ours and others. There was the swarm of bees which my father housed in a butter tub. There was feeding of ducks and fowls, and very many activities in our large garden.

Extempore cricket, football and rugby were played on Bilson Green as were many other games. We collected wild flowers from the Railway embankments, an excellent collecting ground as was also the Big Bog at Bowson. In spring time we wandered miles in search of bird's nests. The Old Grange, Guns Mills, Flaxley, St. Anthony's Well being favourite destinations.

There were the pools at Fair-play where the more adventurous learnt to swim. There were old pit workings, Peglers levels, well marked places to investigate. There were Scowles Holes to discover and to keep away from as they were very dangerous places. There was tree climbing and games in the fern clad undergrowth of the woods. We pulled down dead branches from the trees with our ropes sometimes three or four boys pulling together to remove a stubborn branch. Our favourite tree was a very large easily climbed beech tree. This tree was spared when the oaks were cut and is still there containing inscriptions of mine and many other boys who were destined to be scattered far and wide.

In contrast to these activities were the boring Sunday evening walks with my parents through the woods to the Forest Church or elsewhere. Piano lessons and practice were a chore to be endured.

But the company of my parents was welcome when my father decided on an outing in his Ford car (CJ 2097). We went to many attractive places which now folk travel hundred of miles to visit. We played around the colliery sidings where often empty trucks were moored. Loosing the handbrake and waiting for the bump into other wagons was a favourite pastime. The pit mounds found us scrambling and hunting for fossils and less instructive sliding from top to bottom on an old board or in luxury in an old mudguard.

As the days shortened, there were blackberries and cranberries to be picked and later chestnuts from Popes Hill. I remember trudging up Littledean Hill with our bags of chestnuts in the dusk. We had left Lovell Smith alone in the woods, he was not satisfied with his pickings. He eventually went out to Australia. I wonder if he remembers his youth in the Forest of Dean.

Guy Fawkes night approaches. We made home made bangs with tins of water and carbide. The carbide was used in bicycle lamps. For us it made excellent explosive in the sealed tins.

The dark days provided entertainment in games which would now be severely censured. Button on the window, door-knocking and so on. I need hardly say I did not indulge, the penalty for discovery and my father's subsequent punishment being a sufficient deterrent.

So it was homework, reading, indoor games in our sale-room and the dim light of oil lamps to be endured.

At Christmas time my sister Winifred and her husband Campbell Ping would visit us. Their company was good as were also the presents they brought. Campbell was a clever mechanic and he made and brought for me at one visit, a complete pedal car.

I become a Vegetarian.

During these earlier years, I became nauseated by the sight of the slaughter of animals which took place in a filthy back lane and in a dingy shed. It was inevitable that we should see what happened when animals were pole-axed or had their throats cut. The impression was enough to decide that no longer would I be a party to these barbarities.

So I would not face eating their bodies. I remember the threats of my parents. I would not grow up, I must leave home, I must be sent away and other similar threats. I persisted and I did grow up, I was not sent away and have been remarkably free from illness.

At 60 years on my revulsion is still with me and I have no regrets with my decision.

Eyesight

I was born with defective vision, only having a faint and blurred outline of sight in my right eye. It was an inherited trait from my mother. She took me into Gloucester several times to see a Dr Bowers, an eye specialist. After examination he reported that nothing could be done. The development of a squint has always been a real trial and an awful embarrassment to me.