ROAM FREE!

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Roam Free!

This memory takes me back to the time I had my
first 'real' bike given to me. It was my welcome home
present from my Mum and Dad after being away
for a couple of weeks at my eldest sister Mary's
house in Tongham, Nr Aldershot, Surrey. I suppose
I was eight or nine years old at the time.

It was a bad time as my Mum had to go into hospital
and have an operation to remove a lung. Myself, and
my younger brother and sister, Billy and Sally, were
'barracked' out for two weeks in a really 'hot' summer.
Adventuring was very high on the agenda, and thanks
to a neighbours boy who was just a couple of years
older than me, I got plenty to think about.

From playing down at the 'rickety' railway bridge,
where we used to invade some poor chaps spinach
patch, and playing 'chicken' with the steam trains.
(Ashamedly). To messing in the orchards and hop-
fields that were rife in the area at that time. An old
deserted 'oast-house' in the village was one of our
favourite spots for just 'hanging out'.

It was the time of Tizer and Jubblies. Two things
we'd not experienced back home in leafy Wargrave,
so that in itself seemed like we were 'big-time'. As
for bed-time, we had to share beds with my sister
Mary's other four kids in a three-bedroomed house.

My sister Sally naturally shared with our niece
Valerie in her bedroom. But in the boys room there
was my brother Billy and Me. Little Ray, Tony, and
baby Graham who were of course our nephews.
Do you think much sleeping went on? Not a lot.

Those two weeks seemed to last forever, and even
today, I can't believe we could have crammed so
much adventuring into two weeks.


Anyway, when we got back home, we'd all three
been bought something 'special' as our reward for
having to be away from home, and as I said earlier,
mine was a bike. It was a girls bike. 'Pink', and a bit
on the big side. It was our neighbours' daughters' old
bike that she'd grown out of, but that didn't worry me,
I was now independant to the point I could go any-
where I wanted, when I wanted, and I did.


A few weeks later, and I was really starting to miss
the friends I'd made in Tongham where we'd spent
the summer, and I got to conspiring with a good
friend at the bottom of our road, Bob goddard. His
dad used to drive a huge lorry, and Bob would often
go out with his Dad on long lorry trips, so knew his
way about our part of the country well.

I asked him if he knew how to get to Aldershot,
and he did. I asked him if he fancied doing a bike-
ride there on the Saturday, and he did. So we
managed to get a few bits and bobs to eat along
the way and a couple of bottles of water. Then on
the Saturday morning we both sloped off in the
general direction of Aldershot.

I mentioned earlier that it was a particularly 'hot'
summer, and this day seemed to be the hottest. We
thought we'd been going for miles when we ran out
of water, but infact, we'd only gone four or five in the
'right' direction, as Bob had taken us on a rather
longer route than we'd needed to go. He was
following the route that his Dad used to take in his
lorry, but his Dad delivered grain from the BB&O
depot in Twyford, and of course went 'round-robin'
as it were. I know at one point we were pushing
our bikes up Bix-Hill on the north side of Henley-
on-Thames. Completely in the wrong direction.

We stopped at a little shop in Spencers Wood to
tell the shopkeeper there our plight, and hope for
some sympathy, (which we got). Thankfully in the
shape of some Smith's Crisps and a bottle of
Corona Lemonade. This helped us get the rest
of the way to Aldershot, and from there I knew
my way to Tongham and my sister's house.

Sadly, it was now gone two o'clock in the after-
noon. It had taken us 'far' longer than we'd hoped,
and to cap it all, there was no-one in at my sister's.
Our hearts sank as we sat there wondering what
to do. The whole estate seemed deserted, there
didn't seem to be anyone around.

Then a neighbour from accross the way, who I'd
not met before came over to us. Said she recog-
nised me and that my sister and the family were
over the park playing 'Stool-ball'. (Apparently like
rounders but with slightly different rules). My
sister was in the team and it seemed like the
whole village had turned out to watch this 'mom-
entous event'.

We made our way over the park and caught about
half an hour of the game. Enough to see Mary
batting away and running for all she was worth.
(I'd never seen her so active). When she finished
and came over to see Me and Bob who were
sitting with 'Big Ray' (her hubby) and the kids, she
was absolutely flabberghasted, she couldn't
believe we'd made so much effort to get over to
see them on such a hot day.

We got taken back to the house naturally, and got
fed and watered. But there was only time to have
a little natter before we had to start making our
way back home to Wargrave. Only 'this' time,
Big-Ray drew us some directions to follow so that
we'd get home a lot quicker than it had taken us
to get there.

I suppose it was a sign of the times back then, that
our Mum's and Dad's never even missed us. Just
asked if we'd had a good time. Great stuff!

Although we never got to meet the friends I was
originally missing, that day is 'so' ingrained in my
memory that I consider it one of my 'treasures'.

I wonder if old Bob Goddard still remembers?
Or even if he's still around? So many friends now
dropping off the perch, you begin to wonder.

Catch you later.

Pete.

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Hamilton Rd.....The Flint Rock Face.

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Hamilton Rd. The Flint Rock Face.

Hamilton Rd in Wargrave, Berks, is a nice smooth surfaced road these days. But back in the 50’s it was an old Flint road.
Not just little flints either. These were industrial sized flints.

They must have ripped the car tyres of the unsuspecting stranger to pieces. But to the locals, they knew to keep over to the left as you came up the hill, as it was a little sandier over there. It was certainly the route we all walked up and down, or rode our bikes.

Now our Mum had never learned to ride a bike. But knocking at the door of forty, she was given one by one of the people she ‘did for’ down the Loddon drive. It was an old ladies all black bike. Very good condition too. She was over the moon.

The trouble was, as she couldn’t ride a bike, we kids had to teach her. Our plan was to go to the top of the road, sit her on it, and we three youngest would guide her down the hill.

Plans, as you know, never quite go as you’d like. Mum and her bike gathered a bit too much momentum and got away from us, sending poor old Mum right into the bushes half way down.

When you’re a Mum of 11 kids, you’re made of stern stuff, and she got straight back on her bike, determined not to be beat. I don’t remember how many times we repeated the torture, but after falling off too many times to calculate, covered in cuts and bruises, she eventually made it on her own from top-to-bottom of the road. She was now, an ‘independent’ cyclist. Skilled in the art of bicycle riding and ready to get to work in double-quick time.

It was a proud moment for all of us. We’d taught our Mum to ride a bike. Great! But there was just one thing. She might have mastered the art of bicycle riding, but she never did master the art of ‘BRAKING’.

The bike had perfectly good brakes. Maybe they were TOO good, I don’t know. But Mum was just too darn scared to apply them. It got to be a standing joke in the village. “Look out, Ven’s on her bike again”. She had been accident prone all of her life. If anyone was going to get run over, fall over, or slip into the river, it was our Mum. But she just bounced back up every time and kept on going. Narrowly missing the ‘Grim Reaper’ on many occasions.

After a few months of crashing her prized possession, she agreed that maybe she should give up the bike, and go back to walking. (Which she did). She gave me her bike, which I immediately painted every colour of the rainbow, (multi-coloured chevrons up the back mudguard), and took to the dirt-tracks up the back of the Estate, and just past ‘The Old House At Home’ in Sherlock Row. It was a ‘Hercules’ bike by name, and certainly a ‘Hercules’ by nature. No matter how hard I treated that old bike, the only thing that ever broke was the tyres.

Can we still say the same thing about bikes these days?
(Maybe if you pay over £1,000- for one you might.)

As for my old Mum? Maybe me taking her bike off her hands gave her just a few more years on this mortal coil. But I bet she took the fondest memories of that old bike with her,
(as will I.)

Catch you later,

Pete.

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De` Ja` Vu`?.. Coincidence?.. Or Gift?

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De` Ja` Vu`?.. Coincidence?.. Or Gift?

I don't remember the start of this dream, but I do remember being on the back of an old truck as it drove into the village of Wargrave where I grew up.

The buildings looked old, grey and a bit deserted. There were just a few cars in the High St and were of the late 50's period, but were rusted away, decomposing where they stood.

The truck pulled up just outside the Greyhound pub car park in School Lane, and I sat there watching just a few people
walking around. Mostly looking drawn, grey and unkempt.

One young girl about 18 years old was pushing a large 'Coachbuilt' pram up the road with her baby, and a little toddler also sat in the pram. (I somehow got the feeling that this was my older sister Mary, pushing myself and my younger brother Bill in our old pram.)

As I looked down Church St toward the doctors and the Old Bakery, (there in the 50's), I saw two children coming up the Road. One was
on a child’s scooter, and as he got nearer I could see it was an old friend, Steve Kirby, who was about nine or ten years old with the haircut he adopted later in life at the age of about 17 or 18.

As he scooted past, I shouted out; "Kirby".
He looked at me quizzically as if he'd recognised me somehow. (Though I was the age I am now, 57).
He couldn't have recognised me.
Unless, he had just experienced De`- Ja`- Vu or something similar.

I woke up with this 'vivid' experience and feeling that he'd actually 'visited' me in my dream. That he was trying to explain something to me.

I was thinking maybe he'd died, and had called in to see me while on his final journey.

Or was it my subconscious mind explaining exactly HOW De` Ja` Vu works?

I gave him a call a couple of weeks later because the dream was sitting heavily on my mind. Living in Wales now, we don’t keep in contact as often as we should.

The news wasn’t good. He’d had to go and have tests to prepare him for a liver transplant. Afterwards, they continued on up to Blackpool to visit their family. While there, Steve had a brain haemorrhage which almost wiped him out.

He spent several days in hospital and has had to revisit several times since. He’s not as badly affected as some. But his ‘spirit’ seems to have taken it’s leave. (Hope it’s temporary).

But how strange that as children growing up together, we retain this almost sub-conscious link where we can visit each other in dreams at times of stress or need.

Has anyone else had similar experiences?

I know I’ve had many. So please let us know in the comments to this post. (COMMENTS link below).

Pete.


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Henley Regatta -The Fair & Rastus.

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Henley Regatta -The Fair & Rastus.

Growing up in the village of Wargrave in the 50’s was a
full time adventure, and unlike today, a totally ‘white’ one. By that I mean there were no coloured people in the community. There were foreign residents, but all were white. So when a young lad called ‘Rastus’ started as an apprentice chef at the St George & Dragon Hotel it really was a novelty. He instantly became the talk of the village.

Call me ‘pushy’ if you like, but whenever anyone new came to the village, I was generally the first one there to claim them as ‘my mate’. The village was then, and probably still is a magnet for overseas visitors, and back in the day, there were several railway coaches down at the railway siding that were permanently hired out as ‘holiday homes’.

People from all over the world would take their vacations camping in these fully equipped train carriages, and I was a bit of a ‘goal poacher’ as far as befriending the kids that holidayed there. So when Rastus came on the scene it was only natural that ‘I’ got to him first. Albeit that he was 16 and I was only 11. (I always thought I was 17, even at the age of eight. Still do)

Everybody in the village took to Rastus as he had the wickedest grin and greatest sense of humour. Wherever he went, he lit up the place. He was an orphan from a children’s home in Somerset, so it was even funnier to hear him speak in a strong west-country accent. But growing up in an orphanage environment made him very street-wise, and for a slightly built chap, he was as tough as old boots. Which brings me on to our visit to the Henley Regatta Fair.

Rastus, being a worker, had bought himself a little BSA bantam to race about on. He used to let us ride it up the ‘Straight Mile’ on the way to ‘Crazies Hill’ next to the Wargrave Manor grounds after it got dark. One of the best feelings in the world is the very first time you ride a motorbike and you feel that power ‘dragging’ you through the air at what seems like phenomenal speed, but probably only 20 or 30 miles per hour. Naturally, I was always begging him to take us on the back somewhere, just to get that ‘rush’.

The summer before I left Wargrave in 1963, Rastus said he’d take me on the motorbike to the Henley Regatta Fair. He’d pay if I wanted to go. Naturally, I didn’t need asking twice, but then he gave me a crash helmet to put on. In those days, only ‘squares’ wore crash helmets. Wearing them was a personal choice which not too many people took up. So at first I said “no way”, but then he said I’d definitely need it and he wasn’t taking me unless I put it on. (So I did).

We arrived at the packed fair that was in full swing, and because we were on a motorbike, could park up right next to the fair. But instead of just leaving the helmets on the handlebars which was the ‘usual’ thing to do in those days, Rastus said we needed to take them with us.

Now I don’t know if you’ve read my previous post about the Henley Royal regatta Fair, but I did mention the overpowering and bullying tactics of the ‘Hooray-Henry’s’ at the fair. We wanted to get onto the dodgems, and we wanted to ‘stay’ on them for several goes, so when our chance came we made a bee-line for a car and got in with a bit of bumping and bashing.

OK, we’re going round hell-for-leather, whacking the Hooray’s as hard as we could, (when we weren’t getting whacked first that is.) then Rastus told me to put my hand inside the helmet and grab the webbing inside as tightly as possible, we were staying on this little missile and no Hooray was going to get us out.

The cars stopped. The usual bashing, thumping and screaming started as the Hooray’s ran riot grabbing all the cars for themselves. (Until they got to ours that was).
Rastus was first to take aim and fire with his helmet, and in a state of sheer panic, I followed suit. We were swatting them like flies until they gave up and we got another ride in the same car.

This was fine until it came to the end of the second ride, because they were about to employ ‘new’ tactics. They came at us with brollies this time, so instead of hitting them with my crash helmet, I put it on my head to protect it while I just lashed out in defence. Rastus, on the other hand took a different tack. He gave me his helmet to hold and then started to set about them like a whirling dervish.
Kids think these days that Bruce Lee was fast, and he was. Well Rastus was certainly the fastest I’d ever seen in my life and he frightened the life out of the Hooray’s.

Strangely enough, the dodgems seemed to return to some form of order and normality after that, and we stayed on for several more rides before the money ran out and we high-tailed it back to the Bantam and off home.

Happy days.

Pete.

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THE WARGRAVE AND SHIPLAKE REGATTA.

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The Wargrave and Shiplake Regatta.

I won’t pretend I’ve been to any of the Wargrave & Shiplake Regatta’s since leaving the village in 1964.
All I can say is that pre-’64 it was a brilliant day of celebration, enjoyed by virtually every member of the village and for miles around.
(Never actually knew it was called the Wargrave ‘And Shiplake’ regatta until thirty years or so down the line. Always thought it was just ‘The Wargrave regatta’.)

For a start, it was the day that the funfair came to visit.
Setting itself up as if by magic the night before in the field opposite the St George and Dragon Hotel. Also the field used for the hosting of all the regatta paraphernalia.

We’d all make sure we got over there early so that we could get the best position for watching. The lads from Val Wyatts boat builders were usually in charge of all the competing craft. We’d marvel at their dexterity in handling so many in such a tight space, but they seemed to cope just fine.

My brother-in-law Grainger Edney, used to think he was top honcho, but his younger brother Wilf had the ‘starry eyes’ and always got the full attention of all the mesmerised girls there. Though he’d often nearly fall into the river as he tried to be ‘cool’, pretending he hadn’t noticed all the attention. (He used to get a bit bashful).

Being a bit of a ‘water-babe’ myself, loving everything about ‘Old Father Thames, the Wargrave and Shiplake regatta was Utopia for me. I’d be sat there day-dreaming of the time that ‘I’ would be competing. Obviously ‘Whupping’ all the competition. But the nearest I ever got to entering the regatta was trying to get to the end of the ‘Greasy Pole’. (Never managed it I’m afraid.)

Once all the racing was finished it was time for the fair. How my mum always managed to fish another tanner out of her purse on demand always baffled me. But she did, and all of us kids would have the best time of the year.

On regatta day, Val Wyatts used to use a ‘huge’ barge as a ferry. The everyday one would probably only carry 20 or so at a time. But the barge would carry what seemed like a hundred at a time. So many that the sides would be almost submerged, with water lapping over the edges.

a chap called Bill Sumner used to be ‘Chief-Punter’, and was he ever good at aiming that barge accurately? Sometimes one of the other hands would take over. What a fiasco? You felt you were on the way to the Royal Henley Regatta instead sometimes.

Anyway, the last ferry of the day would be around Tennish. The car parks of the George & Dragon Hotel would be crammed to bursting with everyone trying to get served in the make-do pub that was; The Val Wyatt boathouse. They had a huge workshop almost next to the hotel which used to double-up as a ‘Brakspears Bar’ on regatta night. We kids of course would have our Corona Lemonade in PINT mugs, and our Smith’s Crisps and little blue wraps of salt to sprinkle in.

It used to be a competition between the kids to see who could find the ‘most’ salt-wraps in their bag. Smith’s were nothing if not over-generous with the salt-wraps.
Once everyone had their drinks. Dad with his Mild, Mum with her Babycham, (Special occasion of course), then the field to the right of the fair and regatta would be lit up with an amazing firework display.

All the OOH’s and AAH’s would be quite deafening, until the big ‘THANKYOU’ display went up at the end and everyone gave three cheers for the whole occasion.

Great days. Great memories. The walk home was a bit bumpy though. Wargrave Village never had many street lamps in the 1950’s, early 60’s, (Probably only four or five in the whole place) so we usually ended up getting separated from each other, being ushered along by the crowd, which fortunately enough, used to trundle up Victoria Rd, past Hamilton Rd where we lived anyway.

Does the Wargrave and Shiplake regatta still maintain the same magic today? I really wouldn’t know. The fair was stopped many years ago I know that. Whether it’s been re-instated I wouldn’t know either. But if it hasn’t, then the regatta organisers have missed a huge trick there.

Does the Wargrave & Shiplake Regatta rival the Henley Royal Regatta?
Maybe not EH?

Catch you later,

Pete.

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