I'm Esther Atkinson, was Beaumont, Village born and bred, escaped for four years at university but other than that, I got drawn back and that was here, I brought my children up in the village and I love the place.
The earliest memory I have is at Play School which was the old Methodist building on Collyer and I think it was Betty Snowden ran it. And I remember going to her cottage one day and she got chicks or ducklings or something and we all walked down and that's my earliest memory of schools in the village just going and holding these chicks and then coming back and that was like really exciting.
Manor Park was not- It's bit of a blur to me really, I don't remember that much about that. I was a Sherbrooke girl and Sherbrooke and St. Wilfrid's never mixed, I was totally unaware of this other school other than us, it's almost the two in one and my earliest memory of that is in Lower Junior would be on the front playground and Wrangler had these flags and we were always trying to work out what all these flags were on from the probably just marketing ones, but trying to work out what flags were and they used to always fascinate us and we used to have a tree on the boundary between us and see this playing field and it was two trees that were conjoined and we used to call it the chip shop tree and it had like this nugget bit in the middle that we'd fill it with little branches and things and all day we'd be taking turns playing who were serving the chips and who was buying them and when we went up into the upper junior it was almost the rights of passage we passed it on because we knew we were never going to play with that tree again.
We had the hanging willow in the back and that was exotic big weeping wheel out so that was like a status thing that you were like going to play in that playground and that was the house and you could hide in it and everything else. Seely, I remember it never closed for bad weather, when we were all snowed in as the village frequently was, Mr Scott- Acabadger as he was known actually ran in and Mr Cogill skied in through via Arnold so the school opened. We resented all the other students and all the other villages because they didn't have to come but we were there but they made it fun when we were there but that happened a few times. With the snow we used to get snowed in quite a bit, we lived on Moor Road and it's like we were on a different power system to the village so we would always have it where one snowflake and our power would go down. And it was one year where I think it had gone down, it came down really heavy and we didn't have power for three days yet done out which at the bottom they had Christmas trees on Twinkly lights and we had no power whatsoever.
So that I remember having the most fantastic snowball fight in the fields on that day because the whole street was out because there was nothing else to do. Another time where we had heavy snow and I think the whole village was out and then we went for a walk, made a couple of friends up to the square and the only shop that was open was blockbusters by candle light and you think why on earth was that open? I'm not really going to be playing the videos because you didn't have any power but they put all the candles on.
The interesting thing about growing up and I don't think it's quite so much now but it's almost two villages in one. You've got top-estate bottom-estate and whichever one you're in the other one was always the bad one. So I was bottom-estate. Never mixed with anybody from top-state other than at school or guides and brownies and things like that and they never sort of mixed it. So the schools and the co-op was where it ended so you'd have your different friendship groups.
My group was on Crookdole where I lived before we moved to Moor Road and we would all just play at the bottom but it was only the kids at the bottom of the street was our gang and the kids at the top street was a different gang and we'd all just all different ages but that was our patch. But with the guides and things like that there were two guide sets, three brownies, two cubs, scouts, rangers, there were masses and it's quite sad that we haven't got that now because village get together, they used to be huge parades. They used to go for ever because you've got all of those groups, the schools, the churches, the RNLI which my mum's involved in from early early days.
St John's.
St John's yeah. They were, was it the West schools that they used to do? The bands, marching banders, I was always jealous of them because these are fantastic outfits but that's top of the village so that wasn't, wasn't for me. And it used to be the parade used to take forever and it looks quite sad now that it's dwindled down so small.
Did you go away with the brownies or were the guys going any of the trip?
Used to do Walesby but used to do international camps with guides. International but say it's only down the road but they were really good and then because of course she had Margret Stonely, like aca pebble and then it's Brian Stonely, aca brick. They ran those so we used to always go with pebble and I did that a few times and sometimes we'd camp in the field behind it, Labray. Yeah, it was always fun and it was a good mix of people and plenty of girls really that we wouldn't have mixed otherwise until you got to Seely. Yeah, that was always good fun. So I enjoyed that.
I used to like the village get together because you'd go for the whole day. It used to be a huge event. My grandparents had come over, it was picnics and the full day there and it was always something to do and for a few years there was, it's a knock-out as well and they used to do that way, it was all the schools and different churches and all different groups and you'd have a single one in the precinct. I remember it would be one of the churches and it'd suddenly turn it with a guitar and people would join in and carol singing and yeah, lots and lots of community. I was really lucky to grow up with the community. It is still there and the community in the villages get larger, it's still got that village mentality. Which I think was a lot of people appreciate that move here now and I'm glad that I brought my children up here because you do feel safe.
Morris Men is another one. I remember Dad and his friend setting up Calverton Morris Men and the Plow Play which went into crap so it's Calverton Relay or Plow Play preservation society. I think I've got enough peas in there. And that was initially to raise money for two children, for wheelchair or something. I was very, very young and it's still going today but every year me and my sisters had sit in the living room watching them all practise. It's just an excuse for them to have a beer I think and a bit of a laugh. But even now if I hear it in the pubs I find myself, if I don't think about it I can sight all those lines. I haven't all those years of watching my dad in a dress basically.
Yeah because my dad used to keep bees in the back garden so in case you couldn't go out because they'd be swarming or the chickens would be escaping or whatever. And every really hot, it was a very home ec sort of things.
Teenage years. It was fun. It was a nice accessibility to town for drinking under 18 as we all did but yeah, not condoning that. But I felt safe coming back, we'd all get the taxi back and I'd, drop all my friends off on the way and I'd get off with the last one and walk home three in the morning. I felt perfectly safe and I'd still do it now because I still feel safe. It's just sort of shoes flung over my shoulder and strolling.
I remember the post office changing and it being more new but I remember the doctors being referred to as the new doctors. Just getting larger but I don't have an issue with that. Some people do. I actually get just more friends to make and it's still kept that feeling. It's just a lot busier but everywhere is.
Oh the buses, they used to be because obviously everyone used to smoke and they weren't aware of dangers and you'd be waiting for it to pull up and you couldn't actually see through the windows because they were that full of smoke and tar and you'd get on and you'd walk down and you couldn't see anything that fairly seats till you're literally on top of it and you go, "Oh, that one's a clear and jump in." Because it was just full. This old tin can. Oh, awful. I don't know how many cigarettes I've breathed in as a child on that one.
Remember, the precinct used to have like the wooden shutters on the top because we had a really good range of shops and all independent but the roof and bit used to be wooden slats. I mean, mum used to always say, "I'd be dryer if I stood out in the rain because they just dripped all the time." But we used to have the wool shop. There was a shoe shop. There was a mechanical shop. Chip shops always been the chip shop. Twelve trees, supermarket as it was, is where Sainsbury's is. There were two butchers and thread tailors up top of the street as well. There was a really good range of shops. Used to be westerns and the one on Mansfield Lane. I can't think what that one was called. And Mary's down at the bottom. So again, you see depending on which village you were in, you either had westerns or you had Mary's. So mine was Mary's, my little shop. And potagers.
Mm-hmm, yeah. It was a hardware shop as well.
There was, yeah. It was always, it just sold the last one. Or get some more in tomorrow and whatever you wanted. I've just sold that, yeah. I used to love the smell of it. I used to go in there. Yeah. The news agents and these live on Friday at the beginning, 10 pence. I could have gone get them 10 pence sweet mix. But you also thought you were duping them because they had half penny sweets and you thought, "I'll get them twice as many and they don't realise." And you thought you were really smart but you were there for ages choosing them. The chemist used to be where the Chinese shop was at. It was tiny. He used to have the two glass jars in the front. The red and blue.
The industrial estate, that, say, there was wrangler but there wasn't anything else. That expanded a lot, didn't it? I never bought wrangler because to me it was like, "Oh, you know, just from the village." I went to university and it came on TV and the thumbs were like, "I like wrangler." I'm like, "Oh no, you don't wear that." I thought it was a national thing. It's like, no, it's just our group, didn't wear it because it's from the village. Yeah.
Yeah, people came for a far and wide, didn't they? To the wrangler shop.
Yeah. They were always stopping you and asking you for directions. How to get there. I was always in town because Calverton by that time was in the sticks and boring and everything else. So we'd always been nipping into town but we'd got the good bus routes. Used to get to the leisure centre a lot in the village when there were the roller discos and things like that. Never did youth club.
What about learning to swim?
Oh, yes. Yes, she petrified with a teacher did. Absolutely petrified. I mean, if you put your hands on the side, you used to stand on them and it's like, "Yeah, but I learned to swim." That pool's freezing cold as well. They used to jump in it and take your breath and then you go in the changing rooms and that was even colder. So you just, I think there's a way of getting us out quick. And everyone had swim and gym parties till about the age of 10 or 11. You'd have that. I think it's about an hour in the pool and then you're soaking wet and in the gym. And I still like climbing up the ropes and just sitting up there for as long as I could.
What was the swimming... Lady's name?
Was it Pauline? I think there was Pauline and there was one other and I can't think of each one. Oh, they were both, quite scary. But then she used to do the swimming lessons with school as well so you couldn't escape her. I think you'd be there in your pyjamas picking up bricks and she'd be shouting at you. I suppose she was just doing her job really. But we used to just hang around in the village. I wasn't allowed to go to the square. Mum said, "If she ever caught me in the square, that's it." But of course I went up there. We'd go in the woods.
Oxton woods?
Oxton woods. Yeah. Of course I wasn't allowed to go Oxton woods but we'd go anyway. We used go down the lane. A lot down Carrington lane and Crookdole lane. One of my neighbours, he had a trials bike and we used to go and take that down there and we'd find a random field and just be riding this bike. You'd have a fit if your kids were doing it now. But we'd sneak down to the fruit farms and climbing under the hedge and gorge yourself on fruit. Then when we'd been sick at home we denied we'd been there, but we'd got like strawberry juice on our face. I've never eaten a gooseberry since going down there as a kid. Far too many of them.
The Lido I only ever went once. I just remember it being freezing but really really busy. I remember going to my grandparents anniversary for Ruby wedding or something and that was down at the spring water. The old spring water, yeah. I just remember it seemed really posh at the time. It was all like burgundies, and burgundy colours, wooden buildings. I was really really plush.
Saying a lot of the new people that are moving in, they're saying that's what's brought them here because there's not a lot of places that have got it. It's one of those villages that people are helping you as much as you need and you can be as involved or as apart from everything as you want really but everyone still does know everything before it happens. It's one of those things. It used to be the plays as well, the amateur dramatics. I think they still go on.
What the theatre group?
Yeah. My dad was heavily involved in all that as well. Used to have ballet classes on the house on corner of the nook. Next to the, I think it was church, it's Baptist Church and it used to have a long galley at the back and we used to go and then have ballet lessons when it was about five or six for a while. Used to play Kirby on the street. We'd play that and then the aim was, if the bus went by, you could get the ball on the top and you got an extra, yeah, it was good times.
So I think it's when I was at secondary school, the fair started coming and it used to be on the poppy fields which is ironically now, clover fields. I don't know why they didn't call it poppy fields and that used to be so exciting. In fact, I think it started further down on moor lane first and then it moved on to the field and that was like everybody would be more what you went tonight to go to the fair so we could all meet up. That was really, really exciting and you know it was the week before goose fair used to appear as well so it was almost like countdown for that.
The car boots started at the bottom of the village as well, that started down moor lane and then moved right up to the top. I mean that was really exciting at the time and it was just something different. I do remember having a jumble sale in the old village hall and they were setting it all up and one of the ladies had hung a coat at the back to do the stall and when she came at the end it had been sold. I remember that, she was livid and I can't think who it was but I hope it had been sold so somebody got a bargain.
And ghosts, everybody was obsessed with ghosts when we were growing up because we were one of the most haunted villagers. So if you're at Labray you couldn't go to the toilet because the white lady was there, used to be petrified of that area. Yeah the white lady, the headmaster was buried supposedly onto the big metal plaque in the floor, it's daft how kids think isn't it? And you've got the ghost coming down, George's Hill, George's Lane but we're all obsessed with it all the time reading up on what we could and the village hall there was somebody if you went down the steps he used to come out, it was never brave enough to make it to the bottom step. Yeah there was a big obsession with ghosts, I remember that. Ghosts, and Torvill and Dean.
Tell us about Torvill and Dean!
Because he grew up on Collier Road and the minute that they were in the Olympics because he went to Sherbrooke and I think he went to Seely, all the photos came out with him on but any book that he'd written his name in all suddenly went missing. But I remember when they got the Sixers at the Olympics and you could hear a pin drop in the village as it was on TV and the minute they got that it's like the whole village just erupted because we were so proud of it. Really really proud of it. Say we all knew of him but say suddenly Sherbrooke had found all these school photos and there's a whole wall dedicated to him and for years I think it's about maybe ten years older than me but yes really proud of him.
And William Lee of course we got that heritage with the hosiery. And the stocking machines and everything and we had a celebration street with shut off for one of his. I think it was a centenary. And the garden that's next to the library that's just a little bush I remember that say and Edwardian knot garden dedicated to him. Yeah there's not even a plaque saying that it's just some bushes now but I remember that being there and people dressed up as it and doing all the dancing and stuff. That was interesting.
It was in church there's a stained glass window dedicated to him that I think Sheila Wood designed. So you worked at the church? I worked at the administration there for a fair few years. I stepped in to help Peter Hill out for three weeks and ended up there nearly twenty years. And that stopped with Covid and everything else. But yes that was interesting sort of. You had to have all the old registrar books and things and look through it and even my baptism was in there and all my friends and everything and you'd just see all the rights of passage with all the generations. So that was quite nice to do. A little bit of the village heritage there. Because my grandparents married in that church, I married in that church and my sisters both married in that church as well. So it's a link to it. I don't go. But I don't go. It's a good thing. It's a good thing.