I came to live in Calstone when I was about five years old in 1944. My mum and dad had a flat in the centre of Bristol but, as my dad was in the RAF in the Calne area, we moved out of Bristol because of the bombing. We lived with Grampy Tom Davis at 30 Greens Lane, Calstone after he had been widowed.
I went to Calstone School between 1945 and 1952. There were about 35 in the School – 15 infants and 20 seniors. The two groups were divided into two parts by a canvas screen on which the infant teacher, Miss Pemberton, had painted some lovely stencils. There was an iron stove for heating at one end which had to be regularly stoked up. The toilets were outside at the bottom of the playground – just buckets underneath wooden seats. Part of our playtime was a rest period when we had to lie on coconut mats and listen to the radio playing ‘Listen with Mother’. We were taught to relax ourselves by letting go from the legs up to our arms – like an early yoga, I suppose. There were two tall fir trees in the playground which we regularly climbed – quite dangerous looking back as they were very tall.
Mrs Beattie Barnett cleaned the school. She lived in the first cottage on the left as you leave the Reading Room towards Blackland.
When I was first at Calstone School I used to go the short distance back down Sprays Hill to have my dinner at Aunt Sally and Uncle Harry Davis’s house. They lived adjoining Sprays Mill where the water ran underneath their house. I recall the house being dark with a red chenille fringed tablecloth and the same red chenille hanging from the mantelpiece. When school dinners started to be delivered, I had them but they were so awful I took sandwiches. I can still remember the smell of those dinners and seeing a pile of white china plates takes me right back!
Most of us at school were not very well off, some much worse than others. I would say most had only two sets of clothes each and shoes with holes in were a familiar sight. Despite the hard life, I do not recall any child being really ill or taken into care. The nurse would visit to examine us for head lice – I don’t remember if she ever found any. My Mum went through my hair regularly with a fine tooth comb anyway. If you needed the Doctor, you walked to the Reading Room where there was a telephone. Only the farmers had telephones in their houses.
From 1945 to 1948, Mrs Stainer was the headmistress, who then moved to Avebury. Her place was taken by Mrs George who was Irish and a very kind but strict lady. She lived in the School House with her husband and two sons David and Desmond. While she was at Calstone, she had a daughter who I think was called Jean.
Although very young, I walked to Calstone School from Greens Lane, usually around the road. There were two other children, Pam and Steve Yates who lived at Number 33 Greens Lane and we would meet with others at Theobalds Green. There was no need to worry about traffic or meeting strangers. Only the farmers had cars and everyone knew everyone. After the war, when I was about 7, the Council built some new houses at Robins Piece. They were occupied by the Carr family with Rosemary, John, Ann and Doug, the Yates family with Pam, Steve, Richard and Carol and the Comley family with Wendy and Trudy.
When I took my 11 plus exam, the school was closed for the day except for the three of us taking the exam, David George (Headmistress’s son), John Carr and me. We all passed and Mrs George was so proud as it was such a small school. During the exam, Mrs George and the Reverend Matthews presided for the day. Once when I was doing an exam, the Rev. Matthews told me to go up the path to the Church and pick 12 snowdrops for the 12 disciples and bring them back to him. I never could work out why.
We always had a Nativity Play and I nearly always got the role of Mary. School Christmas parties were held in the Reading Room. We went for nature rambles with Miss Pemberton and practised for Sports Day in a nearby field. The best of us went to compete with other schools at the Secondary Modern School in Silver Street, Calne.
The Reading Room at the top of Sprays Hill was well used. We had plays and socials and I would play the piano, sometimes a duet with Jennifer McFaull and her brother, Derek, would be the magician. The locals would take part with songs, plays and jokes. On Coronation Day 1953, a television was hired and all the villagers went to watch. It was a 12″ black and white set. Afterwards there was a Coronation Day party in one of the barns which was festooned with red, white and blue bunting. When I got married in 1959, we held our Wedding Reception there and Mr House of Hayle Farm did the buffet at 7/6 per head.
One of my school friends was Janet Wheeler and I keep in touch with her to this day. She lived at Blacklands Crossroads in the house that stands at right angles to the road. Her brothers and sisters were Tim, Margaret, Patricia, Marion, Christopher, Peter, Roy, Josephine, Bruce, Norman and Jean. I just don’t know how Mrs Wheeler managed in that small house. There was always a good cauldron of stew on the fire. Another school friend who lived in the row of houses nearby was Hilary Green.
Shook Cleverley lived with her mother in the shop beside the Reading Room. She helped in the shop as well as working for Maundrells on the farm. She did work as hard as any man could and always wore workmen’s overalls. I never saw her in a dress.
Graham McQuie, brother of Freda, lost his hand and part of his arm in a farm accident. It didn’t seem to handicap him – he had a hook for a hand and I saw him do everything that an able bodied man could do. He is buried at Calstone with Freda.
The Reverend Matthews came to the school quite often just for a few minutes. I went to his house once when I was very young. There were lots of clocks ticking in different sounds and striking in an eerie way and lots of stuffed alligators hanging from the walls. It was a dark and scary house like something out of Charles Dickens.
Now I will talk about life in Greens Lane. After living with Grampy Tom Davis for six years, we moved next door to Number 30 in 1951. There was no electricity or running water in the Lane at that time.
Our light came from the oil lamp. If we were going out after dark, my Mum would turn it right down low only to find, more often than not, it had gradually flared up whilst we were away and the mantle was black with soot. Mantles were so fragile the only way to remove the soot was to keep the light low until it gradually dropped off. A very gloomy time!
Cooking was done on the black iron grate range and we also had a little metal Aladdin oven heated by oil in which my Mum made the most delicious bread, cakes and pastry. They never tasted quite so good once we went over to electric.
Friday night was bath night. Water was carried from the well in the garden, then heated in a deep metal bowl called a copper set in a square brick surround with an opening at the base to light a fire. We had a long galvanised bath which hung on an outside wall all week. It was brought in front of the fire and hot water carried from the copper in a bucket. I would have my bath first, then Mum, then Dad. Then it all had to be emptied by buckets, carried outside and thrown away. My Mum had a smaller galvanise bath for soaking washing overnight in ‘Oxydill’ or ‘Tide’. She would then scrub the clothes clean on a glass rubbing board – the type used by the skiffle groups in the 1950’s. I would then help her roll the washing through a wooden mangle to remove the surplus water. If it couldn’t be hung outside, it would be put on a clotheshorse round the fire, filling the room with steam. This was always on a Monday.
It was much harder work for the housewife in those days but I never heard my mother complain. She did the garden because of my father’s health and also had two part time jobs, one in Calne at Maslen’s Cafe and the other at RAF Compton Bassett serving teas to the airmen. She was always tired and had little spare time but, in later years when things were easier, she spoke many times of her old life ‘up the Lane’ and how she missed it so much.
We had mains water laid on in 1952/3 and electricity around the same time. I still remember the thrill of coming home and just switching on the light.
Our toilet was at the end of the garden in a wooden hut until we had an extension at the back of the house, when it was attached to the washhouse but we still had to go outside to use it. It was a wooden box with a hole in the middle for a seat and a bucket underneath which had to be emptied and buried once a week in the allotment.
We occupied ourselves going wooding in the fields to help the coal supply, knitting, embroidery, and jigsaws. We had a fright one day when our chimney caught fire. The fire brigade managed to get up the Lane and put it out but the main difficulty was the firemen in their tall hats getting into our living room with its low ceiling.
Of the people who lived in the village in the 1950’s I recall old Farmer Brown at Sprays Farm (or Browns Farm as we called it) with his great sideburns. There were always milk churns outside the Farm for collection and old Farmer Brown would get on Keens Thursday bus to go to Devizes Market.
The Summers family with their children Hope, Terry, Barry and John lived in the bungalow at Theobalds Green after they left the Dairy.
In about 1955 an aeroplane got into difficulties over Calstone Church. It broke up leaving wreckage from the Church all the way down to the Stockley turning where it nose-dived into the ground, narrowly missing the farmhouse. All on board were killed – I believe there were five airmen. There were parachutes spread about with no time to open and all kinds of personal belongings. It was an awful sight.
I didn’t feel the Church was very involved with the villagers and Rev. Matthews never visited us. I did once take my pet jackdaw to an Animal Service at Blackland and he threw all his bread out of the cage during Rev. Matthew’s sermon. The vicar remarked ‘That’s what he thinks of that’. The farmers didn’t mix with the villagers at all and you felt there was definitely class distinction.
We got snowed in quite often but only as long as it took us to dig ourselves out to the road. You couldn’t get cars up the Lane in winter so there was no worry getting them out!
Of my childhood in the village, my best memory was the feeling of security and peacefulness, my love of the country and the walks. My worst memory was of the mud in winter but I never felt disadvantaged compared to town girls. I was quite happy with my lot.
Judy Stempfer (nee Francomb), Worcester Park, Surrey, Spring 1999