I was born in the year 1926 at 36, Hayle Cottages, Nr. Calne. (that was the postal address) and I have spent the whole of my life living in either that property, or in the bungalow, (just a few yards away)-Three Gables- which was built by my brother-in-law and my husband in 1957.
We lived in the parish of Blackland and our local vicar was the Reverend Matthews who looked after Calstone and Blackland churches. He was a nice man and I heard he was a bit of a rebel who always championed the workingman .He often called on us.
My Grandmother was Maria Rivers, daughter of Joseph Rivers, who I am told, lived at Tog Hill.
My Grandfather was William Cleverley who worked at the Foundry on Calne Green as a traction engine driver. Their eldest daughter was my mother Edith who married William John (Jack) Offer from Compton Bassett at the turn of the Century. My father was employed by Bowood Estate as a traction engine driver in the forestry part of the Estate. During the First World War he was in the Royal Army Service Corps based on Salisbury Plain. He drove traction engines to and from Channel Ports carrying fodder for the horses and stores. After the War he worked for the Foundry in Calne taking threshing machines from farm to farm. He was never out of work despite the 1920s slump.
Like most of our neighbours we were poor and life was very basic. There was enough to eat and a good fire. My mother told me about gleaning before the First World War. The women and children had to get to the fields early because everyone else was there picking up every piece of grain. The grain was taken to Blackland Mill to be ground into flour to make bread. After the War people still went gleaning but usually the grain was used to feed the hens. When I was a child Bill Robbins was the Miller at Blackland Mill where we bought maize and barley meal for mother’s hens.
We had a huge bread oven in our kitchen, (it’s still there), and my grandmother made bread in it every year to show at Compton Bassett Flower Show.
My Grandmother was a midwife and would walk from Quemerford Gate to Yatesbury and Cherhill and the surrounding villages to deliver the babies. During the First World War this could be quite an experience as Australian soldiers were stationed at Yatesbury Camp and often she would take to the fields to avoid the drunken young men on the road. At Quemerford Gate there was a well house which supplied the cottages nearby with water. This well house was shelter for tired Soldiers and Tramps until the people in the cottages came for water in the early morning and chased them off. The well house was still there for years after I started school.
I went to Cherhill School following my six sisters and one brother. Jean Weston and Leslie Hazell from Greens Lane also went with us. We were taught by Miss Barter (who had a 100 per cent record for exam passes for her pupils). She taught children until they were 14 years of age, until 1931, when the Senior School opened at Calne. The school bus took the village children, but if you went to the Bentley Grammar School you needed a bicycle. I was lucky and had to cycle there.
We all went to Sunday School at the Wesleyan Chapel (in a corrugated iron extension) at Theobalds Green. On the Sunday evening there was a service conducted by a lay preacher who cycled from Calne. There was a good congregation and I remember the Heath and Nicholls and Robbins families from Theobalds Green and the Sainsbury family would come from Cherhill. We liked to get there early in the evening so that my brother Leslie could practice on the organ .He would play “When the poppies bloom again”, a pop song of the time. We were all sworn to secrecy as, if anyone had heard of it, we would have been in trouble.
Theobalds Green was kept in beautiful condition, watched over by Bowood’s Bailiff, Mr Aaron Wootton, who would chase the boys away if they rode their bicycles around the tree on the green. They only did it for a dare because they knew that he would chase them.
Our nearest neighbours towards Calstone were Mr Dan Bull and his sisters who farmed at Guernsey Villa and they and Mr George Brown of Sprays Farm took the cows milk in churns by horse and cart to Calne Railway Station every morning. Later, of course, lorries picked up the churns from the farms.
Further on from Dan Bull was Arthur Robbins and his mother who lived in a tiny thatched cottage, where the doorway was so low that even, as children, we had to duck our heads to enter. They would give all the children apples from their Cider apple tree. When my sisters were young, there was another cottage facing the road where Fred Robbins and his family lived but this is not in my memory. Frank Wootton and his family lived in the bungalow on the corner of Theobalds Green. I am told that, prior to this, the bungalow was occupied by Mr Peter Green who was a road man.
The Reading Room, Post Office and Village Shop were kept by Mrs Dew and her son, Hubert. He was a saddler and worked in Calne at Tellings, the saddlers. The Reading Room was the local leisure centre where boys could spend their evenings playing darts, cards and other pastimes and of course there was the village band. The dance floor was very good and people came from miles around to dance there. Mr Jim Green played the piano for dancing and we had social evenings. They were great fun and, once a year, when we had a social evening, we would have a Play. This was directed and produced by Mrs Rose Weston who lived at Greens Lane. Rehearsals went on for weeks at Greens Lane, all the lines being learned with the help of home-made elderberry wine and my sisters, who were in the production, would come home giggling. My elder sister, who was a robust lady and full of fun, always took the male role dressed in her husband’s suit with many turn ups of the trouser legs as he was a tall man! She also wore a top hat bought at a Jumble Sale and kept in the ‘Dressing Up Basket’.
My family moved to Hayle Cottages in 1912 when my sister, who still lives there, was a few months old. The tenants who lived there before were Mr and Mrs Gray. Mr Gray was a Thatcher and he had large thatched stables alongside the house where he kept his pony and cart and tools. Sadly, Mr Gray fell from the roof which he was working on and he was killed. My sisters told me that the stables were a wonderful place to play in on wet days and were a store for logs and coal, covering a large area. In my memory, all the land around the house was cultivated for vegetables. Not an inch was wasted. One small area was penned off for mother’s hens.
My sister also remembers that before she started school during the First World War, the German prisoners of war worked making the road – the A4 as it is now. She remembers, most of all, how they stopped the baker’s pony and covered cart (which we called a van) and collected their bread in a wheelbarrow. Everything was delivered then by horses and carts. There was a Mr New the butcher and groceries were also delivered. The milk was collected from Mr Cole, across the road at Hayle Farm but, after he retired, I remember Mr Summers from Calstone Mill (we called it Summers Mill down Summers Lane) delivering the milk with his pony and trap. He brought a bucket to the door and, with a measuring cup, poured the milk into a jug. If we ran short of milk, we went to Mr Bull at Guernsey Villa. We liked this as, when the door was opened, sometimes there would be a hen sat on top of the tallboy in the hall. We wondered what would happen if the hen laid an egg or if it was sitting on some eggs, what would happen if the chickens popped out! We never knew and we giggled a lot but I am sure Miss Bull had everything under control.
Our next-door neighbours at The Hayle were Mr and Mrs Walter Weston and their family. One of their sons, Arthur, was killed in the First World War. Our neighbours in Greens Lane were my grandma and grandad and family in the first house. Next door was an elderly lady who I believe was Mrs Emma Hyde. My sisters were in awe of her as, when she was cross, she would shout at whatever was offending her ‘I’ll flee right through ‘ee’ and no-one quite knew what she meant. After she left, my Aunt Daisy and Uncle Charley Hyde lived there. They had a pet donkey named Jenny and he worked at Blackfords with the horses. He loved animals. After they moved to Calne, my mother’s Aunt Polly and Uncle Tom Davis lived there. Uncle Tom kept the Watercress Beds at Calstone and, on Saturdays, we went up to meet him and we would buy a bunch of fresh watercress for our tea. It was delicious. Further up the Lane was Mr Bill and Mrs Maude Hazell. Mr Hazell fought in the Boer War and was taken prisoner of war. He said they were led through the streets in chains. He was a blacksmith and worked at Blackfords, the builders. I remember he was a very jolly man. Sometimes he was very merry and, in the summer, he generally wore a huge dahlia in his buttonhole. His spaniel dog went everywhere with him.
Mr Charley and Mrs Rose Weston and their daughter, Jean, lived a little further on. We often played with Jean and, if it was dark, Mr Weston would walk home with us and tell us the names of the stars.
In the last house lived my mother’s Uncle Joe Rivers with his wife and family. Uncle Joe was a hedger and ditcher.
We were all poor but we had such free and wonderfully happy lives. We played football in the Bowmans field with the cows, cowpats and all (no E-coli then). In the winter we would slide on the ice on the pond in Bowmans, always being warned that if we fell in we should never get out as a horse and cart had disappeared without trace in there. When the branches fell off the trees (there were 12 elm trees in Bowmans) we made dens in the leaves until the branches were all cut up for firewood. The fields were full of cowslips and cowslip wine was made. We knew where the first violets and even some pink ones blossomed and primroses, of course.
As soon as the time came for the grass to grow for hay, we all came out from the fields. The hens and ducks, who normally roamed in Bowmans, were kept in their pens for the grass to grow and the eagerly awaited haymaking season.
My mother died when she was 89 and within her lifetime she saw the first motor car on the Great West Road (A4) with a man walking in front with a red flag, and thereon until the first man landed and walked on the Moon. She never believed this, however, as she was quite sure that the Moon would turn to blood and fallen to the Earth as the Bible said.
Madge Cornell, Three Gables, The Hayle, Calstone, Spring 2000
(Madge unfortunately died in 2019).