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Life on The Gables Farm between the wars provided many unforgettable childhood experiences for Jack Hill.
The hens and cockerell lived in a black-tarred shed next to the pigsty, and usually became quite agitated if they were forgotten in the mornings and not let out until eight o clock. Fortunately we never had a visit from a fox, perhaps because the shed was well within the built up area of the farmyard.
A much safer hen house was available but never used. In the roof space of the wagon shed was a large room, which once had been used for hens but not in my lifetime. Access was by a door in the side or by a wooden ramp that was always at the 'up' position. Why it was never used was a mystery to me, but perhaps it had something to do with the collecting of eggs, which couldn't have been done by ladies shinning up ladders.
Once I had found a means of getting up there I often used it as a play area for all sorts of doubtful games. Below it during the war years was a small Ford car wrapped in a tarpaulin, and I spent many hours inside it, practising how to drive and going for long imaginary trips.
Actual rides in cars were, of course, almost an unknown treat at that time. Dad's brother Percy did have a car and this he used when he and Aunt Ada came visiting. The car would be parked in the square of the first yard and I often studied it but never dared to climb aboard.
I say it was a Trojan, but Cousin Esther swears that they never had one. I must be correct as I remember Uncle Percy explaining to me how he introduced a heating coil in the passenger section to give some comfort to Aunt. Esther says he had no mechanical savvy and so couldn't have done so. So I'll need an arbitrator when I reach the great beyond.
Aunt Ada suffered from diabetes and so had to travel with all sorts of special breads and biscuits, such a source of wonder to me with her rustlings and crunching.
Our method of transport was much more mundane as we were restricted to public buses operated either by Gibson Brothers of Barlestone or by the Midland Red. Gibson operatives all wore their own clothes and so just had a membership tag in their lapels. Midland Red was much more dignified and had a dark navy blue uniform. Some of the Gibsons' men lived in Desford and so were more relaxed with the customers. The Midland buses travelled all the way to Tamworth, a place I could only dream about as I couldn't read maps when six or seven years old.
On numerous occasions we used a pony and trap where grownups sat on a bench seat with a horse rug wrapped around their legs, while the children sat on the floor at the rear, huddled in another blanket.
Dad always wore a bowler hat and in an early incident when the horse was trotting quite fast the rubber tyre became unfastened and whipped up and cut a slice into the rim. It probably was knocked off but I wasn't there at the time. This was a well-told tale and the bowler hat was kept as a souvenir with people allowed to finger the cut.
The pony used for these trips was invariably the grey called Bob and he was given to bouts of flatulence. This tendency always caused great amusement to driver and passengers with the exception of my Aunt Dorothy who had ideas above her station and thought this very crude.
Aunt Doll lived somewhere in Yorkshire and somehow had acquired these grand ideas of herself. I think it was related to her marriage to Uncle Cyril who was an insurance salesman or something like that.
More about meals. Bread was bought from Mr Geary at the bakery, and kept in a pancheon made from clayware with the yellow outer face and white inner, and a cloth was thrown over to keep out the flies. The midday meal was called dinner and often consisted of a roast meat with vegetables plus a pudding with some body to it. Braised liver was often served with lots of thick gravy but we seldom had fish thank goodness as when provided it was poached in milk and was lacking in taste.
Mother made lots of pies and open tarts and these were always covered with lashings of custard {vanilla from Birds}. One favourite pudding was called spotted dick, which was a white sausage of suet flour mix with raisins all rolled in a cloth and boiled in water. The sauce was the piece de resistance being made from roux flavoured with blackberry vinegar. It was a matter of honour to clear such meals and not leave leftovers.
Other puddings included fruit sponges, blackberry and apple suet pudding in a bowl, treacle tarts, and Yorkshire pudding served either with gravy or with sugar and vinegar dip. Stewed fruit often appeared as well. Seldom was cream dished up, as this would have needed money to be bought from the Richardsons.
That sounds crazy as we had a separating unit in the dairy but it was never used during my lifetime. To separate milk would have resulted in semi-skimmed that would not have been acceptable to the Coop, and the milk cheque was all-important.
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