|
 | |  | |
Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. He now lives in Australia.
I was absolutely amazed at seeing a real live fish for the first time, in its natural environment. I had only seen gold fish before and they always lived in a glass bowl! Seeing frogs for the first time made me laugh with much glee. I would spend hours most days, trying to catch one and when I did, I was too scared to hold it.
After I had got over my initial fear of frogs, I finally got the courage to pick them up and I learnt how to hold them real tight, so they couldn't get away.
You didn't see toads often in the water, instead you could find them under certain large stones. Other kids told me they could spit in your eye, and their spit made you so sick, that you eventually died!
I loved lying on my belly on the warm stone flagging that formed the pathway at the ditch. I would spend many pleasant hours trying to catch the baby sticklebacks, or 'Tiddlers' as the local kids called them. Using cupped hand, you could slowly get a hand under a tiny fish. Then before you knew it would suddenly dart away!
Then there was the 'blood suckers' (leeches). These multi green and black coloured creatures were always waving their heads around in the swift current looking like baby snakes. Leeches always made me so afraid. Gramps didn't help much. He said 'They just might get into your ear holes and then would suck your brains out!'
There were the water beetles, boatmen we called them, that skated along on the surface of the water in the ditches that ran down the side of the village road. There were the water spiders that could dive beneath the water clutching a bubble of air. Then later you could watch them release the bubble into their underwater nest.
There were midges, or 'gnats' as us kids called them that bit your head incessantly, making you scratch furiously. I hated them, as all you could do was rub your head as they bit and gnawed your scalp. Grans had cut all my hair off and Roy's too. She said we were 'lousy'.
We had a fishing net that a bigger kid had made, from an old discarded lace curtain attached within a circle of wire to a stick. Then came the excitement of having sticklebacks, or 'Redthroats' as the village kids called them, in jam-jars.
I would spend countless happy hours each day laying on my tummy, staring down into the deep holes in the ditch. These holes were scooped out, so people could fill a bucket by dipping it into the ditch.
There was one such hole in the ditch right near the front of Grans house, along side Mrs Monks garden wall. A big toad lived under the large paving slab you laid down on, and you always looked under it before you started catching things just in case the toad came out and had a go at you!
There was another much deeper hole in the ditch down near the pub where water was got for the pigs. Mr Walters would complain bitterly, to anyone who would listen, when other folks let soapsuds into the ditch.
One day I over balanced and promptly fell head first into a hole. Luckily the hole was outside Grans house. Well was there a commotion, I spluttered and gasped for air, but instead inhaled soapy ditchwater. I finally found my legs and after the initial shock exuded the water from both my lungs and stomach by letting go with a much-needed cry.
Gramps found me later, wet and disheveled. Eventually soothing me by telling me that now I could never leave the village! Such stories stemmed from the superstitious way of thinking by the Hanney village folk.
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
