The Desford junior school was very fortunate to have a garden enclosed within a brick wall, reminisced Jack Hill (born 1926). This was immediately to the south of the Infants school. For one afternoon per week the boys were allowed to potter around there.

I recall the good condition of the tools. Everything had to be cleaned at the end of the day and given a coating of oil to stop rust forming. Being a monitor I was given the task of looking after the tools and seldom had to do any hard work such as digging.

This is the time when I learned about the technique of double digging even though the ground didn't really require such treatment. Strangely, I can't remember harvesting the fruits of our labours.

The annual visit by the dentist was a traumatic period and he and his assistant took over a small room next to the entrance. The smell of disinfectant permeated the school and the continuous movement of children in an out was a constant reminder of one's fate in due course. I remember having an extraction and then being given a wadge of rolled bandage to stuff into the gap.

Walking to the chair was like crunching across the beach with discarded teeth scattered across the floor. The drill for fillings was operated by a foot pedal and the sound of the whirring rose and fell as the dentist's foot took the strain.

I don't recall having a regular toothbrush but do remember seeing dentrifice made by Gibbs and sold in a round tin with a screw top lid.

Throughout my school days I would experience occasional attacks of biliousness at breakfast time. The only recourse was to sit outside in the fresh air and try reducing the nausea with a glass of ENO's fruit salts, a form of antacid. Just before 9 o-clock I would resolve to go to school, would call in at the Archers' shop for a small packet of arrowroot biscuits and then munch them as I walked through the alleyway past the chapel.

The idea prevailed that I was prone to anaemia and so I had a regular supply of a pleasant tasting red coloured liquid, which was taken every morning until the bottle was finished . It must have been a
concoction available at Chawners or the chemists in Main Street for I seldom went to visit the doctor at his large house next door to the church.

The village had a Boy Scout troop but I never had any connection with it simply because our family was chapel orientated and the scouts were attached to the C of E church.

Ice cream was sold from two very different vendors. First was the Mazzarella horse drawn cart with a roof where the ice cream was contained in a circular tub in the middle of the cart. The Chrome plated lid was lifted off and the scoop plunged in. The ice cream was heaped up on a cone and smeared between wafers. I often took along a cup so that none should be lost in the melting. The dregs could be scooped up with one's finger.

The other vendor had a franchise with Walls and came with a three-wheeled vehicle. The box for the ices was on the two front wheels and the cycling section had pedals, gears and the seat. The ices were pre-wrapped and were much harder and therefore kept just a little longer during the eating process.

Somehow one of the schoolmates knew the vendor who was not from the village and he would obtain small lumps of dry ice for distribution.

This material was so cold that it burned one's fingers, and so when the bell rang for return to classes the only way to keep it would be to pop it into one's trouser pocket. The fabric insulated the cold for a short while but sooner or later the cold would freeze the cloth to ones leg. Then the only solution was to quickly discard the lump under ones desk.

Fortunately no-one ever tried to eat lumps of this ice. I can't bear to think of the consequences. In later years soft drinks were brought to the village by a white painted drop sided lorry owned by the LAWS Company {Lindsey Aerated Water Supply} based in Lincolnshire. Otherwise one bought a bottle of Tizer from Mrs Archer or Harry Bishop's shop.