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The following are memories recalled by Mr R A Hoadley, as recorded by Hanover Housing Association in their book 'Tale of the Century' published in 1999.
 Grown-ups will tell you that the 21st or 22nd of June is Midsummer's Day but we kids knew better. Midsummer was August. Midsummer was five or six weeks blessed release from school.
It was the time of year when the sun was already high as you sat down to breakfast. When the Downs looked hazy and distant and dad came out with his odd joke about it being a bad day for carting chalk.
After a gulped breakfast you worried mum for a cheese sandwich and something to drink -- usually a bottle of water, although if she was in a good mood it might be cold tea. If dad was in a good mood it might be a few pence for a bottle of pop. A rummage in the kitchen drawer produced a brown paper bag to carry the lunch. Mum knew there was no chance that the sandwich would dry out, it would be eaten long before lunch-time.
Then it was time to be setting off down the road to collect your mates.
There were only three or four of us but it nearly always took at least half an hour to decide where we were going. The choices seemed infinite and each of us had definite and conflicting ideas of where we wanted to go.
We could go swimming in the river at Shiprods, climbing trees in the Hurst Road woods. One of us might fancy fishing in the brook over by Woolfly, or we could go and look through the windows of the abandoned house at Little Wapses, where we might see the ghost, (not the most popular idea).
They were glorious mornings, the sun high and hot. Usually the sandwiches were disposed of within the first half hour, anyone foolish enough to leave something for later had to share it three or four ways and it was a nuisance having to carry a brown paper bag with you all the time.
The grass, still short and stubbly after the hay making, smelled dry and acrid, grasshoppers jumped out from under our feet and a wary eye was kept open for snakes. Most frequently these were the inoffensive grass snake, but occasionally we would encounter an Adder and experience a delicious thrill of fear. We knew that Adders attacked on sight and the moment they struck, you dropped dead.
In the still heat of the woods the most noticeable thing was the silence. No clashing of branches in a gusty breeze, just the occasional flutter of wings or call of a bird as our appearance disturbed them. Emphasising the silence, the low hum of insects busy among the undergrowth; even we boys felt it necessary to speak in half whispers.
The woods were a magical place. A place of extremes, of light and shade, of silence and sudden noises. Vague movements, seen from the corner of the eye, startled the imagination. When you looked, there was nothing to be seen but dark watching thickets dappled with sunlight.
It was a secret world cut off from our own familiar landscape and when we happened to cross a ride and look down the long green tunnel of trees it was with a shock of surprise that we saw the fields and hedges beyond the boundary of the wood.
It was inevitable that we should find a tree that was just crying out to be climbed. Eagerly we would trust our way upward among the branches, daring our companions to greater heights, thinner branches; careful not to disturb the jay's nest in case he wanted it next year.
 At the top, the view was confined to the crowns of the surrounding trees and often obscured by taller trees growing nearby. The joy and achievement of reaching the top, the fun of swaying the tree until you were cutting arcs through the pine scented air; the fascination of looking down on the pygmies who were your mates. All this made it worth the effort.
By mid-day we had usually reached water and where there was water we had to be in or on it. Swimming if it was a river, paddling in a stream, or using a five barred field gate on a pond for a raft. No matter what we did we managed to get soaked and covered in mud. Out bottles of drink also went into the water to keep cool.
In the heat of the early afternoon we would seek the shade of the trees that grew beside the water and lay on our backs in the lush, cool grass, wishing we had not already eaten our lunch.
And there we would lay, absorbed into the summer afternoon; watching a hawk patiently hovering in the sultry air, fierce eyes seeking the unwary mouse. Or, eyes closed, filling the mind with the tranquil sounds of summer, the bumbling of bees, the solitary splash of a water rat or the occasional harsh protest of a disturbed rook.
And we knew that we were privileged occupants of a beautiful planet; that we loved the hawk and the rooks, the grass and the trees and we loved our companions. But even if we had the words we would never say them; that would be girlish. So to break the spell we would jump up and hurl insults and clods, and run shouting across the field in search of new adventures. But we knew how we felt and were content.
When the day was drawing to a close and bats flirted in the dusk and the white owl passed dreamlike on silent wings, we returned to our homes and supper. A group of small boys; dirty, tired and at peace with the world.
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