I was born in my Gran’s back bedroom in Church Street, Marton, the second daughter of Louis and Violet Stevens. The Stevens family were residents of Marton for many years. The reason for my parents living with my Grandparents was that the cottage in Shepherds Street, where my parents had lived for about five years, was a very old, thatched cottage and the ceiling had fallen in. As my mother was pregnant, she had to move somewhere safer.
I was 2 when we moved to the house named Malt Kiln by the Bank House in Long Itchington, where my sister Barbara Jean was born.
Later we moved to a thatched cottage on The Green. This was much larger and had a very big garden which suited my dad, as he had always had an allotment when they lived in Marton. We started to make improvements to the cottage as the floors were just brick and soil. My dad plastered and whitewashed the wattle and daub walls and then fitted linoleum on the floors. As we got older, we were taught to make ‘pegged rugs’ while listening to the Accumulator Wireless by the light of a paraffin lamp, which had to be filled and primed every night.
I started at Long Itchington Infant school when I was four and a half. Miss Sprools was my teacher. The classroom was at the back of the school, through the front door and cloakroom which led to the little playground. My mum told me that one playtime I thought it was dinner time and had walked home; there were no school dinners then.
I went to school, with my urum (dummy) pinned to my jumper. In winter after the snow, when the floods swept up the village from Brook Turn to the Square, we walked to school either through the water in our wellies if it wasn’t too deep or along the back gardens and down the school fields.
In nice weather we would do Country Dancing and Sports. We were always taken up to the Green when the Hunt met, to see all the horses and dogs. Once a year, at Whitsun, the Wake (Fair) appeared on the Green.
The Buck and Bell was my dad’s favourite pub. Sometimes we were allowed to fetch a jug of beer and a bottle of pop to make a shandy especially on hot summer nights.
After the farmer had finished harvesting, we would go gleaning for bits of corn that had been left behind, to feed the chickens that we kept in runs in the garden. On Saturdays we would potato pick for Mr Grimes of Whitehall Farm. Landgirls and some German prisoners of war from Birdingbury also worked there, I was about thirteen then and quite grown up!
In those days the village had Top Windsor’s, a general store, Bottom Windsor’s the bakery, Miss Pairs sweet shop, a paper shop, Mark Alsop Butchers at Brook Turn and a Co-op on the same site, managed by Mr and Mrs Eric Dunne. Mr. Smith the headmaster’s daughter, Molly, had a hairdressers shop. I had my first perm there, a treat out of my first wage packet of 14 shillings.
Edna’s account of growing up in Long Itchington continues next month.
Yew Tree Cottage, Edna’s family home in Long Itchington
Southam Heritage Collection is located in the atrium of Tithe Place opposite the Library entrance. Opening times We shall be closed for the first few weeks of January, then open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings from 10am to 12 noon. To find out more about Southam’s history, visit our website www.southamheritage.org telephone 01926 613503 or email southamheritage@hotmail.com You can also follow us on Facebook.
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