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Chapter 1   Early Childhood at Hay-on-Wye

 
I was born on 1st February 1928 in the delightful Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye.  A quiet country town with lots of historical interest and nestled between the beautiful River Wye and the spectacular Black Mountains.  I was rather reluctant to arrive and had to be dragged into this world by obstetric forceps manipulated by Dr.Tom Hincks at no.2 Garibaldi Terrace, an event my father described as a 'very painful business'.  Dr. Hincks was one of my Mother's heroes.  He was a 'fine figure of a man' who on occasions would visit his patients on horse back clad in his full red hunting suit. He lived at Kilverts which was then a private residence.  He was a well-loved, first-rate, single-handed doctor with a widespread country practice extending into the Black Mountains.  Eventually he acquired a car which became known as 'Uncle Tom's cabin' and it had a stretcher attachment that served as an ambulance.  He came to national fame in the Armstrong arsenic poisoning murder case at Hay in 1922.  Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong, T.D., M.A., Solicitor and Clerk to the local Magistrates in Hay was accused of poisoning his wife and fellow solicitor and was subsequently hanged in May 1922.  Dr. Hincks was faced with diagnosing the extremely rare and unsuspected symptoms of arsenic poisoning. The case is still the subject of interest, controversy, TV serial and book publications. 'Dr.Tom' died in 1933 at the age of 57 while riding his horse on a hunt, after 34 years of medical service in Hay and district.
      My mother was a Warwickshire farmer's daughter and the eldest of five. She was a wonderful homemaker and gave of herself most generously to her family and Church.  My father was a bank clerk in the National Provincial Bank in Hay.  Both were devout Christians with a strong Methodist heritage.  The love of my parents has been a great source of security and strength to me all my life.
      I remember my mother's many farming relatives loved to come and visit us at Hay, particularly grandfather Dawson who walked the hills and Uncle Bill who came to buy sheep dogs from the Welsh hill farmers.
      We frequently went to paddle and swim in the river Wye.  I was rather timid about learning to swim in deep water and I would try and dodge the dip by saying I would look after the clothes on the bank! 
      When I was 5 years old I started my education at Hay Infant School which has now been demolished and replaced by a Police Station.  I did not do well at school to the extent that my teacher told my father I was backward and possibly mentally retarded.  I distinctly remember difficulty in writing my full name and in addition I had reading problems, mixing up small words like it and is, suggestive of dyslexia which was probably unknown at that time.
      We lived at three different houses in Hay.  After my parents were married on 23rd February 1927, at Meriden Methodist Chapel and a honeymoon in Jersey, they moved into no.2 Garibaldi Terrace where I was born and later on, they moved next door to no.1 Garibaldi, the end terraced house with a large garage to house my father's Singer car.

Our last home in Hay was 'Skynlas House', Church Street. This was a large 3-storey building with a double door entrance, short drive and garage for our Morris Cowley car. There was a secluded spacious lawn and garden to play in.  My brother, Stuart, was born in this house on 18th October 1932. I can remember being taken to see him just after his forceps birth and being quite disappointed that his eyes were closed, as I had taken a comic for him to look at! The move to 'Skynlas House was for me most fortuitous because next door but one, at 'Ingle Nook', there lived a spinster lady, Miss K.Kedwards, who became my 'Auntie Kit'. She was a warm enthusiastic person who loved children and was always most welcoming, so that I came and went to her house as I pleased.  She was most generous and would arrange magical surprises for me in her garden summerhouse. There was an old fashioned mystical atmosphere in the decorations and furnishings of her house and her colourful voluble pet parrot added to the fascination with the place.
  When we left Hay I was really sorry to leave Auntie Kit behind. We corresponded
In 1934 my father was promoted in the National Provincial Bank from 'cashier' in Hay to 'accountant' in the Ledbury branch.

Chapter 2 Ledbury

During their married life my parents lived in 11 houses in 6 different towns or villages. Most of the moves were necessitated by my father's work in the Bank. Mother hated moving house especially to a new town where she would become nostalgic about the previous place in which she had good enduring friendships. This applied particularly to Hay, where at first she found the Black Mountains cold and forbidding and yet in later life, she loved to visit renewing old friendships and enjoying the beauty and splendour of the countryside there.
      As in Hay, the four houses we lived in at Ledbury were all rented because my father was anticipating further moves in his banking career. As it turned out, we lived in Ledbury for 13 years (1934-47). The onset of the 2nd World War in 1939 stopped all retirements in the Bank except those necessitated by ill health and as a consequence there were very few bank promotions and movement of employees.
      As the accountant my father was second-in-command at the Ledbury National Provincial Bank and the Manager was Mr.W.G.Allen. He was a social and witty man but difficult to work with because his chit-chat and gossip would so delay the routine work of the bank staff, and in particular my father. Mr.and Mrs. Allen, who lived in the large bank house above and behind the bank, had two daughters about the same age as Stuart and me. We were sometimes invited there to tea, but we were always reluctant guests, partly because we had a 'Just William' male chauvinist view of girls, but also because we had to be on our very best behaviour as representatives of the Bramley family. The eldest Allen daughter, Sheila, eventually became quite a famous actress appearing on a number of TV productions.
       I was sent to a private junior school known as Court House School run by two spinster sisters, the Misses Wades, who were both good teachers. Stuart later attended the same school but it eventually closed when the Misses Wades retired.
      At first we lived at The Homend, an ancient black and white half-timbered building with a front door opening on to the pavement of the main street. Above the door there was a large overhanging leaded bay window where bench seats provided a popular area for people watching. Just opposite there was a busy cycle repair shop which blared out the popular music of the day and I well remember hearing the song 'The man on the flying trapeze' repeatedly. At the back of the house was Hill's large builder's yard of which I seemed to have free run. The house has now been converted into a Baker's shop.
      Later we moved to a large 5-bedroom detached house called 'Redlands' at the top of Newbury Park.  'Redlands' had a dark spooky cellar and the house was surrounded by a huge garden with lawns and many rose beds. Stuart and I had lots of space for adventurous and imaginative play. We often played with the girl next door, who was about my age. On one occasion her elder brother tied me hand and foot to a long plank and then lifted me upright balanced precariously on the end of the plank. I immediately fell forwards and unable to save myself with outstretched hands, I cut my chin on the ground. This distressing and tearful episode ended in the doctor's surgery having my lacerated chin stitched up.
         I remember with relish that on a Saturday morning, a man from a nearby bakery would wheel a large boxed in barrow to our road selling fresh bread and cakes.  I was allowed one penny to buy a cream bun powdered delicately with a fine white sugar. In those days I had one penny pocket money per week, which would buy a Milky Way. One of my closest friends was Dick Taylor, the Grocer's son, who lived in a large house just across the road from 'Redlands'. I sometimes stayed the night at his house and we had good fun together as boys. Previously they lived in the house above their shop at the corner of the Upper Cross, and there in the large stores behind the shop, I remember we illicitly sampled roasted coffee beans and grated coconut; quite a nice combination we agreed. Later on, the Taylor family moved out of the town to Hollybush beyond Eastnor. It was beautiful country there just at the southern end of the Malvern Hills. . I loved staying with the family who made me most welcome. Dick and I had a great time playing in a tree house and in the winter snow we would toboggan down the hills on tin trays.
      We moved again to a rented detached house called 'Badminton' in New Street. In a garden on the opposite side of the road there was a tree in which nightingales would sing long and loud keeping my mother awake at night.
      Stuart and I had nine maternal cousins, three from each family of my mother's two sisters Cecily, and Norah and one brother Leslie. They were all farming families in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and most hospitable and generous, so that during school holidays we were privileged to stay on different farms with our cousins. My cousin Pat Snelson and I were about the same age and became very good friends. We played imaginative games involving banks and shops and had a passion for joining clubs.

Chapter 3 Shebbear College 1938-1940

I am not quite sure why I was sent to a boarding school in 1938. It may have been related to the fact that 8 out of 9 of my maternal cousins went to Methodist boarding schools, but I do know that it caused my parents considerable financial sacrifice to send me. Unfortunately this educational venture was cut short in 1940.
      I was the only one of the immediate family to go to Shebbear College. It was one of the least expensive of the Methodist boarding schools. At the time, the fees for board and tuition for boys under 12 years were 18 guineas per term (books were extra, laundry £1 per term, sports 5 shillings per term, medical attendance 5 shillings per term).
      The school was set in the beautiful and relatively remote countryside of North Devon, mid way between Bideford and Okehampton, north of the Dartmoor hills.
      Shebbear College was founded in 1841 and its origins were closely associated with the birth of the Bible Christian movement in the West Country, which subsequently united with other Methodist Churches and the college's links with Methodism are still strong.
      At the age of just 10 years I was both excited and very apprehensive about leaving home for the first time. On 12th January 1938 I remember meeting other Shebbearians, at Gloucester railway station, and they took charge of me for the remainder of the train journey to Shebbear.
      At that time it was a boy's school of about 110 pupils of which 15 were dayboys. They were short of pupils and I have since heard that one of the schoolmaster's tasks was to visit surrounding farmers and encourage them to send their sons to Shebbear.
      On the first day I was instructed to carefully read the school rules, which I found most bewildering as there were several pages of them and I did not know the routines of school life. By present day standards discipline was strict with grades of punishment from writing lines to the 'Scats' administered only by teaching staff. Scats involved bending over and being struck on the bottom by a shoe or plimsole. I can remember boys putting a towel under their pants to soften the blows! In the evening we had to be in bed with lights out at a fixed time but on Sunday evenings the lights were left on for an extra half hour to permit reading. However, in this half hour we were not allowed out of bed. On one Sunday evening I was caught out of bed by the French master, as I was in the process of swapping comics with another boy. For this relatively minor offence I received the scats, which made a lasting impression on me.
      The pupils were allocated to be in one of three school houses. Thorne House, named in memory of a founder and one of the first Bible Christians, James Thorne 17951872. Ruddle House in memory of a headmaster from 1864-1909. I was put in Pollard House which was named in memory of a renowned China Missionary, Sam Pollard (18641915), a Bible Christian, who established schools and hospitals in China and gave the hitherto unwritten Miao language an alphabet, a grammar and the beginnings of a literature. He was referred to as a missionary genius. He died of typhoid fever on 15 September 1915 and was "buried on a hillside at Stone Gateway in Juizhon Province, South West China amid the grief of thousands". His grave memorial was subsequently destroyed by the communists, but has recently been restored and is now a designated National Chinese memorial. (ref: "A school apart" p.66).
      For the first few days at Shebbear I was rather lonely and homesick but on the whole, my two year stay there was happy. I don't remember any bullying though there was the occasional fight.
      One of my enduring life friendships was with David Shorney, son of a very popular master, A. B. Shorney. He was on the staff for 21 years and during that time taught maths, physics, geography, economics, rural science and woodwork. The latter subject because, as the headmaster put it, "his father was a builder". In addition he was choirmaster, scoutmaster of troop I, and a local preacher. The Shorney family were very kind to me and I was often asked to their home for Sunday tea which was always very elegantly served by Mrs Dorothy Shorney. I did not know it at first, but on my appointment as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon to Stafford District in 1973, we moved into a house that was almost in the next street to where Mr and Mrs Shorney lived when they retired. In fact their daughter Sylvia, a music teacher, taught my children at the local junior school. Unfortunately Mr Shorney died before I was aware that he lived in Stafford but it was a great pleasure to renew the friendship with Mrs Shorney and David who was a history lecturer at Avery Hill College in London.
      I suppose, like most boarding schools, Shebbear had its share of traditional rituals. One of the initiation rituals was that all new boys, who were known as 'bucky-new-snips', had to sing a solo in their particular dormitory. In addition I remember having to crawl under the beds in a dormitory of about 10 and being struck by pillows between beds.
      The school outfit list included, for so called "best wear", a black suit of jacket, waistcoat and pin striped trousers to be worn with a white shirt and stiff white 'Eton' collar. So dressed on a Sunday morning we would queue up to receive our Chapel collection of a small silver three-penny piece which was collected and recycled every Sunday. We would promenade in crocodile formation to the Lake Chapel about 500 yards from the school.
      The third Sunday before the end of term was known as "button-hole Sunday", when we were expected to sport a flower in our jacket lapel for the Chapel service. The second Sunday before the end of term was called "odd sock Sunday" when we would wear brightly coloured but odd socks. The last Sunday of term was called "kick the door" Sunday, when as we were leaving the school for Chapel, we would stand with our backs to a large stout exit door and kick the door with the sole of our shoe. An odd practice, but it "let off steam". I have no idea how it originated.
      What I did enjoy more, at the end of term, was the excitement of midnight dorm. feasts, when we finished off the remnants of our 'tuck boxes', and when it was generally understood the Masters would turn a blind eye to our excesses in eating and taking a spooky walk around the school and grounds.
      All the boarders' footwear was kept in a large room known as the 'boot hole' which was lined from floor to ceiling with compartmental open shelves, and we were each allocated a section of shelf on which to keep our shoes. There was a separate bench on which to clean shoes.  My mother insisted that I take a pair of boots to school which had hardly been worn, but it was felt that I had to get some wear out of them before they became too small. In the college no one wore boots except for rugby. On one occasion I did summons the courage to put on my boots for everyday wear, but I was so teased as 'farmer's boy' or 'kicker' that I never did wear them again.  I became so self-conscious of my boots on show in the boot hole, that I cut the tops of the boots off to make them look like shoes. Unfortunately it was not a success. When I finally went home my mother found the adulterated boots in my trunk. She expressed horror and dismay but she did not scold me as much as I thought she might. Fortunately she was sensitive to my feelings but the story was told around the family with much amusement and to my embarrassment.
      Another embarrassment occurred on a "Speech Day" when my parents, grandparents, two aunts and an uncle visited the school. I upset and hurt all my guests by ignoring them as I left the Lake Chapel after a commemoration service in which I had been singing in the choir.  I joined the other boys walking back to the school leaving my dismayed visitors standing outside the chapel. I am not quite sure why I did it, but it must have been something to do with the psychology of small boys. I don't think I was ashamed of my guests but it may have been that I would be self-conscious of any show of affection and kisses in front of my peers. It was something I always regretted.
      On speech days, college boys and old Shebbearians would sing the school song in Latin 'Integer Vitae' which we all had to learn by heart.  My father often quoted the words, 'there is a standard in this place', from a speech on that Speech Day by Rev. Richard Pyke, himself an Old Boy, Chairman of the Board of Governors, and President of the Methodist Conference 1939-40.
      Sports played quite a big part in school life and although I did not excel in any sport, I did swim in the open-air swimming pool and played tennis. On one occasion I felt proud to be selected to play for the Colts rugby XV away at Barnstaple Grammar School. However it was a very disappointing game and I felt most ineffectual. The opposing team were much bigger and heavier and we were soundly beaten 50 - 0.

School swimming pool

I joined the college choir because I was told the choir was invited to give concerts in the surrounding villages and Church Halls especially in the Autumn Term near Christmas. The concerts were followed by hearty refreshments provided by our hosts. On such occasions I would be asked by my non-singing friends to bring back something for them. When I returned home for holidays my mother was most intrigued by the large number of sticky crumbs in my best jacket pockets. Not much escaped my mother's notice!
      While at Shebbear I moved up from the cubs to the scouts.  I particularly enjoyed tracking in the country woods around the school and a Summer Camp at Westward Ho! There was the magic of community singing around a large campfire at nights, the haunting sea fog horn at Hartland point and the background rhythm of waves crashing on the seashore.
      One of my most outstanding memories of Shebbear is of being hungry most of the time, and the poor quality of food, at least by present day standards, for young growing boys. I feel sure the college was run on a very tight budget and it was also wartime.
Breakfast consisted of porridge, fried bread and fried potatoes, bread and butter. Lunch was usually meat and two vegetables. The meat was invariably gristly, and fatty. The vegetables were usually boiled potatoes, cabbage or swede, invariably overcooked in what I call an institutional way. There was a sweet of usually rice pudding or stewed fruit and custard. Tea provided was bread and butter and tea. It was assumed that this meal would be supplemented from your 'tuck box' which was a locked wooden box of provisions, brought from home at the beginning of term and kept in the 'tuck room', which we were allowed to visit briefly once a day before tea.  My tuck box usually contained jam, marmite and tinned foods especially baked beans and fruit, cakes and biscuits. The contents were replenished from home by a half term parcel that was eagerly looked forward to, and usually contained a cake which was shared with friends and very quickly consumed.
      My pocket money of 6d a week (sixpence) was low compared to most who had twice and some four times as much. My allowance did not permit big spending at the 'Tuck Shop'. I certainly did appreciate mother's home cooking in the school holidays.
       My time at Shebbear, 1938-40, at the beginning of the war with food rationing, was an austere time and rightly or wrongly I have tended to think that my below average physical stature was partly due to poor nutrition at an important growing phase in life. And this may also have been a contributory factor to the onset of an acute life threatening illness which started in May 1940 and which led to my permanent departure from the college. The illness started at half term weekend when I went on a long full day tiring country walk with a friend, followed by a game of tennis in the evening. So far as I know there was no preliminary knock or infection that led to my development of staphlococcal septicaemia (blood poisoning) and bilateral staphlococcal pneumonia associated with acute osteomyelitis of the bone in my left upper arm (humerus). There was no certain cure for this life threatening illness, as penicillin was not currently available for general use.  I was given Sulphonamides (so called M & B drugs) which I think may have saved my life but did not prevent the bone infection becoming a chronic process necessitating periods of prolonged hospitalisation over a number of years until 1948. As a consequence I missed a great deal of schooling and boyhood development.
      During the initial acute illness I was unconscious or in semi coma for a number of days and although I was not aware of it, on 20th May 1940, I was transferred from the sick bay at school to Bideford Hospital under the care of Mr Ellis Pearson FRCS, surgeon to that hospital.
      And so I never returned to Shebbear as a pupil. I had started in the lowest form, IIIb, and left in the next form, IIIa. My scholastic achievements were average or below. However, I started to enjoy reading books and novels, which opened up a new world and stood me in good stead during the long years of my illness.

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