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Thursday 7th January 2021

OXSHOTT MEMORIES

I've always wondered what it would feel like to be 82 years old - today I've stopped wondering - I know how it feels.

To celebrate I took a walk down Memory Lane, Oxshott.  I started at No 36 Little Heath Lane, it used to be called The Brambles, where my great grandparents and grandparents lived.  I tried to imagine what it was like for my great grandfather John and my grandfather Jack who both made bricks in The Brickfield from about 1880.  Despite working all hours, they both managed to produce enough fruit, veg and chickens to keep their families going for the whole year.

I then strolled up Little Heath Lane past No 30 where Mr Horitz used to live, past Links Green Way which used to be a cart track into the field.  The Barn in the corner of the field had a hayloft which was really out of bounds but Joy, Leila and Flicky didn't seem to care.

Also, out of bounds was the pear trees in the orchard a bit further up but a shirt full of juicy pears was too much to resist, except when a swarm of angry wasps found their way down your trousers!

On up past all the cottages built by John Early Cook for his 'brickies' up to Brown's Corner.  Brown's Shop was a hive of activity.  Jack was busily slicing bacon while Maud sliced chunks of cheese with her wire cheese cutter and served customers with everything they needed - if they had enough coupons in their Ration Books that is.  There were three prams parked outside his grocery shop.  Meanwhile Vi in the sweet shop round the corner would be serving Liquorice Allsorts, R White's Lemonade, blocks of Walls Ice Cream and 5 Woodbines if you told her they were for your Dad!

On past a wooden shack under a tree where I used to collect newspapers and deliver them around the village for George Ackerman on cold and frosty mornings before I went to school.  The shack used to belong to Ernie Neal the Cobbler.

Next to George's shack were a pair of cottages. Ted, Lester and Freda were just off to school and old Charlie and his wife  waved from their front garden.  Between the cottages and the level crossing was the entrance to the Brickfield.  There was nobody on the gate so I wandered in.  The small row of admin offices on the right piled high with dusty ledgers seemed empty.   Opposite was the largest of the buildings which was the brick firing kilns with the towering chimney next to it.  The coal trucks were being unloaded behind. Then came the conveyor belt to transport the dried bricks into the kiln.  They had to be dried for a couple of weeks otherwise they would explode,  final drying would take place in the kiln, you could tell when there was no more moisture in the bricks when the chimney stopped 'steaming', the temperature could then be racked up to 1800F (980C).  Row upon row of drying bricks were racked alongside the moulding shed.  Inside the moulding shed my great grandfather looked at me, handed me a brick mould full of clay and said ‘here you are son take this out to the drying rack and be quick about it’.  I did as I was told and ran off past more machinery and cottages down to the clay pit.  The lumbering hinged arm continuous bucket scrapers were busy gouging out clay, they had already gone down two levels and were starting on a third when suddenly the whole pit filled with water leaving the diggers submerged transforming itself into a tranquil lake complete with benches and picnic tables..

I emerged back onto the road just in time to see a free wheeling coal truck rolling across the road into the brickfield on the third rail track, the guy hanging on to the back with his other hand on the brake smiled.  The large wooden gate across the road pivoted on its hinges which were buried into a concrete post - the post and hinges are still there.  I waved at Bill in his signal box furiously winding the crossing gates open, the chunky steel gate stops popping up out of the road just in time.

On to Aylings Corner covered in a liberal coating of cow dung which is now the junction of Blundel Lane and Oxdowne Close.  I stopped under the gas lamp, looked in my paper bag and read somebody's Eagle. On along Blundel Lane to No 27 where I lived from 1947 to 1966.   The powerful beam from the searchlight a couple of fields away bounced around in the clouds searching for enemy aircraft.  I took the dog up to Poly Apes to check if we had a rabbit for lunch, how could I?    Back up the new section of Blundel Lane, which I remember used to be a field full of cows, the smell from the smoke stack on the fish and chip van parked opposite No 9 on a Friday night was teasing - if you could find it in the smog.  On up to the start of Steels Lane arriving at Little Heath Farm Cottages with an outside toilet where I was born in 1939 - not in the toilet!.  I looked into the front garden just as the bomb landed in the deckchair (see below).  It was 4am on April 1st 1944, the blast demolished the cottages trapping my mother and I for hours in the rubble, we were probably given up for dead.  My father and the family next door amazingly also survived without a scratch.  The cottages are now rebuilt and have the same name.

On up past Banjo Hussey's junk yard, next door, where I bought a few bits of bike and put them together to make a whole bike, I called it an ASP (all spare parts), my mates had AJS's, BSA's and BMW's. On past the entrance to The Oxshott Sports Club remembering all the characters in the Cricket, Bowls and Tennis Clubs, not forgetting the yearly mesmerising Oxshott Fete.  I popped in to watch Percy with his pipe bowling his ball, Cyril taking out the opposition with his slow left arm round the wicket spin, the girls cracking hockey sticks and the archers on the far side trying to hit the bulls eye.

A glance into The Withies next door where we used to live for a short while in 1945/6. On up to the Village Hall, now disappeared into the church car park, where we used to hold Whist Drives and borrow books from the Library Room round the back.  We also danced around the hall to the strains of Tommy's windup gramophone at The Old Tyme Dance Club on a Monday night.  On past the Church where I used to be in the choir.  A long pause at The Oxshott (Mens) Club opposite the church where I spent many a happy year round the snooker table with the curtains tightly closed on a lovely summer evening.

Carrying on up Oakshade Road past Potters Croft, The Pottery Studio hiding in the orchard run by the Wren family - it was The News Chronicle for them.  A glance over to Trenchard and Arlidge at the top of Oakshade Road which morphed into Geoff Osman's electrical shop where I took my grandparents glass lead/acid accumulator to be charged up so they could listen to Tommy Handley on the radio (no electricity in The Brambles).  I collected the accumulator, hooked the handle over the handlebars of my ASP and cycled back to The Brambles.    On to the High Street, trying to avoid memories of The Vic.  Ginger the horse emerged from the bakery dragging his wagon with Bert and Pete aboard delivering bread around the village.

I arrived at The Royal Kent School (now the filling station) where I learnt to read and write despite many visits to the bomb shelter on the green opposite.  Also opposite the school was the Air Raid Siren on top of a tall post and next to that was the telephone box, I opened the heavy door, inserted tuppence, dialled Akela and pressed button A to earn my communications badge to sew onto my cubs uniform. On down Steels Lane to the junction of Holtwood Road where there was another bomb shelter.  

Today, standing proud opposite where the bomb shelter used to be, is The Oxshott Village Sign.

Thanks for the memories.