How did children amuse themselves then?
No radio, T.V, buses, cars or cinema no ready made entertainment.
There was little organised sport for children then. Two highlights in this village, the Sunday school treat, and the Friendly Society’s church parade, with banners, followed by an outing.
Children mostly, made their own amusement, and yet time flew by. Seasonal games like tops, marbles, hoops, kites and conkers, some still played today. Bowling hoops and spinning tops are no longer safe on our roads, and have died out with time.
Tops were cracked through the village streets, round and fat like turnips or mushroom shaped, steel tipped with grooves to receive the string of the whips.
A skilful tug would get them spinning, and then they were lashed along the dusty ‘roads’ – occasionally one would crash through a cottage window!
The village blacksmith made our hoops, and mended them when they broke. Girls had wooden hoops, the boys steel ones. Racing through the village, the hoops would strike sparks from the flints in the road.
We made pop guns out of elder by pushing the pith from the stems and ramming in wads of chewed paper which we then ejected with a hazel stick.
Peashooters from cow parsley stems and shot came from ripe elderberries. Hazel, we used for bows and arrows, spears and daggers.
The spears were peeled in patterns. We burnt our names on the hilt of our daggers.
Our first cigarettes were made from dry stem of “old mans beard”, it made our eyes water and burnt our tongues! We made pipes from large acorns, for tobacco, using ripe dock seeds. We found we could smoke more if we dampened the weed.
We had an armoury in the middle of the huge unkempt hedge, along with a torture chamber, a larder, a conference hall and, a private room for the leader. We were at times quite homesick in later years for that mysterious green hedge.
In many places today hedges are yielding, in the name of progress, and economy to barbed wire. I have yet to hear of anyone who has been homesick for barbed wire!
(These memories of a village childhood by G.G. Pierce will no doubt stir heart and minds of boys of long ago)
Memories of Church
include the taste of the varnish on the pews and crawling from one end to the other – and underneath them! Nearly everyone in the village attended church regularly. Church and Sunday school, and no saying, ‘I don’t want to go!’
One Sunday, the Squire went to read the lesson from the book of Habakkuk. He couldn’t find the place and went redder and redder and dropped his monocle.
His daughters were giggling, but trying to keep straight faces in their family pew in the Chancel. Eventually, the Vicar went across to find the place for him.
The Church had, before electricity, an organ that had to be hand pumped. On one occasion, the lad pumping, fell fast asleep during the sermon, the last hymn was announced, the organist tried, but nothing woke the sleeping lad who was supposed to be ‘pumping’.
Eventually, the Vicar came and pumped the bellows so that the hymn could be sung! The poor lad couldn’t sit for a week!
Children were asked, “What are Cherubim’s?” – “White owls” came the reply. “What are Seraphim's then?” “Brown owls sir”. “What do we mean when we say ‘To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry’?” Back came the answer “Please sir, it means that the white owls are always screeching, and the brown owls are always looking around the throne of God!”
At times our Sunday school classes were rather unruly, and the Vicar’s wife asked the policeman if he would stand outside the window to help keep order! Cricket
The heavy roller has been pulled out of the weeds in the hedge. The motor mower has gone round and round the outfield, throwing up the grass before it. Nets have been placed around the matting.
Bats have been oiled, the pavilion thatch repaired, the side screens freshly painted and wheeled into position
The village cricket team turns out all in white today; most have cricket boots, and some caps. They wear two pads to go in to bat, and use batting gloves.
Things were different 100 years ago; there were no motor mowers in most village gounds only the table was mown with a hand mower. The outfield grass grew long and lush.
Some times men pretended the ball was lost, waiting until the batsmen were well launched into a run, the ball was snatched up, hurled at the wicket – and a man would be run out.
Sometimes cows were turned out to graze in the field. They kept the grass down, but left other hazards which ruined many a pair of trousers.
Downland pitches, the grass though not so long was thick, and balls did not travel the ground easily.
Consequently, most batsmen were big hitters, and aimed foursquare. One fast bowler who took a very long run discovered, after he had delivered several balls, that he had been stepping over a partridge which was sitting on a net full of eggs in the long grass.
Another fielder, walking backwards near the boundary to catch a high ball fell over a sow with a litter of pigs which he had failed to notice before.
In those days it was difficult to get eleven men out properly dressed for cricket.
The parson, schoolmaster, squire and his friends would be in white. Some villagers wore grey flannels and white shirts.
Some put on their best blue trousers with belt and braces. A few wore gym shoes but only one or two had cricket boots. Batting gloves were despised. Very few batsmen wore pads, some wore none.
One of the worst combinations to meet at cricket was the father who umpired and a son who bowled “How’s that father?” “Out my son”.
Would become notorious for miles around. Today, teams are often made up of families with cricket in their blood. Some of these families go back generations.
The pride and affection villagers had was that it was theirs through communal efforts.
The wicket, outfield, pavilion, screens, mower and roller all had their histories and all marked the efforts of the community to foster the game. Suppers, whist drives, dances, fetes, jumble sales, raised money so that repairs and improvements could be made.
This generous, co-operative spirit is still apparent in village cricket today, wives, and daughters provide the tea. This is no cup of tea and a bun but a serious sit down job!
Strawberry jam, wasps and honey, smiling faces and brown arms, swifts screaming over the thatch, the church clock striking, these are the unchanging, and unforgettable things of Hampshire village cricket.
Memories of G.G Pierce |