Recollections of a racing fan
By Ken Rennoldson
Chapter One
1946 was the snowiest winter in living memory and my mother said it was entirely my fault because, that November, I had been born.
Middleham is in the heart of The Yorkshire Dales and famous for its horse racing fraternity and 'unlucky' enough to have the fourth little Rennoldson brought into its midst with yet another two more to come. Nurse McFarlane had done the business successfully once again.
My parents, Snowy & Susie, had both been drawn to Middleham by its horse racing industry and my dad, one of ten children, had previously worked at Racing’s HQ, Newmarket, from the age of fourteen. His father had obtained an apprenticeship by paying £50 for the privilege of supplying labour which would nowadays be called 'slave labour'.
Mother (one of seven from Middlesbrough) had been sent to work in the household of a Racing Trainer (either Michael Everitt or George Drake)
Dad was the son of Gateshead Upholsterer.
My parents had their procreational activities interrupted by Adolf Hitler and my brother Billy and two elder sisters, Grace Elizabeth and Margaret (guess who they were called after?) were born before the Second World War started in what were probably a lot harder times.
Whereas the second brood of myself, Susan & Joan were post war additions. The timing of my own arrival seems to coincide with Dad’s return from the Army on Christmas Eve 1945 resulting eventually in a November “bundle of Joy.”
The two girls came along in 1950/1.
We lived in a newish 3-bedroomed council house in Park Lane, Middleham, that had been one of twelve built at a cost of £500 each due to the Governments post war generosity.
It was certainly better than the two up, two down terraced house they had previously been renting in East Witton Road. The only downside was the stigma of living in a Council house in those days, which was probably only slightly better than being a divorced person or an unmarried mother.
I say this because I was warned to be careful of going near Mrs M, a divorcee with a son and daughter who lived in No 9. People didn’t get divorced in those days. She was actually a very nice lady, whose ex husband was an army officer who had cleared off.
To live in a Council house in Park Lane was akin to having leprosy and as I grew up and the Council estate grew, the village seemed to be split between Park Lane and village kids. This turned out to be good because we tended to take our rivalry out on each other in sporting ways and all ended up to be most competitive.
Football matches tended to be 20 a side and more like Tom Brown's Schooldays matches with kids wrestling and scrapping during the main event.
My earliest memories are of sitting under the table as quiet as a mouse listening to my parents chatting to my Uncle “Punch” (Dad's brother, who had followed my Dad to live in Middleham with Auntie Florrie, as had my Grandma and Granddad.)
Our house used to be filled with racing people and once they became engrossed with racing gossip I reckon I could have stayed up all night providing that I did not attract attention to myself.
Both my Dad and Billy were good footballers and another vivid memory for me was to get home from the village football match on a Saturday evening with the pair of them and “team manager”, Uncle Punch, and then go through the game, pass by pass, until we had a favourable result. The only interruption was when the theme music of Sports Report blasted out from the wireless and the weekly football results were read out by Raymond Glendenning.
All this would take place in front of a roaring fire with the two of them still in their football kit( Black & Amber squared shirt), covered in mud.
Once they had heard the “proper” results it was into the weekly bath for the pair of them and time for dinner. At around sevenish my Dad would put his cap on (he didn’t wear it in the bath, but almost everywhere else!) and head down to Charlie Stelling's (The Black Swan) to spend the night playing dominoes and talk about racing until closing time.
My mother used to amuse herself doing things like making "flock" rugs with old bits of material that had been cut up into small strips and we would help. I think this was a way of ensuring they kept apart as much as possible in case another little Rennoldson was brought into the equation and they definitely could not have afforded that to happen.
My brother Billy would go off with his pals to sup as many pints as his money would allow and then head to the nearest village dance, throw up and get literally dropped out of a taxi at midnight by his mates who would be singing their heads off (Vera Lynn & Anne Shelton have a lot to answer for!!)
I used to make sure I stayed awake for Bill’s return, as I got older and I particular if it was the time of year when we would be going off on the Sunday school trip to Redcar. I had good reasons to stay awake. Although we did not have much money all the kids in our family were pretty bright at school, except Grace, who was not interest in much other than having a good time.
Anyway, whilst money was scarce we were brought up in a strict god-fearing environment although, apart from the odd funeral my Dad might have gone to, I can never remember my parents ever going to Church regularly. This was probably mainly due to the class issue. The kids however were firmly taught right from wrong and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We all went to Sunday school and all won Scripture prizes at School.
I was also taught at a very early age how to stick up for myself, although only in retaliation. This turned out to be a good thing for me as if I had been encouraged to get my retaliation in first - goodness knows how many scraps I would have got into later in life when I began to enliven things up with the encouragement of the “demon drink.”
Anyway - back to the Sunday school trips.
Provided you were a regular attendee at the Sunday School then you qualified for an annual trip to the seaside which usually meant Redcar if you were C of E. Those kids who went to Chapel usually went to somewhere more exotic like Whitley Bay or even Morecambe. I seriously think that even then there was a bit of one upmanship on the side of the Wesleyans who were in the main more affluent villages. I remember actually changing which Sunday school I went to at one stage just so I could go to Whitley Bay amongst other reasons.
The other reasons involved the fact that I was playing with some new kids (Brian & Kenny Newhouse) who had moved into a tied farm cottage near us and the chapel Sunday school did not seem as austere as the village church and they seemed to enjoy singing their hymns more. My parents did not say anything as long as I was going somewhere which did not cause any trouble.
I always remember to this day Malcolm White (known as Honkey Hall ) coming to the Chapel with a tanner (sixpence) given to him by his grandma for the collection and asking for threepence change. He went straight to the village shop (back door) after Sunday school and bought some sweets.
However on the Church Sunday school trip we were transported by Handley’s buses in convoy. First we had to queue up to get our 5/- spending money. How quickly you were able to get this was a factor as to which bus you got on. The best deal would be to get on Roland Handley’s bus because he seemed to be the man to get you there the quickest. There were up to five buses and I remember the drivers now, Percy Ryder, Danny Nichols, Vic Anderson, Michael Handley and young Roland.
I think it was Roland’s later clam to fame that his bus was blown up by the IRA on the M62 when transporting soldiers back to Catterick Camp after their leave.
Rev Hardwick would dole out 5/- to every kid which was probably meant to cover their midday meal but in truth every one of my 60 pennies was destined to end up in the bowels of a slot machine. The arguments my mother had trying to persuade us to go shopping when all my two little sisters and I wanted to do was spend time either on the beach or in the Arcades.
As I recall nearly every trip was accompanied by a blasting North sea wind and it either poured down persistently or we had heavy showers which resulted in us sitting in some seaside shelter eating our sandwiches and arguing with my mother who seemed transfixed with the plan to go into Binns, Marks & Spencer or Woolworth's because these big stores had not the foresight to open up in Middleham.
I remember one particular year I was really geared up to having a whale of a time and up to about three nights before the “trip” to Redcar I had amassed around £20 spending money by simply staying awake when Brother Billy came in from his weekend boozing nights usually as drunk as a skunk. When he came into our bedroom I would be pretending to be asleep and through the slits of my half closed eyes would watch him automatically empty all the change out of his pockets.
As soon as I heard the first inklings of a snore I would jump out of bed and relieve him of about 66% of the cash and then stash the cash under a loose floorboard until next morning.
When the opportunity came in the morning I would take the “loot” downstairs and put it in a recess of a table we stood the telly on. At about six or seven God knows how I was going to explain my sudden wealth to my mother when I took my bag of spending money to Redcar.
Now Billy was a time-served bricklayer and working as many hours as he could to fund his active Saturday nights out and never realised where most of his loose change had gone during the night. However as the Sunday school trip got nearer Ken got a little bit ambitious and instead of lifting the threepenny bits, tanners and bobs I started to take Florins, half crowns and even the odd ten bob note. I even suspect that I might have got away with that in moderation until I made the fatal mistake of “half-inching” a quid one Friday night.
Well, all hell was let loose as the “Quid” was earmarked to take some lass to the pictures on Saturday night. I kept my head down and avoided all the hassle of the missing “Quid.”
I patiently waited for his return on Saturday night and although there was not an inordinate amount of play acting I should have noticed the lack of any beery smell and the lack of grunting as he reckoned to go into his usual sleep. I got out of bed to collect my usual dues that I had come to assume were rightly mine when he pounced on me with such a roar that I almost crapped myself.
Well! What a palaver!!! Talk about the Spanish inquisition. The hiding I got was probably a major factor in keeping me on the straight and narrow for the rest of my time and if nothing else it taught me “Don’t get caught.”
****************
I first went to school after my fifth birthday (Jan1951). Luckily for me my elder sister Margaret was in one of the senior classes and the teachers were fairly static. My teacher was Miss Verity who had been infant teacher for years and at least seen my older sister Margaret through the school. As she was quite bright that would auger well for me. As a general rule if the teachers thought they were actually influencing their kids it was Ok but if the children were a bit thick then the teachers in primary school would inflict knowledge in a more positive way. Anyway I was one of Miss Verity’s favourites because of the stories I used to write.
Incredibly years later when I went to work in the Bank at Masham Miss Verity used to catch me in the bank and tell me she still had all my stories at home.(she had retired and returned to live at Masham.) At eighteen years old when you were trying your best to be “Cool” and grown up the last thing you want is your first primary school teacher coming to your place of employment or stopping you in the street to remind you of a story you had written as an eight year old or the fact that you were the only child in the class who could recognise the word turquoise” as a colour on the blackboard. Apparently I would give her ad verbatim reports of what was going on in Sam Hall’s stables and within Brecongill House every Monday in my “weekend” story.
It’s only when you get older that you appreciate what an influence you teachers had on you. The other teachers in Birch Memorial School were Miss North (Juniors) and Mr Barraclough (Seniors).
Only Mr Barraclough was allowed to cane anyone but Miss North used to punish her miscreants by hitting them on the back of the knuckles with the edge of a twelve inch ruler.
Miss Verity followed the premise that children should always be treated with kindness and whenever she needed to bring them in line a simple threat that they would be sent to have a word with Mr Barraclough usually did the trick.
Mr Barraclough left shortly after I started school and he was replaced by Mr Watson who I remember vividly did gain respect at the top end of the school and did not last very long, the reasons for which, will be seen shortly. Then came Mr Moore who I remember as a tyrant. I can only remember him as a swarthy, moustachioed man with big arched eyebrows standing at the front of the whole school with a cane that was so supple it could be bent so that the ends touched.
After Mr Moore came the good times when VG Cawthorne came along with another Junior teacher, Mr Parker, and school became absolutely wonderful especially if you liked sport. Up to these teachers coming Middleham School was a joke in sporting terms
And so was the village but everything was about to change.
Anyway back to starting school.
My mother, who never went out a lot apart from to deliver her grocery order for delivery, actually took me to school on my first day. After that I was on my own which meant as soon as I got out of the door I had to endure the half mile walk to school whilst the older kids either twisted my arm, kicked hell out of me or kneed me in the back. In hindsight all this was “character building……I think!!
Our next door neighbours were the Browns. Keith (Bomber) Brown’s dad was a “Moor Man,”
We lived at No 2, and My Auntie Florrie and Uncle Bill lived at No 3.
Uncle Bill was my Dad’s brother and amongst other roles like running the Village football team he had a “Band” called Reno’s Band which travelled the local villages providing dance music at local halls, etc.
Auntie Florrie was originally from Halifax and was the village school cook. I think both followed my Dad to Middleham and subsequently so did my Grandad and Grandma.,
At number 4 was Bill & Mary Anderson who shortly moved in to a village shop and were the first real entrepreneurs I ever knew although I would not have recognised one then. Billy kept chickens and did other odd jobs on the side.
Bill and Martha Hall moved in to No 4 when I was about five or six with two sons Peter and David both probably 10 and five years older than me respectively. One could always see whose father Pete was as both looked like they were not very advanced in the scale of primates whereas Dave was tall dark with completely different features.
I spent much of my childhood hanging around with Dave mainly because with him on my side there would be no trouble.
His mother Martha would always supply us with sweets that were beyond the reach of my mother's budget. That was another good reason for staying friends with him. However there was a down side in that Dave was a bit of a bully and enjoyed inflicting pain on any one much younger and as I suffered as much as anyone when we sauntered down Park Lane to school. I toughened up and soon learned to stand up for myself.
It was a great day though when Dave was 15. Must have been waiting for it to happen because on June 19th (can't remember which year) Dave came to school and was allowed to leave early on his fifteenth birthday.
Wow! The relief that I wouldn’t get thumped for the rest of the term. It was also the last year that over 11’s would spend at the village school as henceforth those who failed their 11+ (as I had) would attend Wensleydale County modern school at Leyburn. (Another interesting little stage in my aggressive life)
When Wensleydale school opened I was among the first to attend and the difference from a little village primary school with about 70/80 kids