BRIAN WEST,

1947

7, CHURCHFIELDS AVENUE

So, I will tell my story, and maybe there will be confessions in it. ; I'm starting 3/8/1943, which was a very important date (to me).

OK. Here I go. In order to Tell My Butts Farm story, I must start at the beginning. Because there was a whole social change at war’s end..The Labour government was elected.

(Changes in the Commonwealth relationship and the social reforms of the post-war Labour government occurred against the background of Britain's weak post-war economic position and the beginning of the Cold War, which meant that the privations of war were extended well into the post-war period.)

I was born 3RD August 1942, in a house in Church Lane, Teddington, said house was owned by my Uncle Fred. Mum and Dad had to get married, as they did in those days. It appears that my mother may have had post natal depression, because she couldn’t handle me. My father sought custody of me, and then fostered me to a MRS? Feast, née Funnel, nee Wetherall. (My father was born blind, and earned sub standard wages for the 44 years that he worked.)Just for the record, he was a great Daddy, and I am proud of him.

Said Mrs Feast? (She did not marry Mr Feast,) lived in 35 Princes Rd, Teddington. Where I was taken into her care. And this is where my 1st memories were formed. And the first of which was of the Anderson air raid shelter. This was my early play ground. Very sturdy and great fun, except when used in anger to avoid Mr Hitler’s bombs. One of which blew me off of the garden fence. It was not personal; the bombers were after the National Physical Lab, which was just down the road. And Home of the bouncing bomb, as we learnt latter. 1st learned lesson, when the air raid siren went, dive under the stairs, or table, if I couldn’t make the shelter. I was evacuated to Brighton during the doodle bug campaign. “At this point, please increase your awareness;” this experience happened to thousands of kids. So first lesson for us kids, dodge the bombs, (and land mines.)

Move forward to V.E. day, May 8th 1945. We celebrated, oh how we did.

Streets were blocked off to traffic, wooden tables were set up. And the food!, well My little eyes were bursting out of my head, Jellies, cakes, lollies, custards, cakes, streamers, lemonade.

I have never again seen such excitement as that.

Then we moved to Butts Farm, 1947, and I started school soon after, going to Feltham, on the 91b bus, at a penny a time.

Butts Farm at this time was just amazing, so much freedom, us kids could wander anywhere, we were all poor, and two of my neighbours didn’t have daddies. (One was Mick Cherry, who later was to get an apprenticeship with Bentalls.) And now of course I realize that they were killed in the war.

Crane Park was as it had been for centuries, except for the shot mill, and blast hills. I ran away very quickly from the park, when I saw my first snake. The piggery was still standing; the Great Chertsey rd didn’t have a fence along it. And of course there was the opportunity to go Scrumping, Which I did often.

The Princess Elizabeth actually passed Butts Farm, on her way to Heathrow Airport, I don’t know how we got the message, but a group of us kids waved her through at the top of Exeter rd. Mmmmm got to the bit waving at queen Elizabeth come on keep going ur memories r grey reading can just picture u in ur long grey shorts long socks brown shoes short sleeved shirt and ya tank top scrimping lolol

The above was a post from my niece, Stella Mary, her description of my clothing warrants mention.

You got it, apart from the shoes, which were black, and had paper in them because the souls were worn out. And my long socks were always around my ankels. And when I saw her she was a princess, only ONE car, no escort, and to me it was very big.

And talking of shoes, they were few and far between, what was so bad, they didn’t fit! With the width of the shoe, one size for all. To this day, my feet are deformed, by the tight shoes. And as they had to put up with a young boy climbing fences (Crane park school) kicking stones and walls, and sometimes each other they didn’t last long.

We used cardboard if available, otherwise paper. And stuffed it into the bottom of the shoe. But being good British people, we also had the inevitable pair of Welling boots. Now these were great for the winter, BUT if your shoes wore out in the spring / summer, well you had to wear them to school. And everybody knew how poor you were.

One teacher at De-Brome made us run around the playing field. I, In my wellington boots came last, and the b.... made me run around it a second time. (Why was I last? because I suffer from Asthma, and there was nil treatment then.)

I am trying to get my time frame right, does anyone know when the steel frame houses were built, because I moved into one, and started school soon after, which dates them at 1947? To my memory, there are about 40 of the steel frame houses in Exeter Rd, and Churchfields Ave. The steel frame houses came with a built in coal bunker! and it was my job to climb in with the bucket!

Oh Katy, you should not have mentioned the concrete floors, they were black, and one of my jobs was to polish them! that lavender floor polish. AND talking of paper, one of the extraordinary things about the steel houses, was that they had two DUNNY’S. One upstairs in the bathroom, and one downstairs outside the back door.( read toilets for dunnies) It was my job to tear up the newspaper and put it on the nail

There was no such thing as Sorbent, no tissues there at all,

Just squares of well read newspaper, a hangin’ on the wall.

Maybe I should post you the entire Ozzie poem, its funny.

The sealed roads ceased at 7 Churchfields Ave, (my home), and just around the corner in Exeter road, where the last steel frame house is. The farm track was at right angles to my home, ( an aside, when the tenants moved into Nos 9 & 12 Churchfields Ave, they tried to cultivate the land, BUT it was the old farm track, which had centuries of gravel put down to make it firm. So they dug and dug, all to no avail, I did feel sorry for them. Where the fields run parallel with the Chertsey Rd, were planted high with cabbages when we moved in… yes, some were tested!!!.

School was a 1-penny ride to Feltham on a 91b bus, which seems to have been done away with.

When I moved there in 1947, Butts farm was still a rural area, and shops were few and far between. Public transport was available, but added to the cost. Being immediately post war, money was very tight, food was rationed, along with coal, and of course petrol. Society in the UK was strange to say the least, compared to today. The war was only two years passed, but most things were still rationed. Read this again please. Most things were still rationed. It is hard to visualise what that meant. I stole some coupons to buy my first bar of chocolate.. oh dear, memories. Buying penny sized washers to repair the thin base saucepans that people had, because you could not buy new ones. Saving pieces of string. Saving the foil from cigarette packets and other stuff, you rolled it up in a ball, and it was then recycled. Butts farm was almost a Garden of Eden, free cabbages, Pears, Rhubarb, Blackberries; the soil was perfect for growing.

Yes we were poor, but we didn’t know it.

On 8 January 1940, bacon, butter and sugar were rationed. This was followed by meat, (8oz per week)tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, lard, milk and canned fruit.

Paper was rationed to 27% of its prewar level.

Sweet rationing ended in February 1953, and sugar rationing ended in September 1953; however, the end of all food rationing did not come until 4 July 1954, with meat the last to become freely available again

We were all poor on Butts Farm in my childhood.

But us kids were fed well, free school milk, free orange juice and ugh ”cod liver oil.”

I ate horse meat as a child, rather sweat I thought, and it wasn’t rationed.

I also remember eating venison, so someone had been poaching, and selling on the black market.

My foster mother threw a knife at me, when I tried to get a 3 day old crust from the pantry.

(I still carry the scar) This was in 1952.

Britain was closer to starvation during the Korean War (1951-1953) than she had been during WW2

Primarily Because People had stopped growing their own food.

Butts Farm economically, didn’t kick off until the mid to late 50’s. (Mr Dobbs Car)

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his infamous phrase”You have never had it so good””

I mention these points, to try and clarify my thinking, the whole nation was poor. And I don’t think that toilet paper, as we know it now, was available. There was a strong sense of working together, similar to the time of the Falklands war.

Ps

Britain owed the USA 27 billion pounds at the end of the WW2, and the final installment was not made until 2006

Shops

The story of shops, or the lack of, we bought our groceries from the shop where the cinema was, (I forget the area name, up the Feltham Rd a bit.) Green groceries were bought or grown, and although my foster parents were b*****ads, Feast the male of the household knew how to make his garden grow, the soil, being farmland was loam type, and he grew everything, peas, runner beans, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, gooseberries, you name it he grew it. He was the first to plant a fruit tree in the front garden. There is no doubt in my mind that we had the most cultivated plot on the estate, I forgot the chickens who were mine to harvest the eggs, and pluck. I Well remember the excitement when we were allocated some seed potatoes by the local council. They were treated like gold. We gave lettuces to the grocery shop, my job to deliver, which was VERY good as I got a tip. I somehow think that the greengrocer we gave them were part of a barter system, but also they were related to my foster mother, my grocer was almost next to the cinema, was this Perks?

Mr Carter owned the butcher’s shop, opposite the Hope and Anchor in Twickenham Rd. I worked for him around 1950-1952. He was a rotund butcher man, very much like Mr Pickwick. The shop had a huge fridge, which one presumes, was built on site. My duties were to make sausages, rend down the fat for dripping, (A delicacy in those post war days). And deliver the meat to his customers, and yes, on one of those horrible butcher bikes. The ones with the big square frame at the front. I did wobble a little during my apprenticeship! My more romantic duty was to procure, with the 10 shilling note he gave me, a bottle of Gin, from the off licence, at the Hope and Anchor. For his use of course, not mine. Then there was Carter the butcher in the area of the Brown Bear. And something makes me think there was a third shop somewhere. They all failed with the advent of the supermarket of course. Which was just as good, I reckon, because hygiene was suspect, I went from deliveries to sausage making, then dripping making, and not once was I instructed to wash my hands. Mind you in 1955, he did put in a hand basin, in the shop itself. R.I.P Mr Carter.

Do you know the muffin man,

The muffin man, the muffin man,

Do you know the muffin man,

Who lives in Drury Lane?

Butts Farm had its own Muffin man. He came around on a Saturday, pushing a child’s pushchair, and ringing a large hand bell. He Walked down the Centre of Exeter Rd, and Churchfields Ave. And I do mean the centre of the roads!

Community

There was a very positive community spirit. Coaches were organised for trips to the beach. People spoke to each other in the street, and there was very little if any crime. We had a TARDIS at the Hope and Anchor, but in my years I saw policemen only once (that’s another story) so we steel frame people just quietly went about our business. Then came the Berlin airlift, Korean War, and mass brick buildings. So our newfound security evaporated. I don’t think that we were snobs, just the opposite. We saw the development of these houses, and tenants moving into them, but there were no facilities to help the new people, I mean, Churchfields Ave, was named when, must have been prior to 1947, when was the church built, 1959?. Read it, Churchfields Ave. 10 years to get a church on the estate. I seem to be mumbling on here, trying to explain sociology. I'll think some more on the culture bit, it was there, us steel house people were very happy to move in, we moved to a farm and lots of open spaces, but the brick side of the estate, well it devastated us, high rise buildings, mass housing, it was a culture shock. I had many happy hours playing around the building sites for the brick houses; and well remember the meteor shower at the junction of Exeter Road and Churchfields Ave, because I picked up a piece, and got burnt fingers! One other thing was that the steel houses, had radiators in the bedrooms. Quite advanced for council housing, I think.

And then there was Mr Dobbs. Who may you ask was Mr Dobbs? Well, he had the distinction of owning the first motor car on the new housing estate. He lived at No 11? Exeter Rd.

There were 3 boys my age who lived in Exeter road, steel frame houses, Messrs Barter, Buckle, and it begins with a B?, he lived at 6 ? Exeter Rd, maybe Baxter? I would love to know of their history after I left; and there was my Pal, Horrace Dicker, he lived at 37 Exeter Rd? He took part of my front tooth, when we were warring.

The top end of Exeter Road, in the cul-de-sac, was a rough place in my youth. They didn't cultivate their gardens, and there was a lot of fighting amongst the boys. I think that the duel development of the estate, caused people to feel displaced. My lot in the steel frame houses just didn't integrate with the NEW people in the brick houses. Strange.

Water Wells.

This subject is somewhat a mystery. When I moved into the Butts farm estate, I was told frequently to avoid the wells. I mean the message was hammered into me. Yet in my time there, I found only one well. This is/was opposite the new shops, in line with the drapers shop, and between the lines of the two rows of OAP housing. In the playing field. Yet no safety precautions were taken to prevent one from falling in. I don’t know where the warning originated. Strangely, there was, and most likely still is, a large pipe draining into the Crane River. This pipe had a constant low flow, but it may have increased in the time of rain. I don’t think that this pipe was in any way connected to the pig farm, it was down steam from it. And the water was clear. Has anyone any information on Water Wells, in the area? The well was 2/3 feet across, and to my eyes DEEP. I only looked in it the one time

Death of a King

I vividly remember The Day that the King died.6th Feb 1952. The news was around the estate like wild fire. And then, one of those quant things of the past! When there was a death in the family home, all the front window curtains were drawn. This happened spontaneously around the estate at this time. And there was a very definite sense of shock, that he had died so young.

Coronation

It started at the top end of Exeter Rd, and we marched through to the end of Saxon Ave. We were each given a flaming torch, much like a firework thing, it must have been a foot long. We were also given either a bar of chocolate, or a silver spoon, with a crest on it. I chose the spoon, which seems strange as I have a passion for chocolate. Feltham Council gave us a beautiful book in colour, showing marvellous photos of the queen to be. I still have mine.

Work

My first job was in the factory at the rear of the playing fields, and I see that its gone alone with the fields. This factory was a wartime one, and had been modernised a little when I joined it in 1957. Its main business when I was there, was making nuts and bolts for the V bomber force, where I played a minor part, with "Yellow Sun". I moved away in 1959, to the RAF.

Ps, you may ask how I remember these things; well I have a photographic memory, which served me well, when I was studying. I see the pictures in my mind. Even after all these years.

So many interesting things going on in the town of my childhood.

Brian West, Melbourne, Australia