The Passing of Cyril the Squirrel

 Recently my brother travelled over from Lincolnshire for Sunday lunch. Occasionally in the past he has treated us with a tasty offering like a haslet or some choice Lincolnshire sausages. The family were secretly hoping for a traditional Plum Loaf but this time he arrived with another old favourite from my childhood, Stuffed Chine. Sadly the chine did not receive much of a welcome, except from me. The rest of them turned their noses up when they saw the bacon joint generously striped with green parsley. Even after trying a morsel dowsed in vinegar they remained unconvinced of its merits. But though the reception for the chine was pretty disappointing it was as nought to that which greeted a second offering. My brother brought something I had not seen for nearly forty years, a stuffed red squirrel called Cyril.

In fact Cyril has never really been appreciated by my family since I first acquired him. At the age of 14 or 15 I was given the squirrel by a work colleague of my mother, District Nurse Taylor who lived, with Cyril, in a cottage in the grounds of Tattershall Castle. As I recall he had belonged to her father and I understood that he had acquired the squirrel in the castle grounds before having it stuffed in 1917. Therein lays confusion. I have recently been informed that red squirrels had all disappeared from the area before the end of the 19^th century.

What is the truth? There are no other clues other than  the fact that the rear of the case is lined with a page from the Lincoln Stamford and Rutland Mercury.
My mother had never really taken to Cyril although she allowed him to sit on a shelf in my bedroom until i left for college. When she died and her cottage was cleared my brother rediscovered Cyril in the roof space. He transferred him to his own garage where he remained for the last ten years. now he has rebeen returned to me but the wife has delivered an ultimatum either the squirrel goes or else… I have  had to make plans.
I decided to offer Cyril to our recently established school museum. Sadly the present curator, who up until now I considered a friend, was hardly thrilled and declined my offer saying he found it creepy and disturbing (personally I think this a wimpish excuse). He suggested I offer it to our Science coordinator to become an aid to teaching about mammals, food chains and the like. The science coordinator was equally unimpressed saying it freaked him out and couldnt have it in the room (another wimp).

I have therefore had to think again. I have considered it putting on display in my own classroom as the children seem to like the squirrel but my work colleagues are none too keen on the idea of Cyril watching over them when they use the room. I thought I might donate him to the school as a parting gift when I retire. But I suspect he would end up in the cellars or worse still be put up for sale at the next school jumble once funding starts to dwindling after the next inevitable round of financial cutbacks. Then another colleague suggested I smuggled him into Calke Abbey and hide him amidst the surplus of stuffed exhibits that the last of the Harpur-Crewes left around the decaying mansion. No-one would spot another amongst so many. Unfortunately the staff would probably spot a parcel being carried in passed the ticket desk. 

  I have already refused the indignity of trying to sell Cyril on Ebay. Then a solution presented itself to me. The son of a work colleague was rushed into hospital in the early hours one day last week with a suspected appendicitis. Talking over lunch a few days earlier it was revealed to me that the lad had an interest in taxidermy and so I decided that I would bite the bullet and hand Cyril over to a new owner who I know would really appreciate him.

Cyril the Squirrel

I would, however still like to know whether he was really a Lincolnshire red squirrel or just another of them ‘frim folk’.

Burgess, Blather and Binder String

 In Coningsby, as in many other places, at the chapel anniversary every year, it was the custom to invite someone special to speak at the evening service. It was usually a preacher of note or some local celebrity who would be likely to draw in a bit of a crowd. A ‘nice spread’ would be put on by ‘the ladies of the church’ for tea-time, around five o’clock, to be followed by the service at six. My mother along with the rest would be roped in to make sandwiches, cakes and pastries at the weekend for this event. She wasn’t a cake baker but could make a decent scone (of the fruit or cheese variety as the occasion demanded) and was a dab hand at sausage rolls. The chapel was next door so mum would be nipping back and forth most of the afternoon with things hot from the oven. One of the most memorable anniversaries as far as I was concerned was when we were entertained by a legend of Lincolnshire dialect, Mrs. Edith Burgess. By the time she visited us she must have been in her late seventies but still as chipper as ever. I gather she’d been invited on several occasions but it had taken us literally years to get her to come. I think I am right in saying she wasn’t merely a celebrity but had been actively involved in the church as wife of a Methodist preacher for many years so she could have delivered a message filled with spiritual guidance and insights but, to our delight, she didn’t do this. Instead she told us about her life as a young girl growing up in a north Lincolnshire village and her love for poetry and tales of Lincolnshire folk and history. Every now and then she would slip effortlessly into her dialect voice to regale us with words and phrases that were familiar but from a bygone age. She had recorded several pieces of poetry in dialect most notably several of the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, like ”The Northern Farmer, The Spinster’s Sweet-Arts and Owd Roa (Old Rover).

A few years back I heard a woman from Osgodby called Titch Rivett talking on the radio about the demise of words in the Lincolnshire dialect. Among other things she attributed this to developments in modern farming methods; like the arrival of the tractor in place of the carthorse. Many dialect words were terms associated with farms and their animals especially horses. She also blamed the moving population. She felt that 'frim folk' (people from other areas) had come to the county whilst many Lincolnshire folk had also moved out and taken their voice with them. In 2004 she was busy trying to keep Lincolnshire's dialect alive by running courses on the subject and making audio recordings of its quirky expressions, such as wozzle (root vegetable) and gimmer (a ewe which has never given birth), sneck (metal hook), blather (mud on clothing) and dowking (wilting). But when she was speaking in 2004 her course was in danger of being cancelled due to lack of interest. She was saying that she was aware that it was almost a different language but if folk didn’t sit up and take note like old farm buildings falling into a state ‘beyond repair’ that language would be lost forever . As she said at the time, “Once that's gone you can't come back and say 'we'll have it now' because it's been lost.”

One poem I’m sure I remember Mrs. Burgess reading, and very possibly Titch Rivett knew it too, was one entitled, “A bit o’ binder string.” I’m not sure whether this originated in Lincolnshire but Mrs Burgess adopted it. I ran across it recently, although I can’t swear (and neither could Mrs. Burgess!) that her version and this were the same. I suspect some phrases have been southernised:

                                             

                                                      A Bit of Binder String.
Dost mind Bill Bates as used to work for Drake at Badgers End?
There weren’t a tool about the farm this feller couldn’t mend
From a hayfork to a harvester or any mortal thing
Old Bill could always fix it with a bit if binder string.

One day a Friesian bull got out and raged and tore around
Nobody dared go near ‘im as he roared and hooked the ground
Till Boss shouts “Bill” the bull’s got out and been and broke his ring
An Bill lassoed the beggar wi’ a bit of binder string.

Bill courted Mabel seven years an’; then he said “Let’s wed”
I’ve got a table an’ some chairs an’ Granny’s feather bed
Ther’s half a ton o’ taters up in the field as I can bring
An’ I’ve made some handsome doormats out of thic’ there binder string.

Well Mabel said “ We’d best get wed before they cut the hay
So they had a slap up Wedding on the seventeenth of May
But when they got to the church Bill found he had gone and lost the ring
So he had to marry Mabel with a loop of binder string

Next year a little daughter came to bless the happy pair
Wi’ girt blue eyes and a tuft of ginger hair
And Bill, he says to Parson at the baby’s Christening
Zee, ‘er be just the colour of a bit of binder string.

Well time went on an’ old Bill died an’ came to Heaven’s Door
He heard them all a singing there and he was worried sore
An’ he says to good St. Peter, “Zir I’ve never sung before
I were always kep’ so busy mendin’ things wi’ binder string.”

“Don’t worry Bill”, St. Peter said “The Good Lord understands
He’ve been a carpenter and likes to see folk use their hands
An we’m very happy to see ‘ee here, we’ve plenty who can sing
But we need a handy chap like thee, has ‘ee brought some binder string?

So Bill do bide in Heaven now, he’s very happy there
He’s got a liddle workshop round behind St. Peter’s chair
An’ while the Angels play their harps and all the saints do sing
Bill mends the little cherub’s toys with bits of binder string. "

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Anyone coming to the Bull's Head?

We all have experiences in life that we would prefer to forget or at least draw a veil over whilst they have the potential to cause us some embarrassment. I was recently reminded of an occasion when I was guilty of committing a faux-pas that for months afterwards caused me such discomfort that friends only had to ask the question, “Anyone coming to the Bulls Head?” and I would flush pink. Now, some fifteen years after the event, the time seems right to enter the confessional.

  Working in a residential special school in the centre of the county there has always been an emphasis on practical activities as preparation for adult life. In those far off days, before ‘domestic science’ was repackaged as ‘food technology,’ and long before things were complicated by the national curriculum, I found myself teaching cookery. I was charged with helping the kids prepare a range of basic recipes drawing on straightforward ingredients they could find in every store-cupboard. Nothing fancy or cordon bleu; we were simply making cakes, biscuits, pastries and a range of easy meals. Once in a while I introduced a few recipes from my own childhood, raspberry buns savoury pinwheels, cheese and bacon pie, sausage rolls and a fruity flapjack called Tyzan. In the days before learning support assistants apart from the occasional student on work experience, sent in for a taster session, I was on my own. I learnt from my own mistakes and experiences as a single man cooking for myself. Then one of the school governors, in fact the chair of governors, offered to come in and help out for a couple of hours once a fortnight. Things went well. We became more adventurous extending our range of foods and trying out recipes from other countries.

I was a little nervous however when we heard that we were going to have a local authority inspection. The governor, Sara, normally dropped in on a Friday for the period between morning break and lunch. However, a fortnight before the inspection was due Sara mentioned that she may not be able to come in the following Friday as she was probably having to attend the local magistrates court where she periodically sat on the bench. Instead she said she would try to pop in sometime earlier in the week if she could find the time. I thought little more of this until the following week when having just started a lesson with my own tutor group I spotted Sara through the window walking across the playground towards the cookery room. The children and I greeted her and, not having time to chat beforehand, started handing out the aprons and doling out the equipment to make cheese and parsley scones. The lesson ended and as we were washing-up I asked Sara if she could possibly give me a lift down to the local village as I needed to pop in home. I arranged to meet her in 5 minutes time by her car parked which I knew was just inside the iron gates to the school. After locking up my room it wasn’t long before we were both travelling back into the village. Although I asked her to drop me near the turning to my cul-de-sac she insisted on taking me right to my door and waiting for me. I explained I just needed to pick up my wallet before meeting up with colleagues for a bite of lunch at the Bulls head , the nearest pub, before returning to school for the afternoon session. She said she might as well take me down to the pub car-park as it was virtually on her way home. Having thanked her I entered the pub, ordered a half pint and sat in down in our usual corner by the fire. After waiting some 15 minutes or so I realised my colleagues must have got delayed or had been called into some impromptu meeting that had arisen back at school.

I therefore finished my drink, left the pub and walked briskly back to my house to grab a sandwich in lieu of the pub lunch I had missed. It was then that I happened to spy the kitchen clock…

I expected the time to be somewhere in the region of 1:00 but instead the clock was showing 11:45. Funny, must have stopped I thought until I noticed a similar time on the oven-clock. I grabbed my jacket and fairly sprinted the 3/4 mile back up the hill to the school, arriving in the playground as the bell rang for the 12:00 lesson changeover. I ran to my classroom meeting a mesmerised group of year 7 students standing by the door.

How I got through the next lesson I’ll never know. It gradually dawned on me what I had done. With Sara turning up on a different day and at a different time to help with cooking, I had completely forgotten what day it was. She’d come at 9:15 on a Thursday instead of her usual 11:00 a.m. visit on a Friday. When the lesson finished at break time (10:30) I had assumed it was the 12:30 lunch break. To make matters worse I had persuaded the school governor, a week prior to a school inspection, to take me down to the local pub midway through a school morning. Luckily I hadn’t been missed at school as I luckily had a free period between break and the final lesson on a Thursday morning.

 I ought to have left things at that but I was young, naïve and didn’t know any better so, when lunch time arrived, I compounded the situation by going down to the pub with my colleagues as originally planned. I might have known. I was greeted by the landlord with the words, “what are you doing here again?” Accordingly I found myself recounting what had happened to my colleagues and the effect was immediate. They started rolling about, tears streaming down their faces almost choking on their ham cobs. Needless to say by the end of the school day everyone in the staff-room, including the Head, had heard about my mid-morning foray down to the Bull’s head with the Chair of Governors. I did try to spit out some feeble explanation of my behaviour when I met up with Sara a few days later and but she claimed that she hadn’t noticed -bless!  

Shock Tactics

One of the joys of living and working in a small village community is being able to walk to and from work.  I’m lucky to live about a mile away from the school where I have worked for over thirty years. It’s an uphill journey each morning and in the winter months given the chilly weather I admit to being very grateful for the occasional lift. In the summer months however it’s very different and the journey is certainly no hardship. Each day I pass an Edwardian terrace with their immaculate cottage gardens then a pair of tall, Victorian villas clad in Wisteria. Next I walk alongside a newly planted copse and a couple of farms before crossing the road for a short walk alongside crumbling stone walls. After that it is through a tunnel of trees which mark the boundaries of the school estate. It’s not your standard school but a Victorian country house converted into a special school some 50 years ago. The Hall itself is little changed, it still has original mullioned sash windows and steeply- pitched, Swithland slate roofs.  The purpose-built school buildings are nothing remarkable, most are of the pre-fabricated variety dating from the 1980s. However, the grounds still boast a lot of the original outbuildings from the days of the farm estate. There is a kitchen block fronting a double courtyard. At one end is the blacksmith’s forge now converted into a workshop whilst at the other the laundry building and servants’ pantry have been transformed into a library and small museum area. The crowning glory is the recently restored turret clock that rises up from the roof of the boiler house surmounted by a bell under a lead cupola. In earlier times this was employed to notify the folk out in the estate fields when it was time for lunch or to knock off at the end of a long days work. A few of the old  farm buildings have survived like the pigsty and apple-store which are now used classrooms and the stable block which serves as a canoe and outdoor pursuit’s store.

We are in fact a special school for students with special educational needs with a unit catering for students on the autistic spectrum. Still a local authority school we have survived several changes of local government and national policy by the skin of our teeth. Why? well I like to think because we do a damn good job but that’s not what I want to talk about. I simply wish to set the scene for a tale of plotting and counter-plotting, of intrigue and of sweet revenge…

     “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it certainly helps.” I can’t tell you how often I cringed as my old head trotted out that line to visitors and new staff. He ran a disciplined and happy ship, in spite being a closet Morris dancer with some rather eccentric ideas. He advocated shoe-cleaning every Friday and the use of fish knives whenever the school canteen served up plaice. Nevertheless he had a heart of gold and a mischievous sense of humour, not quite “Carry on Matron” more like “Summer Wine”, but it still infected students and staff alike. In the 1980s, being a school with boarders as well as day students, the teachers were expected to fulfil regular evening duties alongside the care staff.  It made for good social relationships but there was nevertheless a conspicuous, friendly rivalry between the two staffs that surfaced during sporting events like the “It’s a Knockout” afternoon and the annual skittles evening. Both groups were constantly vying to score points over each other with an array of pranks; all on the understanding that you didn’t involve the students in any of the stunts. It’s hard remembering now all the shenanigans that went on but I recall the night we scared one of the house-mother’s (indeed that’s what they were called) witless by placing the bonfire guy in her bathroom; so that when she returned to her flat there, in the shadows, (we’d removed the light bulb), was this tramp-like figure sat on the lavatory. The same house-mother lost her lime-green Fiat Uno the night we put it in the kitchen garden disguised as a small haystack with bales we had ‘borrowed’ from our farmer neighbour.

The teachers didn’t have it all their own way, on occasions the care staff came up trumps with some A1 mischief of their own. There was the time we received a phone-call, purporting to come from our neighbour, that he’d spotted a snowy owl in a tree overhanging our chicken pen and that he’d already lost several hens to the same predator. We spent ages outside before discovering the owl was in fact a plastic bag flapping wildly in the branches where it had become entangled. The care-staff were nearly wetting themselves with laughter by the time the rest of us returned red-faced to the staff room.

In only my third year of teaching one particular housemother skilfully concocted a letter purporting to come from County Hall stating that the Director of Education himself had heard great things about my use of dramatic role-play in assemblies and wanted to observe me in action. I was so naïve at the time that I spent more hours than most people do in a pre-Ofsted frenzy getting my assembly technique perfected only to discover the ruse as the entire staff filed for my “performance.”  I should have been on my guard after this but only a few weeks later I was caught out by this selfsame joker in another rather childish prank.  

The boys had had iced buns for supper and there was one left over, which I reserved for myself when I came off duty after lights out at 9:30. The housemother decided it would be a wheeze to fill some of the buns with English mustard. Unfortunately one of the senior boys sent down to the laundry just before bedtime sneaked into the servery and pinched the contaminated bun intended for me. His loud protestation on tasting the added ingredient could be heard throughout the building. He was admonished for his deed and so was the housemother when the matron (yes we also had a matron) found out what had occurred.  Our pranks were curtailed for several weeks after the bun incident.

But the truce between that housemother and I didn’t last for long. One morning she and her husband had spotted me walking up the road from the village towards the school. They normally parked their rusty Volvo estate by the verge outside their cottage, about 100 yards below the school gates. As I approached the school I crossed the road below their cottage and was forced to skirt around their parked car. What I didn’t realise was that they had already spotted me whilst I was still a way off and had reclined their seats in order to lay flat and conceal themselves from view . As I drew alongside their vehicle they both shot to an upright position yelling like banshees, causing me to scream like a schoolgirl and throw the entire contents of my briefcase and lunch box into the adjacent ditch.

Now I don’t think I am vindictive sort of chap but needless to say these events served to focus my mind on the sweet notion of revenge. I didn’t have to wait long. Three weeks later crossing the kitchen-yard playground I spied the purple Volvo belonging to my colleague, pulled up outside the back entrance to the school. There, sat in the passenger seat, was the house-mother in question wearing her familiar brown duffel coat, seemingly nodding off in the warm spring sunshine, oblivious to the rude awakening that was about to rouse her. I crept forward furtively, like the cat Sylvester after Tweetie Pie, and then rose stealthily up the side of the passenger door. With a deafening shriek I presented my best gurning face to the car’s side window as the startled hooded figure spun round. Imagine my shock as the face that confronted me was not my work-colleague but that of a young woman who I’d never seen before! She screamed back at me, understandable in the circumstances I suppose, and I reacted by screaming at her a second time. It was like something out of a teenage horror flick. I tried to make my apologies but my attempts at an explanation did not seem to help. She wouldn’t unwind the window to allow me to apologise so what could I do? What made matters worse was that I later discovered the young lady , who turned out to be called Naomi, had come to the school for the first time that day to attend interview for a job as night-sleeping staff. She had been spotted by my colleague walking up from the bus-stop in the village and given a lift the rest of the way. Arriving at school a good ten minutes early she had chosen to wait in the car to collect her thoughts before going in for her appointment with the head of care. If this wasn’t all bad enough I also discovered, weeks later I might add, that she had only recently recovered from a nervous breakdown after leaving her previous job as a dental hygienist. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job but personally I don’t think she would have coped well with everyday challenges that school would have thrown up!

The WC - A Place to Repose or a Necessary Convenience?

Several years back my mother, a district nurse working on the edge of the fens around Coningsby, mentioned to me that one of her patients was descended from George Jennings. Who? I hear you ask. He was the pioneer plumber who patented in 1852 a design for a flush toilet. In Jennings own words it was, “An improved construction of water-closet, in which the pan and trap are constructed in the same piece, and so formed that there shall always be a certain quantity of water retained in the pan itself, in addition to that in the trap which forms the water-joint.” Other improvements followed including, in 1858, the Jennings and Lovegroove Patent Plunger Closet. In the downstairs toilet my mother’s patient proudly showed off to her an original Jennings pedestal toilet bowl, still in everyday use, decorated inside and out with garlands of blue and white peonies. 

 These days we are more self-conscious about our sanitary ware, the avocado or pampas suites of the 1970s would be considered rather passé these days and brilliant white is considered, by the design fraternity the only acceptable colour for domestic use. But looking back a couple of generations what facilities did our forefathers have in which to perform their daily ablutions.

 The middle classes may have had their porcelain or even enamelled sanitary suites but members of the working class, both in town and country, did not have the luxury of a plumbed system. Perhaps there was a tin bath hung on the wall to be fetched down every Friday to be put in front of the kitchen fire but the toilet was still firmly outside and for many it meant a nightly trek down the garden to the privy. About twenty years ago my mother attended a talk at the local WI given by Mollie Harris who was known by many as Martha Woodford in The Archers and presenter of Radio 4’s The Countryside in the Seasons. She talked about the many books on country life she had written but her latest work at the time was a collection of the amusing tales and anecdotes she had amassed over the years surrounding privies and earth closets. In her book, Privies Galore, she traced the

history of the dry closet and looked at privies through the ages, from medieval monasteries through various ‘bucket’ and ‘box’ contraptions to the services of the lavender cart men in the early 20^th century. There are stories about and pictures of privy survivals in gardens around the country, the humorous reminiscences of a bucketeer whose skill was to empty dry closets which hadn’t got a cesspool without spillage.  Mollie offers the most comprehensive list of alternative words for the privy I have ever read. Some of the terms she found I recognised like the necessary, the convenience, dunny, the jampot, the shants, the John and the Jericho. Others were new to me like the chuggie, the honk, the duffs, the hoojy-boo, the porcelain pony, the old Bombay and the Sammy. Phrases for what went on in these places are also included: having a Jimmy, going to pick daisies, a place to repose, going to see my aunts and stacking the tools. Some choice Victorian graffiti and ‘privy poems’ are also reproduced by Mollie Harris; including a delightful ditty called “Down the Garden Path” by Forest of Dean poet, Joyce Latham.

Coust thee remember, owd ‘un, when we all had WCs

Away down in the gyarden where we used to take our ease?

‘Twere like a palace wi’ some matting on the floor,

Thic seat were scrubbed as white as snow, and hung behind the door

Upon a large and sturdy nail, in pieces cut to size,

All threaded on a piece of string, unheeding of the flies.

Thee’d vind a yup o’ newspaper-its paper plain to see,

In them days proper toilet rolls seemed awful posh to me

Carbolic and Jeyes Fluid seemed to ooze dru’ every crack       

And though there weren’t no chain to pull, we never felt the lack

A candle in a jamjar were our only bit o’ light;

It came in very handy when old nature came at night!

To add to the excitement as you sat there in the dark

A large fat hairy spider on some errand might embark;

He’d swing about quite gaily clinging to his silken thread

As hypnotised you watched and prayed,

‘Please, don’t fall on me yud.’

Ay, many were the pleasant hours spent there in reverie,

Gone now, but no forgotten- That old outside WC.

    There was an interesting discourse on the origins of the word loo.

Some authorities think it derives from the French, lieux d’aisances, a term largely replaced by the more usual salle des bains for bathroom. Others believe it simply comes from the words ‘ablution’ or even ‘luliana.’ To those working out in the countryside natural functions had to be performed in the open, in the shelter of a hedge, in the lee or loo i.e. out of the wind. Early privies often had no doors but placed under a tree or near a wall so as to be out of the wind or ‘in the loo.’ However, my favourite explanation comes from a story quoted in “A Book at Bedtime” by humorist, Frank Muir. In 1867 Lord Abercorn threw a house party at his home, Viceregal Lodge in Dublin, attended by, amongst others, the Lord Lieutenant of County Roscommon and his wife and Mr Edward King Tennyson and his wife, Lady Louisa, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield. For some reason she was not popular with lord Abercorn’s two sons, Lord Ernest and Lord Frederick Hamilton so they pinched her name card from her bedroom door and fixed it on the door of the only WC in the guest wing. Rumour of the trick spread around ducal circles and soon the select few started referring to going to the Lady Louisa. This shortened to ‘the lady Lou’ and eventually seeped down into middle and working class parlance as simply ‘visiting the loo.’

I remember my granny living in a little semi near the Coningsby War Memorial. In the mid 1960s she was still using an ash closet privy down the garden just a matter of yards from the banks of the River Bain. It was a 2 seater, scrubbed almost white, and instead of a proper toilet roll, upon a large nail hung behind the door, there were pieces of newspaper, cut to size and threaded onto a piece of string or binder twine.  She later had a plumbed lavatory (she never called it a toilet, always referring to it as the WC) fitted into the old whitewashed coalhouse just outside the back door. But when my brother and I went to visit we still liked to use the garden privy under the apple tree.

I remember Aunt Kit, my godmother from Toynton All Saints, recounting a version of this story to us one Christmas about 40 years ago. A prime example of miscommunication I find still find it quite humorous.

Some time ago, an American couple living in London decided to retire to the country. The wife wanted to buy a small country property on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds so she journeyed up to look around for a suitable property. She eventually found the house of her dreams, had her offer accepted, and returned to London to pack. Whilst packing up in her bathroom, she suddenly realised that she didn’t remember seeing a bathroom in her new house. So she wrote to the current owner asking for the whereabouts of the W.C. The old chap, having resided in the area for a long while as a Methodist minister was unfamiliar with the use of W.C. as an abbreviation for Water Closet, he felt for sure that the letters W.C. stood for Wesleyan Chapel and so sent the following reply.

    “Dear Madam,

I take great pleasure in informing you that the WC, built in 1888, is situated a mere 3 miles from the house in the centre of a beautiful grove of pine trees.

It is capable of holding up to 70 people, and is open on Sundays and Thursday afternoons only. It can get a little busy some weekends so I suggest you come early if you want a seat. However, there is standing room at the back for a further 20 people or so. As yet we haven’t had to turn folk away but last summer we had people standing outside the open doors peering in to observe the various proceedings inside.

Incidentally my wife and I were married in the WC  and it was there we first met. I can remember the rush for seats. There were five folk to every seat usually occupied by one. The expressions on their faces were a sight to behold.

This coming Sunday we are having a little celebration at the WC as we thought where better to renew our wedding vows. A string trio will be performing and I’m hoping to persuade my wife to do a solo. So please feel free to join us.

  Because of its isolated position out of the village a good many people having walked to get there often take a packed-lunch and make a day of it. Our neighbour takes the field path and often only arrives just in the nick of time. If you decide to pay a visit on a Thursday afternoon you will able to enjoy an organ accompaniment. The acoustics are excellent, even the most delicate sounds can be heard everywhere. The local Mayoress pops in occasionally and although it’s not an official duty she always seems to enjoy her visits.

If you intend to go this Sunday let me know and I will make sure I’m there to welcome you. In fact I’ll reserve you a front seat. I trust you don’t mind being seen by everyone. I’ll also make sure you get one of our new sheets, you’ll find it useful to keep in your handbag so you can use it every time you pay a visit. Will your husband be coming along with you? If so I‘ll make sure you are able to sit together, otherwise I will be delighted to sit with you.

My father has been a regular visitor to our WC since he was a young boy, and he recently donated a bell to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his first visit, and so we try to ring the bell every time somebody enters the WC.

A bazaar is being held next month to raise funds to help to upgrade the seating, I must admit it can get a little chilly in the winter if you have to sit for a long time. If you are in the habit of going regularly I recommend bringing a hot waterbottle or blanket as those old wooden seats are hard and last year mother picked up a splinter.  She is rather delicate and can't attend as often as she would like. It has been six months since her last visit and I can assure you this situation pains her greatly as she would really like to go more often.

Yours faithfully…’

PS: You might like to bring your camera along, as I am sure you will want to keep a memento of your visit to our WC. If you don't have a camera, do not worry, as I have my own and I’d be delighted to take one of you for our newsletter.

Ten Steps to a Perfect Jumble

  For many charities fundraising remains a time-consuming yet obligatory chore. In a rural community like ours it is particularly difficult to keep on raising money especially in today’s financial climate. Many times loyal supporters will dream up schemes to boost flagging funds only to find that they are burdening the costs among themselves. More opportunities to draw in new money from outside are needed. At our special school we have tried sponsored walks, a mile of pennies, raffles, number lotteries, cake stalls and enough coffee mornings to make us all caffeine dependent. All have their place but none of them seem to come close to achieving the returns realised through holding a good old fashioned, Jumble. For those rummage virgins among you there are a few ideas worth considering if you want to become adept at holding a profitable Jumble.

1. First think of when to hold your event. Saturday is the obvious choice. You not only get your buying clientele but also volunteers to man the stalls. The afternoon gives you more time to set up and folk the chance to finish their daily chores (and lunch) before attending the event. If you are short of helpers don’t be afraid to advertise for volunteers when publicising your rummage.

2. Speaking of advertising don’t spend all your hard earned funds on expensive newspaper ads but make and distribute posters and leaflets to the local area. Bill-boards on the day are good for passing trade but parading your teenage son in a wooden sandwich board may get you a call from the local child-welfare office. 

3. Have a strong fairly butch character manning the door who will not be coerced into letting in non-paying customers. Ideally employ an aspiring night-club bouncer who will not even let his dear old granny in without frisking her handbag for loose change. Often veteran car-booters and other traders will try and sneak in early, even offering up a box of Readers’ Digest and old plant pots to try and sneak in early past your security cordon.  Once in they can be like magpies ravaging your best items before you’ve had chance to price up.

4. Use the knowledge of local specialists when pricing up unusual items especially bric-a-brac. It’s wrong to think that all you get at a rummage is rubbish. Even today things still turn up at jumbles that are potentially worth quite a bit. Not every trinket is costume jewellery; some of the cutlery may be plated but other bits, solid silver.  That hideous waistcoat that resembles your Nan’s curtains might be 1970s kitsch and sell in a city retro-store for around  £50. With a dealer you can trust see if he will make you an offer, then you have a baseline to work from.

5. Place all your better pieces together then you can keep an eye on them and customers know, that you know, they are worth more than the rest of your jumble fayre. If you have no dealer friend to take such pieces off your hand don’t be afraid to barter but don’t be too eager. If they are holding onto to it like it’s “Golum’s Precious” then they want it and won’t dare put it down in case some-one else snaps it up.

6. Don’t overprice anything damaged. Sell it on quick, even a nice piece of Crown Derby if its damaged isn’t going to bring you much return.

7. Sort through items before hand and have your stalls clearly defined. We all like to rummage at a jumble but it’s not a scavenger hunt. You’ll make more money if people can see what they’ve come to buy. Avoid piling things like books, tapes and plates into towers. The first person trying to look through them will scatter them and most people just won’t bother looking. Paperbacks, in particular, should be displayed with their spines showing. Don’t have tables inaccessible or create areas where, once you are in, you can’t get out. I recall a woman having a panic attack once because she couldn’t get down off the stage at our village hall because they had provided one way in and blocked a second door that led back down to the main hall.

8. Serve teas and refreshments. People who cannot donate items of rummage will often be glad to contribute a cake or offer to serve refreshments. It’s a good earner in the none-too-fragrant atmosphere of the average jumble and most customers will be gasping after twenty minutes or so of hand-to-hand combat. It is also worth noting that some people, my wife’s one, won’t be seen dead selling jumble but will willingly serve teas until the urns run dry.

9. Raffles, tombolas and competitions can bring in some extra cash particularly from those who want to be supportive of the cause but either haven’t found a bargain to pick up or just cannot bring themselves to buy anything “used” by someone else. But don’t put your best bric-a-brac into the raffle as a prize. Time and time again people make the mistake of filtering out items they think, “ will do better as a prize.’ No, it won’t. A dealer will offer you far more for a Victorian, Whitby-jet pendant than you will get from those chancers buying tombola tickets just hoping to win a bottle of Asti Spumante . At a recent event in our village a ten year old boy picked up this very prize, after shelving out his 20 pence and he was, to say the least, unimpressed.

10. Get someone to agree to take all your jumble leftovers. In this age of recycling it is great that there are companies willing to take away everything, even your rubbish, and some will even pay you!

    Pitfalls at jumbles are varied and difficult to predict. Collect and try and get items for the sale delivered well before the time the sale is due to start. Be careful when sorting through bags of goods. I have heard of used nappies being donated! Personally I’ve not encountered anything too shocking or nasty although I do recall opening a box of crockery once to find a plate loaded with mash potato, gravy, baked beans and the remains of a steak and onion pie. Don’t get conned into disposing of peoples dodgy electrical items it is illegal to sell them on. Don’t waste your time making up jigsaws customers won’t believe you, even if you say you’ve counted every piece. Don’t sort magazines sell them by the dozen. Don’t sell items belonging to any of the helpers . Yes, we did this once, a lady came to help on the nearly-new stall and took off her coat, laying it on the stall whilst she was trying on a cardigan. Her coat was picked up and bought by an eagle-eyed customer in a jiffy. On another occasion a carved wooden panel was sold to a customer who decided it would make a useful workbench in his garden shed. It was not until after the sale ended that a rather irate caretaker pointed out that a panel was in fact missing off the front of the Village Hall’s piano.  Luckily the customer was traced and was willing to forgo his purchase so peace, and the panel, could be restored.

 One last cautionary note, about it five years ago my daughter announced she was going to a ’Tarts and Vicars party’ and needed something special to wear for the occasion. She arrived back from the jumble and appeared in the hallway in her purchase. “It’s great!” she said, “really hideous and over the top, don’t you think? Can you imagine anyone wearing something like this?”   Luckily before I could say anything my wife spoke, “Yes,” she said, “I can, it was mine.” 

Picnic at Culverthorpe

 As far as I recall we didn’t have ringworm, we didn’t live on dry bread and we didn’t run barefoot along the cobbled streets. But neither did we go on family holidays. It wasn’t until many years later that this struck me as anything unusual. We weren’t on the poverty line, my parents were both in work but they were careful with their money. We had most of the mod-cons around in the early 1960s: a car, a TV and, even though Mum still kept a hand mangle in the shed,  a washing machine.  But we just didn’t do holidays. However 1964 was the one exception, my parents relented that year and we found ourselves going to Great Yarmouth. We stayed in an old-fashioned, green and beige caravan on what appeared to be an abandoned aerodrome, outside the town. Not a great start, nothing around for miles and it poured with rain for most of the week. I recall being sat at a rickety table most of the time doing jigsaws with my younger brother whilst the raindrops trickled relentlessly down the windows.  There exists a photo of us both on one of those hi-di-hi side-by-side tandems proving that there must have been sunny spells between the showers but it was hardly what you would call a memorable experience.  The caravan wasn’t unusually small but we were just not caravan-sized people and found the cramped conditions difficult to adapt to. So the experience was not a positive one and sadly put paid to the idea of going away on family holidays for good. My parents obviously decided once bitten… so instead what did we do in the school holidays? We went on picnics.

Nothing very grand, no wicker baskets packed with chilled cordial and salmon en-croute for us. No, just simple fare; usually hard-boiled eggs, sausage rolls and a Lincolnshire haslet or pork-pie if we were lucky. Sometimes we had a choice of sandwiches; tomato sandwiches with either salad cream or tomato sandwiches with cottage cheese. If we were really unlucky they were home-grown tomatoes which had come from Dad’s homemade green-house. I say unlucky because Dad was always too eager to pick the tomatoes before they were fully ripened; hence they were often rather small, green and as hard as radishes. I should also explain that Dad was a bit of a bodger. His greenhouse was not the most conducive environments in which to propagate produce. It was constructed from a couple of railway sleepers laid horizontally, surmounted by what I can best describe as a cuboid of old window-frames, most of which he had managed to salvage from some local building site. This in turn was topped with a pyramid of Perspex sheets fastened together with strips of silver gaffer-tape.. Although a thrifty person herself my mother despaired at the D-I-Y efforts of my Dad. He would never buy anything fit for purpose but always came up with hair-brained schemes to “save a bob or two” by making things himself from the various materials he had scrounged from people in the neighbourhood. Consequently our garden resembled a scrap-yard with half-finished projects dotted about like bad exhibits in a sculpture garden. Food apart the picnics were rather hit and miss affairs because of the appalling weather that seemed to coincide with our planned trips. In fact most picnics took place inside the car as we sat in some remote spot with a “nice view” that mother had picked out. In the early ‘60s we were rather conservative with our choice of transport. Mum , a district nurse, used the car for business everyday. The first car I remember was a sky blue, Ford Poplar, succeeded by a couple of Austin A35s and then an A40. Then we went a little bohemian, splashing out on a Renault 4. I remember going off to Well Vale, with its lovely Georgian church in a landscaped park, Hareby Top, Revesby Abbey Park and Langton sheep-walks. Yet by far the two most visited locations were the fields below Marden Hill at East Keal and the Culverthorpe Fish Ponds. My mother’s family had connections with both these places. She had been brought up at East Keal where her parents had farmed at Brickfields (or the 'brickyard') since the 1920s. Even though the house had changed hands over the years we were still able to picnic in the meadow field adjacent to the old brick pit and enjoy the quiet and solitude of the spot. I knew Culverthorpe also had some connection with my mother’s family but it wasn’t until four years ago that I discovered what it was.

  I often wondered where my mother was born and when I started researching my family tree I soon discovered my maternal grandmother’s family, the Longlands and Sharpes, came from a small group of villages between Grantham and Sleaford. Longlands it seems, at one time or another, were scattered among the villages of Oasby, Welby and Heydour as well as the hamlet of Aisby. I discovered my great, grand-father, Edward Longland, made his living as a carrier and cottage farmer at Aisby but his father, Richard, was a carpenter living on and working for the Culverthorpe Hall Estate. With a brother as blacksmith in Oasby they were clearly at the very centre of life. I’m still trying to gather and link in all the names I’ve found (any help, gratefully received) but at least now I know why when we requested a picnic my Mum dragged us back so often to the lovely countryside surrounding the hall and lake at Culverthorpe. Perhaps I’ll find a nice summer’s day this year and persuade my own family that the time has come to return to this old haunt and we too will share a picnic by the fishponds; I’m just not sure whether the idea of resurrecting the tomato and salad cream sandwich will go down too well!