In 1923 our father went to the Chelsea Flower Show in London with Mrs Ferdinando in his car and it was the talk of Eversley. Very few people went very far in those days. In 1923 our father showed a lot of his flowers and vegetables in the local Eversley show when he won a lot of the prizes – first prize was £1, second was 7s 6d and third was 3s 6d. Father received about £5 – that seemed like a fortune.

In 1922 Mr Ferdinando started a Scout troop for Eversley and Wilfred and Roland joined it . The Scout boys were pleased to help in ‘beating’ for the rich people who go out after 12th August to shoot game. ‘Beating’ is a job of chasing the game up into the sky to be shot. For this job the boys used to receive something like 3s 6d per boy. Unfortunately one boy was shot and lost the use of one eye. The whole village seemed to blame Mr Ferdinando. He became fed up and closed the Scout troop in 1924 and the whole feeling became sour.

To help out a lot of people kept pigs, chickens or ducks, Mr Vase of Up Green had 8 ducks, Mr Baldwin and my father had 1 or 2 pigs. Our father also kept up to about 100 chickens, some he sold and some we had for our own use. I liked looking after the chickens and cleaning and feeding them. Father also made eight chicken house which he sold to various people on the ‘never-never’, Roland used to have to go around to collect the money. When eggs were scarce around January and February, mother used to sell them to the rich people at 3s 6d or 4s per dozen and she would spend the money on shoes and clothes. From time to time I received 3d for plucking chickens for Mrs Verranan and I used to give 2d to our mother and keep 1d. None of us had any pocket money. As a child, my job every Saturday was to empty the “Big Teapot” – later I had to do it every Wednesday and Saturday. Often our dinner was half an egg, half a sausage and potatoes. Sometimes we got dripping on bread and lardy cake.

At this time the Old Age Pension was 10s a week, bread was 4½d a large loaf and a small one 2½d. We took our jug out to the milkman to be filled for 5d, Bully Beef was 8d a can and beef sausages 8d a lb. Shoes for boys and girls were 12s 6d per pair and shirts cost from 5s to 7s 6d per shirt. Wages were about 35s to £2.10s a week. One lady in Up Green scrubbed floors for 6d an hour.


In 1924 father bought a whiskers wireless for £3 which two people could listen to with earphones. It had two wet batteries and one of us had to take one of them to the local garage to be ‘topped up’ for 6d. Most bakers, grocery and butchers delivered to people’s homes, either by horse and cart or van and/or by bicycle. In 1925 father bought a gramophone for £4 10s that had to be wound up by hand and the records costs 1s 3d to 1s 9d each.

Mother had a miscarriage in the Summer of 1926, and she ended up at the Berkshire Hospital, Reading for 2-3 months. At the same time Roland started to work locally and in 1928 he went into domestic services at Littlecote near Hungerford, Berkshire for a Sir Ernest Wills and family as third footman. On Sunday 10th June 1928 mother had Joyce, her tenth child. Clifford went to work mainly as a garden boy. This meant that two of us were out ‘in the world’ and eight children were at home.

Father lost his job at Firgrove Manor in early 1927, I think. For a few weeks he did odd jobbing and gardening. Later he got a job as head gardener for a Mr and Mrs Knowles, Crowthorne opposite the front gate of Wellington College, a boys public school. I was given a good uniform from a boy at Wellington College to wear. I felt like a smart young man. Sometimes we went to Crowthorne to see the trains. I remember in the winter of 1927 we had very hard weather, snow and frost for about 2-3 months when father had to walk 4½ miles to work 5½ days a week with old socks over his boots. In the summer holidays I got a job for five weeks as ‘a boy’ doing domestic work from 8:00am till 6:00pm 6½ days a week for 5s 2d plus food and tea. I got coal and wood into the house, washed up and dried, polished shoes and did gardening. Mrs Rummery told me to give five shillings to my mother and 2d for me, which I did. In those days I used to rent a cycle from a garage at Yateley for 3d for one hour. I would have liked to have had a cycle but we were too poor!

In the summer holidays in 1928 the Twins and I had to go 4½ miles with father from 9:00am to 4:00pm weeding a big new lawn – how boring! Father would give us mats and a small tool to get the weeds out. He put lines on the lawn and we kept to the lines. It took 5-6 weeks for us to do this job without any pay. Later on Mr Knowles gave father three old suits for him and said how good the lawn was. It was also in that year that Gilmore developed TB in his spine and was admitted to Cheltenham hospital. The doctors took a part of his leg bone and grafted in on to his spine. He had to sleep on a hard board bed to survive.

Our father got a new and better job in June 1929 at Donnington Priory with Mr and Mrs GM Gathorne-Hardy. Our father told us how he telephoned to Mr Gathorne-Hardy from Crowthorne to Newbury, the first time he had telephoned in his life. And so we all left Eversley and went to Donnington to live at Priory Lodge. Father got a Mr Austin, who had a car, to drive mother, Mrs Baldwin – a good friend, Joyce, Gerald and Veronica from Eversley to near Newbury. Our father asked Roland to beat Mr Austin down from £3 to £2 10s to £2 and then from £2 to £1 10s. Even now it embarrasses me – what a nerve! Father got a van with our poor old bits and pieces of furniture plus about five chamber pots, one bicycle, Clifford and the twins. Father gave me a lift on his motorcycle – a Dannelt two stroke. When we got to the new house, Priory Lodge, father seemed to be tired so he gave me a good hiding after which he seemed happier. The same happened when we left Wootton St. Lawrence to go to Eversley in 1922 – the old sod!

Donnington Village was only one mile from Newbury, a market town then of 13,000 people. It became a Borough in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. A famous citizen was Jack Newbury who came from Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. He became rich from the wool trade and had built a great church in the centre of Newbury. We were very pleased to be able to look around the town and to be able to visit Woolworths and Marks & Spencers. Our school at Shaw-cum-Donnington was very poor. I, the twins, Gilmore and Leslie, Veronica and Lawrence all attended. Soon I and twins joined the local choir.

On Whitsun in 1929 I overheard our parents discussing the prospects for their children and their own future on a pension of 10s when they retired. They feared that they might end up in the workhouse but hoped that some of children would help. At the end of October 1929 something happened in America that affected the whole of Europe, it was the crash of Wall Street, USA. After Christmas 1929 I had to go to work since I was then fourteen years of age. I went to Mr Robert Martin in the market place where I had to make rope for 7s 6d per week from 8:00am till 5:00pm and from 8:00am till 1:00pm on Saturday. It was somewhat boring. After three months I asked for a rise and I received 1s per week to 8s 6d per week. After six months I left to be a garden boy for 10s per week from 8:00am till 5:00pm and 8:00 till 1:00pm on Saturday. On Sundays I used to blow the church organ for Mr Morris. On a few times I received 1s for being a member of the choir for weddings or funerals.