My life in Brompton from 1930's - today

These pages were kindly provided by Mrs Doreen Newcombe (nee Forth) and we are very grateful to her for sharing with us these stories and images of days long past. Each story is shown separately and covers the following facets of her life in the village:- 1. A BROMPTON CHILDHOOD - what it was like to be brought up on a farm in the 1930’s leading up to World War 2 2. WARTIME SCHOOLDAYS - my recollections of School life in the 1940’s 3. THE SECOND WORLD WAR THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD - my recollections of life in a cottage on Water End from 1939 onwards via the tragic loss in February 1944 of my elder brother Stanley who was away fighting in Italy. My story continues through to VE day in May 1945. 4. WARTIME MEMORIES OF BEING EVACUATED TO BROMPTON by Pat Whitehead (now Pat Hunt) - this story is courtesy of my friend Pat from those Wartime days, who recollects life in a rural village for a little girl from Sunderland. Pat says “After 60 years, we met again In June 2005 for the first time since those wartime schooldays and I met Doreen Forth (now Newcombe) and Mabel Appleby (now Wilbor) for a happy day full of reminiscences and laughter“. 5. YESTERYEAR SHOPPING IN BROMPTON - at the time of posting this article ( Spring 2008) we have one Shop and Post Office combined. In days gone by, with the villagers less dependent on supermarkets, it was a different story. Read all about the shops that are no longer there. 6. THE REVEREND MR. JOHN KETTLEWELL and his legacy - in 1694 he left Lowfields Farm “for uses of Charity for the Poor of the Two Townships of Northallerton and Brompton which he has settled by this deed” etc etc. Read a transcript of the Kettlewell trust bearing the date March 9th 1694 7. FORTH AND NEWCOMBE FAMILY GALLERY - More Pictures of Doreen’s family showing Family pictures and Farming scenes in and around Brompton. (note that some of these pictures may also be featured in the Farming section of the website). ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. A BROMPTON CHILDHOOD Fred and Eleanor Forth with Florence, Wilf (baby) and twins Annie and Edith

My life started on 5th February 1935 at Lowfields Farm, Fullicar Lane. (Incidentally, Lowfields is the farm where John Kettlewell, a benefactor of the village, was born.) The village has benefited from the trust he set up in the seventeenth century, originally to provide for the poor of the parish, but nowadays the hospitals, churches and schools benefit. I can remember my father helping to deliver the charity coals by horse and cart , to the poorest of the parish. The farm adjoining Lowfields is now known as Kettlewell Farm, the income from which goes into the Charity. I wonder if the two farms, in the seventeenth century, were one unit which was split after Kettlewell’s death. The house at Lowfields is certainly the older building. Doreen’s Mum Eleanor Forth nee Lupton on her Wedding Day

I was born the seventh child of Fred and Eleanor Forth and my mother (pictured above on her Wedding Day) was to be 46 two weeks after I was born. She had been in labour all day with the district nurse in attendance. However, by evening, my father was getting very concerned as he suspected something wasn’t quite right. Mum had always had fairly quick and easy deliveries with the other six children (including twins). Being a very single minded man and against the wishes of the nurse, he got on his bike and cycled down Fullicar Lane, which at that time was just a stony track, and into the village to the telephone kiosk on Water End Green to phone the doctor. I understand that at that time, the midwife didn’t get her full payment for a delivery if the doctor had to be called - hence her reluctance for him to be involved. Eventually, Doctor Mackenzie, who was then just newly qualified, came out and assisted with the birth. My father had been correct in his assumptions that all was not well, as the umbilical cord was around my neck and Mum had a very difficult delivery. However, we both were fighters and lived to tell the tale. Fred Forth pictured below on his Wedding Day

Fred & Eleanor Forth at Lowfields Farm 1935 I cannot really remember anything of my early days on the farm and what I do know is because of the stories my parents and family told me, although I do have one very faint recollection of a dog jumping up onto my pram.

Doreen & Mum Eleanor on Christening Day While we lived at the farm, each Wednesday and Saturday, my Mother used to walk to Northallerton market and back, a good six mile round trip, with me in the pram. She would call at a friend’s house in Quaker Lane, Northallerton to feed and change me before continuing on her way. Bearing in mind the state of Fullicar Lane at that time, this wouldn’t be an easy walk, pushing a pram and carrying the accumulator batteries from the radio into town to get them recharged, as well as sometimes having a basket of homemade butter with her to sell.

Geoff & Doreen at Lowfields Farm 1935 Her life must have been hard. One of my much older sisters lived at home as well as my three brothers.

Annie Forth with regular visitor to Lowfields Farm Diane Lewis from York In addition there was always at least one of the farm hands living in. Can you imagine getting the water from the pump in the yard to fill the copper boiler on Sunday evening ready for Monday washing day and providing meals for sixteen to eighteen people on threshing days as well as extra hands at haytime and harvest.

Doreen Forth around 1938 after move to Water End By the time I was three years old, my parents decided it was time to move into the village before I started school. We moved into a cottage in Water End and my earliest recollection is that of packing my dolls pram and setting off to go back ‘home’ to the farm. My sister caught me up at the bottom of the lane, but I know I wasn't very happy about it.

Doreen Forth, Freda Tyreman, Edna & Florence Stainthorpe It was at this time that I first made contact with Freda Tyreman (later Freda Burn) who some of you will remember. Freda was to become my friend for the duration of her lifetime. We spent a lot of time in each others houses and in the gardens behind her home, in what was then known as Hornby Terrace, Water End. We also played in the small fields behind the cottages, which are remnants of the Toft and Croft system and can still be traced on the map today. Hornby Terrace then belonged to Claude Wilford, the mill owner, who lived in the big house, Cedar Mount The cottages adjoin the garden of Cedar Mount and were no doubt built by an earlier Wilford to house mill workers. We were both avid followers of ‘Dick Barton, Special Agent’ and would listen to the hour long omnibus edition on the radio on a Saturday morning, as we weren't allowed to stay up late enough to catch the daily quarter hour instalment. We had very hard winters at that time, and one winter, the brick pond, at the bottom of Fullicar Lane froze over, solid enough to slide on. But poor Freda, she found the thin ice and fell in. She was soaked through and scared to go home to tell her mother what had happened.

Doreen Forth 1940 Both Freda's mother and mine kept chickens in the back garden as a cheap source of food, feeding them on kitchen scraps, green vegetable matter and, during wartime, the ration of ‘Indian corn’ as it was then called. In the springtime, both mothers would each set a dozen eggs for a broody hen to sit on, using orange crates as nest boxes. My mother was the expert on poultry and she would sex the unborn chicks while still in the shell, using a metal gadget on a string. If it swung back and forth it was a cockerel in the egg and round and round it was a hen (or was it the other way round?) And then we had the thrill of watching the chicks hatch out and seeing them grow in the small runs made by our dads for the purpose of rearing them, their yellow fluff changing to brown feathers in a matter of weeks. Sometimes the hens would fly over the wire around their runs and get into the neighbours gardens and eat all the cabbages. This would cause a bit of trouble at the time but was usually resolved by the gift of a few eggs. My mother used to put coloured rings around her hens' legs in order to identify which were hers if they did escape. Brompton green, being common land, was a hive of activity in spring time with lots of chicken coups, and ducks and geese on the beck. The geese got really savage when they had goslings and would chase us with their necks outstretched if you went near them. I was terrified of them. I remember once, my mother sent me to the other side of the green, across the middle bridge to Polly Christon’s, who ran a greengrocers in a shed alongside her house and made deliveries with a horse and cart. Of course, the geese were on the green, so to avoid them on my return journey I made a long detour by walking up the road on Polly’s side of the green, intending to cross the top bridge. I was wearing a new, full length hand knitted, pink coat, as you had in those days, and I fell into a large puddle of dirty water. You can imagine the reception I got when I returned home with the coat wet through and all bedraggled and dirty. I expect I got the usual smack bottom to had insult to injury! Funny thing is, I can't remember wearing that coat ever again! The green was always populated with animals other than the poultry. Mr. Thompson, a dairy farmer in Water End, would turn his cows out there in the summer and Mr. Lancaster, my Dad’s boss, who was also a horse dealer, would break and exercise some of his horses there, which he had bought in to sell on to the army. My eldest brother, Wilf, told me that when a fresh consignment was bought in they were to walk all the way from Northallerton station, where they had been brought by train, through the town and then to Brompton and either up to the farm or to the stables behind Mr. Lancaster's house. When they were broken in and sold on, Wilf used to go on the train, up to Scotland to an army camp with the horses to make sure they were properly fed and watered on the journey.

Wilf Forth at Lowfields Farm The cattle on the green provided hazards for the children playing there by way of the cow-pats they left behind. Many the time a child would fall full length into one of these. The cows also drank from the beck along with the ducks and geese, and this added to its pollution along with the raw sewage which also flowed into it. No wonder scarlet fever and diphtheria were rife in the village each summer. My brother, Geoff, contracted both these illnesses and had to go into the fever hospital on each occasion, This isolation hospital was situated up Sandy Bank in Northallerton. I can remember going with my mother to see him, but I was only allowed to look through the window and no doubt make faces at him. Each time Geoff came home from the Fever Hospital he had head lice, so it was out with the dreaded small tooth comb twice a day. By some miracle, I did not contact either of the infectious diseases from him, which was just as well as some children actually died from diphtheria, but I did get the head lice and hated the daily combing, with a newspaper on the table to catch the lice and then squash them. As well as the combing, once a week it was hair wash day with an evil smelling shampoo called 'Durbac. Things don't seem to have improved a lot with the treatment and infestations of head lice, and they are still rampant in the junior schools. So much for nearly seventy years of 'progress'. There had also been an outbreak of meningitis in the village before we went to live there. My mother used to talk of straw being put down on the roads to deaden the sound of the cart wheels which was disturbing to the patients. Here again, the disease claimed the lives of local people. Tuberculosis was also quite common at this time and of course there was only the fever hospital and the Rutson Cottage Hospital to cope with these diseases. T.B. and lung cancer were thought of under the general term of 'consumption', there not being a great deal of medical knowledge, as there is today, or means of diagnosis for either complaint. With limited hospital facilities, especially for the general working population, treatment and care was often left to the local doctor, who occasionally was known to perform operations on the kitchen table. The National Health Service was not set up until after the Second World War, so access to medical treatment was sketchy and had to be paid for by some means or other. Sick Clubs were set up and if you could afford it, a family made a small payment each week to help to provide for medical care and loss of wages in times of illness. My father was a member of the Oddfellows Club and another at The Three Horse Shoes, which was referred to as 'Jack Sams', named after the landlord there. The Oddfellows invested some of their funds in property and a row of rather superior cottages was built in Water End was known as the Oddfellows Houses. Some strange concoctions were used to combat childhood illnesses. I used to to get croup and my mother had the following recipe made up at the chemist and I still have the scrap of paper on which it was written. 4 ozs Syrup of squills 1 oz Ipecacuanha wine 1 oz Chloric Ether or Spirits of Chloroform 2 ozs Water (Does anyone know what squills and ipecacuanha are ?) Well, I looked them up in the dictionary. Squills is a purgative from the bulb of a plant of the lily family and Ipecacuanha is an emetic. I would think you wouldn’t have the strength to cough after a good dose of that. As to the ether or the chloroform - well! you would certainly get a good night's sleep. The chemist had marked the cost of this concoction as two shillings and nine pence, which I would think was very expensive in those days in the early 1940's. For toothache, Mum would buy a large poppy head, again from the chemist. This would be boiled for a considerable time and then you would wash your mouth out with the resulting liquor. I know now that poppies are a source of opium. It is a wonder we aren’t all drug addicts. And then there was the dreaded goose-grease which was rubbed into the chest for coughs and colds. I can still feel it’s tackiness and Mum’s rough hands rubbing it in - it seemed to stick your chest to your chin. There has been so much in the press recently about giving children Omega 3 fish oils to help their learning abilities. Well, that is nothing new. We were given a good spoonful of cod liver oil and malt everyday as well as Scotts Emulsion (another fish oil product) in the winter. The cod liver oil really was delicious, sometimes I would help myself to another spoonful, but the Scotts Emulsion was a little less palatable - a bit of a ‘nip your nose and swallow it’ thing. If you wanted a doctor and couldn't use the public telephone, which most people fought shy of, the most usual method was to watch out for his car coming into the village and catching him as he came out of a patient's house or flagging him down. Can you see the G.P's of today putting up with that! On one occasion my father was taken to hospital with pneumonia. No one explained anything to me about it and I felt traumatised by the sight of him being carried downstairs on a stretcher and taken off. To add to my distress, while he was in hospital, on Sundays, which was one of the few visiting days, because again there was no one to look after me, I had to go to chapel Sunday School in the morning and church Sunday School in the afternoon. And then, sometimes, my mother took me to Evensong in the evening. I was so fed up by this time, I used to hide behind the big fur collar on her coat and put my tongue out at people in the congregation. They couldn't see me but I got a lot of satisfaction doing it. Sweet little thing that I was!!! Looking back, our living conditions were quite primitive compared to those of today. We only had a stone sink in the kitchen with one cold tap. Water was heated in a small boiler at the side of the large black range which also had an oven for baking . This range took up most of one wall in the living room and on baking days my mother would feed the fire with long pieces of tree branch which we had gathered from the fields. She made bread and teacakes one day and cakes and pastry another. Fresh yeast was bought from the little shop along our row. This was the domain of one, Mrs. Kipling. I used to go along and buy either a pennorth or two pennorth of yeast on the day the yeast man delivered. It had to be fresh for my Mum but she did make exceedingly good bread and teacakes. (Pun) On Mrs. Kipling's counter stood the most magnificent set of brass scales with every size of weight. These were always kept highly polished and were fascinating to a child. We hadn't electric kettles as nowadays, and all the cooking and water heating was done on the coal fire in the living room. Later on we did acquire a paraffin stove which stood in the back kitchen, but it always seemed to need the wicks cleaning and filling up with fuel and it produced foul smelling smoke if it wasn’t just set right. However, it did mean that in the summer months we could do without the coal fire being on all the time. Paraffin was a product which was easily available then and most of the village shops seemed to sell it, the smell of it pervading the nostrils as you entered. On wash days, the large copper in the outside wash house was filled for boiling the whites and providing hot water for the possing tub. The clothes were then put through the large wooden rollered mangle to get as much water as possible out of them and it was very hard work turning the handle; there was no need for the work-out at the gym in those days! If the weather was dry, my mother hung out the clothes in the field at the back of our house, but sometimes there were cows in the field, and on one occasion they ate the skirt off one of my best dresses which the local dressmaker had made for me out of floral curtain material. This was about all you could get during the war as dress material was not available or on clothing coupons so a lot of 'make do and mend' was carried out. On wet days, the clothes were dried around the fire on the clothes horse or hanging from the airing rack which was suspended from the living room ceiling, this being the only room with a fire. Big items like sheets were left to dry overnight. Otherwise you couldn’t get to the fire to warm yourself. It seemed to take all week to get the washing dry in the winter. No wonder everyone suffered from bad chests and colds especially as most of the houses in Water End had damp half way up the walls due to the frequent flooding. Talking of flooding, I remember one really bad February after we had had heavy snow and the beck flooded with the thaw. I think it would be about 1943 and the water came into the houses. My parents were up during the night lifting the mats and putting furniture up onto to blocks made of logs ready cut for the fire. I came down stairs having slept through all the activity and slipped on the wet linoleum which was covering the floor and I went down with such a crash. Did I get sympathy and a cuddle - you bet I didn’t - all I got was a smack bottom!!! Of course we had to live upstairs until the water subsided - about three days I think. My mother did the best she could to boil water and pans on the small bedroom fireplace which hadn’t been lit for years. Well, of course the chimney was blocked so not only were we in danger of being drowned but of being smoked to death. Our only past time was watching through the bedroom windows, to see the huge lumps of frozen snow come sailing down the beck like mini icebergs. There was no Social Services distributing food and heaters in those days and we just had to get along as best we could. When we went to living downstairs again everything was soaked through and the water mark remained on the interior walls for years to come - we never got the interior walls replastered or anything like that. Another year, again after a big snow with high winds, the snow blew under the eaves and my father had to get up into the loft and shovel it out before it brought the ceilings down. When we first moved to the village my mother still did the ironing with the old flat irons which were heated on the fire, even though there was electricity in the cottage. It was sometime before she invested in an electric iron - I think she was worried about the cost of ironing by electricity, payment for which was by slot meter which took penny and shilling coins . A collector came around periodically to empty the meter and the householder would get a bit of discount back depending on the amount in the meter. We also kept our oil lamps for some time, which we had had at the farm and they proved very useful in the event of a war-time electricity cut. Wash day was also the weekly bath day. In the summer, when we came home from school on Mondays, Mum would fill the tin bath with clean water from the copper and we would have a bath in the wooden wash house behind the house. But in winter the bath was brought in before the fire. A treat during the war years was to have a tablet of green Fairy soap for the bath. Although this was the large household type tablet, it was a huge improvement on the alternative; hard, red carbolic soap. I hated having the last bath as the water always seemed gritty after my brother had been in it. Although the village was self sufficient because of twenty shops which catered for most needs, travellers (or representatives) came round to collect the grocery order from either Lewis and Cooper or Russells of Northallerton, which was then delivered by van once a fortnight. Every three or four months, another traveller from Claphams, the drapers, furnishers and tailors in Northallerton (where Boyes shop now is) came around with suitcases full of samples. I thought this was very exciting as he unpacked sheets, pinafores, shirts, gloves, stockings, towels and all manner of things. Here again, you placed an order and it was duly delivered by van. The onion seller, knife grinder, lemonade man and Polly Christon with her fruit and vegetables were also regular visitors and many of the local deliveries and collections were still done by horse and cart. In summer, the milkman came around with his horse and trap twice a day, with fresh milk in a huge churn. In Winter I think we only got one delivery. The householders would come out with a big jug and get their required quantity, which was measured out in metal containers with long handles to get to the bottom of the churn. The coalman also had a horse and flat cart and the emptying of the earth closets was the duty of a local farmer with a special closed container pulled by a horse. The waste was emptied onto agricultural land to be ploughed in. Have you ever wondered why, when walking over a ploughed field, you always find pieces of pottery - well this is the reason. The ash pits were also used for disposing rubbish that couldn’t be burnt. I recently met up with a ‘girl’ who used to visit her grandparents who lived near us. She said “You used to let me play with you. I liked that, as you had a better trike than I had.” I replied,” I didn’t think I had anything better than anyone else - we were pretty poor.” “Oh yes,” she said, “You see, I hadn’t got one at all.” which puts it all into perspective. I did, however, acquire a lovely dolls pram when I was about five years old. One of the few photographs I had taken as a child shows me and my friends, lined up with our prams.

Doreen Forth, Freda Tyreman, Edna & Florence Stainthorpe Our clothing is also typical of what we had at that time, it was either handmedowns or make do and mend. I suppose the reason we don’t have many childhood photos is partly due to the fact that it was wartime and film wasn’t available and the fact that we were all pretty poor and couldn’t afford luxuries like cameras. One of my brothers had gone to the south of England to work and he bought the pram for me. But do you know, I still liked to put my dolls into an old shoe box with string through the end and pull that about.

Wilf Forth, Des and Edgar Hoare Another improvisation was that of making stilts from old treacle tins - again with string through the tops which we held in our hands. We used to totter around on these tins and I can’t remember there being any broken ankles. We also used to make our own fishing nets from a garden cane, a loop of wire and a cotton bag. Other popular play things were large, metal hoops with hooks to steer them by. These were made by the local blacksmith and we used to race around the roads with them. Of course there was very little motor traffic (only Claude Wilford , Mr. Lancaster and the doctor had cars) and the horse and carts moved at a very steady pace so didn't constitute a danger to us. Mentioning the blacksmith, there were two smithies in the village. Jim Burn at the Green Tree and Sam Hardcastle, whose forge was on the corner of what is now the Crown Inn car park. When we came out of school we would go over to Sam’s forge and watch as he hammered horseshoes and rims for cart wheels and see the sparks flying from the fire as he pumped the bellows. I always wondered if it hurt the horses to have a red hot shoes out onto their hooves. We didn’t have playgrounds with lots of equipment, apart from the Recreation Field, next to the Church Hall, which had been given to the village by the Todd family from Mill Hill House. I can remember one event being held on this field and then of course its was requisitioned by the Army when the soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk and a field bakery was set up there. There were also temporary latrines in the corner near to the present Methodist Church and the ‘humps and bumps’ of this activity could be detected until the ground was recently ploughed and resown. The village greens were our playgrounds and when I got a bit older I used to join in the cricket matches on Water End Green, with both boys and girls playing. Our course we had our own rules to fit in with the terrain, for example ‘three beckers’ (i.e. hitting the ball into the beck) and you were out. One broken window and you were out, but we did all pitch in together to cover the cost of the replacement and it was good practice for the apprentice plumber and glazier who played with us. One test of your ability was to be able to run barefoot, without falling in, across the big sewage pipes of which there were two near the top bridge in Water End. This was a kind of passport which gave the right to be considered a native of the village with certain privileges, like permitting you to pee in the beck. Looking back, one of the things I can best remember was the ‘freedom to roam’ we had as children. In the summer we would take a bottle of water and some jam sandwiches and spend the days over the fields making camps in the hedgerows and exploring. We also played in the old ruined windmill, which has recently been renovated and made habitable. One of the most daring escapades, so I thought, was that some children would run across the parapet of Fullicar railway bridge when a train was passing beneath. I never attempted that but I can remember some who did and are still alive today! Other summer pastimes were marbles for the boys, played around ‘ally holes’ as the target. These holes were made by digging shoe heels into the green. Skipping and hopscotch were popular with the girls. These latter two games were played out on the roadway as there was so little traffic. Skipping often involved a long rope being stretched right across the road, or when you got really advanced, two ropes, turned one with the left hand and one with the right, so they crossed in the middle and then it was ‘All in together girls’ and other such skipping rhymes. This really did require a lot of skill and concentration, timing the turns of the rope as you ran in and kept us fit and slim. As the nights grew darker, we still played outside - making the outlines of houses from the fallen leaves on the greens and playing fox-off. Sledging by torchlight in Mr. Lancaster’s field, which is now Danes Crest, or making slides on the icy roads in the winters, which were always cold and snowy, were other pastimes ruled by the seasons. The sledging could be fairly hazardous as there was a brick wall at the bottom of the run and several children got split heads by running into it when going down bellyflop. The way to avoid the brick wall was to go through the hedge onto the road and pray there wasn’t a bus coming!! Keeping warm was a problem in wartime winters and most of our clothes, as I have already said, were 'make do and mend' or 'handmedowns'. Not for us the ‘ designer label’ clothes demanded by the children of today. Jumpers were knitted from pulled out adult woollens and then they sometimes ended up as bathing costumes, with the sleeves cut out and the body of the garment stitched between the legs. Can you imagine what we looked like when these got wet through! But we had to have the right gear when fishing in the beck in the summer. I even had a pair of mittens made from rabbit skins Mum had cured, after we had eaten the rabbit itself, and a pair of leggings with numerous small buttons up each side which had to be fastened with a button hook - it took ages to put them on. My hands and legs always seemed to be chapped in the winter, no long trousers for the boys, just shorts until they were about fourteen, and the girls were never seen in trousers, although we did envy the Land Army girls in their’s. I also suffered from the dreaded chilblains, but there again we played outside much of the time and didn't spend our days in a centrally heated home before a television set or computer. Snowfire ointment was the general treatment for these ills, but they never went away until the Spring came with the better weather. Making clip and hookey rugs was a winter occupation done by all the family. If you didn’t help making the mats on the large wooden frames which took up most of the space and were suspended from the beams in the ceiling, you had to sit at the back of the room away from the fire and freeze, so there wasn’t much option but to help. Doing these rugs was an early form of recycling as well as a necessity as the only other floor covering was the cold linoleum. Old woollen clothing, such as skirts, dresses, trousers, coats etc. was cut up into either three inch clips or long strips, depending on which method of weaving into the canvas backing was to be used. My mother used to scour the village for suitable material and black was always highly prized as this was used for the borders of the rug.

Wilf on rear right, Alan Thompson seated When the war started and I was at school, my mother and Freda’s mother helped at Lowfields Farm with haytime, harvest and on threshing days, as most of the able bodied men had joined the forces.

Sharing our ‘lowances during a well-earned break at Haytime on Lowfields Farm 1935 Freda and I would come home from school on our own, remember we would be only seven or eight years old, and walk all the way to the top of Fullicar Lane to our join our mothers in the fields. We were usually just in time to share the workers ‘clockings' or ‘lowances’ as the refreshments were called, having scalding, hot tea from a large enamel can and fresh scones and teacakes, made by my mother. They did taste good after our long walk. If we were well behaved in the fields, which of course we always were, we would get a ride back to the farm on the back of one of the cart horses, or on top of a load of hay or corn, and then have a lift back to the village in Mr. Lancaster’s rattly, old horse box, bumping down the stoney, rutted lane. But as my father would say, “Third class riding is better than first class walking!” On threshing days, as, again, there was no one to look after us at home if it was school holidays, we would go to the farm with our mums, and be issued with a big stick and told to kill the mice and rats as they came out of the corn stack. We used to run after them as they appeared and give them a good walloping. The women would be cutting bands on the top of the threshing machine and feeding the corn into the drum and the older boys would be employed in the 'chaff hole' as it was called. This was where the dusty, flaky husk off the corn was dispelled ready to be bagged up for animal bedding. There was no Health and Safety Executive in those days and it was all hands deck. Before the threshing day itself, my mother did a huge bake ready for the 'llowances' for the sixteen or so hands required for a threshing day. The thing that put a stop to our freedom after dark, was when the soldiers were brought back from Dunkirk and were billetted in the halls and empty houses in the village. There was then a curfew imposed and soldiers were posted around and would challenge you with “Who goes there”. A field bakery was set up on the Recreation Ground (the one near the Church Hall) and lorries and other vehicles were parked there and on the village greens, covered in camouflage netting ,which we children would help the soldiers to weave putting the strips of khaki coloured material into large mesh netting. I can remember the soldiers putting on concerts in the Village Hall and we would sit on their wooden bunks and listen to them singing songs such as 'Please don't send away the Border Boys, we'll need them by and by' referring to the Border Regiment billeted in the village and ‘Hang our your washing on the Siegfried Line.’ I think they must have written the first song themselves. They played tunes on spoons and other improvised instruments, sometimes accompanied by the piano. Even today, when I hear the old hall creaking in the wind, I think of those soldiers billeted here and wonder how they managed to sleep. In reality, I would think they thought this was heaven compared to the Dunkirk beaches. My mother would sometimes invite one or two of the soldiers in for a meal, (which would usually consist of, you've guessed it, rabbit pie, I certainly couldn’t eat it now. What hunger will do for you!! Later on in the war a Land Army Hostel was built in Little Lane and the girls billetted there worked on the local farms. Sometimes, they would put on a party for us and hold a fancy dress competition. As there wasn’t much else going on for us other than that provided by our own imagination, we really looked forward to these events. There was also a Prisoner of War camp at Stone Cross which housed Germans , Italians and Ukrainians. They too worked on the land and some went on to marry local girls and stayed on in this country after the war. The farmers were very glad of this additional help as most of the local young men had been called up into the forces or to serve as Bevin Boys in the mines.

Doreen Forth at Whitsuntide Fancy Dress aged 16 If my memory serves me correct, the Brompton Whitsuntide Sports, as the Spring Bank Holiday Carnival was then known, continued throughout the war years. We were always eager to take part in all the sporting events and the fancy dress parade, as this was an important source of income for us which we duly spent on the fair. Mr. Lancaster, my father's boss was on the committee and he entered horses into the parade, all decked up with highly polished horse brasses and rosettes made from crepe paper adorning their mane and plaited tails.

Women’s Sack Race Whit 1951 Anita Shaw nee Peacock leads Doreen Forth by a short head As a general rule, it was Mum who was the disciplinarian in the house, after all we didn’t see such a lot of my Dad, who was always either at work on the farm or digging the garden. But Sunday lunchtimes we all sat around the table together and that was when my father came to the fore. It was ‘sit up, shut up and eat up’. He was a stickler for table manners - always telling us to ‘keep our wings down’ i.e. elbows tucked in and to ‘let our meat stop our mouths.’ Knives and forks had to be properly held, we had to sit with straight backs and no giggling was allowed. One day, my brother was misbehaving at the table, Dad took his belt off ready to thrash him, Geoff got under the table and it was my legs that caught the brunt of it. But we still laugh about it today! On another occasion, Geoff sneaked off to swim in the River Swale at Morton Bridge. This was a foolish thing to do as boys had been drowned doing the self same thing. Well, when he got back he got a real thrashing from Dad with the wet swim trunks. It must have hurt. This may seem cruel these days, but it was done in love and concern for his safety and we all had a deep respect and affection for our parents and never questioned their authority and accepted the punishments as duly deserved. Sundays were very much the ‘family days’. In the summer months we would go for a walk if Dad wasn’t haytiming or harvesting, which at that time they tried to avoid on the Sabbath and it was only done in a wet year, when it was difficult to get the crops in. Sometimes it was up to the ‘Wheatsheaf Inn’ which was at the top of Winton Bank. It was quite safe walking on the road as there was so little traffic. I can’t have been very old as I remember going in my pushchair. We would go into the pub and sit on the old wooden settle. I would have a small glass of lemonade, Mum a shandy and Dad would have half a bitter. On other occasions we would walk over the fields. Dad would always know where the birdnests could be found, where there was frogspawn and where the firemen from the steam trains had thrown onto the railway side, huge pieces of coal which were too large to go into the stokehole. Dad would then produce a sack from his pocket and carry the coal home to supplement the allocation we were allowed or could afford. He also knew when the blackberries were ready and where the best ones could be found. Sometimes he would get the horse and cart from the farm and we would go ‘sticking’ picking up the branches and sticks which had blown from the trees. These would be sawn into convenient lengths and stored in the stick house at the back of our cottage ready for winter. This stick house had a stall and manger in it and I wonder now, if it had been a stable sometime in its past. He could also mesmerise rabbits by walking round and round them in ever-decreasing circles until he got near enough to hit them on the head to stun them. He would then wring their necks and paunch them, then mum would skin them and then into the pot they would go. Yes, he was a country man through and through! At Easter 1940 I started at Brompton School. How different..... Doreen Newcombe 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------

2. WARTIME SCHOOLDAYS

How different a child's first introduction to school is today from my own experience way back in 1940. I well remember being taken along to Brompton County Primary School by my mother on that first morning (complete with gas mask in its little cardboard box), being registered and then left - abandoned - or so it seemed to me. There was no pre-school visit or preparation of any kind in those days. But still, we survived! There were approximately thirty children in the Infant Class; some were old hands at the game, being six years old and very bossy with it. The number of pupils was high because of the evacuees from Hartlepool and Sunderland. Some had moved to the area with their families and others were billetted with local families, while their parents remained back in their home towns. We were taught by Miss Thornton who was past retirement age but had been retained because of staffing shortages due to the call-up of younger male teachers. Shown here in her only Primary school photograph Doreen Forth aged 5

Our class room had a coal fire with a huge fire-guard around it, which proved very useful for warming and drying our woollen gloves on those cold, wartime- winter mornings. Our daily third of a pint of milk was often frozen solid in the glass bottles and these were placed near the fire to thaw out. Our desks were long, wooden seats and tops at which about eight children sat in a continuous row. The windows of the room were high so that once one was in the room all you saw of the outside world was the sky. I well remember on that first morning, a certain boy (who I won't embarrass by naming), cried the whole of the time, clinging so tightly to the door sneck that the teacher was unable to move him. In the end he wore himself out and fell asleep, still clutching at the sneck. The rest of us were too frightened to speak! The routine of the day was very regimented and there was no freedom of movement around the room as there is in a primary school today, where children work and share books and equipment together. We just had to stay put and stay silent unless we were asked to answer a question or asked to go out to the teacher to read from the cardboard reading cards. On arrival in the morning, no matter what the weather, the children stayed outside on the playground until the bell summoned us to gather in lines, ready to march into the hall for morning assembly. Here again, we stood in lines, according to age and sex. while we sung hymns and said our prayers. Does my memory play tricks or was it always either 'All things Bright and Beautiful' or 'There is a Green Hill Far Away' After assembly we marched to our class-rooms for registration and the start of the day's work . There was one girl, one of the evacuees, who was always late - coming into the class-room when we were already embarked on our lessons. One day, the teacher pinned a rabbit's tail to her rear-end in the hope of curing her bad time-keeping. Poor Peggy, it wasn't her fault! No doubt, the teacher would be severly reprimanded today. We had play-time morning and afternoon - morning play always started with our milk ration. We got a third of a pint of very creamy milk issued free of charge. There was a cardboard top on the bottle with a hole in the middle through which you pushed your drinking straw. Mind you, in the summer, the freshness of the milk left something to be desired (remember fridges were not common-place as they are today). And, as I have already mentioned, in the winter months sometimes it was frozen solid, pushing the top off the bottle. The Schools Meals Service was introduced about this time. Two shillings a week (ten pence) bought a two-course meal each day for the whole week The food was cooked at the Central Kitchen in Romanby Road, Northallerton. The premises were somewhat prefabricated but it was amazing what good meals were producd. The cooked food was then taken out to the schools in insulated containers. John Winn, who ran one of the local bus services from the village, had the contract for transporting the meals. There was one occasion, however, when the pudding didn't come up to standard. We were served the most appalling, pink blancmange, which I think must have been made with sour milk, it tasted TERRIBLE. Anyhow, Miss Lamb, the Head Teacher, insisted that we eat it up, but a few of us rebelled. We sat there all through the first sitting and then all through the second sitting (nearly everyone stayed for lunch and couldn't be seated all at once). And we were even there into the early part of the afternoon. We weren't giving way nor was Miss Lamb - we had to be taught not to waste food - there was a war on! We were eventually rescued by one of the dinner ladies taking pity on us. She smuggled the offending blancmange away in our white, pottery drinking beakers and told Miss Lamb that we had eaten it. Miss Lamb, the Head Teacher. She was an extremely tall lady - at least six feet in height with whiskers on her chin - funny the things you remember! She was pretty nifty with the cane or ruler when the occasion demanded, which seemed to be fairly frequent. Both girls and boys were either given the ruler or caned. A cane coming down from that height certainly left its mark, but of course, we dare not tell our parents when we had been punished, we would have only got more when we went home. One wet lunch time, when we had to stay indoors for play-time, I went to the toilets across the yard without asking to leave the room. Upon my return I was caned on both hands for going without permission. I still blush at the indignity of it all, but such was the discipline at that time. As the country was at war during my years at Brompton School, that in itself created unusual circumstances. For instance, all the windows were criss-crossed with brown, sticky paper to prevent glass fragments flying about, should the building be bombed. Of course, we had to take our gas masks everywhere we went. These were sometimes carried in their original cardboard boxes with string through the sides so that they could be slung over the shoulder. The better off among us had special, waterproof cases. The mobile 'gas-chamber' used to visit periodically and then we had to put on our masks and go into the darkened van, where I presume some gas was released. On coming out, our masks were examined and the people in charge were able to tell if they were functioning properly by looking at the crystals in the base. Fortunately,the masks were never needed in a real gas attack. On one occasion, the air raid warning siren sounded and we all had to get under our desks for cover. We sang songs while crouching there - not an easy feat! However, it must have been a false alarm as I can't recall any action. A few bombs were dropped in the area on another occasion. South Parade in Northallerton had a direct hit one night and some small bombs were dropped on Brompton Banks. One sunny, Sunday afternoon, a plane crashed in some fields alongside Stokesley Road - almost directly behind the house where I now live. Unfortunately, the pilot was killed. Christmas parties at this time were pretty spartan affairs. We had to take our own food and even our own cup or mug. One year, instead of a party, we were taken to the Cinema de Luxe in Romanby Road (known locally as the 'flea pit') Northallerton at that time sported three cinemas; the newly opened Lyric at North End, where the New Life Baptist Church now is, the Central Cinema, which stood where the road from the Applegarth car park emerges onto the High Street, and the Cinema de Luxe, at the junction of Alverton Lane and Romanby Road. Anyhow, this particular Saturday morning, the projection equipment broke down (a common occurrence here) and we never did see the film show. So much for our treat. Progression through school depended on ability as well as age and I found myself in the 'top class' at the age of ten. Mental arithmetic tests were held every Friday morning and where one sat in the class depended on your test results that week. 'How many inches are there in three yards, two feet and ten inches' and 'How much does ten dozen eggs cost at one and eleven halfpenny a dozen' were typical of the questions we were asked. The pupils with the highest marks sat in the back row and those with the lowest sat in the front row, under the direct eye of Miss Lamb. Those of us with a good memory got that we could memorise the questions and the answers, but then, isn't having a good memory what mental arithmetic is all about? Tables and poetry were also learnt by rote and I can still recite, word for word, poems like John Masefield's 'Cargoes', Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' and Keat's 'Ode to Autumn' Brompton School had two playgrounds or 'yards' as we called them - one for the boys and one for the girls. The toilets were outside, 'across the yard' if one got permission to go, of course! Our playground games seemed to follow the seasons - sliding and snowballing in the winter - we always had snow. Sliding required that you had your leather soled shoes strengthened with segs, flat topped, metal, three pronged nails. Otherwise your shoes quickly wore out. Springtime saw the emergence of whips and tops for the girls and marbles for the boys. In Summer, out came the skipping ropes and the chanted rhymes that went with them - 'Pitch, Patch, Pepper' and 'All in Together Girls' In Autumn, when the days started to get colder, we had to run around more to keep warm, so 'Tigs' became the order of the day. Our P.E. lessons, such as they were, were often taken on the playground. We were always split into four teams, blue, red, green and yellow wearing the appropriate coloured band across the shoulders, and I can remember dumpy, little Miss Bendelow, in her tight tweed skirt, trying to show us how to bend and stretch and jump our feet apart. Not for us the sophisticated equipment of today. We only had hoops and skipping ropes. Regular visits from the 'Nit-nurse' were also a feature of school life. Local mothers always blamed the evacuees for the infestations of head-lice and Oh, the shame of having your name put down in the nurse's little, black book and then suffering the indignity and pain of the small-tooth comb and the 'Derbac' shampoo. The culmination of the years spent at Primary School was the dreaded 'Scholarship Examination' or 'Eleven Plus' as it was later known. The scholarship was taken in two parts - the first part at your Primary School, which if you passed, you then went on to take the second part at the Grammar School in Northallerton on a Saturday morning. Success or failure in this examination determined whether you then went on to the Grammar School or the Allertonshire Secondary Modern School. The standards achieved varied considerably and some of the boys in the top class had even to learn how to write their name in 'joined up writing' before taking the first part of the scholarship. The school dentist visited the day before I was due to sit the second half of the examination and I had to have five teeth taken out by anaesthetic - not the best of preparations for this important event. As a special concession, Miss Lamb allowed me to go home after I had had my teeth extracted and this was indeed, preferential treatment. You were usually left to recover at school and then go home at the appointed time. We were given three new pencils to take along to the exam and mine were brought to my house after school by two other girls who were also taking the test. They knocked at my door, clutching their own new pencils and handed me mine. I couldn't help noticing that the points on their pencils were much sharper than mine! They had kept the best ones for themselves. Despite such a disadvantage, I gained my scholarship and they failed. Such is justice as seen through the eyes of an eleven year old. And so my years at Brompton School came to an end and so had the Second World War. We had been very lucky living out in the country as we did, for we didn't experience much of the action and hardship that many others suffered, and I don't recall the war having too much effect on my childhood apart from the loss of one of my brothers in the Anzio Beachhead landings in Italy. Sgt Stan Forth – Coldstream Guards

I don't think my mother ever properly got over that sad loss and it is still one of my life's ambitions to visit his grave. Stanley Forth’s headstone in the Commonwealth Graves Cemetery at Minterno, Italy

Mum wouldn't let us take part in the celebrations when the war ended - such was her grief. Here is a picture of my brother Stan & his wife Gladys Forth on their wedding day

Perhaps we took it all for granted, as being so young when it all started, we couldn't remember much else. We always seemed to have plenty to eat, thanks to the school dinners and the fact that my father worked on the farm and brought home lots of rabbits . He also grew vegetables in the garden behind our house as did most people and potatoes were always plentiful from the farms. The October half term holiday was always called the 'tatie picking week' and quite young children would be employed getting the crops lifted for four or five shillings a day and a bag of potatoes to bring home. Another crop we all helped to harvest was gathering rose hips. We would fill huge bags of hips from the wild roses on the hedgerows, bring them to school and I think we were paid tuppence a pound for them. And then there was bramble time when we went out picking ripe blackberries for our mothers to turn into bramble and apple jam or lovely bramble and apple dumplings. Perhaps we didn't have all the toys, clothes and equipment that children have today, but we made our own amusement and managed to have a happy childhood. Doreen Newcombe 1998 Doreen Forth aged 16

3. THE SECOND WORLD WAR THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD

I was four and a half years old when the Second World War started in September 1939 and not yet at school, as at that time a child had to be a full five years old to enter education. I lived with my family in Brompton, near Northallerton in a cottage on the green. I can well remember Neville Chamberlain, who was our Prime Minister at that time, speaking on the ‘wireless’, as the radio was known. He said we were at war with Germany. I asked my mother what that meant and she explained that men would fight one another and perhaps get killed. This was all very bewildering to a child of four. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR One of my earliest memories was of my father joining the A.R.P. which stood for Air Raid Precaution. He had to wear a navy blue uniform when he was on duty or on training sessions. His earliest job was to help to distribute gas masks to every person in the village and I went around with him. These gas masks would have to be worn should Germany launch a gas attack from the air, as had happened in France in the First World War. Off we set with the gas masks in my mother’s wicker laundry basket. There were three sizes - small, medium and large and people had to try them on to see with fitted the most snugly. There was also a special cradle-like contraption for small babies. The whole population was ordered to carry their gas masks with them everywhere they went. They came in cardboard boxes with string through them so that they could be carried over the shoulder and then, as time went by, you could purchase special waterproof cases which were a bit more substantial. The real duties of the A.R.P., however, were to assist the civil population at the time of air raids, helping to put out fires and getting people into air raid shelters . Dad was issued with a stirrup pump, which was a small hand pump not much bigger than the sort of pump you would blow up your bike tyres with. These were designed to pump water from buckets onto small fires but I don’t think they would have been very effective. These pumps, together with buckets of sand were placed in all public buildings. He also had a wooden rattle, similar to those used at football matches, which had to be sounded in the event of a gas attack. And then of course there was the Home Guard. I can remember going to see them practice drill on Sunday mornings on the field that is now the football field in Station road. We wondered what these men were doing marching up and down with broom shafts over their shoulders (they hadn’t yet been issued with guns). They didn't half look daft - talk about Dad's Army. Another introduction at the beginning of the war was that everyone was issued with an Identity Card with name, address and a number unique to each individual. As children we had to learn our number by heart and I can still remember mine, JHMA 585, Some of us got bracelets or medallions made with this number engraved on it. The purpose of it all was that should we be injured or killed in an air raid if we had our identity number on our person we could be easily identified. Further urgent preparation was the making of blackouts for windows. You hadn’t to show a chink of light as enemy bombers would be able to spot a town or village from the air. It was another duty of the A.R.P. to go around at night checking that no-one was showing a light - if you were they would knock at the door and shout ‘Put that light out’ Blackouts were made from heavy black material or some householders made wooden frames to fit closely to the glass and covered them with a black, tarry paper. They were held in place with swivel fasteners so that they could be put up at ‘Blackout time’ and taken down during the day. Brown sticky paper was also stuck to the glass in windows in criss cross patterns so that should the glass break because of a bomb dropping, the glass wouldn’t fly everywhere, but would splinter and still be held in place by the brown paper. Double Summer Time was introduced in an effort to make the most of the daylight hours for the farmers. We would be put to bed in the summer with the sun still shining brightly and it was very difficult to get to sleep. Shops, offices and public buildings had walls of sandbags placed outside them, again to protect against bomb damage and huge water tanks were erected in the streets to provide water should incendiary bombs be dropped. I can remember barricades being built in Northallerton High Street to impede the advance of tanks if the Germans actually landed in this country and air raid sirens were placed on County Hall in Northallerton, ready to sound at the first sighting of an enemy aircraft. There were lots of leafets issued telling householders how to make rooms gas proof, always to carry your gas masks, careless talk costs lives - meaning you hadn’t to discuss anything in public which may be of use to an enemy spy. Posters seemed to be everywhere telling people: to eat National Wholemeal Bread (which was a dirty white colour) to dig for victory not to waste food to keep children in the country to know how to behave in an air raid shelter to look out in the blackout to look out for poison gas ` to carry gas mask everywhere to join the Auxiliary Fire Service to register for Civil Defence duties to help build a plane to recruit for the Air Training Corps to save for Victory With regard to the last one, one could buy savings stamps at Post Offices for as little as sixpence (two and half pence). When you had fifteen shillings (75p) saved you purchased a National Savings Certificate which went towards the war effort. When I started school I used to buy the savings stamps from school and when I got into the top class it was my job to go to the Post Office once a week to buy the stamps for the whole school. My next most vivid memory was of the evacuees arriving in the village. These were children from Middlesborough, Hartlepool and Sunderland, where because of the shipyards there, it was expected there would be heavy bombing. Brompton being in the country was considered safer than the towns. The children looked so forlorn being led around the village by ladies from the WRVS. They had labels with their names and addresses pinned to their coats and carried brown carrier bags with their clothes in them. It was the job of the ladies to knock on everyone’s door to see if they would take in an evacuee or two, not an easy task. I am still in touch with a person who was evacuated with her mother and brother to a cottage opposite the Church Hall. They came from Sunderland and stayed for the duration of the war. There was a big rush to build airfields around the countryside and this area of North Yorkshire had its fair share, with stations at Leeming, Topcliffe, Dalton, Scorton, Catterick and Sandhutton to name but a few. In some areas ‘dummy airfields’ were built to confuse the enemy and there was one on the farm in Long Lane where my husband lived. This entitled them to an Anderson Shelter which was a prefabricated, metal air raid shelter, which was to be partly submerged in the ground and the roof covered with earth. The shelters were six feet high and six feet, six inches long and could accommodate up to seven people standing up. In areas of great risk most households were issued with such shelters or there would be brick built ones in every street. As Brompton was a low risk area we did not have shelters issued to us, but some people dug their own in their back gardens WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE FOR A CHILD DURING THE WAR. After Easter 1940 I started school and went along on that first morning complete with gas mask. There were up to forty children in some of our classes as the numbers were swelled by the evacuee children who brought with them an infestation of nits. In Northallerton, the grammar school had to use Church Halls and other buildings to accommodate their increased numbers as Bede Grammar School from Sunderland was evacuated here and for a while the Northallerton attended in the morning and Bede School in the afternoon. Our teachers were all women, as the young men had been called up for military service. My first teacher was Miss Thornton who was quite old as she had been brought out of retirement. Of course, the classroom windows were all covered by the brown sticky paper I have already mentioned and heating in our classroom, the oldest part of the building, was by an open fire with a huge iron fireguard around it. This was always useful for drying out gloves in the winter time and for thawing out our daily third of a pint of milk which in those cold wartime winters would sometimes have an inch of ice on the top, pushing off the cardboard top from its little glass bottle. In summer, the milk would sometimes be sour when we got it as there were no refrigerators in those days. The daily milk ration was introduced to supplement the diet of the children. The School Meals Service was also introduced during the war years for the same reason. For two shillings a week (ten pence) we got a two course meal every day and, do you know, we all begged our Mums to be allowed to stay for school dinners. The dinners were cooked in a Central Kitchen in Northallerton and brought to the school in insulated containers. We always wolfed them down except on one occasion when we had a sort of blancmange for pudding and I think it must have been made with sour milk - it tasted vile. But the Head Teacher wouldn’t let us leave it (there was a war on) and we were made to sit there all through the first sitting and through the second sitting and into afternoon school time and she kept coming to check up on us to see if we had eaten it. However, we were rescued by one of the dinner ladies who smuggled it out for us in our pottery drinking beakers and she told the teacher we had eaten it. School Christmas parties were pretty spartan affairs. Not only had we to take our own food but we also had to take our own cups. One year, as a special Christmas treat we were to go to the cinema in Northallerton instead of having a party. We had three cinemas in Northallerton at that time but they had chosen the oldest one of all, the Flea Pit as it was known. The film had just got nicely started when the projection equipment broke down and couldn’t be got to work again. So much for our treat! How did the war affect our family? My father and one of my three brothers were not called up for active service as they were employed in agriculture, which was reserved employment. My second brother volunteered for the army before his call-up papers came and he saw service as a sergeant with the Coldstream guards in North Africa and the Italian landings. Unfortunately, he was killed at Anzio Beachhead in Italy on 14th February 1944 aged just 24 I well remember the Saturday morning when the telegram came to tell us the awful news and I don’t think my mother ever got over it. His name is on the war memorial in Brompton - Stanley Forth. As regards food at home we didn’t fare too badly. Because my father was farming he caught lots of rabbits and my mother used to make delicious rabbit pies, my youngest brother and I always used to fight as to who got the kidneys, but don’t ask me to eat rabbit pie nowadays. However we were glad of it then. My mother kept hens in a run in the field at the back of our house, as did a lot of other people. When they were laying we had nice brown eggs to eat and my father grew lots of vegetables in the garden and we got potatoes and milk from the farm. He also got a pig fattened as part of his wages so we had home cured bacon too, although I hated it - it was salty and very fatty. On pig killing day, one of the men who worked at VOM Bacon factory would humanely shoot the pig through the head in our back yard, it would be bled and the blood saved to make black pudding and then the innards were taken out and those parts which could be eaten were saved and the liver was cut up and distributed among the neighbours. The tradition was that you didn't wash the plate before handing it back to the donor, as this was bad luck. Then the pig's skin was scalded with buckets of boiling water (boiled in the copper in the outside washouse). This was to soften the skin before it was scraped to remove the tough hairs. The carcass was then ready for butchering and cut into sides of bacon and hams for curing. The head, trotters and other spare parts were then put into a large metal bowl and would be simmered for about twenty four hours in the oven. After this, when the meat was cooled, mother would work all the flesh off the bits and this would be put into moulds and filled up with the liquor from the cooking and left to set. The result was delicious brawn. Even the intestines were cleaned and ended up as sausage skins and the fatty bits were rendered down, cooled and salted and ended up as chittlings. Try feeding this to children today!!! I think the biggest hardship for a child was that there were very few sweets available and sweet rationing didn’t end until February 1953. We used to mix cocoa powder and sugar (if we could get it) to make something sweet to eat. Sometimes we managed to get chewing gum from the soldiers and on one occasion I took some the school. I had been chewing it over the lunch time break and took it out of my mouth when we went back into class as we weren’t really allowed gum. Well, instead of disposing it, I sat rolling mine around in my hands. Miss Thornton suspected something was going on on shouted out “Doreen Forth, Hold up your hands.” Well, I did and do you know they were completely stuck together. The teacher made me go in the cloakroom to try and wash the stuff off but the fact that there was only cold water on the sink didn’t help. They then got by brother out of his class to help but that didn’t make any difference, so in the end he had to take me home. Well, you can imagine the reception I got from my mother! My hands were pretty sore by the time the offending stuff was removed Geoff Forth aged about 10 in this school photograph

There was hardly any fruit imported from abroad because of risk of the shipping being attacked by the German U Boats. Just now and again there would be a consignment of oranges arrive and we would have to queue to get our ration. I think I saw my first banana after the war had ended. Each autumn we would pick blackberries from the hedgerows to make jam and rose hips, which we took to school to sell and were paid 2d a pound for them. They went to make rose-hip syrup which was an important source of vitamin C and the money an important source of income for us.

Clothes were also on ration and we had to ‘make do and mend’ which speaks for itself. I had hand- me- downs from my older cousins and adult wool jumpers were pulled out and the wool washed and knit up again to make into something for the children. I can remember my mother buying some flowered, cotton curtain material which the local dressmaker made into two dresses for me. I was so proud of them, but one day, when the washing was hanging out in the field at the back of our house, one of the cows in the field ate the skirt off one of my new dresses. I was so upset! One winter, my mother cured some of the rabbit skins and she made me a lovely pair of fur mittens from them she also made slippers.

We even made our own bathing costumes from old woollen jumpers - can you imagine what a sight we looked. Clothes rationing ended on 15th March 1949. All the family had to help to make mats and rugs from old clothes cut up into clips and woven into a hessian backing. Nothing was wasted. On cold, winter evenings you either helped with the mat making and got to sit near the fire or you were banished to the other side of the matting frame and sat at the back of the room and froze. One thing which was rationed, which we children were pleased about, was soap and as we could only have four inches of water in our baths this didn’t bother us at all! Soap came off ration in 1950.


ENTERTAINMENT

Our main source of entertainment at home was the radio (or wireless as we called it). We would avidly listen to a programme called ITMA starring Tommy Handley and then there were programmes like Forces Favourites, Workers Playtime and Childrens Hour with Uncle Mac. Sometimes the programme would be interrupted by the voice of |Lord Haw Haw , a German propagandist who would say ‘Germany Calling, Germany Calling’ followed by mis-information, designed to undermine the British population. I don’t think anyone really took much notice of him though, nor of the leaflets which were dropped by German planes.

After the evacuation of Dunkirk we had troops billeted in the village in the church halls and Sunday Schools until they could be re-united with their regiments. They set up a field bakery in the Recreation Field and some of their vehicles were parked on the village greens. The village children used to help the soldiers to weave camouflage to put over these vehicles. While the troops were there we had a curfew on the village and people were asked not to go out after dark, if you did one of the sentries would stop you with ‘Halt, who goes there?’ Occasionally the troops would give a concert in the Village Hall and we would be invited to attend. They used to sing and play instruments, even the spoons, and we would have a good sing-along with them. Later in the war a Land Army Hostel was built in the village to house the young women who worked on the farms while the men were at war. They would also give concerts and organise parties for us. We also had a prisoner of war camp nearby which housed mainly Italian soldiers who had been captured, and they too worked on the farms. Some of them married British girls and they stayed here after the war.


THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR

We were very lucky around here that we didn’t see a lot of enemy action during the war although we could hear the bombs dropping on Teesside and see the barrage balloons over that area. Northallerton had some light bombing one night and a few small bombs were dropped in the fields near Brompton. I think they were aiming for the dummy airfield I have already mentioned. Several planes came down in the vicinity. usually our own planes coming back from bombing raids. One summer, Sunday morning we were playing on the green when we heard a funny noise in the sky. We looked up in time to see a plane explode in the air. It was a spitfire and it came down in the field at the back of the house where I now live. My two sisters lived in York at that time and it suffered heavy bombing, the railway and railway workshops being the principal targets. My mother took me over a few days after the bombing and I can remember walking through the streets and seeing all the damage, some houses with just one wall left standing with the furniture still up against it and the piles of rubble in the streets.

In Northallerton, the sight of wounded Canadian airmen became a familiar sight as a Base Hospital had been established where the Friarage Hospital now is. The buildings were made of timber brought over from Canada and some of these buildings are still standing today, even though they were only meant to be temporary. The nurses used to wheel the wounded out into the town in wheel chairs and long basket beds . The wounded airmen used to wear a bright blue uniform and were easily recognised.

The war in Europe finally ended on 8th May 1945 and the war with Japan on 14th August of that year. Let us hope and pray that we never again see such a conflict.

Doreen Newcombe 1998


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4. WARTIME MEMORIES OF BEING EVACUATED TO BROMPTON

Pat Whitehead at school in Brompton Story and Pictures provided by by Pat Whitehead (now Pat Hunt) From our garden in Sunderland I heard loud bangs which I thought were thunder, only to be told that it was gunfire. The Second World War had started. I was four years old, too young to understand or participate in all the subsequent upheaval. My brother’s school was to be evacuated to Northallerton Grammar School so my parents rented out our house in Sunderland, my father took a small flat and my mother, brother and I came to live in Malpas terrace, opposite the present Church Hall. Our neighbours were Mr and Mrs Baldrey who had a daughter called Bessie and a son who was in the army. We shared the back garden, wash-house and outdoor toilets. My friends were Mabel Appleby who lived up Corber Hill at Aston Villa bungalow and Doreen Forth from Water End. Other names I recall were Beryl Alderson, Billy Thackray, Jimmy Randall (son of the policeman)

Beryl Todd, Mabel Appleby, Pat Whitehead and Beryl Alderson I remember looking forward to starting school and I think I accompanied Isobel King on my first day. Miss Thornton, the gentle teacher of the infants gave us a thorough grounding in reading. Later on there seemed to be a few extra teachers who did not stay long. They were probably awaiting call- up for active service. Then there was Miss Bendelow who was a determined lady - no shirking in her classroom. She played the piano enthusiastically and we stood in lines singing a collection of folk songs and an special occasions, patriotic ones. The tall, commanding presence of Miss Lamb, the Headteacher, allowed for no nonsense and we were all instructed in lots of things by rote. I can still remember learning the tributaries of the River Ouse; Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, Aire, Don, Calder. We learned to knit socks on four needles! You knitted one needle then waited for everyone else to catch up, then did the following needle. It took a long time to knit a sock so the soldiers would have had cold feet waiting for them. My least favourite time of the week was Sewing. Hemming was not my forte and I well recall having to stand in front of the class holding up my “naughty hemming”. We had to make very uncomfortable garments from flour sacks donated from the Mill across the road. We learned to embroider on pieces of brown material about the size of a postcard and once the sewing had been approved we had to unpick every thread and wind it back on the reel for the next pupil. We used slates in the infants class as paper was so scarce and then graduated to using paper later on. Every scrap was utilised and art work was almost non-existent. Gummed paper was used on all the panes of glass in the windows to reduce splintering in the event of bombing.

Pat’s Birthday Party Some of our classmates were evacuees who lived in Mrs. Eastoe’s big house at the top of Corber Hill. I think they were from Tyneside. I stayed there for some weeks while my mother had an operation. Other newcomers were some ‘fat’ ladies from London - that is when we learned about pregnancy! We had a communal pig in Diddy Thwaites’ garden. I used to take the vegetable leaves and peelings in a bucket, going along the path by the Recreation Ground through the snicket. To help the war effort we picked rose hips which were to be made into rose hip syrup for babies. We were sometimes allowed to pump the bellows in the forge near the school. A regulation was to carry one’s gas mask at all times. We kept our ‘slate rags’ in the boxes as well. At times, the gas masks had to be tested in a special caravan and I recall the fear and excitement in the infants when the big boys told us that not everyone survived the walk though the caravan. Miss Lamb dealt with our hysteria and then dealt with the big boys. We had visits from the police or army to warn us of the dangers of butterfly bombs and Colorado beetles. We searched all over but did not find any. Occasionally we gathered round the back of a lorry to watch war films (maybe they were for recruitment drives) and there were parades in Northallerton for National/War Savings Weeks.

Pat and Brian Whitehead (a Bede boy) Counting the aeroplanes out and in on their return; listening to the tolling ‘death bell’ and counting the number of tolls which told the age of the one who had died; agonising over the decision of spending the Saturday pennies and how to use the sweet coupons carefully and learning how not to lose the bread tokens on the way to the bread shop on the green staffed by Harrison Sunley - all of these became a normal way of life for the Duration. Going to Northallerton we passed the Italian Prisoner of War camp. There were many wounded airmen dressed in the hospital uniform of bright blue suit, white shirt and red tie. As V.E. Day approached we were aware of excitement in the village. The church bells pealed, flags appeared in many buildings but some homes were not decorated as, sadly, they had lost someone whilst fighting the war. The children were given tiny flags to wave and had a half day holiday. One day at school we found a dried banana which was part of the celebrations. Not at all inspiring to look at and it tasted awful. As the war ended so my time in Brompton drew to a close.

Doreen Newcombe nee Forth & Pat Hunt nee Whitehead, re-united again In June 2005 I met Doreen Forth (now Newcombe) and Mabel Appleby (now Wilbor) for a happy day full of reminiscences and laughter. Mabel Wilbor nee Appleby and Pat happily re-united again in 2005

My parents were George and Audrey Whitehead and my brother, Brian, sat the School Certificate at Northallerton and moved back to Sunderland before the end of the war to study at Newcastle University. He then became a Bevan Boy and worked in the coalmines which was the alternative to serving in the army for a percentage of young men. Pat Whitehead(now Hunt) -------------------------------------------------------------- BACK TO TOP

5. YESTERYEAR SHOPPING IN BROMPTON

Walking around Brompton these days one becomes very aware of how dependent the village is on the motor car and the near-by towns for shopping and the general requisites of modern life. Things were very different when I was a child and the village had about twenty shops, which between them catered for most needs. Let me take you for a walk around the Brompton of the 1940's and we will visit each shop in turn.

We start off near the parish church of St. Thomas, on the corner of Northallerton Road and Church View and visit Miss Lee's drapery shop (now the site of the only shop left in the village and at the time of writing, 1998, a general store come newsagent.) Miss Lee sells ladies' and children's wear and as you enter you will most likely be bombarded with the strains of a Beethoven symphony played on the radio at full blast. Miss Lee is only the height of 'two penn'orth of copper' but she certainly likes her music 'big'. It is here that my mother buys her cotton pinafores and my white ankle socks. There is also a Penny Lending Library.

We walk a little further on - just twenty yards or so - and call in at Milburn's fish and chip shop for a penn'orth of chips with scraps and salt and vinegar. A veritable feast in these days of food rationing. Mrs Milburn serves at the counter while Mr. Milburn stokes the coal fired range and deftly fries and tosses the fish and chips from the sizzling pan to the serving area. We children can hardly reach the top of counter, it is so high.

Round the back of the church, near to the entrance to Wide Yard is Harry Smith's shop. The gleaming brass scales and weights are a fascinating sight, but there is always a funny smell in here. Can it be the fact that Harry sells, amongst a host of other things, paraffin and 'loose' vinegar. Paraffin, at that time, was a necessary commodity - used for cooking stoves and in some cases, for lighting. It wasn't everyone who had taken on board the 'new fangled' electricity and even though most of the houses in the area were wired up, many householders economised by still using paraffin lamps. Electric cookers were still a luxury item, only for the well-off, and many of the cottagers used the paraffin stove or coal-fired side ovens for cooking. Harry also sells sweets, such as liquorice boot-laces and kali (a form of sherbert). Through the back of the shop we catch a glimpse of an old treadle sewing machine. Harry is also a tailor and will do all manner of alterations for a very modest sum. Outside the shop, fixed to the walls, are huge metal signs advertising Robin Starch, Cherry Blossom shoe polish, Rinso and Brasso metal cleaner.

On past the factory gates and the house of Nurse Kitching, the village mid-wife, to Roxborough's shop. If we hadn't already bought our sweets at Harry Smith's we could have got them here. Then past the Manor House and we arrive at Boston's grocery store. Bostons have other shops in Northallerton and daily, a supply of newly-baked bread, teacakes and fancy cakes is brought from their bakery there. It is fascinating to watch the assistants make bags for sugar from sheets of blue paper. Similar bags are fashioned for flour from white paper. The butter and lard arrives in huge blocks and is then weighed into pounds and half-pounds as required. There is no self-service here and one has to patiently wait to be served while the smell of the newly-baked bread aggravates the taste buds. (Editors note: This was the last location of the Post Office before its move to Tim & Fiona Wild’s shop and Post Office (formerly Miss Lee’s drapery) on the corner of Church View and Northallerton Road).

Just a few yards further on we arrive at another sweet shop, which also sells paraffin and 'loose vinegar' (What did they do with all that acetic acid? Well, don't forget, houses didn't have fridges and freezers in those days and a lot of things were pickled to preserve them). This shop is owned by the Walker family who also run two buses and a coal merchant's business. Old Mrs. Walker looks after the shop, which incidentally is very gloomy inside with a stone-flagged floor. Her sons, Sid and Rowley, manage and drive the buses and look after the coal business.

The Post Office is next door in premises which are now part of the Crown Inn. This business is run by the Cansfield family and Eric, the son, also has a taxi business which runs mainly between the village and Northallerton station. It is surprising how many people have 'more than one iron in the fire' perhaps due to the fact that one enterprise alone isn't sufficient to make a decent living.

The Crown Inn stands on one corner of Shop End and the Three Horse Shoes is on the opposite corner. The latter has a little sliding window just inside the front door where you can take a jug and buy a pint or two of beer to take home without actually going into the pub. This is useful for the women to use as it still isn't acceptable for women to go into public houses. However, my mother does come here to pay my father's subscription to the Oddfellows club, which is a sort of early day sick club.

Going up Cockpit Hill is the Co-operative Wholesale Stores, the CWS as it was then known. This is a proper grocery shop with a bacon slicer, huge blocks of butter, lard and margarine, sacks of sugar and bins of flour standing around on the floor. Here, as at Boston's, the assistants make up the sugar and flour bags and weigh out the commodities before tying up the bags with string which comes from a ball suspended from the ceiling. And, magic as magic, the money is put into a cylindrical container with the bill, all made out by hand, a handle is pulled and then it disappears, 'whoosh' to heavens knows where, before it returns with a 'plop' into a wire basket on the counter with the change all inside. Of course, to a child this is mystical. When the change is handed over the customer also receives a small ticket on which is written your 'divi' number. As a customer of the Co-op one is entitled to share in the profits and this is how your amount is determined. As you can imagine this is a very busy shop and there are several men and women working here, all enveloped in huge white aprons. In addition, there is a delivery boy who is kept busy taking out people's orders on the shop bike which has a large wicker work basket on the front. It can't have been too easy biking up Cockpit Hill or Bullamoor with that fully ladened.

On the top of Cockpit Hill, just before the Village Hall, is Mrs. Dennis's sweet shop. It is very handy for me to call in here on my way to school from Water End. One can get quite a lot of sweets for 1d and it is difficult to choose between lambs' tails or gob-stoppers. Perhaps I should have a h'apporth of each.

Going down the hill towards Water End we call in at Eric's Naylor's bakery. Eric is a huge, fat man and I understand his mother started off the business in Northallerton with a shop on the corner of Romanby Road and the High Street while Eric runs the Brompton shop. He is up very early every morning getting the coal-fired ovens hot enough to bake bread and teacakes. He then goes on to make cakes and pastries (his puff-pastry is out of this world) and he also serves in the shop. What a hard life! A large, crusty loaf of bread is four pence-halfpenny and sometimes, we children gather up empty lemonade bottles, take them back to the shop and claim the ld refund on them. When we have enough saved up we go to Eric's and buy a loaf of lovely, warm bread and then scrump it, tearing it to pieces with our hands and sharing it among us. Well, it was in the days of rationing!

Opposite Eric's bakery is Alan Windress's newsagents shop. Alan is a cripple, possibly as a result of polio. I usually go with my mother on Saturday evenings to pay for our weekly newspapers. I think it costs about a shilling a week for the Daily Express each day and the Darlington and Stockton Times on a Saturday. If I have been very good all week, my mother may buy me a comic, perhaps the Dandy or Beano, or even the Radio Fun or Film Fun. Sometimes I may get a copy of Enid Blyton's Sunny Stories.

The left-hand side of Water End has only one shop - Mrs Kipling's general store. Mrs Kipling's shop has a very strident bell, but even so, you may have to wait for ages before she comes out to serve you as she may be in her large back garden feeding the hens. Like Harry Smith's, this shop also boasts a beautiful set of brass scales. My mother gets her fresh yeast here for baking bread, which she does twice a week, usually Tuesdays and Fridays. It is one of my jobs to look out for the DLC 'yeast man' coming so that we can get the yeast as fresh as possible. If it gets stale and dry it does not rise the bread very well. I like to eat a little of the yeast and it is supposed to be good for you.

Crossing the middle bridge to the other side of Water End, we come to Walker's shop. This is a funny little building with a corrugated iron roof. Walkers is also a general store selling a bit of everything.

Walking south again we come to Polly Christon's fish and chip shop. Polly is very much a 'character' who always wears a sacking apron and a man's flat cap. She also has a fruit and vegetable round and keeps a horse and cart for this purpose - again we have an example of more than one business being carried on by the same person. Polly also keeps hens, ducks and geese and those swimming on the beck are most likely hers. The ganders can be quite fierce in the Spring when they have young goslings and I remember being chased by them more than once. I always try to make a detour to avoid going near them. Polly's establishment overlooks Water End green, where in additon to the geese and ducks on the beck, we see chickens in coops, cattle grazing and sometimes, horses being exercised by Mr. Lancaster or one of his grooms. Mr. Lancaster lives near to Polly at Gordon House and as well as being a farmer he deals in horses, buying them in, breaking them and then selling them on to the army. My father works for Mr. Lancaster and for a time, so did my brother, who tells me how he used to accompany the horses when they were moved around the country by train. Sometimes when a fresh batch had been bought in, they would have to be walked from Northallerton station to the farm in Fullicar Lane, a distance of four miles, not a lot of fun with unbroken horses.
Before we move on I must tell you, that to get her poultry from her back garden to the green, it is necessary for Polly to walk them through the hall-way of her house. You can imagine what a mess they make!

Next to Polly's is Dowson's bread shop. The teacakes here are lovely and have shiny, brown tops. Dowson's also have a shop and bakery in Northallerton and Mr. Dowson is known as 'Teacake Tommy'

Further on is Hoare's grocers and greengrocers. Old Mrs Hoare runs the shop, while Danny and Edgar, two of her sons, do the greengrocers round.
Mrs Hoare has a large family and lived to be over ninety. Alan and Eric Hoare are Edgar sons and they have carried on the greengrocery businesses to this day.

We have already visited Alan Windress' shop on Cockpit Hill, so back to Shop End to call in at 'Sandy' Husthwaites tobacconists shop. Sandy sells beautiful, brown pipes, made from wood which looks like burnished chestnuts. He also has loose tobacco ready rubbed and huge twists of it which is sold by the ounce. In jars he has snuff, which I think is finely ground tobacco which is inhaled through the nostrils. This is weighed out with great precision and put into little paper twists. Sandy also sells the better sweets and not the 'kelter', as my mother calls it, which the other shops in the village sell. (Kelter is a local term for rubbish)

Walking on past the big houses in which the mill-owners live, and then past the Wesleyan chapel, we come to ‘Rosy’ Slater’s butchers shop. 'Rosy' is a man, not a woman as you might think, and gets his name because of his lovely, red face. He fattens cattle on land behind his shop and then slaughters them when they are ready. Down the Pinfold and near the village 'lock-up' is Spence's drapery shop. Mamma and Pappa Spence, as they are known, are quite old and rather forbidding. Most of their goods are kept wrapped up in brown paper parcels and 'Mamma' looks after the children's and ladies wear while' Pappa' sees to the gents wear. My mother sometimes brings me here on Saturday evenings for a new pair of white socks to wear to Sunday School the next day or for a piece of material to make me a dress. We then go next door into the barbers shop to get my hair cut. It is really a man's hairdressers and I much prefer to go to Northallerton to a proper ladies shop. I don't like having to sit on the wooden bench here along with the men and boys.

On the corner of The Pinfold is another butcher's shop - Mapplebeck's. Mr. Mapplebeck has a large bicycle with a huge wicker basket on the front and he delivers his orders around the village with this.

We are now back to where we started and you will see that we can get practically all we want in the village, although most people still go to Northallerton on market days by the local bus., probably as much for a social outing as anything. In additon to the shops in the village, we also get numerous 'travellers', for example, the onion seller, the scissor grinder, the lemonade man, the brush seller and the donkey stone man. 'What is donkey stone'? you may ask. Well, it is a sort of sand stone, which is wetted then rubbed on stone door steps and windowsills to give them a decorative edge. We also have the travelling representatives call from stores in Northallerton. Russells, the grocers, send out a man once a fortnight collecting grocery orders which are then delivered later in the week and Claphams, the smart clothing and furnishing store send out their traveller about every three months. He has large suitcases filled with samples of clothing, linen, and nearer to Christmas, items like kid gloves and scarves which will make suitable presents. Here again, you place your order with the man and it is later delivered to your door which is very useful as you see, no-one has a car except for Mr. Wilford who owns one of the linen mills and Mr. Lancaster, the horse dealer and farmer I have mentioned previously. They must be very rich!

I trust you have enjoyed your walk around Brompton with me.


Doreen Newcombe 1998


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6. THE REVEREND MR. JOHN KETTLEWELL and his legacy

THE REVEREND MR. JOHN KETTLEWELL A MINISTER OFJESUS CHRIST in the Church of England has left a farm commonly known by the name of Low Fields in the Township of Brompton for uses of Charity for the Poor of the Two Townships of Northallerton and Brompton which he has settled by this deed bearing the date March 9th 1694 to be laid out on the uses and on persons of the behaviour and qualifications herein after recited.

AN EXTRACT of all the uses expressed in the settlement of this Charity and of all the qualifications of the Persons who are to receive benefit by any of the respective uses

TO BUY BIBLES Common Prayer Books the whole duty of man or some brief and practical explication of the Creed or some such like Books of practical divinity as the Minister shall think convenient for which if need be there is allotted yearly £2.20...........
That they be persons able to read them and like to make good use of them
That they be first given to the Poor who cannot buy them. After to such Poor as can ill buy them
But first every Poor Family is to be supply'd with one for the common use of the Family
After that is done they are to be given to particular Poor Persons

FOR PROVIDING PHYSICK and things necessary to recover health for the Poor, for which if occasion be there is allotted yearly £5.00. 00d............
That they be such sick Persons as are exempt from Parish payments to the Church and Poor. Or after they are supplyd to such other sick poor who are not able to be at the charge of Physick and things necessary if the Yearly sum holds out and the Trustees fee.
To buy cloaths which are to be provided and delivered to them on or before the First of November Yearly for which is allotted yearly £5.00.00d
That they be poor Widows, Widowers, or other poor Housekeepers. That they have been industrious and painful when able to work
And have constantly frequented the Church
And are of sober life and peaceable demeanour among their Neighbours not given to go about as Tale bearers and busy bodies in other Peoples matter nor to pilfering or other misbehaviour.

TO TEACH AND INSTRUCT young girls to read English intelligibly, to Knit, Sew, or do other just and lawful acts so this may render them in some measure capable of getting an honest subsistence and livelihood. And to teach and instruct young boys to read English intelligibly, to Write and Cast Account so far as to fit them to be Bailiffs or Servants to serve gentlemen or to be let out to some honest Trade for which there is allotted yearly £4.00s.00d
THAT the children of the Poorest be always preferred. AND such parents as are of the best lives and Conversations.

TO BIND OUT a poor boy as an apprentice there is allotted yearly £6.00s00d
THAT HE be the son of a poor inhabitant and among those prefer boys Fatherless or Motherless or both before others
THAT HE can read intelligibly and Write and Cast Account as is provided in the Fourth Use
THAT HE can say the whole Church Catechism without book
THAT HE hath behaved himself loveingly, agreeably and dutifully to his Parents and with due respect to all his Betters and Superiors
TO BE LAID OUT on such other of the aforesaid Uses as the Trustees in their Discretion shall think fit
OR in furnishing a poor apprentice newly out of his Time towards setting up his Trade or buying himself Work tools which there is allotted a sum not exceeding £9.
THAT he be not able to set up his Trade and provide himself Tools
THAT he be a poor Apprentice of the Parish
OR ONE who has served his Apprenticeship out of the Parish if he was set out at the Chance of this Trust
AND THE Apprentices set out by this Trust are always to be preferred before others
THAT he has served his Master honestly and faithfully
AND THAT he be of Civil behaviour reported Honest and like to be Industrious £2.00s.00d

FOR HELPING to maintain some youth of one of the Townships at one of the Universities, for which either part or the whole Yearly Income of this Charity as the Trustees shall see cause is all used for the space of four years but no longer
THAT HIS friends be not able to maintain him there of themselves without such a measure of assistance as shall be made them out of this Charity.
THAT HE be a Youth of great Piety and Pregnant parts and has made good improvement in School learning and one who gives great hopes of doing considerable service to Religion and the Church of God in the works of the Ministry.
THAT which he has the benefit thereof at Universities he demean himself there piously, soberly and trustworthy shall be certified to the Trustees at least once a year
BUT if it appears he spends his time unprofitably there or fall in with Crimes, his allowance out of this Charity shall thereforward be withdrawn from him as it shall be however at the end of four years.


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7. FORTH and NEWCOMBE FAMILY GALLERY

The 4 Forth Sisters, Doreen, Twins Edith & Annie and Florence --------------------------------------------------------------

Wilf Forth at Lowfields Farm -------------------------------------------------------------

Pattison family – Mabel Newcombe nee Pattison standing centre at back -----------------------------------------------------------

Louis Newcombe on pony and Lawrence Newcombe -------------------------------------------------------------

Sharing our ‘lowances during a well-earned break at Haytime on Lowfields Farm 1935 ---------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Newcombe ploughing at Town End farm Deighton ---------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Newcombe at Town End farm Deighton --------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Newcombe outside Town End farm Deighton ----------------------------------------------------------------

Shooting party at Deighton Manor -----------------------------------------------------------------

Ploughing – probably Town End farm before the arrival of the latest mechanical horse shown below -------------------------------------------------------------

Pre-war Spade Lug Fordson -----------------------------------------------------------------

Fred Forth in yard at Gordon House, Brompton --------------------------------------------------------------