THOSE WERE THE DAYS IN A VILLAGE 1941-1943
The following account of wartime recollections has been sent to us by Mr. Brian Calcutt
The village I’m going to take you to is Belbroughton. It’s about 12 miles from Hall Green and 8 miles from Bromsgrove.
Today it has over 2000 inhabitants and is famous for its scarecrow competition, but in 1941 it was very much smaller and famous for making scythes.
My grandfather was a tenant farmer until his early death in the 1920s, but by 1941 my grandmother and one of my father’s brothers and their family still lived in the village, so for two years I lived with my grandmother.
I was born in Hall Green, Birmingham in 1932 and evacuated to my grandmother’s at Brook Cottage, Belbroughton, also known as Kings Cottage, which was adjacent to the road turning off to Blakedown/Kidderminster at the far end of the village. I attended the junior school with Bert and Bob Gateley, my cousin Gerald and also many other evacuees. My aunt and uncle and cousin lived in Hartle Lane opposite the saw mills and I used to regularly play there. My aunt was the village dressmaker and my uncle used to be head bell ringer. The headmistress at the school was Mrs. Butler and I was told that her son, Dan Butler, was a professional tennis player. Opposite the Talbot Inn was the Shoe Inn where my uncles used to meet when they were back in the village. Harry Riste was the landlord and I was told he was a singer.
At the side of the public house was a track which led to the scythe works and Joe Knocks’ barn. He was the local dustman, road sweeper and general dogsbody. We used to throw stones at his chimney to loosen soot to start his fire smoking. Opposite, a window in the factory, being at eye level, enabled you to see the men working at various stages of scythe production.
A path at the rear of the works led to a small waterfall and Queens Square where my grandfather and grandmother lived before he died in 1927. Afterwards, my grandmother bought the cottage which I have previously mentioned. Mr Davis lived opposite the cottage and he ran the cycle shop in the village (now the Post Office).
My job was to fetch an accumulator down from the shop to fit on our battery radio, swapping it with the old one for recharging. I remember coming home from school and lunchtime and seeing a pig laid out on trestles ready for butchering.
The cottage was very small with only one gas light in the only downstairs room. Candle light was used upstairs and there was one cold tap in the kitchen.
My job was to fetch a bucket of rainwater from the tub because this was much softer water than from the tap.
Pennies were used to feed the gas meter for the light downstairs and a bath in a tub was had by the fire.
Upstairs were two bedrooms and I slept in the front. On a warm summers’ evening my uncle used to visit. When I was in bed he used to smoke a pipe whose aroma used to reach the bedroom. With the window open I used to hear the trout splashing upstream, with the gravel lorries still working taking their loads to Hartlebury for some war work. Tractors could still be heard in the fields. This era, of course, was double summer time enabling essential outdoor work to be done up to 11.00 p.m. at night.
I remember Vernon Darby because I too joined the cubs and we either used the Church Hall or his front room at his home.
Another job I used to do was to fetch the papers on a Saturday morning from Silvesters at the top of the hill. Usually it would be the Radio Times, County Express and the Bromsgrove Messenger. Opposite was a bakery run by Geoff Handley who my relatives new quite well.
Going further up the village lived a Mrs. Price who was a curtain twicher, but a nice lady. I was always intrigued by the pendulum on her clock which moved so very slowly.
Going back to where my relatives lived, together with my Aunty’s mother, they kept pigs with sides of bacon on racks attached to the ceiling. Up the garden they had a two seater earth closet which was situated next to the pig sty, not nice to be near on a hot summer’s day!
One foggy night I remember hearing a plane in trouble and found out it had crash landed near Hackmans Gate and eventually had to be taken apart to be moved.
I used to play cricket and football with the Gateley brothers just up the hill, and I also remember Mrs Nicholls from Brookfield House who used to call with wool to be knitted up for comforts for the Forces.
Mr Brinton (Carpets) who used to live at the other end of the village used to ride past in his Riley motor car.
Last year I gave a talk on Belbroughton at our local church and found a document about the cottage which I used to contact the new owners. As a result I was invited over to see what it looked like after all these years from when I last went there which was about 1949-1950. With an extension built and an extra bridge and altered garden it was indeed a real surprise to see it once again.
Brian Calcutt
July 2010