These memories were first published in the Walkern Journal in November 2005. Maureen was living in Australia.
I was born on 1st March 1924 in a cottage in Beecroft Lane. My father was born in a cottage in Froghall Lane. Walkern has always been HOME to me. Mr Beadle and I go back to school days on tapes we send to one another, and I miss his cheerful voice, so I have put some of my memories down on paper.
I wonder how many people are left in Walkern who can remember the Christmas tea parties given by Mrs Cotton-Brown. Sandwiches, cakes, jellies, biscuits and a cold drink. All this followed by an entertainment by a conjuror with magic tricks. Before going home, a ¼ lb box of chocolates, an apple and an orange.
The Father Christmas that stood in Mr Boorman’s shop window in December nodded his head as we children wished for what we wanted for Christmas. The display in the window had everything a child could wish for: books, toys, dolls and games.
Mr Boorman and myself were the only two people in the village to have scarlet fever and were taken to the isolation hospital at Hertford. I had a lot of complications and spent 19 weeks there. After I came out of hospital I remember being the fairy on the Christmas tree in the Xmas school play. The tree was just a pile of chairs covered with a green cloth. A very precarious position.
I remember a top and whip to help get to school on time, or a hoop with a stick, or even a ball to bounce. No school dinners so it was run home and back again in an hour. As I lived in Beecroft Lane I certainly couldn’t hang about.
The fete was at Walkern Hall one year and Ardeley Bury the next. Children would gather wild flowers to put in the displays, and there would be samples of writing, painting, knitting and sewing done at school.