Joe Harford Page No.3


The House

The house was in Camps Lane second on the left No 5, as told by Mrs Spencer. We walked in and Mr Spencer, (Pic 8)  said “ What have you got there Mother”, after explaining our predicament it was a tour of the house and few rules not many.

Mrs Pricilla Spencer ( Ziller—Cilla )

She was a wonderful cuddly lady who always made you feel safe, a wonderful cook, always baking, the smells that came from the kitchen stay with me to this day, she made the finest trifle you could taste, I have yet to find a better one, and her pies well there was blackberry and apple, apple, apple and rhubarb, the list goes on. She was a cleaner at St Peters church and she would take me with her to help! She taught us how to make fire sticks, that’s newspaper rolled up then tied in knots and she would use them as fire lighters it was one of our favourites.
 
Our room was always fresh and clean, we were never chastised, spoken to quietly perhaps, coming from a large family to this one to one situation was heaven. I quite remember going with her to ‘Swad’ where we would be bought a suit or different items of clothing and this was money from their own budget. She told me years later that the allowance they got didn’t stretch to those items. She took me back to “Swad” years later to the shops and met some of the folk proudly saying “This is my little evacuee”.

Mr. P. Spencer ( Paul )

Mr Spencer was a miner, sustained face injuries, but worst both his knee caps were damaged in accidents so he had to use walking sticks, Mr Spencer was a firm man, never raised his voice if he wanted to make a point he had a way of setting his chin and you got the message, happy to say not many times, he was a lovely man and always had time for us.

Ken Sadler mentioned St Peters church and the heating system, well it was Mr Spencer who maintained it and one of my treats was to go with him over the weekend down those dark eerie steps to the boiler under the church, Spooky. Eric (Pic 11) told me a tale that one evening Mr Spencer went up to the Bull for a pint of beer and didn’t come home after searching for him they found him down the boiler room fast asleep it’s a wonder he wasn’t overcome by fumes, I think they used coke as fuel in the boiler.

Prince the dog

I am relating things in sequence as we began this new experience. Prince was a black and white type sheep dog and we got on well from the start, he accepted us from the first day, and guess what, we got into a bit of trouble Prince and me very early in our friendship. It was a Saturday and Mr Spencer was out and Tom was up the lane. Mrs Spencer wanted to go to see her Mother, so she asked if I would be alright on my own for a while,( This is how it was told to me by Mrs Spencer ) . So off she went.

After a while Prince began to whine and I thought he was hungry so I had a look in the pantry and saw I piece of meat, not very big so I gave it to him, it was gone in no time.

When Mrs Spencer got back I told her I had fed Prince because he was hungry “ What with “? She asked, when I told her it turned out it was the Sunday joint. She wasn’t the sort of lady to raise her voice, I can see her now, she would put both hands up to the side of her face and say” Oh dear oh dear “. That was it. Prince never left my side after, I wonder why.

That lady would scoop you up on her lap and say ”Never mind we will sort something out “. Another picture I have of her was she would sit with both hands on her lap and twiddle her thumbs. I find myself doing the same thing time to time so does Eric, a bit of her in us I suppose.

Hilda

Mr and Mrs Spencer had but two children and Hilda  was the eldest. It was her job to chase after us if we strayed a bit, she was more firm because we were quite a handful. She was courting Fred Starkey (Pic 10) at the time, another nice chap although we didn’t see him very often. We were there when they got married at St Peters and on the day she said we wanted to get involved so she let us take a few items up to the hall for the reception. Eventually when we didn’t return from one trip she came looking for us and found us on the plot of land on the corner of Camps Lane, we had abandoned the items that we were taking to the Hall and were having great fun .It was the plot of land that Eric built the bungalow for his parents that stands there now after he came out of the army.

Trevor

Trevor (Pic 7) was Mrs Spencer’s brother, he stayed a bachelor all his life, he was a man of few words and loved the outside life, he was very involved in helping to build the bungalow. I can’t remember where he lived, I know after the bungalow was built he lived there.

Granny Smith

Granny Smith (Pic 1)  was Mrs Spencer’s Mother who lived in Rodney Cottages, the first one, it has gone now to make way for a car park. She was like Mrs Spencer in looks and persona, we use to go there after school in the summer, the big attraction was the fact that the family raised pigs in the back field and it remained a fascination to us to be near live farm animals. I remember an organ grinder with a monkey used to frequent the area.

Tom, the parting of the ways

Tom was two years older than me and he could look after himself and I think he had instructions to look after me before we left home. So from time to time he got into a few fights and in Mrs Spencer’s words he used to quite often come home a bit bloodied, she would be alarmed by this, she cared for Tom’s wellbeing and feared she wasn’t able to care for him, plus Tom walked in his sleep and that did worry her.
 
So Tom was on the move again, not far just up the road to wonderful Mrs Cox, Nancy,and Bet, I can’t remember a Mr Cox, and it was Nancy that looked after Tom and he fell in love with her ( A bit of an age gap ) and he did all his life. Nancy didn’t know. Now in my case it was a 3 to 1 situation with a dog as an extra treat, “Birmingham “, where’s that? I never once missed home and thought I would always live in Hartshorne. Tom after leaving school went straight into racing stables as an apprentice Jockey, I think it was living in the country for a time may have had a part in it, also when he was born his feet both pointed inwards and he had an operation to have them turned which left him bow legged, ideal for horse riding plus he wasn’t very tall.

He looked after some top horses of the day the greatest being a filly called Meld, (Pic 14), when in Toms care she was the first horse to win three top classic flat races in one season. One look at the photo of Meld and you can see how well he looked after her. The jockey was Harry Carr, and he would go to Tom for tips on how to get the best out of her for the next race, quite often at major races there would be Royalty close by. He stayed in racing but couldn’t progress so in 1970 he left the stables at the age of 38, and was working for British Rail when he had a fatal accident.

Sheila and Gwen

Sheila and Gwen (Pic 20) were my two elder sisters, they were billeted at Smisby. I don’t think they were very happy because they were split up and lived with families with children of their own. It was very difficult for residents to integrate their own children with a child from another part of the country. Some didn’t have a problem, but my sisters didn’t settle, and I think they went back home after about six months. I spent some of the happiest years of my life at Hartshorne, I am sure I was there the same time as Ken Sadler.

Doris

Doris was Eric’s wife, she came to visit us from time to time but we didn’t get to know her very well, I did in later years. I am sure there were more people that I encountered and incidents that happened but 70 years is a long time, and so the end came. Each afternoon before tea Mrs Spencer would put me on a couch with a blanket over me for a short sleep. This one Sunday I was woken by Mrs Spencer to tell me that that my Mother and Father had come to take me back home. I can remember to this day how I cried and said I lived there and didn’t want to go back. It was short and quick and they had to carry me out. How it hurt Mr and Mrs Spencer they told me in later years.

Eric

Eric had joined the army before we came to Hartshorne so we never met him, I only knew that I was borrowing his room until he came home. I can’t remember when we came home but the war was still raging this would be around late 1942.


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