Chapter 2

We moved to Down Lodge in Caterham in 1926. Our new home also had attics and cellars. There was a large and beautiful garden, wonderful for games, of which "Relievo" was the favourite. Later came tennis, after my father dragooned family and friends to level off the sloping ground to make a grass court.

I cannot remember the exact rules, but it was a form of hide and seek with two teams. When a member of the hiding team was discovered he returned to base where he could be released by another member of his own team who would also be at risk of being "found." It was rather like "Sardines" in reverse and it was quite wild and exciting. We were usually joined in this game by our maid, Katie, and the milk delivery boy, Henry, whose clothes constantly exuded the smell of sour milk. Katie was as wild as the rest of us. She told mother that in her previous employment a French colleague told her, "You jump about like one big damned goat.

I started school in the preparatory section of "Eothen", a private school for girls, where I soon progressed in most subjects following my late start. Mathematics, however, which requires a step by step building on a firm foundation, suffered, and my short-fall in this subject was to dog my school career, and to a lesser extent, my working life. I then joined Bunny at Caterham School, a minor public school, where we were both day boys.

My first form master Mr Pallister ("Palibo") was evidently a good teacher. Many of his lessons are still vivid to this day. Every geography lesson, his first act was to draw a circle on the blackboard with five horizontal lines representing equator, tropics and arctic circles. This might be called learning by "rote" today but it was certainly effective. I only have to see the word "Pennines" and the backbone of England immediately springs to mind, and I can actually "see" the Cheviots dividing England from Scotland. He made Greek History come alive. His punishment for bad behaviour was unusual, to say the least. He would tilt one's head supporting the lower cheek with one hand administering a sharp slap on the upper side of the face with the other.

Caterham was mainly a boarding school, many of the students were from Wales. As a protection from infection, day boys and boarders trouped twice a day to the dormitary wash rooms to gargle with salt water and inject noses with "Nostroline" which might have had the opposite effect to that intended.

No school I attended had inside toilets, Caterham was the most primitive with earth closets. When one rose from the hinged seat a quantity of ashes was released into the chamber below.

My best friend at Caterham School was Kim Ford who lived at "Pentlands" at the head of Harestone Valley, one and a half miles out of the village. The house stood in about an acre of terraced garden which included a tennis court. It was my second home for many years. We shared some rather strange interests. How strange, is perhaps illustrated by one of our excursions. Taking a bus to Purley, we walked quite a considerable distance along Purley Way adjacent to Croydon Aerodrome to view the first sodium street lights to be installed in England. We made visits to London, where we would "haunt" the Science Museum. Kim was also a home movies enthusiast, and on our London trips we would scour Wardour and Lisle Streets, the home of the cinema industry, looking for bargains. We usually had lunch at ABC tea rooms, steak and kidney pudding and marrow, one shilling and a halfpenny. Kim's father was registrar at London University and he once arranged for us to look through the astronomical telescope at Imperial College. Unfortunately the sky was cloudy and we were unable to see much of interest. It was through our friendship that Bunny met Kim's elder sister, Barbara who was to become his wife.

Another companion in Caterham was John Connolly, a friend of Bunny's, and four years older than me. We were both interested in cars, although neither family owned one. We liked to search out the more obscure makes, of which there were very many at that time. On hearing of say, an Ansaldo in a garage in Brixton we would travel on bus and tram to view it. The back garden gate of Down Lodge opened onto a lane leading to the London to Eastbourne road and we would spend bank holiday evenings "car spotting." Even in those days cars were nose to tail returning to London. I had over one hundred and twenty different makes recorded in my little green marbled notebook. I wish I had it still, although I can remember many of those names long since passed into history. Among such were Metallurgique, Delaunay Belville, Chenard Walcker (European), De - Soto, Stutz, Pontiac (American), Bean, Arrol Johnson, Horstman (British).

John took me to Croydon to see the first "talking picture" - Al Jolson in "The Singing Fool." Before the advent of "talkies" few ordinary people had ever hard an American speak. The shock of hearing a completely different accent, distorted by amplification, was considerable. These films also introduced a whole new vocabulary. "OK," previously unheard, soon became commonplace. Our own village "flea pit" still used hand cranked projectors, the arc lights of which used to flicker and fail from time to time. Talkies came to the village when a "super-cinema," the Capitol was built. It opened with the film, 'Adventures of a Flag Lieutenent' starring Henry Edwards. The Capitol has now given way to a supermarket.

In the bitterly cold winter of 1927/8, the lake in nearby Godstone froze over and became a Mecca for skaters. Every cupboard and loft must have been ransacked in a search for skates. The local sports shop Sidney Critchett, sold right out, there were hundreds on the ice, of all ages. I have only ever seen a similar sight in paintings of earlier times.

For several years we spent our summer holidays at Croyde in North Devon, to which we travelled by train. Looking out of the carriage window for the first sight of the sea usually started at Surbiton. The railway companies operated a system known as "passenger's luggage in advance." Luggage was collected, transported and delivered to destination without extra charge (as I remember) on production of passenger tickets.

We used to take rooms in a large house, "Lorna Doone." Mrs Simmonds, the owner, cooked our meals. Her scrambled egg was out of this world. I think she made it in a similar fashion to Devon Cream, slowly, on a very low heat. Scrambled egg has remained my favourite meal. Her daughter owned a cocker spaniel, "Polly." We acquired one of her puppies whom we named "Bogie."

My father was strongly against cars on beaches, a practice which was then starting to be popular. He led a large contingent of parents and children in building a barrier of sand across the sandy track giving access to the beach, giving rise to several acrimonious arguments with irate motorists. I still have this feeling about cars on beaches, and tend to gloat when I hear of a motorist caught by the tide. From time to time, my father would hire a car - a Crossley. I wonder where he learned to drive and how competent he was, tests were to come much later.

A day or two before one of our Croyde holidays, I was erecting an aerial ropeway from the bathroom window to the garden (for a model to slide down). The stepladder on which I was standing overturned and I fell, breaking my wrist. It was bandaged and splinted at the Cottage Hospital and I was given strict instructions not to get it wet. Inevitably , my arm had a few soakings, necessitating a visit to the local doctor in Braunton. Croyde beach was excellent for surfing and both my parents were very keen. Surf boards in those days were made from very thick ply wood or even tongue and groove boards and battens. Mothers arms and legs were black and blue from contact with these heavy boards.

While we lived in Caterham, there was another "incident" with Bunny and his air gun. On this occasion he fired a pellet through the bathroom window of the Vicarage next door. It was said that Mrs Canon Morris was in the bath at the time, but this may have been embroidery to the story. Nevertheless, peace had to be restored. We were not ideal neighbours for a vicarage. Apart from the air gun incident, there was noise from Relievo, and "mad" Katie's charming habit of opening the back door to the extent of the security chain just allowing Bogie to just get his nose through, then calling "Wickie, Wickie, Wickie," (our cat) and sending Bogie into a frenzy, eventually releasing him to tear round the garden, barking furiously. Our other neighbour was Sir Alfred Sherlock whose son John was at Eothen with me, and was a member of the Relievo team. Bunny was always a first class "shot" and came home from fairs and fêtes with numerous prizes. He was also an excellent "thrower" and at one fair won more coconuts than we were able to carry home.

During the slump of the late 1920s, which hit the shipping industry in particular, S. C. Chambers were obliged to close the London office and my father lost his job. His dreadful experiences in France during the war had caused him to turn to alcohol for comfort. The loss of his job, and the consequent affront to his self esteem increased his dependence on it. During a holiday in Jersey, my parents decided that a move to a home on the island might solve the problem. In retrospect, a move to a place where the price of alcohol was less that half of that in England was of doubtful wisdom, as events subsequently proved. For me it was a move to heaven on earth.