"Dreams - Really Do Come True" - A Book By Gordon Beard

Hopkins

In the 1920’s, we were living in a rural world without electricity or mains water supply. There were no sewers either, of course, or even a battery to power a torch. The towns were lit by gaslight.

At the age of eleven, I had my first holiday with an aged aunt at 92, Moulsham Street, Chelmsford and I remember finding myself in an alien world. At 3.30pm, in winter, I discovered, for the very first time -the gas lighter man! He would walk along the street with a lighted flare on a pole long enough to reach the street lamps. The pole had a hook at the top which he used to pull a lever to switch the gas supply on. He then offered the flare to the escaping gas and the street was suddenly bathed in a warm glow. In the morning, he would return to extinguish each one. It was quite something.

Whilst there, I was taken to the Odeon cinema to see my first film, a black and white talkie. What a difference from the silent films I had been used to!. It was called “Goodnight Vienna” and starred Jack Buchanan. I cried at the end because a love letter intended for his girlfriend asking her to marry him on his return, fell from his saddle bag and was trampled into the mud by all the horses’ hooves. She did not receive it and he did not return.

But, at Hopkins Farm, where we lived, there was no such luxuries as cinemas and street lights. Our living room was lit only by an oil lamp. It had a chimney glass, surrounded by a pretty, pink, ornamental glass globe, which had a scalloped edge at the top. The other rooms were lit by a candle, which we carried from room to room on a metal candle stick. (It had a large saucer shaped base to catch the dripping wax and a small handle just large enough to put through the forefinger and support the thumb.) For safety, lighted candles were never left in an unoccupied room and the paraffin we used to light the lamps was never sold after 4.00pm because, at that hour, the village shop keeper would have needed a lighted candle to be able to see to pour it into the can!

We got our water from the local well and dad would pump four buckets each morning before going to work. The well was very deep and needed a strong man to pull the handle down and carry the pails two at a time. The pails were hung on chains from a shoulder yoke to prevent the water being spilled by brushing against dad’s legs. Dad put the water in earthenware containers in the kitchen and it was used sparingly because it had to last all day.

All communication was by word of mouth or letters. The telephone was something only rich farmers or religious ministers could afford. The working class could send telegrams – a system operated from the Post Office – but this was only done in an emergency. The sender would fill in a form with the message, which was charged by the word, so it was kept brief. Then, the sender’s address and recipient’s address were added. The Post Master or Mistress would telephone the message through to the nearest post office to where the recipient lived, where it would be dispatched by a telegram boy, racing to the recipient’s door post haste on his bicycle. There it would be signed for and the message read rather fearfully, as a telegram always meant big news. The telegram boy wore a post office uniform with a round peak- less hat. It looked like a tambourine.

My home, Hopkins, was a unique building and always intrigued me with its unusual features. Firstly, to my child’s eye, it seemed to have been built on a mole hill, as the site dropped sharply away both at the rear and front. Originally, there was no eaves trough either - the water simply dripped from the over hanging tiles on to the strip of garden about two feet wide which was filled with pea shingle to drain the water away.

There were air vents in the outer walls at ground level to allow air to circulate beneath the floorboards at the eastern end of the house. As a result, the house never showed any signs of dampness. At the time of my birth, the building was divided into two separate households; one half was ours, the other was occupied by the Piper family.

Mr. Piper was the horse man for Mr. Hugh Matthews, the wealthy farmer who owned Hopkins. The upstairs had been split into two sides by a dividing wall, which made one bedroom into two. The Beard’s side comprised this half room and another large room with the staircase at the eastern end. Alfred, Reginald, and I slept in one bed in the small room and mum and dad in the large room with an iron cot beside their bed for the latest new baby – next to arrive after me had been my sister Madge. The downstairs had one large living room with two windows, one facing the farmyard, the other looking south. Both were small approximately three feet square.

The only heat downstairs was from the open grate of the cooking range which had a small boiler attached to provide hot water through a brass tap. The fire was extinguished each night and relit each morning. The remaining area downstairs was divided into two, one used as a pantry and a staircase to the bedrooms, the other as a windowless wash room with a brick built copper at the far end. The door to the farmyard had to be kept open in all weathers to provide light. I remember my grandfather sitting by this door and pulling a tooth out with a pair of pliers.

When Madge was five, in 1929, Hugh Matthews sold the farm to Mr. Reynolds, a farmer from High Roding and vast changes were made. Mr. Piper was made redundant, along with a number of workers, leaving just dad and my Uncle Charles, now promoted to horseman. Dad was stockman with a large number of pigs to attend to. He approached the new boss for extra room for his ever increasing family (inevitable before the dawn of modern contraception) and he was given the use of the entire farmhouse. So, we moved to the area previously occupied by the Piper family and used our old living room as a front or best room. The only drawback was that there was no through door upstairs and so, for ten years, the boys had to go outside and enter our old house by the front door, even in winter, to go upstairs to bed. I remember Mum constantly but gently reminding dad to ask Mr. Reynolds to have a doorway put into the two small bedrooms to avoid this inconvenient farce. But dad was reluctant, fearing it might encourage an increase on the five shillings a week rent he paid weekly. To avoid this, he eventually offered to look after the 40 or 50 chickens and collect, clean and pack the eggs for market. In return, Mr. Reynolds put the door in. Dad tended the eggs conscientiously and we took only one egg per week, on Sunday morning.

A very unusual happening occurred in April 1927. We woke to find that three feet of snow had fallen during the night and every one at Hopkins was confined to the house. Dad was very concerned for the clutch of 12 newly born chicks, which were in the coop with the mother hen and of course would be buried beneath the snow. He discussed this with my elder brother, Alfred, and a rescue plan was drawn up. There was always an empty corn sack in the house, used as a door mat, so Alfred was persuaded to get into the sack up to his waist and tie it with string to protect his feet and legs. Wellington boots were not yet available. Alfred then shuffled along and fought his way through the deep snow to rescue the tiny chicks, putting six in each jacket pocket and bringing them into the house, where my mother had lined an empty shoe box with a piece of old blanket. The box was then placed on the top of the stove to keep the chicks warm. They stayed with us until the snow was gone and they could be returned to their mother whose coop had now been moved to the shelter of the cart shed. But I will never forget my mother lifting the lid of the little box on the stove to allow my sister Madge and me to have a peek at the little chicks inside. An Easter treat indeed.

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