02

Besley the baker made manchips, a rich buttery bread roll, a traditional breakfast food bought fresh from the bakehouse door. The Besley version had a unique richness not found in other recipes. Auntie Frances would order them in advance, creating excitement in the neighborhood. Besley also made "watch it biscuits." The speaker recalls childhood illnesses, collecting farthings for the hospital, and excelling academically at Watchet Council School, where the headmaster, R.J. Pullen, introduced him to beekeeping. By age 13, he had his own hive of bees. To go back to Besley the baker, one of the local items that he made were manchips. Now a manchip was basically a bread roll, a bat, but it was much thinner than a bat, rolled out about the size of the palm of your hand, the size of your hand, fingers included, an oval about the size of the hand, and it was a very rich bread dough with added butter to it, and they were eaten hot, purchased from the bakehouse door, rarely bought in the shop, they were bought absolutely fresh from the bakehouse door, brought home, split in half, while still hot, extra butter put in them, and eaten then as a breakfast meal. I believe that the Besleys basically were a fusional descent, so that here we're probably getting something in the similar to the French croissant in flavour, not in shape, and these were absolutely marvellous. I tried to make them myself, first of all in the old cookery books, or in any cookery book that refers to this bread, a manchip as it was called, they are referred to as being the first white bread that was ever made, served in the days of Queen Elizabeth I, and the manchip was made with white flour, the first attempt at sifting flour to sift out the brown part, and it was the first white bread done. But no recipe that I've traced in ordinary cookery books gives the richness and the butter content which was in the Besley version. I have since been able to acquire a recipe for them, have made them two or three times, they're very thoroughly enjoyed, Bruce especially likes them, and it is included in my recipe book under the title Watch It Manchips. Now it was quite a tradition to sort of have these manchips, and Auntie Frances, who I referred to a little earlier as being married unto Uncle Fred Williams, but in fact she was a very spinsterish type of person, she would come down to my mother the day before, or a couple of days before, and say Bessie, I'm going down to get manchips on Tuesday or Wednesday, and would you like some? And the whole thing was ordered, the order was placed, and about half past seven that morning Auntie Frances would turn up with our ordered manchips, so that having placed the order two or three days beforehand, they were talked about and savoured and looked forward to with great expectations. This I think applied to lots of life in those days. It all had to be planned and organised primarily in relation to our financial situation. We couldn't just go out and buy as easily as we do today, we couldn't afford it, so that everything was planned and looked forward to and savoured very much prior to eating. And as well as our own self savouring it, it would have been talked about in the street. Mother would have told our neighbours, we're going to have manchips on Tuesday for breakfast, and Frances is going down and gets on board, and the neighbours will probably turn a little bit green with envy at the thought of us having these manchips. And this was one of the village life ideas, that things were planned and talked about and discussed very, very much more than they are today, amongst yourself and amongst your neighbours. Leslie's also made a biscuit, which were called watch it biscuits, and they were just a sweet dough, sweet pastry dough, to which caraway seeds were added, cut out and baked off as biscuits, and were very, very pleasant. For several years after my grandmother died, grandfather lived with us as one of the family, and also did Auntie Elsie. And as I have said, we had quite a large house in relation to times in those days, four bedroom house. We were a sort of better, step better, than the row houses immediately in front of us, which were Almer Terrace. And Almer Terrace, although they had four bedrooms, similar to ours, there was no passageway, so that on opening the front door, you stepped straight into the living room, and then opened another door to block the staircase. And then again, a degree higher than us were Malvern Terrace. Now Malvern Terrace is now part of Duniford Road, and in that terrace, Aunt Elsie, as you know, lives, 74 Duniford Road. I'm referring to the row houses immediately in front of her. Malvern Terrace, that again was regarded as a better class terrace, so that one would have three grades of people living in them. Almer Terrace, the people who couldn't afford to live in Portland Terrace, and Portland Terrace, the people who couldn't afford to live in Malvern Terrace. And you know, quite in those days, well-to-do people lived in Malvern Terrace, the solicitor and his wife, and that type of person. So there was, although we were all very poor, there were various degrees of snobbishness. And of course, clothing was again one of those degrees. One always had to have a new clothes for Easter, and there was always a Sunday bath suit to be worn, never worn any other time. Sunday, of course, as you realize, was quite a dull day. One went to church in the morning and evening, our chapel as we were Methodists, and Sunday school in the afternoon. I went to church Sunday school for many years, actually, St. Decuman's Sunday School. But we, of course, we as boys always wear short trousers, short trousers until we were about 14. There was no such thing as long trousers. Of course, there were no such thing as jeans in those days. It was all worsted trousers, and we wore them until we were about 14 years of age. It was, of course, one of the things we looked forward to very much, the day when we would go into long trousers. But of course, going into long trousers then was not a youthful experience as it is today. They weren't smart and attractive. And when you went into long trousers, you were almost little old men, rather than used, looking so smart and casually dressed as you are today. Of course, we had flannels, flannel trousers for the summer, long flannel trousers, and the best ones, if one could afford them, were dacks, which were about seven and sixpence a pair. So you could never afford anything quite as expensive as that. As a child, I was quite a sickly person. I was unfortunate in that at the age of three years and two months, I was rushed to my mother's hospital for a serious operation for appendicitis. It was not a clean job, in that it necessitated keeping the wound open for many days to drain off the poisonous fluids, and my life hung in the balance for quite a while. Although in this modern day and age, we regard it as quite a good idea for parents to be with their children at hospital if necessary. In fact, in 1923-24, when I was there, my mother was allowed to stay with me, so that it isn't quite such a modern idea. After all, my mother stayed with me for several days and nights, nursing me, because I was a very young baby to have had this sort of serious operation. And of course, I was a very pretty baby, lovely curly hair, long curly hair, and very attractive, and the someone at the hospital, who was always considered to be the surgeon at the hospital, wanted to adopt me. No one ever knew who it was. It was negotiated by the matron herself that someone wished to adopt me, and I would have been brought up, as my parents said, as a gentleman. Of course, they absolutely refused to let anything like that happen. There, Harry wasn't going to be adopted by anyone else, and it fell through. But it was a talking point in our family for very many years, the fact that Harry had been wanted to have been adopted whilst he was in hospital. I recovered from the operation, obviously, but was a sickly child for many, many years. I didn't start school until I was six years of age. One of the features of the things that I did in those days, or at least my parents did, because although they did it in my name, was that I collected farthings for the hospital. And I used to give them my collection of farthings once a year as a thank you present for all that they had done for me whilst I was in hospital. And I used to collect perhaps two or three hundred of these farthings a year and give them. And when you realise today that a farthing was a quarter of an old penny, I would collect... It took 960 farthings to make a pound. I would collect perhaps about 300 farthings, which was worth at today's rate about 30 new pence. But the buying power of a pound in those days was equal to half a week's wages, so that in actual value it would have been equivalent to collecting and handing to the hospital about £50 a year at today's wage. And this I did for many, many years. The matron at the hospital was Matron Delson and she eventually came and retired at Watchet and I met her and maintained contact with her for very many years. She retired and lived very close to the co-op where I was working in those days. I attended Watchet Council School for many years and participated in very little of the sporting activities. I was always regarded as being too poorly to participate. And my brother Reg was always looking after me as such. My mother as a young child at school, she used to come to the school every morning with a glass of milk for me at 11 o'clock, because there was no free milk in those days, and she would bring me a glass of milk into which had been beaten a raw egg. And that was my nourishment to build myself up. So I suppose it did me good, at least I'm here to tell the tale. Schooling came very easily to me and I always kept my place in the top of the top of the four. Usually myself and Frances Jenkins and another one of the girls there, we were usually in the top two in class and I held that position sort of right through my scholastic career. At the age of about 13 we changed headmasters two or three times and about the age of 12 we had a headmaster named R.J. Pullen, a very, very, very nice person, very, very nice. He was a Quaker himself and one of his interests was beekeeping. I, like the rest of the children in the class, helped him with his beekeeping and we were taught beekeeping by him. And eventually at the age of 13 I had my first hive of bees, my own. I bought the hive myself, a beehive, which cost a pound in those days. You bought less than a pound, 19 and 6 pence, just under a pound. It was bought in the flat as it was called. In other words, all the parts were cut out, you assembled them and glued and nailed them together yourself to make your beehive. Mr. Pullen, for a nominal sum, sold me a small colony of bees and at the age of 13 I had my first hive of bees at home at 2 Portland Terrace in the dark. And I've always kept bees ever since. I've never, never, ever not had bees from the age of 13. A wonderful hobby, a terrific hobby and one that I would commend to anyone. And although it's never made a lot of money as such, it's been a hobby that one could always have and enjoy without feeling that you spent money on it. Most hobbies, photography, golf, anything else, you're eternally spending money but the bees themselves produce that lovely honey and that in itself allayed any costs incurred. I won't dwell too long on beekeeping but one of the interesting facets of beekeeping is that the bees themselves do not defecate in the hive. So that during the winter months they're confined to the hive for long periods and their body construction is such that they can hold their feces until they fly on the wing under normal conditions. So the first break of sunshine that we used to get out would come the bees for the sole purpose of relieving themselves. And invariably this always happened on a Monday. And of course Monday was ritually washing day. Washing day was Monday. Everyone did their washing on a Monday. And so of course our next door neighbor would say to my mother, you know Bessie, I can't understand it. I hung out a line of sheets this morning. It's the first lovely day and there's little brown spots on them. But if the sun was shining like that, my mother knew not to do her washing that day because she gets little brown spots on hers as well. But we never let on to our neighbors and I don't think they ever realized that it was the bees who had been trying to defecate it over the sheets. Washing itself was quite a ritual of a damn hard work for the housewife. There was, my mother had two galvanized tubs, bathtubs, in which she did her washing. One held the dirty things, the other held the cleaner things that were being rinsed, and a copper in which the water was boiled. And of course that was lit by a small fire underneath. So this copper was filled with water and the fire lit, boiled up, and any clothing necessary to be boiled in the copper. And that was the source of the washing, the hauls at Bessie's. The clothes themselves were soaked and scrubbed. There was a special board kept for us and the scrubbing brush and everything was washed in soap. Very little soap powder available in those days. Soda was used, washing soda was used as a supplement, and of course washing soda was the only means of using for washing up the cookery dishes. The advent of Fairy Liquid has been a marvelous thing to life, and the other washing up liquids. But as a boy we used a little soap powder, probably some old washing soap. We had a little wire basket that held odd scraps of soap. They were swished about to make bubbles, some soda added to the water, and that was our means of washing dishes. But washing itself, the clothes were washed in these bathtubs, which was very hard work. They were scrubbed on this piece of board that was kept specially for the purpose, washed and hung out to dry. And I remember particularly that as a boy, if one was ill, especially as a young boy, if one was ill and you didn't feel too good, instead of the special treat not to sit up to the table for your tea. And so I would be allowed to sit in Grandfather's armchair, which was a wooden frame chair, and the washboard would be brought in and put across the armrest, so that I was sat there with a washboard in front of me, which formed a tray, and on this tray would be served my tea, bread and butter and jam, probably as a special treat. The bread would be cut very thinly, the crust trimmed off, jammed and then rolled up into Swiss rolls to make them attractive and appealing. And if one had any real tummy trouble, then as a very special treat we would go to the local grocer, my mother would, and she would buy a small quantity of Cuntney and Palmer's breakfast biscuits. These were a thick, dry biscuit, quite different to a cream cracker, and unfortunately no longer manufactured, and they were specially reserved really for when you were ill. A little tummy trouble, you needed a dry biscuit, and those were specially for you, probably buttered and dipped in sugar as a special treat. And so, even to be ill, there was something very special about it. You weren't, as you are now, treated to an injection or a sulfonamide drug or something like that and told you'd be better in a few minutes. You were sat back in the chair and pampered, as I'm afraid we don't pamper you children today. Grandfather of course liked his pint of beer, and he would have a ritual night out every evening, or almost every evening, he would go down to the local pub and buy a pint of beer, which in those days cost about fourpence or fivepence. Some were about two new pence at today's prices. And as he became older, it was only in the better weather that he felt like going to get his pint at the local pub. The Bell Inn was usually the popular one, and one would get him to come back and pavedly inquire as to who had been there and who he'd met and who he'd talked to, etc. And so, as I became older, if he was on well enough to go to the pub, then we were sent down to get his bottle of beer. We went to the jug and bottle entrance, a little separate unit in a pub, what they called the jug and bottle. It was only, oh, about the size of the loo, probably about five feet square, four foot square, with a little hatch, and you were served there. So that if you wanted a crafty drink on your own, and you didn't want the general people in the pub to know that you were a drinker, that was the way you obtained it. But we as children were also served there, pint of beer for Grandford, please, and it was sealed over with a paper seal so that we ourselves were not supposed to tamper with it, as we never did, and of course that met the requirements of the law. It is an interesting point that these days there is lots of people saying how wonderful it was in those days, the wonderful traditions, the wonderful bread we had, nothing tastes the same as it tastes, and I think this might be true in many respects. The beer was different, they wanted real ale, nowadays there's the real ale society, but in fact quite often we would fetch a pint of beer for Grandford, and he would take a few drinks of it, and drink it either very slowly and very reluctantly, what's the matter father? Not very good tonight. So beer wasn't always as good as one would have us believe nowadays. Not very good tonight, bottom of the barrel, a bit draggy, he would hold it up to the light, it wasn't clear there was some sediment in the bottom of the glass, and it wasn't a very good barrel at all. Probably just the bottom of an old barrel that had been hanging about some time. So don't think that everything was perfect in those days. The same applies to bread. Many of the time I would remember my mother would keep a load back to show the baker the next time he called because it wasn't very good. Bread making in yeast work was quite a lot more hit and miss than it is today. The one benefit that bread has over the present times is that it was made by a much slower process, and it is this slower process that gives it its flavour. The reason being that the yeast itself, as you know, is used in the brewing of liquids, making homemade wines etc, and in the making of bread, if it takes a long time for the yeast to work and to rise, it develops alcohol within the bread, and the flavour is really a whiny alcoholic flavour created by this yeast over the longer 10 or 12 hours that the dough is used to rise before it is finally baked on, which of course kills all the actions in the yeast. And it is there is where the flavour really comes from, from the alcoholic flavours that the yeast has made in its work. But of course yeast today are very much more efficient, they're better quality, they're made much more selectively to produce good bread, but unfortunately none of the bread is made over this long term period. Most breads are made today on short term periods because of the labour and the cost effected. The baker would get up perhaps two o'clock in the morning and start making his dough, no I'm sorry, he would start making his dough at six o'clock the night before, and he would be down at work at two o'clock in the morning to start working that dough off, and probably would go in the ovens at six o'clock so that it would take 12 hours to mature before it was finally baked. Came out of the ovens and of course then they started delivering it, it was a very hard life for them, they started delivering and selling their bread door to door at about one and a half, two pence for a large loaf, and a large loaf in those days weighed two pounds, whereas a large loaf today only weighs a pound and three quarters. Milk again was delivered by pail, the ideas of sterilization and bottling were non-existent, the milkman milked his cows and brought his milk around in a pail, he took the lid off the pail and measured out your pint or pint and a half or two pints, whatever you required, into your jug, so you were ready with your jug for the time the milkman called, and you can imagine that again to carry two large pails of milk down the length of Portland Terrace was jolly hard work. There was no refrigeration, one or two of the wealthy people had fridges, that was all, so in the hot weather it was quite a headache to know how you were going to keep your milk. The technique employed in those days was to scald the milk, so in the hot weather immediately the milk was delivered by the milkman, it was put into a saucepan, the heat raised to just under boiling point, and then put back into the jug. The result was that the cream would separate out of the milk, so that you then got a nice layer of cream on the top of your milk, because this was taken off for eating, and the milk itself would then keep with a bit of luck for the 24 hours until the milkman came again. It was scald milk then, and would be in what is known as a skim milk condition, because the cream was gone, and so was most of the butterfat, so that it was quite a weaker milk that you had left for ordinary domestic use. This of course today is used by a lot of us, skim milk, and of course the dry milks we buy today are in the same condition, low in butterfat content, and the nutrition experts now say of course they're much better for you. Again, milk itself was a thing of criticism, my mother would complain that the milk wasn't very good yesterday, or she thought it was a bit watery, and so they would change from one milkman to another, and of course the herbage that the cows were fed on also affected the flavour of the milk, and swedes, turnips, whatever they were fed in the winter would affect the flavour as well, and sometimes they did have quite fairly unpleasant side flavours, and of course the milkman would blame the food that was fed on, and that would be that. No question of replacing it really, but it was just part of the ritual of life, in that the life moved at a much slower pace, and the quality of the milk was considered. Today a bottle of milk or a container of milk is milk, milk is milk is milk, and the same as most things are, we accept them for what they are, and use them for what they are, without ever considering complaining about them, as was done at that time. And so with our cricket, our football, our hoops, etc, our school days wore on. Summer of about 1927-28, the army decided the watchet was a very suitable spot for them to use for target practice on their ranges, and at Duniford, about a mile from Watchet, on the cliffs, a range was formed where the guns were set up and could fire out over the sea at target practicing, and men, soldiers, came to Watchet in summer tents. Tents would be put up at Liddymore in early summer, and the various, usually volunteer battalions, people who had joined the London people, who had joined the various army volunteer reserves, would come for their fortnight's holiday in camp at Watchet. They would camp there and use the ATAC anti-aircraft ranges for practicing firing for experience in those days. And of course, it was quite a thing. First of all, we had the equipment arriving, caterpillar tractors, lorries, the guns, they would all come by train, they would be unloaded at the railway station and driven through Watchet, and it was quite a thing to watch out to see the guns and the lorries arriving. And then again, once a fortnight, we would get a brigade or a strength of soldiers arrive. They would be lined up and march in procession from the railway station a mile to their camp, usually with their band playing, and in full military order. So that again, that was something for us to watch for in the summer months. And the technique was that a small, they were all small in those days, a light aircraft would draw a target. He let out a rope from his aircraft, and on the end of the rope was a big red sleeve target, which was fired at by the ATAC guns. And I think the basic aim was to group their shots around this target. Now and again, they would sever the rope that the target was drawn on, and he would come plunging down into the sea. They exploded their guns over the sea, the target was drawn over the sea, the shells exploded over the sea, and it was quite an interesting thing. A day out would be to walk down to stand on the railway bridge, and watch this work taking place. As is done today with full military precision, number one gun ready, number two gun ready, and everyone comes up to attention, and the guns were fired under instructions. And this of course didn't meet with too much acceptance by the local people. There was a lot of criticism about the noise, the interference with noise, and for many, many years the army were under criticism. Soldiers of course off duty in the evenings would come into the local pubs, and of course chase the local girls, which was a loss to our own boys. Nobody was very happy about that. We lost some of our girls to the soldiers, they married them, and by and large they were never too welcome within the community, although it was something that lasted well into the 1940s, I think probably in the early 1950s before it was eventually discontinued. But it was a means of practicing for the second world war, and a special night out, perhaps once or twice during the summer, we would go for a walk on a Sunday evening, and we would go down to the army where they stayed at Liddymore, and one could go into their rest tent, and father would have his glass of beer, and we as boys would stay outside, and be given a packet of crisps each, and of course again a packet of crisps was something which was very wonderful. They were only virtually obtainable in the local pubs. Smith's potato crisps, one flavour only, with a blue packet of salt inside for you to salt them, obtainable in the pub, nowhere else, no shops sold them as they do today, and it was a very special treat to go to Liddymore camp once or twice during the summer, and have our packet of crisps. Again it would be something that had been planned and talked about for the week previously, that we were going on Sunday, if the weather was nice, it would be a nice walk for us to go, and we went. Another thing that the army did was to have practicing night firing, and for this they brought their searchlights. So searchlights were positioned in strategic points around Watchet, and on a beautiful summer's evening they would be playing on the sky to illuminate the aeroplanes that they were going to fire at. So again this was something that was looked forward to and planned for, if it's nice tonight searchlights will be off, right special occasion you can stay up late to watch the searchlights, which we did, and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of these searchlights going through the sky and tracking planes. I think probably one of the strengths of the army was that some of them, the soldiers married local girls, and of course they came to Watchet then to live, and we were in a situation where we were all desperate for work, for employment in the 30s, and to have other people come into the community at a time when there wasn't enough work to go around in any case was not very acceptable. And quite a lot of them came with small army pensions or retainers, and they would be earning, draw on a pension perhaps two or three or four shillings a week as a retainer to be in the army, and then they would offer their services at the local factory, the local paper mill, at a cheaper rate of pay, because of that they could afford to then work two or three shillings a week less than our own local people could afford to do, and still be better off at the end of the week. So this didn't make them too popular in what in those days was a fairly close-knit community. One of the interesting things that did happen at Watchet was that we were the base for what were known as Queen Bees. Now this was the first attempt at radio-controlled aircraft, and from the site at Watchet an aircraft was ejected from a catapult by compressed air, it was ejected into the air and was controlled entirely by radio. It was fitted with floats, and the aircraft was then controlled by radio and was something for the soldiers, a real aircraft for the soldiers to practice on. This was in the later 1930s and continued for a good many years, that these aircraft ejected off and would then land in the sea, and a special, a local boat was commissioned, the SS Radstock was commissioned to patrol the sea during the times that the planes were in the air, and would winch them aboard and bring them back into dock. So the planes were never or very rarely lost, they were winched aboard, brought back into dock and flown again. This was the Queen Bee, the very very first attempt at radio-controlled aircraft, and of course they must have been very well packed with controls, which would have been of a very large nature, and the balls and that involved to control them. So that was the Queen Bee, something I will refer to later in my memoirs. One field just outside of the town was designated as an emergency landing field for aircraft, they flew in from an aerodrome just the other side of Bridgewater, and if necessary they could land in this field. It wasn't very level, in fact it was far from level and it must have called for quite a lot of skill, but of course it was all very small tiger moth type of aircraft, most of them two wings, not single wing, two wing aircraft, one propeller, and quite often they would crash land. And then of course we as children, would have a special trip down to the landing field to see this aircraft that had crashed. Fortunately, because of their construction, the pilot would get out quite safely. One of them I remember quite well, had taken off too low and had caught his wheels in the telegraph wires on the local railway line which ran alongside the field, and that one was just turned over on his nose with his wheels caught in the wires. But that again was a little occasion for us to go out and see an aircraft that had crashed. Sunday afternoons were usually spent in a walk, we would walk to Dunniford and back with our parents, that would be our Sunday afternoons excursion, to go for a walk, Dunniford, Cleveland, the Mineral Line which was the old railway line that used to go to the hills on which the iron ore workings had taken place in the early 1900s. The lines were already removed before my time, but the railway shed was still there at the bottom of the track for many years until that itself was pulled down, and the trains were called, I remember my mother used to call it the Pontin, which was the name of the train that operated on this line. But it was a very pleasant walk, we would walk up the line and across the common land at the top and back down over Cleve Hill, and one of the common lands has now been developed into the big Warren Bay Caravan Park. And of course on special occasions in the summer months, as we would stay up late, to walk up the Mineral Line to listen to the Nightingale, that was one of our special treats of the summer. Entertainment wise, we had the Town Hall, the Watchit Town Hall, that's now been pulled down, and is the car park in Swain Street, quite a large hall by one's standards and imagination, and that was the first cinema that was used from there. It had a stage on which annually the Christmas pantomime was performed, quite good dressing rooms and ante-rooms, it was an L-shaped building, good dressing rooms and ante-rooms, and it was used and hired by the Somerset County Council every week for carpentering classes. So we went from school on a Monday down to the Town Hall for our carpentering classes. Mr. Horstman was our carpentering teacher, and the interesting point of that trip to the carpentry was not the carpentering, but the fact that at quarter to eleven we had a quarter of an hour's break. If Mr. Horstman was in a good mood, he would allow us to go into Swain Street to make some purchases. If he was in a bad mood, we didn't. And our trip, we used to race each other to get there, was to Tilly's, the local grocer's shop, and we used to rush up there to buy any stale cake that had been left over from the week before. That would be quite a large piece of fruit cake weighing perhaps almost half a pound, or cream cake, red and white slab cake with a layer of cream in the middle. The member of staff selling it would cut out huge chunks, which we thought were huge, and would sell it to us for a penny each. And of course the first ones there had the best pieces. The rest of us had to make do with a bag of broken biscuits. But it was a highlight of our carpentering class, something we looked forward to every Monday. Now, annually, the town hall was used for a local pantomime that was usually organised by members of the British Legion Association, and they put on a very, very good pantomime every year. A number of local people were regulars in it. John Norman, the butcher, always played the part of the dame. He usually brought a big lump of dough with him, and in his kitchen scene, his cookery scene, he would have this lump of dough on the table, and of course turn his back and it would fall off onto the floor, and a lot of laughs were obtained, and he usually ended up by breaking off small pieces and throwing it at the audience. Of course, there was quite a lot of local news and views brought into the pantomime, anything at all that could be brought in, applicable to local people, and surroundings were done so. Titcher Titchy, Dan Lino, Bert Lloyd, all local people taking part and doing very well. The principal boy for many, many years was Batty Bond, and the principal girls varied from one to another. With only a limited amount of wireless available in those days, the pop scene was not as it is now. There were popular musical pieces, you bought sheet music at Sixten's a Sheep, and you played it on the piano, but our main introduction to the popular tunes of the year, or of the day, was at the pantomime, and the principal girls would be singing what were the popular tunes of the day, and that was the basic entertainment. One week of pantomime done to full houses, very, very good. Any local scandals, we had one little scandal blew up where a young man and young lady were seen in the Methodist church, actually, by candlelight. So, of course, that was brought into the pantomime, no references made, obviously, but a song was sung around it, I'm going to blow the candle out at half past nine. And, of course, when the question arose when they were caught in this compromising situation, they were supposed to have blown the candle out and got away in the ensuing darkness. This is why the song was based on that, I'm going to blow the candle out at half past nine. So, the pantomime was a talking point for many weeks, preparation, who's going, what night we're going, whether we're going to the matinee or the evening performance, and afterwards, of course, it was talked about again, with relish, how much we'd enjoy it. I took part in some of these pantomimes as I grew older, and in one of them, the Babes on the Wood, at about 17 years of age, I was the Babes' father, and I had two twin daughters, my Babes, who were girls of about 18, and I had to come on and be greeted with the Babes, who ran up to me and said, oh, hello, Daddy, and both of them kissed me. The producer insisted that this should happen every rehearsal, I was embarrassed, and everyone else had a good laugh. The Babes got so annoyed one evening that they said, look, we're not doing this because we like it, which caused a greater laugh than ever. I have mentioned before that our clothing in those days were short trousers, long socks up to our knees, garters to keep the socks off, and of course, boots. Shoes were virtually unknown in those days for anyone, they were only worn around the time of the Babes.