Local Talk Back Nov

MY ROYAL CONNECTIONS continued..........
The next most exciting thing to look forward to was our summer holiday, and Badminton
Show. I can remember only twice going to the seaside with mother and father. The first time was at
Ruperra, they took us to Barry Island and while we were there my sister Edith wandered off and got
lost, but not for long. She wore a red coat and we soon found her wandering near the rocks. The
next time was Weston-Super-Mare, and I think it must have been before father died. The
summertime in my childhood days always seemed so long and sunny. I loved the time when we
would go picking the wild strawberries. We had been gathering them in a basket for our tea one
Sunday, when a car came along. We had quite a lot and were on our way home when some people in
a car asked us what we had been gathering. When we showed them they said would we sell them for
sixpence. So thinking mother would rather have the sixpence we sold them. When we told her what
we had done she was very cross, and told us never to sell anything again. Really, the strawberries
were worth very much more than sixpence, for we had been picking for quite a few hours and they
were very small. Then there were the blackberries to gather for mother to make jam, we seemed to
be gathering something or other all through the year. In late spring there were the cowslips,
dandelions, and elderflowers for father to make his wine. Father never went out to a pub or club, but
it was considered the right thing for him to be able to offer his friends and relations a drink of wine
when they visited. Later in the year there was the elderberries and sloes. There was always some
kind of wine brewing in the back kitchen.
In September we gathered crab apples for mother to make her lovely crap apple jelly. Then
later the nuts of all kinds, hazel, chestnuts and walnuts to put away for Christmas. The last thing we
gathered in the year was the holly, so you see, all through the year we were gathering something, and
almost every day we had to gather the dry wood for the fire for we could not afford to buy much coal.
The highlight of the summer holiday was Badminton Show, it was one of the biggest village
shows in Gloucestershire. They came from miles around on their bikes, so being near to the
showground father put a notice up, ‘Bikes taken care of here, twopence a bike’. Well, by the time the
show started we were completely stacked with bikes. Father did it in style, giving each one a ticket
with a number. There was only just enough room to get out of our gate but the real fun started when
it was time to go home. There would be a dozen or more piled against one another when someone
wanted the one at the back. I felt sorry for my two older brothers, one or the other had to be there all
the time to see them in and out. There must have been a hundred or more.
We all had something entered in the show. Father had his vegetables, fruit and flowers, he
always got a few prizes for each and the one he was most proud of was the one for his dahlias. There
was always a few first and second cards on show in our home for weeks afterwards. Mother entered
a fruit cake and a baby’s dress, and she always got first or second for she was a good dressmaker.
She made all of our clothes, even the boys’ suits when they were little. She also entered jams and
jellies and did well, for the more you won the more money came into the house, and this was needed
very badly, with having to feed and clothe such a large family. We children entered wild flowers,
and from school our knitting and sewing. I entered some men’s stockings, at the time the teacher had
not shown me how to shape the leg but I could turn the heel and had done it many times at home, so
completed the stockings without any help. I came second and the note said ‘beautifully knitted but
no shaping’. I did not make the same mistake the next time for mother showed me what to do. I also
entered grasses. I had a marvellous collection owing to having relations in Wales who sent me some,
also a cousin went on holiday to Scotland and brought me some from there. I won second for them
because they were not named.