The Parish Magazine September 2022

22 The Parish Magazine - September 2022
feature — 3
Tales of a Sonning lad from the
It started, with coffee after the Wednesday communion in The Ark. I was talking to Bob Peters about how Sonning
used to be years ago. He asked if I lived in the village and that was his big mistake! I usually can't remember what
I did yesterday but then various flashbacks came to me and the more we talked, the more I remembered about
the church, the choir, the village shops, the river and village life. He asked me to write it down . . .
CHURCH AFFAIRS
As an 11 year old lad, I joined St Andrew's Church
choir. There were not many village lads so, in term
time, we were supplemented with boys from Bluecoat
School. Joining the choir was quite an ordeal! It was
rumoured recruits were initiated by being thrown
into a bush by the path to the church entrance. I don't
remember being thrown into it — I was lucky! The
bush is not there now so new recruits are safe from
this ordeal.
There was, however, another daunting obstacle —
the scary choirmaster and organist, who I shall call
Mr L. Friday night was choir practice. If you missed it
you were in deep trouble from Mr L when you arrived
for the service on Sunday. My word he was fierce!
We would try to sneak into the vestry without being
seen and escape at the end of the service without
being caught and hope he would forget about it by the
following Friday!
We left our bikes in the old mortuary (now the
St Sarik Room which is used as the choir vestry). The
mortuary table, where the bodies of people drowned
in the river were laid, was still there. This was spooky
enough. It was also dark!
One Friday someone found a bust of Cannon
Pearson in the mortuary and hung it by the neck from
the rafters. When we arrived with our bikes, there
it was hanging in the dark! Needless to say we never
put our bikes there again and the culprit was never
discovered.
Another scary tale involved a large yew tree. It was
said if you closed your eyes and ran round it seven
times you would see the face of the devil! Enough to
scare anyone! Sadly, that yew tree is no longer there,
it was a casualty of the 1987 'Michael Fish, there will
not be a hurricane' storm. The wood was used to make
some splendid church furniture.
HIGH STREET LIFE
The High Street was a sleepy place, except for the cars
that cut through to Thames Street. However, it wasn't
always that way.
There was once a thriving commercial life with
Mrs Edward's shop, Bert Huggins' butchers, Adams
Grocery, which later became the Thrift Shop, the parttime
Midland Bank and even Mrs Prior's front room
from where she sold sweets on Sunday after church.
As a teenager I worked at Mrs Edwards' general
store on a Saturday morning delivering groceries to
people in the village, one of which was Robert Beatty,
a very famous actor in those days. I delivered groceries
on a bike with a basket on the front — strangely, it
was the same bike my dad, Bob, had used when he was
young. It was a bit rickety but it did the job until one
Saturday a large lorry changed the shape of it outside
the shop! lt was completely crushed — thankfully I
was not on it!
Mrs Edwards was unimpressed as it meant the
purchase of a new delivery bike, but I was delighted
because it was a considerably upgraded model that
was far less squeaky and rickety. The highlight of
my morning was when I had my break and always
enjoyed a Lyons individual fruit pie. Yes, they do stilI
make them! I also nipped into my house in Pound
Lane for a second 'unofficial' break, which I hope Mrs
Edwards never found out about!
Opposite Mrs Edwards' shop was Bert Huggins
butchers. It was a small, quiet shop yet Bert had
an assistant whose sole job was to sit in a little
kiosk taking the customers' money. Surely a case of
overstaffing!
At the bottom of the hill was Mrs Edwards'
competition — Pembroke's grocery shop. Imagine,
two grocery shops in one village. Pembroke's was
taken over by the Adams family and later became the
thrift shop, an antique/curio establishment.
There was not a parking problem in those days
and I could glide down the High Street on my new
delivery bike and come to rest against the shop front
where a convenient groove under the window was
where the frame of the front basket fitted.
The highlight of my delivery boy days was asking
Mrs Edwards for a pay increase, to my shock and
delight I received one, which meant that I earned the
princely sum of 10 shillings — I was quite wealthy!
In the quieter moments I would go to the shed at
the back of the shop where the stock was stored and
unpack some of the boxes. Needless to say it was a
good hiding place which always had the overriding
smell of soap powder. I always wondered if Mrs
Edwards suspected that I was taking rather a long
time to unpack the boxes. Eventually, I would be
found and had to get back on the delivery bicycle.
I was 19 years old when I retired from this job —
well passed a lad's retirement age!
VILLAGE SCHOOL DAYS
My school days seem a very long time ago, over 60
years in fact. Some memories are very vivid. The
village school was in Thames Street — it's now a
private house, although it looks the same, except a
large leaded window at the front has been replaced.
I remember clearly the day Christopher (no
surname to protect the guilty) was being disruptive, as
usual, and threw a black plimsoll — an item we all
wore. It missed its intended target but hit the leaded
window shattering one of the panes. We all went very
Images (from the top down):
Ian Clarke today
Ian Clarke by one of Ben the Boa
Sonning Lock in the 1960's from
Sonning High Street in the early
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