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Recollections of Bygone Years

St. Giles Choir

When Alan Robinson asked me to write down my recollections of Farnborough Church Choir, I thought it would be ‘a piece of cake’.  I find, however, that my memory is not as good as I thought.  Not surprising though when I recall that it is roughly 72 years ago that I joined the choir at the age of 8 in1931.

I certainly remember my ‘audition’.  It was in the vestry on boys’ practice night, a Monday.  Boys only on Mondays in the vestry – with harmonium; full choir on Friday night in the main church – with organ.  The Organist and Choirmaster (Old Tommy Atkinson to us) took me up and down a few scales and seemed satisfied with the response he got – so I was in.  For my first Sunday morning effort ‘Old Tommy’ placed me next to the lead boy, his son Bert, who had instructions to look after me and see that I did not  stray.  Bert had a lovely voice and I felt very proud to be singing next to him.  Sadly he was killed during the Second World War.

I remember Noel Rich and Harry Beverly (Snowball) joining around the same time as me and later on Arthur Crandley (Candles), Tom Shelton and Dennis Kimber, but regrettably I cannot recall the names of others. (speak up if you’re one of them. Eds) But I can remember some of the men: Mr Burgess, Mr Butler (who kept the village grocery store), Stan Mussell, Jesse Sawyer (young Christine Tilly’s Dad), Mr Round and  Mr Bryant.

I have a distinct memory of ‘pay night’ of course.  The ritual took place once a quarter in the vestry.  Normal pay 3s.6d.  But I discovered, when I became lead boy, my pay shot up to 7s.6d a quarter.  Heaven!  Every now and then boys were required to sing at a wedding or funeral.  No school secretaries in those days. The Headmaster, Mr Alfred Bootes, did all the necessary, so, ‘rat, tat, on the classroom door and in would walk ‘Old Tommy’ to request his flock to be in attendance at one or the other. 1s.0d for funerals, 1s.6d for weddings; there was always a bonus at weddings - we could all ‘ogle’ the bride!

Christmas was exciting; not only practising carols but also the choir would go out carol singing for a few nights.  The last night always included in its penultimate call a visit to ‘The Heppenstalls’ at the bottom of Church Hill by the stile to Chalky Luggett, where we each were given a few sweets, and ended with a trek up to Lord Avebury’s mansion at High Elms where, after our ‘performance’, we were ushered into the very large kitchen and presented with more sweets and an orange. Cor!

Easter was also a very happy and rewarding time for anyone even slightly interested in making music. The Easter Hymns were a joy to sing and the choir regularly performed a special at this time with many opportunities for solos.I can remember Mr Burgess taking most of the tenor solos and the bass solos were often taken by Jesse Sawyer; his voice was so deep it impressed all the boys who would spend the next couple of weeks trying to emulate the sound.  As far as I can remember the anthems usually came from “The Crucifixion” or “The Cross of Christ”. 

Old Tommy must have thought I had an aptitude for music because he called on my mother one day and asked if he could teach me the piano.  He charged 3s.6d an hour.  My parents could not possibly afford that but agreed to let me have half an hour for 1s.9d.  Old Tommy was very good to me, he often threw in an extra 15 minutes; but I blotted my copybook one Monday evening at boys only practice night.  The vestry was being redecorated and the harmonium was covered in sheets; so we all assembled in the main church and “you” said Tommy to me, “you can play the organ”.  I was over the moon.  He gave me some idea (I could not reach the pedals so it was fingers only) of how the beast worked and I was away.  Then Tommy said “I’m just going to the vestry to get another hymn book – so behave yourselves”.  Now Old Tommy was said to be deaf at 5 paces so all the boys said “Go on Undy, let it rip”.  How could I resist?  ‘When the Poppies Bloom Again’, a hit tune of the 30s, came out of the organ.  In modern parlance ‘I had gone’.  I was brought to my senses with a smart clout to the left ear with ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’.  Tommy had returned and was not amused.  Punishment?  Severe – he never let me touch that organ again.  I vaguely remember seeing a large bag of cricket gear appearing in  the vestry one Monday night and this was followed shortly after by a match on Chalky Luggett – but the result, who played and why we played, has gone.  (Anybody know? Eds).

There was an outing to Hastings during the Summer.  I don’t remember the men ever getting excited but the boys certainly did.  Steam train (and it ran on time) from Orpington to Hastings, morning on the beach, lunch, more chasing along the beach and then – a visit to a proper tea-shop.  Cor!  When they spied all the fancy cakes to be devoured, the eyes of the boys stood out like organ stops.  It made the day.

One character I must mention was Nobby Haines.  Nobby was an ex Crystal Palace footballer who, on Sundays, acted as Bell-ringer and Organ Pumper.  No electrics on that organ, somebody had to go round the back and pump it before it would play.  (In those days the organ pipes were in the organ chamber at the right of the chancel Eds).  Every Winter Sunday morning I would be an early arrival at church and race up to the belfry to discuss with Nobby the previous days football results.  Those were also early days of Football Pools and one of my lasting memories was of Nobby pulling the bell with his foot in a loop at the bottom of the bell rope while, with pencil point frequently licked, he would check his forecast with the results in the Sunday paper.  I’ll swear that every time he got one right the bell sounded much louder!

I must say that I enjoyed my time in the choir and the knowledge gained helped me to pursue music as a hobby throughout my life.  Particularly during the war years when I took the opportunity  to teach myself to play the trombone, joined the station (R.A.F.) dance band and sang many of the vocals all round Western Europe.

I remember vividly being approached by a vaguely familiar figure in a smoke-filled bar one night in Scotland who said “Excuse me but did you once sing in Farnborough Church Choir?”.  He was a lad of about my own age, 20 at the time, who had been a regular member of St. Giles Congregation.  My mates took this up of course and I was henceforth known as ‘The Choirboy’.  It’s a Small World.

Phil Underwood

"Farnborough" (Poem - Author unknown)

In the year 862

A village in north west Kent

First mention made of a settlement there

Under King of Wessex sent.

Fearnbiorginga was the name,

Mid ferns and on a hill.

Farnborough it is called today

A pleasant village still.

In 1293 a church was built

In field with lovely view.

A licence to hold a market each week

And one for St. Giles’ Fair too.

In sixteen hundred and thirty nine

A tempest raged on land.

Destroying much of the building there

So villagers lent a hand.

By sixteen hundred and forty one

The church was opened again.

Later in eighteen thirty eight

A tower was built to the main.

When horse-drawn coaches travelled the roads

Between country and London town,

At Farnborough a change of horses was made

On journeys up and down.

Chalkey Lugget was the place

Where cattle stayed awhile

On the journey to market in Town

At Ludgate -- so many a mile.

1873 a school was built

The village green beside.

Inside the children worked away

And played on the green outside.

A fine new school has now been built

At top of Farnborough Hill

With airy rooms and playing fields

For learning and playing still.

Gladstone, Palmerston, Cobden and Peel

Were ministers very high.

In Farnborough too they are well-known names

Of roads, to High Street nigh.

At turn of the century, so I’ve heard say

At Gladstone Road the same

Was a large place for all to skate.

But later a garage became.

In 1897 was built

The useful Village Hall,

Much used for meetings of every kind

For villagers, one and all.

The Methodist Church in 1909

Was built upon Starts Hill

In World War I was a hospital ward

For Soldiers who were ill.

During the years of the late 1920s

The Farnborough By-Pass came

Through Farnborough Green Orchards and fields,

But a traffic help all the same.

In the High Street fifty years ago

Red buses used to come

Number 47 from Shoreditch way,

Every nine minutes to run.

Their terminus was the George and Dragon

In the middle of the square

By the Orange Tea Rooms and Chemist shop

A bus always waiting there

In the middle of High Street was a pond

Allotments path just nigh.

At the farm the cattle walked in line

To milking shed nearby

The Greengrocers, and bakeries.

Three grocers, two butchers to view

A dairy, a draper’s and hardware shop,

Confectioners, newsagents too.

Past the Bank and on the opposite side

Was quite a large strawberry field.

While past old cottages in Church Road

Post Office in house concealed.

New houses have been built around

Our village on the hill.

But fields and woods beyond the church

Give us the country still.

(Does anybody recognise the style?)

Mr. Charles Brown

Charles Brown, referred to by grown-ups throughout the village during the war as "Charlie," but to the children as a respectful "Mr Brown," lived in one of the terraced cottages near Farnborough Green. You know the one between Matthews the butcher and Doutch’s the greengrocers – just along from Jack Toms’ the snobs hut and almost opposite Mr Moule’s New Bakery alongside the path to the Scout’s Hut. Oh, but I forgot. Most of you won’t remember as they’ve sadly long gone.

Mr Brown had an upright, smart almost military manner – but that’s not surprising as he served with distinction in The Great War between 1914 and 1918. In the years immediately after the war he was one of the leaders of the British Legion parades that marched from the Methodist Chapel at Farnborough Green, along the High Street to the War Memorial at St. Giles. But during the war he was an Air Raid Warden and was to be seen cycling round the village with a steel helmet, irreverently known as a "tin hat" in those days; perched on his head with the large letters ARP painted on. He was based at the village’s ARP Wardens’ post to the left of the Village Green.

The village pond opposite had large cement cylinders sunk into its bed to increase its water capacity so that the Kent Fire Brigade would have a ready source of water for fighting fires caused by incendiary bombs. We were a bit upset as it disturbed the water for the newts, tadpoles and frogs that we caught there in jam jars and took to school for "Nature Study". Charlie’s responsibilities included making sure that when "Moaning Minnie", the air raid siren perched on the top of the telephone exchange, sounded, villagers filed safely into the shelter complex under the village green. In fact I believe it’s still there and although the entrances were blocked in 1945, during hot dry weather brown grass indicates where the old shelters lie just beneath the surface.

    During air raids Charlie and his colleagues would patrol the village and if any bombs fell they would try to make sure that people and their property were safe. He must have been present on 1st September 1940 during the Battle of Britain when German aircraft were bombing RAF Biggin Hill. Sadly that day a small stray bomb landed on the shelter of a house called St Fillers – the last house on the right at the bottom of Orchard Road – killing John Lawrence, an 8 year old boy in Class 3, his small brother David aged 5 as well as Percy (30) his Dad and his Mum Phyllis (32). I can remember my Dad telling me about the tragedy and that their dog survived because it had been left in the house.

    Another of Charlie’s duties was to patrol the village to make sure that no lights could be seen during the "black-out" as German bombers wanted to know where the towns or villages were situated. In our cottage in Pleasant View, we didn’t have thick blackout curtains like many people so my Dad made shutters that fitted into the window frames. These made sure that the light from the mantels in our gaslights – we had no electricity then – could not be seen from outside. If a chink of light could be seen round the shutters a loud knock would be heard on the window with Charlie’s stentorian voice shouting "Put that blooming light out!" or words to that effect. Then my Mum would tear up strips of paper and stuff them in the offending cracks.

    Charlie took posters to Farnborough school, "up Starts Hill", warning children of the dangers of "butterfly bombs". These were stated to be small cylindrical anti-personnel mines complete with vanes on the ends of a steel stick. If one exploded they could kill or maim! As Charlie told us that the vanes tended to lodge in trees as the bombs fell from enemy aircraft, when we went to play "up the Firs" - or Mill Hill as it’s known on maps – we kept a sharp look out for these very dangerous objects. "Is that a butterfly bomb?" someone would cry. So we would throw stones and bricks at the offending object and I think were quite disappointed that nothing ever exploded. Charlie warned us of the dangers of this practice but I don’t think we took too much notice, as wartime was in fact very exciting for children!

    Everyone, including children and even tiny babies, had to have a respirator or "gas mask" as we called them. We were supposed to carry them everywhere we went and at school they were hung over the iron frames of our desks. Our teacher would regularly arrange gas practices. In the middle of a lesson, perhaps to liven us all up, she would suddenly say "Gas attack!" Then we had to get our gas mask out of its cardboard container and put it on. Of course it was impossible to talk, we could only make muffled grunts and I often wonder if the teachers used that technique if we were all getting a bit too noisy. The mobile gas chamber sometimes called into the school to make sure that our masks could protect us in the event of an enemy gas attack. The Germans had used gas in the First World War and Prime Minister Mr Churchill, "Old Winnie" to us, was scared that there would be gas aerial attacks on England. Children were asked to file through a container on the back of the lorry filled with tear gas. If when you came out you were crying, then your parents were ordered to take you to the air raid wardens’ station opposite the pond to get your mask repaired. On 25th March 1942, Peter Whiteman, who had been repeatedly asked to get his useless gas mask repaired, was excluded from school until it was fixed. As my gas mask didn’t fit properly – even then I was very tall for my age and thus had a big head – my Dad took me to the ARP station. One of Charlie’s colleagues mended it on the spot and said, "That’ll be eighteen pence!" One shilling and six pence!! That was a lot of money in those days and many of the poorer families in Farnborough had a real struggle to pay such sums.

John Riches

Sources – Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. "Farnborough Board Schools – 1873 to 1973 – A Short History".

Wartime Evacuation

During periods of the War when some Farnborough parents considered the place to be very dangerous, many children were evacuated to safer parts of the country.  The vision we have from newsreels of that time is that evacuees filed in large numbers, accompanied by members of the Women’s Voluntary Service, on to steam trains at their local station with a large label describing their name, age and home address fixed firmly to a lapel and a small satchel containing their belongings slung over their shoulder.   It wasn’t like that in Farnborough as there were insufficient children to fill a number 47 double-decker bus - let alone a whole train.   Parents in Farnborough had to make their own arrangements if they wanted their children to be taken to safer parts of the country away from the threat of enemy air raids.

Christine Williams (now Harding), one of the “Alley Kids” who lived at 2 Pleasant View Cottages has described recently from her home in Canada what happened.   Her mother, known to all the local children as Auntie Amy, arranged that Aunty Floss – my mother Florence – would travel to South Wales to look around for suitable accommodation.   She returned to Farnborough and collected Christine and me to take us back to Wainfelin, a suburb of Pontypool in the Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire’s South Wales.   Christine felt that she was going on a short holiday, but in fact we were away for eight long months.   As attacks from Doodlebugs increased in intensity in the second half of 1944 more and more children were evacuated.   Christine recalls that her two sisters Pat and Anita, her cousin Michael and his Mum Ada, her grandmother Mrs Simons and the neighbours’ children from No. 1 Pleasant View Cottages, Peggy, Carol, David and John Pucknell, all went to Burton upon Trent.   Some children, when they were evacuated, had very good lodgings, others did not!

The contrast between rural Farnborough and South Wales was immense!   We had delightful fields and woods close to the village centre, Mr Plumbridge’s market garden over the low wall by the Square opposite ye Olde George and Dragon and the terminus for 51 and 47 bright red double-decker buses.   Wainfelin, a suburb of Pontypool, where we lived in a row of industrial terraced cottages half way up a bleak mountainside seemed grim.   Coal was washed in the stream, the Afon Lwydd, so its waters became pitch black.   The blast furnaces on the floor of the valley constantly belched flames and smoke, whilst the winding gear of the numerous collieries spun twenty-four hours a day to fuel the war effort.   Steam trains continuously chuffed along the two railway lines through the valley and as they braked going towards the docks at Newport, their trucks clanged and banged adding to the cacophony of noise in the narrow echoing, grimy valley.   At the change of each shift, miners – lots of them Bevin Boys sent to work in the pits instead of military service –  could be seen walking along the streets with blackened faces carrying their lunchboxes and helmets.   Although we in Farnborough still had horse-drawn floats transporting United Dairies or Co-op milk, ours was at least delivered in glass bottles.   In South Wales the milk came from the back of a two wheeled cart holding a wooden tank from which the milk was drawn in half pint, pint or quart measures to be placed in jugs left on the doorsteps.   We evacuees considered our Kentish way of life a bit more civilised!

My Mum got a job as a ticket collector on the Great Western Railway at Pontypool Road Station, guiding wartime passengers to Hereford, Shrewsbury, Crewe and The North.   Christine remembers how we went off for long walks up the mountainsides high above the dirt and clangour on to a land of heather and clear streams.   One day we went on a train journey across the excitingly high Crumlin Viaduct to a neighbouring valley – The Rhondda.   We thought we were just on another interesting outing, but when we got off the train at Quakers Yard there, waving from a footbridge across the line, was Old Custard – Donald Curd still one of my best friends and his Mum Doris who lived in Orchard Road.  (Doris sadly died in July 2003.).   It was a memorable reunion but despite the hospitality of the Welsh people, we all longed to get back to our beloved Kent and the fields and woods of Farnborough.   Christine remembers that she never wanted to go out of Farnborough again for a very long time.

She stayed in contact with Aunty Mary and Uncle Bert Richardson, in whose home she had stayed, for very many years and is still in contact with their son-in-law Bill Cole, now a sprightly 88 years.   Of such are lasting friendships made!

Although many children from Farnborough were evacuated, lots stayed behind.   Professor Graham Wood recalled recently, in between celebrations marking the 30th Anniversary of the Corrosion Protection Centre at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology that he set up in 1973, that early in the war Farnborough School was closed and teachers instructed small groups of pupils in homes dotted round the village.   He remembers that in his home in a house behind The Parish Room (Village Hall) overlooking the Limes Laundry and close to my Dad’s allotment in Green Gardens Esme Symonds, Christine’s cousin, climbed on his Dad’s desk.   His Dad would not have been pleased if he had known about it as he worked for the Metropolitan Water Board and needed the desk to write important reports by gas lighting to aid the war effort.   Later in the war, once air raid shelters had been erected under the playground at Farnborough School, it stayed open continuously.

Once D-Day came in the summer of 1944 and allied armies captured the V1 and V2 launch sites in Northern France, the evacuees flocked back to Farnborough.   The School once again had a full complement of pupils, whilst 1st Farnborough Cubs and Scouts, after the depletions of the war, got back to full strength.   It wasn’t long before Akelas Rosie Sims and Joan Lawrence made me Sixer of Tawny Six – the most memorable promotion of my life. John Riches

Another Choir Boy Recalls

        The article by Phil Underwood (Aug 2003) concerning Farnborough Church Choir struck my own memory chords because I was one of the boys mentioned, viz Dennis Kimber.  However, due to a children’s home mix-up, in which I had been placed at the age of 3, 4, or 5, I had been given the name of a half-brother.  Not until I started work at 15 was the mix-up discovered, giving me the trauma of changing identity to my real name of Denis Elliott.  Mother had married a second time, but had died in my early years.

        At about the age of 7 or 8, I was placed with foster parents in Orpington and joined the choir of All Saints soon afterwards.  Then shortly before age 10, I was transferred to Mr and Mrs Sims who were foster parents living in Gladstone Road.  I immediately joined the choir of St. Giles.  Having got that explanation off my chest I’ll return to Phil’s more interesting article.

        By the time I joined in the Spring of 1934 he had progressed to head singer.  I think the modern title is Head Chorister.  His lovely and strong voice kept well into teen years and it was a treat to hear him sing solo.  Phil eventually left around 16 years of age, at which time Tom Shelton and Harry Beverly had left too.  Other boys joined though, including Sid Picket, Reg Pattenden, Norman and Stanley Wearns (twins) plus 2 or 3 others whose names I cannot recall, all of whom were about a year younger than I.   So the choir was always being ‘topped up’ with new faces (and voices).

        Harry Beverly, I remember, once had Arther Crandley and I involved, reluctantly, in a fight.  Arther had ‘borrowed’ or ‘pinched’ my own bible for a lark. It was a treasured Christmas present from a neighbour.  I demanded it back but he refused to give it, so Harry decided that the dispute be settled by a scrap behind the church after choir practice.  In the centre of a ring of boys, the contest began, but in truth, at the age of 10 neither of us had a clue and just flailed away until both out of breath and nearly in tears.  But I got my bible back and Arther and I became the best of chums.  Typical of boys!  Nearly 70 years later, I still have that bible.

        Returning to Harry, I was saddened to learn of his demise, which I gather was earlier this year.

        Phil mentioned the choir outings, which were always looked forward to fun events.  It was probably in 1936 that we were treated to an extra outing.  It was to Chatham Naval Yards on their ‘open day’, to see the huge battleships and other vessels moored there at the time.  Rather cleverly, by means of tiny lights and ship models, we were given a mock-up display of the famous ‘Battle of Jutland’.  We had been taken in private cars.  Along with 4 or 5 other boys I was in one driven by a retired Lt. Col.   On our return we kept goading him to go faster until we reached the dizzy speed of 60. Cor!   Sad to realise that some of those mighty vessels would have been sunk in the war.

        Those who remember me as a quiet lad will be surprised to learn that Mr. Atkinson once slapped me over an insolent remark I’d made, proving that he wasn’t so deaf as some of us thought!  I was then 14½ and my voice had given first signs of breaking so it was time to leave.

        Tom Shelton had left the Sims family but I still had boyhood company in the form of Billy Lindsey, who joined us about 1936 and, as with Tom and I, also joined the choir.

        So what happened in later years, which of course included WW2?  Tom joined the Army (and possibly Harry too), Phil the RAF and Sid the Royal Navy.  So all three H.M. Forces were represented.

        I too, like Phil, joined the RAF.  After a couple of years in Orpington ATC Squadron I was called up in late 1942.  Pilot training in the then Southern Rhodesia followed and various postings took me further and further East until eventually I found myself flying American Liberator aircraft on missions in the Far East against Japanese targets.  I was then just 20.

        My first overseas tour lasted nearly 3½ years and on return to the U.K. I was given a desk job as a rest from flying duties.  Later I joined Coastal Command and was again sent overseas to fly Maritime Lancasters and Shackletons until in 1957 I eventually ’hung up my wings’ as a Flt. Lt. having flown nearly 4,000 hours.  I’d just reached the ripe old age of 33!    End of story.

        Footnote.  After the war Billy did a 5 year stint in the Army and left with the rank of Sergeant.  A word about Reg Patterson:  in 1949 he started up a dance band and needed a car in which to get about.  I’d bought a 1934 Ford 8 earlier on and knowing that I was heading overseas again I sold it to Reg.  I wonder what became of it?

        Denis Elliott

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