AND THEN I WAS 7

And so I’m 7 and here we are in this new and exciting paradise at Boehill Farm.  Everything is so green and lovely and the soil is so red and healthy looking.  The big old farmhouse was just an endless collection of rooms with gently creaking floorboards, their own distinct scent and always a feeling of great importance.   I’m sure the house wasn’t there but the land and some sort of settlement at Boehill was mentioned in the Doomsday book so we had some history here to be sure.  Some of the rooms were effectively no-go areas and in particular the slaughter houses that were integral at the back with their rusty meat hooks – long since fallen into dis-use.  I think we could have gone in there more if we’d wanted to but we were happy enough to let that go, partly because I don’t think mum and dad would have been too keen but mainly because it was bloody spooky.  Not sure what my vegan boy Alex would have made of it but they were different times my son.

I can only really remember the old hay barn at Swineham but here at Boehill there were seemingly endless sheds and barns to roam around and visit different worlds of imagination.  Shippons, dairies and sheds with attics for hay and such.  Some of those attics even with their floorboards still there, and I for one was well up for some risky wanderings and they made brilliant hide-outs.  I’m sure I could have gone un-discovered for months probably had I wanted.  Oh the games you could play there – no limits.  And then there were the firearms.  My grandad, Gangee, was a great one for spending money on rifles and I had a particular favourite.  It was a semi-automatic 22 rim-fire with a green, plastic stock and a magnificent telescopic sight that allowed me – I am now extremely ashamed to say – to reap carnage on the local wildlife.  Looking back at all the joy I still have an extreme sense of regret about that one aspect of those early years.  It seemed so natural at the time but it was so wrong.

It was all a bit insular being on the farm and I didn’t have much social interaction with friends outside of school.  Parents didn’t drive their kids around like they do today and the nearest bus-stop was a couple of miles away down in Sampford Peverell.  Far too much of a fag and expense.  That made dad my main playmate and although he was always hard at work I would grab him whenever I could for a game of cricket on whatever part of the farmyards we might decide to set up as a pitch.  Here it was that I discovered the power of the half-volley and how traditional leather cricket balls don’t last long when played on concrete and gravel.  Solid rubber ones were much the better choice but they will break a nose if you’re not paying attention and get a bit careless – I can vouch for that.

Growing up on a farm is indeed a great privilege and whatever one may look back on with some regret, and of course there are these things, the memories are really quite wonderful.  At the age of 10 for example I had my first motorbike. I had been driving cars and tractors since the age of 6, but this was my first private vehicle.  It was a maroon, Villiers Excelsior, 197 cc that dad bought for me from a dealer who I remember was down one of the little side roads off Gold Street in Tiverton.   He knew how much I wanted it but kept teasing me anyway about getting an NSU moped instead – a shamefully girlie vehicle lacking any credibility – with pedals for Christ’s sake.  Anyway he got me the bike which was amazing even though it made me look like a very small despatch rider from the war.  I well remember that first tentative ride up and back down the lane.  Keen to impress him with my common sense and safety consciousness I kept the speed to 10mph and assured him that that would be plenty fast enough for me.  Later that day I found out that it would do 40+ no problem across the fields.  I did wear a helmet but health and safety had not been invented in the 60s.  5 years was the starting age for cart-horse racing and by the age of 10 you were actively encouraged to take your gran for high-speed thrill rides across grassy fields on motorcycles that were clearly not designed for purpose.  Happily, and respect to Gangan (my mum’s mum and wife of Gangee) she never once let on to mum on those several occasions when the bike got the better of me. All minor injuries sustained were always concealed convincingly. This even though I now learn that she was, at the time, suffering the early stages of cancer.

I went to Uplowman primary which was a cycle ride of about 3 miles on my grey Raleigh with Sturmer Archer 3-speed.  Marbles and conkers were the order of the day but I was beginning to realise that there were people out there who didn’t always play by the rules – and they started early.  Since when was a ball-bearing a fecking marble and what they did to those conkers I still haven’t worked out.  All I can remember is that they obliterated my sad little offering which I had diligently soaked in vinegar believing it to be the way to go.  That was obviously not the secret though.  British bulldog was also very popular, a sort of tag thing running across that playground that turned out to be much smaller than I had remembered.  Never go back, remember?  Also KIngy was great fun.  Tennis balls thrown at the lower leg – quite an art hitting a moving target and one that I never really mastered.

My teacher there was Miss Carter.  I remember seeing what I’m sure was her in a pub only a few years ago and for reasons that escape me I didn’t go over and say hello.  I have only a few real regrets in my life but that’s definitely one of them.  She was lovely Miss Carter.  So patient and those red biro markings on my homework were clearly always aimed more at guiding and correcting than being hurtful.  Here it was that I learnt that it was not ‘Lewtenant’, which is of course an Americanism, but ‘Leftenant’ and not to be fooled by mere letters and what you think they should sound like.  Bit like Poughill eh Sandra?  Sandra Hill was famously from ‘Poyle’.

Towards the end of my time there we were honoured with a brief visit from the Queen mum.  She had been paying a social visit to the Honourable Margaret Rhodes, the queens cousin and lifelong friend, who lived just up the road in the village and kindly stopped off to say hello on her way back.   I had painted a picture of her royal standard and she sounded very impressed.  That was back in the day when I thought I had some artistic talent … Mary (be in no doubt that Mary Dalton is far more artistic than I will ever be)!

At about this time there was a small matter of choosing a head-boy for the school and I remember it came down to a choice between yours truly and Peter Adcock.  Peter actually lived on a neighbouring farm and we were hunting buddies but there was no room for friendship in this business.  The school of 40 voted and democracy had its day with me landing just the one vote.  I’d still like to know who that was and say thank you but it was clear already that I wasn’t really much cop at the popularity thing.  HOWEVER Miss Carter obviously saw something in me and was somehow able to swing it that Peter and I held joint tenure of that high office.  Corruption it seems is nothing new and not exclusive to politicians.

The next couple of years were quite eventful.  We won the world cup for one thing but also Gangee died.  He had been a lifetime smoker.  Players Medium Cut – no filters – and it was supposedly emphysema although mum always maintained it was cancer.  He was only sixty-three but I look back at photos of him now looking more like 93 with his hedge-cut walking stick with a V for the thumb.  Funny thing was mum and dad sort of knew I think that I nicked the odd ciggy from him on the quiet.  They were sure I would hate it and never go down that route.  No, that was wrong.  I’ve given up now for some time but if I am ever diagnosed with anything terminal I’ll be back on forty a day straight away.  I loved smoking.  Apart from his love of firearms and nice stuff generally I remember Gangee being a great artist.  Strange as it may seem writing paper was a bit of a luxury back then and he used to do these fabulous biro sketches on his numerous empty fag packets.  He could also play the piano like a god … BY EAR.  I could never get my head around that.  You would just give him a tune and he would fiddle about for a minute or too plonking a few keys then all of a sudden, as if by magic, out would come these wonderful sounds, like a musical butterfly.

The other big thing that happened about then was me passing my eleven-plus.   I was actually the only one in the school who managed to do that in that year, which I was always a bit surprised about, but, as it turned out, this was going to be something that helped to shape my life, I believe, in a very good and positive way.  A grammar school education awaited.  Good parenting it seems is something of a skill and there’s no formal training involved.  Standards vary.  Suzanne and I were fortunate in having a mum and dad who between them, in their very different ways, did a pretty decent job on us.  What I have no doubt at all about is that they both did the absolute best that they could.  Others of my contemporaries I know were less fortunate, some sadly much less so.  Generally speaking, however, it was mum and/or dad in some sort of combination who would show you right from wrong.  School had a big part to play as well though, or at least it did back then, and if there was any confusion on that score a good grammar school would clear up any uncertainty.  I’m of the view that that particular parent/schooling combo dynamic is probably as good as it gets in an imperfect world and I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of those of us who experienced it mourn its demise. 

As I leave you now I might just speculate that when we sit back and watch this present generation try and rewrite our history we can be sure of one thing at least; it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.