Remembering Rodborough - Barbara - Remembering Rodborough - Barbara

Summary of Barbara Cook interview

• Barbara Cook b.1938

• Stanfields, Kingscourt, RB – knew everyone all the way up to Walkley Hill – can still name them all today – life much more of a community then – people would talk to each other in the streets – help each other – take in the washing eg when it rained for neighbours – right through to 1960’s when new estates went up – decline because older generation dying off with their habits of sociability – long term residents went away – in-comers too

• Landscape – 2 farms – all fields – cart horses – hay making – cattle wander down Kingscourt Lane – orchards – market garden on Walkley Hill – lime treed lane – a model farm on one side – Mr Walters (Cotswold stone farm but large red brick cow sheds that went below ground level on R hand side where new houses are – high Cotswold stone walls – lime trees - - kids used to enjoy shouting MOO down the air vents to frighten the cows) and Farmer James at Stringers’ Farm – people don’t walk like they used to and don’t feel the countryside – cars – no chance to talk

• Children did the errands – learnt the habits of talking in the shops and streets – post office

• Kids’ games – iron hoops off tyres – run those down the road – wooden tops – play down at the river – play all day without any money – bread and jam in a paper bag – bottle of pop – old bikes that dad had made up from oddments – ride on the common – play all day on the common

• Were people happier then? More contented with their lot – lived within their means – grow their own and bake their own etc – also impact of war – also mums content to be at home with the children – this feeling of contentment and community went on beyond the War

• The Church and Sunday School v important in developing sociability and community too – 60% of children went to S School – Nelly Watts and Daisy Smith organised the trips – fav – Barry Island – leave at 7 and home at 10 – walk home in the dark then – another fav outing – bus to Chalford and then walk to Sapperton – play and pick bluebells and primroses and take them home – Good Friday – short service in the small chapel then bike to Newent and pick daffs for Easter Sunday services – May 4th another calendar date – men put the beans in then on the allotment – boys and girls splayed together – down through RB Fields to the viaduct with jamjars on string to catch sticklebacks etc

• Crime – village bobby and farmers were totally respected – only crime – kids nicking apples – children totally secure and safe – walk miles – come home in the dark – walk miles to the different schools too – walking and talking together – “the way of the world”

• Fave walk – to RB Tabernacle – then down the alleyway from the cattle-grid – then into Stroud – shop- back along the canal – then up to Church – then down through Plough Field to Kingscourt – also route past the Church and down through Middle Spillmans and so to school

• 2 Nissan huts down past Mr. Waters’ farm – US GI’s – chocolate and chewing gum – searchlights on Selsley Hill – they left their cat – they took it in – Barabara’s dad away in Tanganyka in WW2 – memories of mum and dad being happy together – but then away again with him in uniform – but reunited

• Still a great place to live!