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A Child of the Twenties
A suburban childhood of the Twenties
seen from the Ninteen Nineties
by John Robert Laws 1921-2008
Part 15.
WANDERERS
There was little opportunity to wander until going to school
opened up new horizons. Once the short walk to school was permitted
unaccompanied and a few friends were known the range of life extended. The
familiar places were visited first, the lake in Finsbury Park with its ducks,
swans and boats was known already, but now more time was spent with the slides
and swings than feeding the ducks. It cannot always have been summer though
because the lake froze and the ducks sat back on their tails as they landed.
Once or twice there were even skaters on the ice skating serenely round the
island that normally gave the ducks refuge from human intruders. These short
periods of snow and ice and frozen lead pipes which burst are all that early
memory holds of winter. Toys and books must have pushed the cold and wet into
the background. Even pea soup fogs belong to later childhood.
It seems not long till we found there were other open spaces
besides Finsbury Park. Another half mile towards London was Clissold Park. Its
sole claim to fame was having a smaller boating pond with canoes which children
could take out on those rare occasions when enough pocket money had been saved.
The opposite direction was more rewarding. Ally Pally stands
on its hill looking out over London through the haze of a coal burning
suburbia. Surrounded by its few acres of green it still had its four
chateauesque corners intact before Satan unleashed the telly against humanity.
We could wander its empty halls and eat our sandwiches beside the pond while
the sun shone. Not far from there were the woods, Queens Wood, and Highgate Woods,
shady but not thicketed, a small wanderer’s delight. Apart from the occasional
dog taking itself for a walk, the animals were only squirrels. The fox had not
discovered the joys of urban life and the smaller rodents were not obvious.
The acquision of roller
skates which extended the range of wandering on foot from three or four miles distance,
to twice that range. I was able to go off for the day with one or two other
roller skating fanatics and a supply of sandwiches and lemonade and could get
to such fascinating places as the River Lea and Epping Forrest. Watching the
lock gates working as barges were pulled through by enormous horses on the
towpath filled idle summer hours in those times when the days and the weeks
were longer. What we called the River Lea was the canal of course, the remains
of the river we called the Old Lea but except in times of flood it was a rather
trifling stream. The canal carried the fuel for the power station at Enfield and
also a lot of timber for the various timber yards along its banks. This was all
brought from the then very active docks in London and the canal ran north as
far as Hertford in territory I could not explore until I got a bike. The numerous
miles covered on our roller skates on the abrasive stone paving wore their
steel wheels smaller and smaller till at last the ball bearings escaped and
hard saved pennies had to be spent inlays Street market where anything could be
bought including skate wheels.
I already knew the forest from visits with my father,
sometimes with the rest of the family. He knew the area well and no doubt also
wandered there as a boy having lived at Tottenham. It sometimes seems that,
despite memories, one was less observant as a small child. Despite natural
curiosity there is a much smaller base of knowledge with which to compare
things. Trees are mostly just trees and only very noticeable birds stand out
from the mass, there were squawking Jays flashing away in the trees and newts
and tadpoles in the ponds. There were snakes and deer there too but I never saw
any deer and only once an adder. The squirrels seemed to have had it to
themselves, even the rabbits that overran the countryside kept to the edge of
the woodland. For wandering boys the wandering was an end, a joy in itself.
Later wandering became more organised. This started with
Scout camps. First came, the Cubs one Whitsun, no further afield than Hatfield
Park, then others including Gilwell, the Scout Mecca of which the most memorable
item was the rather primitive swimming pool where we were allowed to swim
naked, and a joy rarely available to a town dweller. We travelled to these
camps in the back of a lorry and scarcely noticed the discomfort as it was
different and cheap. Everything had to be cheap. The sun did not always shine
and when we went to Downe in Kent our lorry got us there after dark in a
pelting rainstorm in which we set up our tents on a site we could not see. After
that I think I slept soundly, perhaps the ground was softer for the rain. That
camp our swimming was in the river Test, it was icy, small boys must be quite
mad. Swimming seems to have been the main attraction of these camps. At Hayling
Island, then little built up, we swam in a sandy inlet where the temperature of
the English Channel was moderated by the warm sand as the tide came in.
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Family Events from our database for today April 8
1681 - Marriage: Robert NEIL-43558 and Emily Esther LAWS-43557, Lambeth SRY UK
1748 - Burial: Thomas LAWES-30841, Whitsbury WIL UK
1824 - Marriage: John PURVIS-2937 and Catherine LAWES-2938, Hexham NBL UK
1827 - Baptism: Alfred Charles LAWS (Wool Comber) -4040, Norwich NFK UK
1831 - Baptism: Jane Elizabeth LAWS-31011, Diss NFK UK
1832 - Baptism: Thomas Roger LAWS (Ag Lab) -4596, Copdock SFK UK
1844 - Marriage: James LAWES-2108 and Dinah FOX-2109, Portsmouth HAM UK
1849 - Birth: James LAWS (Brickmaker) -5150, Aldeburgh SFK UK
1850 - Christen: Joseph John LAWS-55589, Shottisham SFK UK
1850 - Christen: Frederick William LAWS-55588, Shottisham SFK UK
1868 - Burial: Amelia LAWS-117316, Carisbroke IOW UK
1869 - Marriage: Charles Bennett LAWES (Sculptor) -226 and Marie Amelia Rose FONTAINE-227, Harpenden HRT UK
1884 - Birth: Mary Ellen LAWS-122127, Johnson, Kane Co. UT USA
1886 - Birth: Wallace Dryden G LAWS (RN F21458) (Tailor Maker) -36368, Acton MDX UK
1888 - Baptism: Hyden Mary Sophia LAWS-56176, Welney CAM
1893 - Birth: William Curl LAWES-120994, Greenwich KEN UK
1898 - Death: John (Ag Lab) LAWS-6582, Attlebridge NFK UK (St Andrew)
1910 - Birth: Claude Amos LAWS-42405, Butler TN USA
1911 - Death: Alfred LAWS (Coke Drawer / Widower) -4529,
1916 - Enlistment: Charles LAWS (ARMY Private 60409) -111601, Norwich NFK UK
1919 - Birth: Dallas LAWS (MSgt US Air Force) -95615,
1921 - Burial: John O LAWS (US ARMY Private) -167519, Ohio Co KY USA
1922 - Birth: Edith Winifred LAWS (Widow) -44303,
1923 - Death: Charlotte Fanny LAWS (Widow) -9196, The Hospital, Worthing SSX
1925 - Marriage: Frederick Willian James HOWARD (Painter) -47273 and Gladys Margaret LAWES (Spinster & Confectioner) -47272, Margate KEN UK
1931 - Birth: Jane Kathleen LAWES (NAVY Wren 98831 HMS Ariel) -50833, Kensington MDX UK
1932 - Death: James Rogers LAWS (Boilermaker & Plater) -63868,
1933 - Death: Sarah Helon LAWS-125496,
1933 - Death: Alfred LAWS-22257, Brighton SSX UK
1933 - Miscellaneous: Arthur William LAWES-2790,
1939 - Marriage: John LAWS (Civil Servant) -48026 and Elizabeth HARKER (Nurse) -43530, Kimberworth WRY
1943 - Death: Esther LAWS-40938, Los Angeles CA USA
1949 - Birth: John Franklin LAWS-48682, Hammond, Lake Co, IN USA
1951 - Burial: Wilford Derby LAWS-34174, Blanding, San Juan Co UT USA
1957 - Birth: Susan Jane LAWS (Vet Technician) -33907, Sturgis MI USA
1961 - Birth: John David Nicholas LAWS-37613, Liverpool, Queens County, Nova Scotia CANADA
1966 - Death: Daisy LAWES-123571, Borden HAM UK
1966 - Residence: Rose LAWS-123193, Margate KEN & Death: Chartham KEN UK
1968 - Marriage: David Thomas LAWS (Taxi Driver) -50445 and Maureen Valerie SAUNDERS-53879, Stocking Farm LEI UK (St Luke)
1969 - Death: Rosemary LAWS-33902, Sturgis MI USA
1975 - Death: Murray Elliot LAWS-121408, Hollow Rock, Carroll TN USA
1992 - Birth: Weston Ray LAWS-40843, TX USA
2005 - Death: Dorethea Merle LAWS-119017, Caringbah, NSW AUSTRALIA
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With grateful thanks to Simon Knott for permission to reproduce his photographs on this site see :-http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/
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