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Even
More Memories of Ludham
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One of the very
important tasks the Ludham Archive undertakes is to
collect and record people's memories. Very often people
say that they have nothing of any great importance in
their lives, but it is the small details of Ludham's
past which make their memories so important.
Sometimes people send their memories in the post or by
e-mail, but often we record them either as audio
recordings or as videos. A DVD of some of the memories
is available from our shop.
FRANKLIN HANKIN
Frank was born in
1921 in Grimsby. He first went to sea at the age of 6
years with his father who was owner/skipper of a fishing
trawler.
At the age of 16, he left school and joined the Royal
Navy.
In the war he was one of only 19 survivors out of 121
when the ship Daffodil was torpedoed or mined. He then
served in different kinds of merchant ships before
joining the Belfast in 1948 and going out to China.
He came to Ludham in 1971 with his wife Ellen. They
lived at first in Helen Thrower's cottage, next door to
the butchers, and then, when they needed to move, they
went into The Bungalow in the Manor grounds, where they
stayed until Mrs. Brooks died.
From here they moved into Council accommodation, 20
Laurels Crescent and then 14 School Close.
Our Time at The Manor Bungalow
"Bob Unglass was a gardener at the manor. He was a
cripple and walked with a garden rake and a hoe as
crutches. He had three greenhouses, and he looked after
these and the garden all on his own. Much of the ground
on the Womack side was allowed to grow wild. At one time
Mrs. Books had 15 gardeners to manage the 15 acres of
land. Gradually they all went, and Mrs. Brooks became
more of a recluse. Bob was the last one left, and he
stayed in the little cottage with the bay window
opposite the Manor gates. When he died there were no
more gardeners at the Manor.
Bob Unglass
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Back of Manor
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On the breeze block wall is a plaque with an inscription
from Shakespeare, near where the bird baskets are
suspended from the trees.
In the Manor gardens there was a Japanese wooden
feature. It was about seven or eight feet high. It was
on the left hand side as you entered from the road.
Our Connections with The Dutch House
The date of The Dutch House is in iron work: 16 on one
side of the front door and 03 on the other side. My wife
Ellen, went to work for Edward Seago when we lived in
the Manor Bungalow in the early 1970s, and she worked at
the Dutch House almost until she died. She worked for
Edward Seago until he died in 1974, and then she used to
go baby sitting for Peter and Jane Seymour. When I was
made redundant, I would go and do odd jobs for Jane. If
Jane was away, Ellen and I would look after the animals;
horses, chickens and dogs - and parrots.
This is the back of the Dutch House from the lawn, and
also this is the fountain and lily pond that you can see
in the other photo near the house on the left. The large
object on the lawn is a large flint. On the right
of the photo is the building Edward Seago used as his
studio. The door can just be seen and the flowers and
steps lead up to this.
It was a single
storey building, but he had put in a gallery, (made out
of old railway sleepers), where he stacked all his
paintings. There is a large window in the end, and on
the north facing side is a huge window.
The stables were on the other side of the studio. Jane
had these built.
This walk leads away from the lawn towards the
sunken pond.
In the rose garden you can see a statue of Mercury
standing on a brick plinth. The rose garden has been
replaced by a Tudor style garden.
The Bridge
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Left - Frank on his bridge
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The area where we built the bridge was originally
quite wild. Jane employed Sonny Amis to re-dig the
channel down to the river at Womack. There was a large
pond, but this was channelled, and I built this bridge.
It is built out of 12 sheets of shuttering ply. We
designed it on this board.
This shows the
patterns we designed for the handrail. I drew the plan
of the bridge. It was made of a double thickness of
shuttering ply, laminated together. The supports for the
handrail were 3 by 3 posts, and then we put these
designs between the posts.
The supports for the bridge itself were 4 by 4 timbers,
which were concreted into the ground. The bridge was
then fitted in between them and bolted to them.
I drew the sections out on a sheet of drawing paper to
scale. We measured the curves. I made it in sections and
then took these to where the bridge was going to be
built, put it all together and fastened everything. I
used an extending ladder and scaffolding to get up to
it. Once the girders were in, then the walkway went on
top and the handrails on top of that.
The dinghy "Dragonfly"
I built this for
Jane's children. I built it on a ladder; upside down on
the ladder - put the frames across and built it up. It
was 15 feet long and had a lug sail. It lasted until two
or three years ago. I drew the plans for it on the back
of an envelope. I made the original sail myself, but it
wasn't very good, and I think it got torn on a branch,
so they went to Jeckells and had that one made. That's
why the spars look a bit long here, because the first
sail was a bit wider. We scrounged the mast from a
boatyard. The two girls helped me build it, but then
Anthony liked to sail it.
We took it down to Neatishead on the back of the Land
Rover for the launching. Someone stepped back right into
the water as we lifted it into the river. We put it into
the river, and eleven of us got into it. That almost
sunk it. From there, we motored it with an outboard
engine to the Dutch House. She did quite a lot of
sailing, especially on Black Horse Broad, and up and
down the river - to St. Benet's Abbey and Acle Bridge.
Paintings
I have painted since I was a boy. I would not call
myself an artist at all. I have never had any lessons. I
do mostly watercolours now, but I used to do a lot of
oils. When I was in the Navy, I used to do a lot of
portrait painting from photographs. I also use pastels
sometimes.
Boat Building
I worked for Herbert Woods at Contour Crafts. We were
building the 64 foot trawler yachts out of iroka. From
there I went to Landamore's at Wroxham. I have also
worked at Richardson's at Stalham. I helped Les Elphick
as well with some of the work he did on people's boats,
and then with his furniture."
Franklin Hankin in 2004
TOM THROWER
From an interview
in his shop 24-7-03. Interviewer - Eileen Williamson
Good evening, Tommy. It's lovely to have you here
and it' very kind of you to agree to this interview and
I've been looking forward to it. I know that the
people of Ludham are fascinated by your store, not only
do they come to buy from it regularly but also they know
that there is a real history that goes back at least a
hundred years. I believe that last year, the
centenary was celebrated in July?
Yes, that's right. It should have been in January
but we didn't get organised in time so we thought we'll
wait until the fine weather comes and that worked very
well. An awful lot of people turned up and were
very interested in the bits and pieces that my son, Guy,
had dug out of the back stock-room. It went
extremely well and we were very pleased.
I'd like you please to go right back to your first
recollections of the shop.
My grandfather took over the shop in 1902 - it had been
bankrupt. It had been bankrupt three times and the
butcher next door was heard to comment he'd give my
grandfather six months and he'd be out! But we've
now built over the site of the butcher's shop so that
proves him wrong.
My father took it over after my grandfather retired and
I had the option of either leaving school and coming
into the business or carrying on at school. School
and I didn't get on very well, so the lesser of the two
evils was to come into the shop to see whether I liked
it.
So you were pleased to come into the shop and
work here?
Well no, as I said, at the time it was the lesser of two
evils.
How did you first start? What was your
first job?
The first job was just filling shelves. I can't
remember after how long, but then I was given the job of
ordering the confectionary. That was my first
important job, and I can remember, my father (you could
always tell when he was not in a very good mood)
saying to me one day, 'Are we selling empty shelves
now?'
I said, 'Selling empty shelves?'
'Yes,' he said. 'Are we selling empty
shelves? We've given up stocking confectionery?'
So he wasn't pleased with you?
No! That did register and I never forgot it.
Did he tell you what sweets to put where or were you
supposed to have your own ideas?
No, not really. I just carried on ordering the
stock that we had, you know, always had stocked.
Now-a-days, the range is twenty times bigger.
Did you have those huge glass jars then?
Yes, we used to! You always had to keep those full
Sold them by the quarter?
Yes!
Did you ever have to sell the sweets? Was
that your next job?
Yes! Of course, it was always counter-service in those
days. I had to do that. Confectionery was the
first responsible job I had.
And after that?
Well, I don't know - that just progressed from
there. We used to have vans on the road then when
I first joined them. We had three vans out on the
road every day doing deliveries. We used to do
Neatishead, Horning, Potter Heigham, Repps, Thurne,
Catfield and the furthest we used to go - I went as far
as Worsted.
Did you used to drive?
Oh yes, I had a round. I used to do Catfield,
Sutton, Stalham Green and then Worsted. I used to
do 83 calls on a Tuesday.
What are your very first memories of
Ludham?
I can remember Ludham before I started
school.There was the Baker's Arms pub right next door. I
can remember the Yarmouth Road was very narrow - you
couldn't pass two double-decker busses - you could only
just pass two cars. There was no footpath and we used to
have to go, every day, to Potter Heigham to pick up
newspapers and we used to deliver newspapers between
Potter Heigham and Ludham on the way back.My father used
to make us go with him and he used to stop the van and
we used to run up and down the garden paths, with the
newspapers and Mrs Townsend, who I think is our oldest
Ludham resident, lived at Red Roof Farm, as that was
called then.They had a fruit farm there and we used to
deliver newspapers to her, so I've known her ever since
I was four or five, I suppose.
That's the earliest - I can even remember Lyons cakes
used to come by British Rail in a big box and we used to
have to pick that up from the railway station, as
well. That's how they used to arrive in those
days. So there's been an awful lot of changes.
So that was when your father was in charge?
Yes!
That was before the war. Do you
remember the war?
No, I don't. The only thing I do remember is there
were several soldiers billeted in the village, down
where Nurse Pettit's house is now. There were all Nissan
huts up on the airfield and we used to get a lot of
soldiers in the village. And I can remember - it
used to fascinate me when they used to march past and
somebody made me an army uniform and I had boots and a
wooden gun. I can remember that!
How old were you then?
Oh, I don't know! I suppose about three or four,
before I went to school, anyway. And of course,
there was a plane crashed here, between us and the
butcher's shop - that was still standing then -
literally between the two. I was only months old
then when that happened and I can remember, later
on, the pilot very often used to call back
here. He was an American pilot and he always used
to bring us Wrigley's Chewing gum and Mars bars and I'd
never seen Mars bars and Wrigley's Chewing gum and I
used to think that was wonderful. Jim, his name
was. I can see him now! I used to wait for
him to come!
Where did you go to
school?
I went to school at the village school - I followed my
brother. He was four years older than myself but
he was very, very clever.
That was very hard, wasn't it?
Yes, that was a very hard act to follow. They
always used to pick on me and think I was as bright as
he was.
Do you remember any of the teachers at the school,
any of the kids or any stories about the school?
I remember going to school - horrible that was!
The clock never used to move! Never used to move
and I got wrong for all sorts of things - I couldn't
tell the time, my brother could, you see, and I was made
to go into the top class and ask him what the time
was. I always remember that! I was sent to
school, believe it or not, and I didn't know my
name! Everybody called me Tom or Tommy or
whatever. I did a year at school and I know when you
moved up a class after the first year, and we had a test
and I was given a bit of paper and we were told to put
our name on the piece of paper and the date and what
class we were in - well I just put Tommy Thrower and the
teacher came and slapped it back down on the desk and
said, 'I told you to put your full name on.' I
couldn't understand - I sat there and thought whatever
have I done wrong? So I just did it again. I
thought I'd spelt it wrong, you know, and I just did it
again and she really tore me a strip off because I
hadn't put my full name on this exam paper. I
couldn't put it on because I didn't know what it was!
You were never called Thomas, then?
It was always Tom or Tommy?
Yes!
As you are now, in fact!
Did you go on to Grammar School?
No, because I failed the 11 plus which was no great
surprise to anybody but I did walk indoors and told my
mother I'd passed. She believed me - for about ten
minutes! My father then sent me to a private
school at Scratby - he thought it would do me good.
How long was that for?
I went there when I was eleven and I was there until I
was sixteen and I should have gone on until I was
eighteen but I didn't want to. I'd had enough, by
then.
Were there many people in the shop
when you first came to work here?
We had about six staff and then there was my father and
myself because it was all counter service and we used to
have at least two girls on each counter. We used to have
- it was like an L-shape - this used to be the old shop.
Was it? This used to be the old
shop? So that was the extension?
Yes! The shop originally - the doorway used to be
between those two pillars
And, of course, the post office wasn't
there at all. That was all just part of the
grocery store.
That's right! So the double-bay windows were the
same design as this but the bays were only as wide as
between this pillar and that wall there and the doorway
was here and we had - where the wooden seam stops, we
went into another room which was, I suppose, like a
front room.
That's where you used to relax?
Well they used to send me in there to do my homework and
because there was a door, my mother, after about ten
minutes, used to come and check to see how I was getting
on and if I was still there - because I wasn't! I
would be gone! Outside! I was not an indoor
person, not in those days.
All the rest of it was living - where you go down the
steps there. That used to be what we called in
those days, the front room - although it was at the
back! And that all gradually, got taken into the
shop over the years; took one room in and then another
room in and that's all the living accommodation has now
been taken up.
What about your bungalow at the back? Was
all that your Dad's land? What about
the gap?
Where the driveway now is, there was a house.
There was a big three-storey house. Next to that,
coming this way, was the butcher's shop, then there was
a driveway and where you go into the new part of the
shop, is the old wall - you see the old wall is that
thick and that was the boundary of the shop. We had a
driveway that went round the back to the butcher's shop
and to ours, as well.
What was beyond that, then?
Another house! There were actually two more big
houses in The Street, down that way.
Why is there a black stack at the
back? Was there a hut or something there?
That wall used to be bullock sheds. That was where
they used to bring the bullocks because the butcher used
to slaughter here as well. They used to bring the
bullocks and put them in the sheds down there before
they wheeled them up into the slaughter-house.
So they didn't have to have a licence then?
Apparently not! If they weren't quite ready, they
would take them down to the marsh to fatten them up for
another month or two. I was only a few months old
but they told me that when the plane crashed, they had
taken the bullocks down to the marsh. Otherwise
that would have been full of bullocks! And that
took the roof and everything off. I can remember
the ruins all laying there, we used to go and play in
them. Otherwise there would have been beef-burgers
all round! That would have been the original
beef-burger, perhaps!
What about your bungalow at the back?
That was the garden to the big three-storey house, which
was the butcher's house and that was his garden with a
big walnut tree in.
What was the name of that butcher?
How long did he stay there?
His name was England - Billy England! I used to go
with him sometimes before I went to school. I used
to go in the butcher's van with him - have a
ride round, when he did his delivery. When he
retired, that was sold and another butcher bought it - I
forget how many years he was there but he went bankrupt
but he had another butcher's shop just over the bridge
at Coltishall. The three-storey house had been
sold separately and I think some people from London
bought it. Later, there was a fire and the whole place
burned down. I think the butcher from Coltishall,
he bought it after that and got planning
permission to build a shop but before anything happened,
he went bankrupt and the whole lot went up for
auction. They actually auctioned it outside on the
premises and my father bought it at the auction.
We then had the butcher's shop, the old burnt-out house
and all the garden that went with it which is where we
built the bungalow.
When did your father buy all
this? Was this before the aircraft crashed?
I thought the aircraft crashed in the alley-way.
The aircraft crashed in the alley-way, yes! And on
our house - you can't see it now because the warehouse
has been built over the back - all the bricks were
splashed with black oil.
Nobody was hurt?
No! No, they managed to get the pilot out - I
don't remember what type of plane it was - but that had
the old joystick that they used to have years ago, and
that had wrapped round his foot and, of course, there
was aviation fuel running down the alleyway there and he
was panicking that that might all blow up and he shouted
to get the butcher to chop the foot off! But they
managed to pull him out and they left the boot behind
and I think all he had was a sprained ankle and that
didn't catch fire. I suppose it could quite easily
have done and that was what he was afraid of.
Did they bomb the church or around
here?
No, there were no bombs dropped. A lady - I don't
know whether it was in Crown House or where the butcher
now is - sat in her window and she was shot by an enemy
plane that was being chased back over the Channel and he
just shot anything and everything as he flew over and
she sat in her window and she got shot.
She was killed?
Yes! I can't remember what her name was.
Can you remember what was where Ludham Garage is?
Where the petrol pumps are, there was a wooden house - a
Mr England used to live in there. Next to that, I
don't think there was anything. There was a
wheel-wright's yard, I think, before the garage was
built, because the garage used to be on the end of that
property across the way and that was on the King's Arm's
car-park. There was no car-park there - there used
to be a couple of petrol pumps, cranked by hand, and the
garage with a lean-to piece added on to it.
My uncle used to be a farmer and he used to tell me that
when he was a lad, they used to drive cattle from
Norwich as far as Ludham and then they would leave them
in a stockade overnight, in the King's Arms - somewhere
in the garden there - and then they would drive them on
to Sea-Palling or where-ever they had got to go to.
Was there much opposition when they
wanted to build the bungalows here?
I honestly don't know but along that side, there was a
perfectly good row of cottages that they
demolished. They belonged to Charley Green of
Beeches Farm. He was the farmer there before Nicky
Brooke's father and another chap, Douglas Wright bought
it and I can't remember if they sold it to the
developers or not. But they sold the land and the
cottages in The Street and in the field behind it.
Before they did the development here, the road used to
go round the back like an S. But whether there was
a lot of opposition, I don't know - everybody had a
chance to go and have a look at the plans down at the
Church Rooms and I went and had a look at them and I
don't think that the plans you saw down there had much
resemblance to what was built because they were supposed
to be bungalows down the Yarmouth Road here. Three
luxury bungalows, as they call them, but what happened
to them, I don't know!
I was reading about the opposition to the Willow
Way Estate.
Was there any?
According to the newspaper report.
Really? I can remember them being built but I
probably wasn't old enough to worry whether there was
any opposition or not. I can remember doing a
paper-round down there, when they were building those
and there's a natural spring that runs down ....
and there were some old cottages down that road and
there was no tap water so the people in those cottages
used to go and draw their water from this well.
You used to see them walking down there with a pail and
dropping the pail down there on a piece of rope.
Lovely clear water, that was! Cold!
When they developed Willow Way, of course, they filled
the spring in. It was like two big trap-doors and
that opened up with a brick surround. They filled
that in! Well, a spring has got to go somewhere
and I can remember I did a paper-round down there in the
winter time, and they had got little pumps everywhere,
in all the foundations, trying hard to pump the water
out the footings and getting nowhere at all!
Well, you could see, last year
when it kept coming up through the road.
Yes, amazing! Anglia Water said it wasn't
theirs. No! It was too good - it wasn't
theirs! Old Alice Warner was one of the people who
used to live down there in those cottages.
Can you tell me a little bit about Frank
Thrower - what relationship he is to you?
Frank's father and my father were cousins.
Was there any connection with the
shop?
No, there was no connection with the shop. Frank's
father and mother used to run the post office which was
entirely separate in those days - over by the
Church. There was no connection business-wise but
they were cousins.
I believe that recently your son has taken
over the management of the shop. Is that right?
Yes, he does an awful lot now - I leave a tremendous
amount now to him. He organizes the staff - knows
who's here, who's on holiday and I should think he does
90% of the ordering now. I still do the banking!
Are you enjoying your semi-retirement?
I don't know that it's semi-retirement! I still
put in a fair day. I still do a lot of the
paperwork but the day to day running, he does. He could
do it - it's not that, and one day he will have to do
it, but just at the moment, I still like to see how
things are going.
So that suits you, does it?
You're not looking forward to being able to step back,
then?
Am I looking forward to being able to step back? Yes!
In the not-too-distant future?
No, I reckon about four years maximum.
I believe you and your wife have recently moved
quite a distance away? Still in the village?
We're still in the village - we've moved up to Norwich
Road. We lived behind the shop for thirty seven
years and Guy and his wife lived at Martham. They
were looking to move because where they were was small -
it was all right for him when he was a bachelor, but it
was a little bit cramped for two. They were looking for
a move so we thought it really doesn't make sense for
them to move somewhere else, because then he'd
have to move again so we said why don't we look for
something - we'll move and you can move in here -
because when the alarm goes off at half past three in
the morning, I don't necessarily want to be the one who
has to get out of bed.
Does that happen often?
No, fortunately it doesn't often happen. He is
younger than me and he can move quicker and be up here
quicker than I can.
Sounds like a good plan. It's worked
out well?
Yes, I think that's worked out - first step towards
retirement.
How do you see the future of the shop?
Goodness! I really wish I knew! There are so
many village shops that have disappeared and are
continuing to disappear; when people retire nobody wants
to buy them. They revert back to being a private
dwelling. What the future holds, I don't
know. I just don't know! When Guy wanted to
join me, I did try to paint ever such a black picture
for him because I must admit I was a little bit worried
about the future. You saw so many places closing,
supermarkets springing up everywhere and I said there's
just no guarantee that it will last until I retire,
certainly not until you retire. He worked for
Norwich Union and he used to walk in here, finished at
quarter to five. I said to him, 'By all means, if
that's what you want to do but you won't be home at
quarter to five - you'll go out of the door at the same
time as I do. Bank holidays - forget
them!' I said, 'You'll have to be here and
you'll have holidays and that sort of thing but if
somebody falls ill three days before you have your
holiday, guess who won't get one!'
The shop has to be his life.
Yes, it has to, because you just have to keep at it and
at it. Probably that's why we're still here - I
don't know.
Well let's hope it will be here for many
years to come because it's a super store and we all
appreciate all your hard work and Guy's, as well.
Let's hope so. Thank you very much.
Did you ever go skating, when the
river was frozen?
Yes, down at Womack.
How far did you go?
We never used to go up the river. I don't know
why. I was always told we had to stay where the
grown-ups were in case anything should happen. But
people did used to skate up the river, in fact, Mr
Stanley Hunter, from Hunter's boatyard, had a little
Austin 7, I think it was, and he drove it, on the ice,
to Thurne Lion. That was what I was told. We
skated on Womack one year, it seemed, for weeks on end
and Russell Brookes from the foundry, he used to fix up
car batteries in the middle of Womack with a couple of
150 watt bulbs.
So you skated at night-time?
Yes, we skated at night-time.
Did you skate as a grown-up or just
as a boy?
I haven't ice-skated since - I can't remember how old I
was but that was brilliant, we really had some fun and
when the ice started to melt, several of us used to go
down to the marshes at Ludham Bridge because they were
flooded as well and they were only about eighteen inches
deep. A little bit rough but we used to skate on
there until that thawed out. That really was good!
A surprising number of people used to get down to
Womack Staithe. All ages used to get down
there! One lady used to skate with a chair in
front of her. She was quite a large lady and when
she fell we used to wait for the ice to crack and if
that held, well it must be good! She was the
butcher's daughter - Mary England - and she was a school
teacher in North Walsham and she never got
married. Quite good fun that was, but we don't get
the winters like that now - not to have the ice that
thick. I don't know how many people used to get on
that; it used to creak and crackle a bit.
Everyone tells us they used to have
much harder winters then.
That's true, yes! I can't remember how many times
Womack froze over.
You never had any accidents?
No, nobody ever fell through.
Would they all have had their own skates?
Yes! I don't know what happened to mine. Got
thrown out, I suppose. I'm surprised at the number
of people who had skates; all the doctors used to skate;
Dr Gabriel, Bob Jarvis.
When did you get married? Was that in
Ludham?
No, I got married in Martham thirty-seven years ago, in
the Church of England because my wife's family were
Church of England but we actually met at Martham
Methodist Youth club. They used to hold a Youth
club every Friday and I used to bike from here to
Martham every Friday night. They say that will
draw you further than gun-powder will blow you!
Who else have you known for a long time
around here?
Bill Sloper, of course. I've known Bill Sloper for
as long as I can remember. He worked in the shop
here all his life until he went in the army.
Mike Fuller - I knew his father right well. His
father was cow-man down at Clifford Kittle's (Green
Farm). That's what I wanted to be - a
farmer. I used to spend an awful lot of time down
there on my uncle's farm. Every moment I had - all
holidays, Saturdays, not allowed to go Sundays but all
the time I could. I can remember when we used to
have horses on the farm and a lot of the work used to be
done with horse and cart, collecting up sugar-beet,
sugar-beet tops to feed the cows with and
strawing. We used to do that -and cut kale, all by
horse and cart. You can take a horse and cart
right into the cow shed while the cows are still there
and the old horse wouldn't worry the cows at all.
You could clear up and I've done that!
At harvest time, we used to walk behind the binder with
a stick - walk for miles, round and round the field -
stop when the men stopped; you have your pack-up lunch
and your bottle of fizzy pop in the old Corona
bottles. They were the days! You could while
away the school holidays, they would go just like
that! It was unbelievable. You can't believe
how quick school holidays used to go because you were
outside all the time. Of course, you couldn't now
a-days; they'd be frightened to let children out all
day.
We used to go round the marshes with Mike Fuller's
dad. Used to trail behind him - he used to go down
and check up on some of the bullocks on the marshes
because they used to graze down there, then we'd go
across somewhere else to see if the heifers were all
right on another marsh and he'd say, 'Right! So
we've got to jump this dyke, boy!' and he'd jump and I'd
think, his legs are longer than mine.
'You'll be all right,' he'd say, 'take a running jump at
it!'
And I remember the first time I did it, I ran and one
foot hit the bank and the other foot trailed in the dyke
and he said, 'That's all right. Take your boot
off.' And this is the sort of thing these old boys would
do. He took my Wellington boot off; tipped it all
out - dyke water, mud and all - washed it out, 'take
your sock off!' and I took my sock off. He wrung
it out then he got some dry grass and wiped my rubber
boot out and then he lined it with dry grass, put my
sock and boot back on and, do you know, that foot was
warmer than that one?
I never did forget that - because that was in the winter
time.
We used to walk round and there was a pond out on
the marshes where he used to feed the ducks with a bag
of corn on
Saturdays.
And then have them for dinner on
Sunday?
They did have bands of farmers come to shoot - organised
shoots.
And he organised them, did he?
Yes, they'd be on his farm one week and on another week
they'd be somewhere else.
Did they have these duck-hunts?
No, that wasn't big enough for that. It was just
an area, I don't know whether he'd dug it out or whether
it had flooded or how that had come about but he'd let
stuff grow up round it. You couldn't actually see
the duck-pond but that was there.
What do you think about your uncle's house being
pulled down?
Well I think that's probably the only answer to it
really. Uncle never really spent a lot of money on
it, he just didn't. He had it thatched once, I
remember, but as far as keeping up with it, he
didn't. It's been empty for such a long time now
and an empty house will just deteriorate, won't
it? I should think that the best thing is to pull
it down and start afresh. It is a really lovely
site. The view across the marshes there to Repps
and Potter Heigham is wonderful.
From upstairs?
Even downstairs you can stand and look out of the
windows there and there's nothing in front of you.
Wonderful! Wonderful!
The village has changed.
Well it has! But I don't think it has changed an
awful lot - not the centre! When you look at these
old photographs, that's still there, the little bungalow
is still there, the King's Arms is still there, Crown
House is still there. The only thing that's
missing is the Baker's Arms and all those houses that
side of the road, and, of course, we now have the garage
there. That was quite a big wooden house there and
the wheel-wright's yard. So that hasn't changed a
tremendous amount - just a little and over the years, I
think that's quite good going.
Ludham is still a lovely village to
be in, isn't it?
I think that people who have lived here all their lives
don't appreciate it - there's a centre! There's
not many villages where you have the Church as
close. The Church is sometimes half a mile out of
the village and we've still got a pub, a butcher and
we're very fortunate with the doctors - we've got a
tremendous doctors' surgery - and one of the few
villages that have still got a garage with petrol
pumps. When you think about it, there's not many,
is there? They've all disappeared! Repps is
an exception because they are on a main road but we are
not on a main road. And I think, generally
speaking, there is a nice centre to the village and, of
course, it's got a good shop. We'll throw that in!
Yes, we'll throw that in! Everyone
knows Throwers, though - in Wroxham, Yarmouth and
Norwich - they've all heard of Throwers. You can't
get cheese like this anywhere else. What a choice!
Great variety!
We had a couple of ladies come in the shop last Friday
and they walked round and they said, 'We don't believe
this! Oh, no!' and I thought whatever's wrong?
So I said, 'Sorry? Is everything all right?'
'No, not really! they said.
'What's the problem?'
'We've only just found you.'
'At least you've found us,' I said.
'Yes, but we're going tomorrow! If we'd only found
you earlier! It's been dreadful. We haven't
found a decent shop. You walk into some of these
shops and they ask if you would like a loaf of bread or
a packet of ham.'
And now your pastry counter; your latest
addition.
Yes, a lady last week, wanted to know if there was
any chance I could move up to Leicester.
Thank you, Tommy.
My pleasure!
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