Thinking Back

Reminiscences of growing up and living in East Sussex in the

1900s

Memories of Mary Pattenden

Turned into words by Rosemary Bartholomew

Cover artwork, primroses and Hammerden map by Maureen

Broomfield © 2013

©Back cover photograph by James Rudge © 2013

©Family Trees data by David Broomfield

Thinking Back © Mary Pattenden 2013

© E-book edited and formatted by Mike Gadd

For hard copies of this book (post and packing free) phone
01424 442471

mailto:rbhastings@gmail.com

Hard Copies Printed by: ImpressionIt

2 Maunsell Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex TN38 9NL

‘Primroses were always my favourite wild flower’.

Mary Pattenden
Introduction
Over the years my mother has spoken of ‘the good old days’
to her grandchildren and great- grandchildren, who live in a
different world than the 1920’s when she was growing up.

My husband, David, who is interested in Family History,

remarked that unless written down these memories would
be lost. So, a few years ago, I gave my mother a spiral-bound
A4 notebook with a cover which I titled ‘Memories’ so that
she could write about her life.

Several people saw the book and were interested and a short
piece from it was entered in the Hastings & Rother Voluntary
Association for the Blind Memories Competition in 2012. She
was thrilled to win second prize at the age of 92.

With this encouragement and the interest shown in her

reminiscences, it was decided to publish this book so others
could also enjoy it. These are the memories my mother
wrote about, with added photos to illustrate some of the
people and places.

Maureen Broomfield

February 2013
A note from the author . . .

Having my memories made into a book is almost too good to

be true! I never thought this would happen and I hope
everyone enjoys reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing
it all down.

I would like to thank my family and friends for all their help
and support in my exciting publishing venture.

Mary Pattenden
Contents
1. Growing Up at Wardsbrook

2. Our Regular Chores

3. Mum, Dad, and Country Crafts

4. Simple Pleasures

5. Ticehurst School and Sunday school

6. Mushrooms, Rabbiting and Starting Work

7. Married Life and Moving On

8. Our Pets and Stonegate School

9. Working in the Hop Garden

10. Family Photographs

11. A Shared Memento

12. My Life Now

1 Growing Up at Wardsbrook
I was born on 4th March 1920 at Wardsbrook Farm, which
was about three-quarters of a mile from Ticehurst village,
surrounded by the fields and hedgerows of the Sussex
countryside.

My parents were William and Mary Paige. I was the youngest

of their eleven children and named Mary Jane, after my
mother.

Our family had a three-bedroomed, semi- detached farm

cottage with no electricity or running water. This was where I
grew up.

One of my earliest memories was sharing a small bedroom

with two of my sisters, May and

Rose (her name was really Rosemary but she was always
called Rose). Three of my brothers

– William, Charlie and Bert – shared the next bedroom, which

was a little bigger. The other five (Ivy, Fred, Florence, Alfred
and Matilda) had by then already left home. In fact William
had left too, got married, but came back home again after it
didn’t work out.

The beds, one double and one single in each room, left little
space for anything else: there was maybe a small table or
chair to stand a candlestick, matches, and probably a glass of
water.
I can’t remember what we did with all our clothes; I think
some were put in a chest of drawers in Mum and Dad’s
bedroom, whilst our dresses were always hung on the back
of the bedroom door, with our outside coats on the back
door downstairs.

My Mum and Dad had the best and biggest bedroom. Their
bed was much nicer than ours – it was a big four-poster and
very solid with a large walnut headboard and also quite a big
footboard. It had a canopy over the top and curtains in a
white-patterned cotton material at the sides, which could be
drawn along on big wooden rings if needed. There was also a
valance, which had to be kept clean: this had to be washed,
boiled and starched, then ironed and put back on. It looked
lovely, but keeping it like that was hard work.

Bed-making was usually undertaken after the beds had been

opened up and aired for a while. The blankets – three or four
on each bed – were usually shaken and then put back on
properly.

Some days we had to look for fleas because at times the cats
or dogs would bring them in the house. If you found one, you
had to put it between your thumbnails to crack it; you knew
it could not bite anyone else then.

With no electricity we used oil lamps and candles for light,

and all the household jobs had to be done by hand.

For our water we had a very, very deep well. The water was
beautiful but it had to be drawn up by the bucket. This was
no easy job as you had to bend over to hook the bucket on
the chain, let it unwind to go down, and then wind it back up
again, heavy and full of water, so you could unhook it. You
always did two at a time and then had to carry one on each
arm, evenly balanced, quite a few yards back to the scullery.

As you can imagine, we were taught not to waste water.

We caught every drop of rainwater possible with buckets
under the guttering’s and then transferred these to a big
tank. Rainwater is extra soft and very good for so many
things, especially hair washing.

I can remember having a bath very occasionally. All the water

had to be carried upstairs to mum and dad’s bedroom as it
was the only room with enough space for a bungalow
bath, which of course also had to be carried up. The worst
thing was that afterwards all the water – plus the bath – had
to be carried back down again. This took the pleasure out of
having a bath, so mostly we had a strip-down wash or a ‘lick
and a promise’ as we called it, with a lot less water needed.

We had to walk up the garden path for the lavatory, which

was attached to the woodshed. It was a wooden construction
with a hole in the middle big enough for a large bucket-type
container to fit in underneath. When the bucket was full Dad
had to dig a hole on a spare bit of ground and empty this into
it.
Sometimes Mum would scrub the wooden surround to keep
it clean. We didn’t have toilet rolls but instead used squares
of newspaper.

I was afraid to visit the toilet in the dark and Dad would have
to stand outside and wait for me. We also had to use a torch
or Dad’s lantern.

That’s how it was for us.

2 Our Regular Chores
We only had two rooms downstairs, plus a walk-in pantry
with an uneven brick floor that you got down on your knees
to clean with a bucket of water and scrubbing brush every so
often. This was something we did not look forward to doing
but it had to be done to help out. There were no fridges or
freezers then and our pantry had a big food safe in it with
gauze on the doors. We put butter, cheese, meat, milk, and
so on in there to stop the flies getting on things. If it was very
hot, you stood the milk jugs on the cool bricks with net
covers over the tops.

The front room was for living, sitting, eating and everything
else. We had a very large table that usually had a thick green
cover with a fringe over it, except at meal times when we had
a white cotton tablecloth always starched and ironed nicely.
We had ordinary – I think Windsor – chairs; my dad always
had a wooden chair with arms and also a cushion.

In this room we had a kitchen range, usually with two kettles

of water heating and an oven that was always hot and a
teapot at the ready. The range had to have the flues cleaned
once a fortnight. Each time this happened the whole room
had to be spring-cleaned.

We used to have long strips of thick coconut matting along

each end of the room and a large rug made out of old skirts,
coats etc. anything thick enough to be cut into pieces about
one inch wide and three to four inches long. You then sat in
your spare time and pegged them onto a Hessian sack. These
were all mixed colours with no pattern, just a homemade rug
costing nothing, only your time and some sharp scissors.

On the days the flues had to be cleaned, of course you had to

let the fire out. The coconut strips and rug were taken
outside and put over the washing line and beaten with a
carpet beater or walking stick.

In the meantime, drained tea leaves were sprinkled where

the carpets had been – usually the dust was quite thick and
the tea-leaves stopped it from rising when you swept it up.
Then you had a bucket of very hot water with a little soap
powder and a cloth and got down on your hands and knees
and cleaned the floor.

Usually you had a piece of lino underneath but sometimes it

was just the uneven bricks.

After this you black leaded the stove, Brasso- ed the steel
plates – one under the fire and one where the oven door
opened – and whitened the hearth. When the fender and
coal-scuttle were put back, the fire relit and all the mats put
down again, everything looked lovely. It took a whole day to
do it properly, so on those days we had what my mum
called ‘makeshift meals’.

The kitchen, or scullery as it was called, consisted again of an

uneven brick floor with a rag rug here and there. There was a
large area with a chimney where we used to have two bricks
each side raised up and then two thick iron bars lodged
across. This is where we would have a fire every morning;
you could stand a kettle or large saucepan on the bars
once the fire got going, but always for the kettle to boil
for the first cup of tea its handle was put over an iron hook
hanging down from the chimney.

This fire was started off with very fine kindling wood – we
called this the ‘morning’s wood’ and it was usually my dad’s
job after tea to go to the woodshed and split up a few logs,
very fine at first and then a bit thicker, and these were
stacked neatly in a trug. The flames went up around the
kettle so that it boiled quickly and needless to say there was
one special kettle kept for this purpose.

Sometimes my dad went down to the wood and made up a

faggot or two. This was done by breaking down the bare
wood on the trees (but not doing any damage to them); the
wood was then put into a bundle and made safe by being
tied around at each end, either by a hazel bough or with
binder twine, and Dad carried it home over his shoulder. This
kind of wood was always used for the copper fire, too.
The copper was built into one corner of the scullery and was
used for boiling the washing.

Wash day was always Monday and this, too, took all day.
Firstly, there was a large bath in the big earthenware sink for
all the washing to soak. Sheets or anything cotton that could
be boiled was transferred to the copper for ten minutes’
boiling, then lifted out onto the copper lid to drain,
before being rinsed in clean, cold water. Whites were put in
the Reckitts Blue bath, which made bed linen look much
nicer, and finally some items – such as tablecloths and the
white lacy curtains – were starched to make them stiffer so
they kept clean longer and hung better. The starch powder
was mixed with water and then the items swished through it.

Everything was either wrung out by hand or put through the

mangle before being pegged out to dry. If the weather was
bad we had to dry things a few at a time in front of the fire.

Ironing was done with flat irons, which had to be heated up

on the top of the kitchen range. We had three on the go at a
time so they could be changed over when one cooled down.
To test if an iron was hot enough, you would use some kind
of holder to pick it up and then spit on the base of it!

As we had no ironing board we used the kitchen table. First

we covered it with a couple of pieces of old blanket, then a
worn-out sheet, so it was nice and thick. If anything to be
ironed was too dry we sprinkled cold water on it first.
Afterwards the ironing covers were folded up and put
away in one of the cupboards.

What a difference from today’s way of living with all of our

modern conveniences
Always on Mondays we had cold meat and ‘bubble and
squeak’– leftovers from the Sunday roast. There was
maybe a baked rice pudding for seconds.
3 Mum, Dad, and Country Crafts
When I was a child, my mother sometimes had very sick
headaches. (Maybe these would now be recognised as
migraines?) I can still picture Mum, sitting up in bed
and bathing her forehead with a bowl of hot water to
which a small amount of vinegar had been added. She also
used to take aspirin and have a cup of tea laced with brandy.

I think the headaches were not helped a great deal by this

treatment as she remained in bed for several days when they
occurred. She could not eat as it made her too sick.

Other than this my mother was very healthy and worked

hard.

Her eleven children – my brothers and sisters and I – were

born over a period of 26 years, a long time for child-bearing.
Mum was only nineteen when my oldest sister, Ivy, was born,
but forty-four when I was born. With such a time difference,
Ivy’s children – my nephew and niece – were actually older
than me, their auntie!

The woman’s place was always expected to be at home so

that she could clean, cook and look after the family in
general. Women were expected to have the meals ready at
the right time and in the winter to have slippers warming for
the man of the house. They did outside seasonal work – like
hop-tying or training and hop-picking – and, if the farmer
grew potatoes, women helped to harvest them.
Besides these jobs, Mum would often be knitting or doing
crotchet work and we all had warm, hand-knitted garments
to wear.

Mum was always very careful with money and made sure
she never got into debt anywhere. I remember her
paying weekly for some things, such as clothes and bedding.
A man – his name was Mr Crabtree from Tunbridge Wells –
came round to collect a certain amount every week.

Later, Mum liked going to auctions and walked all the way to
Etchingham or Burwash Common to attend any that she
heard about. She enjoyed starting the bidding, and
sometimes bought items herself. I can remember her
acquiring a large stuffed fox in a glass case, an owl in a dome,
and an ottoman full of jigsaw puzzles. I still have that
ottoman.

Mum also enjoyed a little flutter: putting a shilling each way

on the horses. She often won because she studied racing
form and knew about the jockeys.

My dad was a carter; he had three lovely Shire horses to look

after and thought the world of them. Two were called
Captain and Prince – I forget the third one’s name.

Sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday I helped Dad feed them

and ‘put them to bed’ as he used to say. This was always
after Dad had had his tea.
He usually walked the fields all day from seven-thirty in the
morning until five o’clock in the evening, with a break for
dinner from midday to one o’clock. Sometimes he had a
quick bite of bread and cheese at about half- past nine,
depending on the time of year. He would have been
ploughing or shimming (breaking up and levelling the
earth), or working in the hop gardens. The horses were
always being worked – there were no tractors.

Dad was also the hop-dryer. The special building where the
hops were dried was called an oast house. This usually had
two or three kilns, big roundels, which were up wooden
stairs; underneath there were brick fireplaces. Coke or
charcoal was used to send the heat up under the hops and
they had to be kept at the correct heat for the hops to be
absolutely right. The fires under the hops were also lovely for
baking jacket potatoes.

Dad had to stay in the oast house all night as sometimes the
hops had to be taken off in the middle of the night and a
fresh load put on. He had two or three sacks of straw to get a
bit of rest on.

After the hops were taken from the roundels they were
pressed into big, thick sacks, which were called pockets, then
taken away by the Hop Marketing Board. The farmers were
only allowed to grow their strict quota of hops.
My dad was skilled in many other country crafts, including
being a good thatcher. This entailed getting the right kind of
straw, laying it out straight, taking a layer to the top of the
haystack or roof of a cottage, putting it on just right and
securing it down with wood – this had to be hazel, as that
was pliable. After the whole top was done it had to be
combed and trimmed just overlapping the edge of the stack
or building so that any rain or snow would run down onto the
ground.

In different parts of the country you still see lots of very old
thatched cottages. If done properly, thatching lasts for years.

Another craft was the laying of a new hedge. This was done
by cutting down some of the existing trees and bushes to a
certain height and bending and layering the remaining ones
so that they were intertwined. This made a lovely new hedge
with no holes or gaps. The country lanes looked much neater
and tidier when everything was done by hand.

‘Hedge-brishing’ as it was called in Sussex, took a lot of time

but looked so different from hedges done with hedge-
trimmers as used today.
The grass verges were cut with a scythe, but you had to know
how to use one and what you were doing. All the old crafts
involved skill and very hard work but at the end of the day,
although tired, you could be very well pleased with your
efforts.
Haymaking and harvesting were big things too and you
always hoped for a dry spell and blue skies then.
4 Simple Pleasures
Our pleasures were very simple. I remember if Dad brought
me home a packet of chips (now called crisps) from the pub
on a Saturday night I would find it on Sunday morning and
this was a real treat. They were always Smith’s as – unlike
today – they were then the only kind.

Another of our pleasures was going for a walk and picking

primroses, anemones and violets. Primroses were always my
favourite wild flower. I knew they liked growing near water
and would find them on the banks of streams or sides of
ditches. We made them into bunches with green leaves put
right round the outside and tied with a bit of old spare
knitting wool (never string). Several bunches in a big bowl of
water standing on the table looked a real picture; they had a
special scent of their own and the two colours of yellow and
green looked perfect together.

These were different from the expensive flowers we have

now. Today, you are not allowed to pick wild flowers, but you
can buy packets of seeds to sow in your garden. I cannot
remember Mothering Sunday standing out at all, although
maybe it did for the rich people, and there were no other
special days – for example for Fathers and Grandmothers –
as there are now.

We didn’t make much of Christmas, and the only other Bank

Holidays we had were Easter and Whitsun as it was called
then – now Spring Bank Holiday – and also August Bank
Holiday, which was the first Monday in August, not the last.

I can remember when I was very small that my oldest sister

made out she was Father Christmas, but I don’t remember
many presents at all, except I always had a Rupert annual,
which I loved reading.

Mum used to roast a large joint of beef as a special Christmas

treat and of course all our vegetables, such as Brussels
sprouts, were home-grown.

I have no memories of us ever having a Christmas tree when I

was a child. I don’t think many families could afford them and
they would not have had room to stand one anyway.

In the evenings I liked to read, or else play games like Snakes

and Ladders or Ludo.

Dad and my brothers sometimes played Cribbage and used

dead matchsticks to record their scores.

There were not many cars in those days: people were lucky
to own a bicycle. We even had a walking postman where we
lived. You did not get nearly so much mail in days gone by: no
leaflets and rubbish put through the letter box and not many
bills, as we had no modern conveniences to pay for. We did
sometimes get doctor’s bills.

We may have not had much money, but people were happy
and contented and the world was a much safer place.
Burglaries were non-existent and many things that
happen today were unheard of then.

I don’t remember ever hearing any arguments,

either.
5 Ticehurst School and Sunday School

I went to Ticehurst Church of England School – you went to

the same school until you left at the age of fourteen years.
Then, if you were outstandingly clever, or your parents were
rich enough, you may be expected to go on to college.

I had the same Head Teacher all my schooldays; his name

was Mr Bowers and he was well liked by everyone.

There was no uniform when I started school at five years old

but I remember having a dress knitted by my older sisters
and a starched white lacy pinafore, which looked quite smart
while it stayed clean, and white socks.

At school I loved History and English, was good at Arithmetic

but didn’t like Algebra. I hated Geography, mainly because I
always had a problem with keeping the paper still when I was
tracing maps. This maybe had something to do with the fact I
was left-handed!

The eldest girl from the family who lived next door to us,
Doris, also went to my school and we often played together.
My sisters, May and Rose, and I also went to Sunday School
at the Wesleyan Chapel in Ticehurst. We always had to take a
penny between us for the collection plate. After we had gone
a little way from home my sisters would sometimes make me
go back and tell some kind of story about dropping the
penny, in the hope of maybe getting another one, or a
halfpenny, which we could spend in the corner shop so that
we had something to eat when walking home.

The corner shop was always open on Sunday afternoons; it

sold cigarettes as well as soft drinks and there were lots of
boiled sweets in big jars and many halfpenny or
farthing goodies.

We had one Sunday school outing a year in the summer. It

was always on a Sunday and always to Hastings or Bexhill and
Mum came with us. Needless to say we never had pocket
money so we had to make the most of the seaside. Maybe
Mum might buy us some sticks of rock and she packed food
for us to eat there.

Very rarely, Dad and Mum took us to Hastings for a treat and
we would go on a boat trip. Dad loved the sea and called the
frothy waves ‘white horses’. When we went with my dad we
had to walk to Etchingham station (about three miles away)
or Ticehurst Road station (which is now called Stonegate
station).

We had a Christmas party at the chapel. One year I won a

prize – although I forget what for now. It was a book called
Heather Leaves School and that is why my first daughter was
named Heather. If Heather had been a boy he would have
been called Robin. I don’t know if any of my children ever
knew this!

The chapel we went to is now a house.

6 Mushrooms, Rabbiting, and Starting Work
I often used to get up very early to go across the fields with
Mum to pick wild mushrooms.

Like the cows and horses, the fields also had names. Some I
remember were: The Chestnut, The Shaw, The Brooks, The
Long Brooks, The Meadow and The Meads.

Mushrooms were best picked – or cut, as you always had a

small knife so you could cut and never pull – while the dew
was on them.

Mum and I always took a large wicker basket with a

handle and most mornings we filled it easily. There was
nothing tastier than having a meal with mushrooms and the
lovely thick gravy for soaking your bread in. It was much
different from the convenience foods of today.

My mother had three different grocers delivering each

week: one from Ticehurst called Waterhouses, International
Stores from Wadhurst and another from Etchingham called
Testers. They had separate days to come round and take the
orders and then a day or two later would make the
deliveries. This was a set pattern every week and if anything
extra was wanted you sometimes walked to Waterhouses on
a Saturday evening, when it was late closing at eight o’clock.
Maybe some extra rashers of bacon were needed for Sunday
breakfast (Sunday was always special) or some more butter.
There were no big supermarkets then; if you went to
Tunbridge Wells you might go to the Co-op – but this was
small compared to today’s Co-ops – or the Home and
Colonial or The Maypole.

If you wanted a pound or half a pound of biscuits they would

be weighed and put in a paper bag. Rice was also bought the
same way, except this was done with a square of stiffer
paper, usually dark blue, which was rolled round and
twisted at the bottom and then folded at the top. It
sounds as though the rice would fall out but it never did.

There was a bacon slicer so you saw just what you were
getting and bacon was sliced into thick or thin rashers while
you waited. You never queued to pay. Shopping was much
more enjoyable, although there were not so many choices.

We used to eat a lot of rabbit. Dad and some of my brothers

used to go rabbiting, sometimes on a Saturday afternoon and
sometimes Sundays.

They would find a rabbit warren in the wood or sometimes

on the edge of the adjoining field. The warren consisted of
several large holes – sometimes seven or eight but
sometimes only four or five – over an area of ground. My dad
and brothers had string nets to peg over each of these.

You could not catch rabbits without the help of a couple

ferrets (or sometimes only one). After netting the holes you
had to put a ferret down one of them and await events.
Sometimes the warren was empty, in which case the ferret
came back to the top of the hole and was maybe put
down another one to make sure there were no rabbits
down there. But most times, after a little while, you could
hear noises and a rabbit would come to the top and get
entangled in the net. One of the men then had to take it out
and kill it. On a good afternoon as many as twenty rabbits
could be caught, some of which were sent to Heathfield
Market, always held on a Tuesday.

My dad nearly always skinned a rabbit for my mum and took

out the inedible bits and pieces. Mum used to wash it and cut
into pieces such as back legs, front legs, back and ribs. It
made a lovely meal roasted in the oven with a few streaky
rashers of bacon and some sliced onions; it all went lovely
and crisp and was delicious.

As was usual I left school at the age of fourteen. At first

my dad said I had to help my mum at home, as there were
still my three brothers, my two sisters and myself plus mum
and dad, so there was a lot to do with cooking, cleaning,
washing, and so on. This worked OK for a little while but
before I reached the age of sixteen I went to work in the
Chestnut Laundry in Ticehurst.

Two of my sisters were already there; they were specialists in

hand ironing and worked upstairs. I worked downstairs on
the calendar machine: this did all the flat things like sheets,
pillow cases, bedspreads etc. There always had to be four
girls to work the calendar.
We had a mess room over the road where we had our lunch
and a cup of tea, coffee, or a cold drink, nothing special.

There wasn’t a lot of choice for work, other than housework,

which wasn’t well paid, or you could sometimes go and ‘live
in’ to work in a big house owned by rich people.

I remember my sister Til (Matilda) being a parlour maid, in

service at a place in Oxted, near Edenbridge. I went to stay
for a little while in the summer holidays while the owners
were away.

I was happy enough in my job at the laundry and stayed

there until after I was married.
7 Married Life and Moving On
This photo is of my wedding day: 3rd May, 1940, when I was
20 years old at Battle Registry Office in the early afternoon.

I wore a pink suit with a black hat and a corsage of three

carnations.

My mum is on the left, then my husband John and me, with

John’s dad on the right. My own dad wasn’t able to be there
as he had to be at work and couldn’t take time off.

I had met John Pattenden, who was to become my husband,

at the Bridge Hotel in Stonegate. He was one of five children
(three boys and two girls) and had been brought up by his
dad following the death of his mother.

After the wedding we went back to Mum and Dad’s house.

We started married life by living with them (my two sisters
had already left home by that time) while waiting until the
cottage on Ponts Farm, near Burwash Common, where
John worked, was ready for us to move into.

John was a cowman, and also did a milk round. Because he

was in a reserved occupation, he wasn’t called up. Although
he worked mainly with the cows, he had to be flexible and
turn his hand to anything that needed doing on the farm,
including driving the tractor, helping with the harvest and
looking after the sheep – especially at lambing time.

We decided that we wanted a family and very soon I knew

our first baby was on the way and gave up work.
Our daughter Heather was born early and arrived in the
following February. In those days new mothers stayed in bed
for 10 days after giving birth and rested.

When we moved to Ponts Farm we lived next door to Pat

(John’s oldest brother) and his wife, Margaret. Their son,
Alan, and Heather were brought up together until later when
the farm was sold and we had to get out of our cottages.

Although there was now a war on, Margaret and I and the
kids enjoyed ourselves most of the time.

The men made a big dug-out for us for some protection from
the bombs. We used to go there every afternoon for the
children to have a nap. We had an old mattress and a
lantern. I can’t remember staying all night in there, we
preferred our own beds and hoped things would be OK.

In October 1944 we moved on to Hammerden Farm,

Stonegate, to a ‘double dwelling’ as it was called. Again, we
had no running water or electricity. The well had been
covered but we had a pump inside. It was very hard work to
pump up a bucket of water for cooking and a cup of tea!
We also still caught all the rainwater for weekly baths
and washing.

There is a saying ‘new home, new baby’ and my second

daughter, Maureen, was born in July 1945. Then, after some
words from my husband about the difficulties of managing
with no running water, especially with a new baby, the
farmer finally had the mains water laid on, which made a lot
of difference. We also had a Rayburn which heated the
water.

My son, John (Johnny) was born in 1948 and then Joan in

1951. They were christened in Stonegate Church.

We did not get electricity until around 1959. Until then, after
natural light ended for the day our reading was by
candlelight.
8 Our Pets and Stonegate School
My children and I had a number of pet cats. Maureen’s was
Timmy, Johnny’s Tinsel and Joan’s Ginger. Mine was Fluff
Puss and she once managed to fall in the copper when the
water was heating – we got her out unhurt but I’m sure it
took some of the colour out of her fur.

Heather had a dog, Peter Pan, but one day he disappeared

and we never knew what happened to him. When Johnny
started farm work he came back one day with another dog,
called Whiskers, as a new pet.

When the children were small we had rabbit to eat quite a lot
as it helped the money to go further. But since the horrible
rabbit disease (myxamatosis) I have never eaten rabbit –
although you see it in supermarkets and butchers’ shops so it
must be eaten by some people still.

We also had tame rabbits but never sold or ate them. I used
to take the pram with the youngest child in it with one or
two of the others on foot, and, armed with bags, we used to
walk around the lanes to pick rabbit food: dandelion leaves,
hogsweed, clover, cotton leaves, lambs’ tail, and they also
liked lettuce and cabbage leaves. They had dry food as well:
bread or oats, and some water. The rabbits lived in well-
made hutches with wire netting doors and on a stand well off
the ground for safety.

At one stage we had hamsters, but they had to be indoors so

it wasn’t easy. There were also guinea pigs, which I loved and
still do. When Heather and Maureen first went to Stonegate
School there were just two classrooms and a lobby, a
headmistress and one teacher. Mrs Bashford was the head
teacher and Miss Baldwin the only other teacher. Mrs
Bashford had taught me at Ticehurst C of E school before
moving to Stonegate to take over the headship.

Mrs Bashford always called my children ‘her grandchildren’

as she remembered teaching me. There was also Mrs
Richards, the caretaker, who was a very good friend of
everybody.

The teachers were wonderful with the children and their

parents, too. Two events were held every year when
parents were invited: the Harvest Festival was a lovely get-
together; the other was the Christmas party.

At Christmas there was always a beautifully decorated large

tree, lots to eat and a present each for all the children,
including those under school age, too. It’s something I will
never forget.

There was no transport; the children walked to and from

school every day. Very often it was a case of wearing
wellingtons as they had to walk up a cart track and across a
field to get to the road; it was quite a long way.

When Heather and Maureen each left at the age of eleven to

go to the grammar school at Tunbridge Wells it was much
easier – they could leave their wellingtons in the station
waiting room until they returned home from school at
about tea time.

As time went on Stonegate School had bits built on so there

was room to take more children from other villages, as the
school had a very good reputation.

Joan and John later carried on their education at

Wadhurst County Secondary Modern School, which has now
become Uplands Community College.
9 Working in the Hop Garden
Joan was the last of my children to go to school and then I
started to work on the farm. At first, I did potato planting in
the spring. Then hop training, which had to be done in three
stages: first you had to pull out all the small, weak bines and
then train three suitable ones up on each wire or string, with
four wires/strings to a ‘hill’. If a head snapped off a bine you
had to hope to replace it with another one and you had to
handle them with care as they could break quite easily.

Hop gardens could be big or small. In some places they were

known as hop fields. If there were several hop gardens on
one farm it kept you going until the end of May. Some years,
if red spider mites or other diseases attacked the hops we
had to wear gloves and masks and go around with a deadly
poisonous mixture and water to spray them. Then the hops
would grow and usually be ready for picking by hand – you
did this in most weathers.

The schools had their holidays to correspond with hop-

picking and you did your best to get the youngest to the
oldest child to help pick some hops. You were paid a tally (so
much a bushel); the amount of hops was measured two or
three times a day and the amounts entered on your card.
You waited until the end of hopping, as we called it, for your
money and usually went to the farmer’s house for this.
Some people loved the smell of hops and some hated it.
When you picked them, hops stained your hands a horrible
dark brown and you had to scrub them with hot water and
Vim or something abrasive to get clean. Lots of people wore
gloves but I couldn’t get on with them. We always wore our
old clothes as hops stained everything and, on clothes, the
stains never came off; hop-picking clothes always ‘went for
rags’ as we used to say.

After a hard and tiring day I would drag the pram and kids,
empty flasks, water bottles and food containers home where
we would usually have a meal of cold meat and fried
vegetables, especially on a Monday. In the middle of the
week you took pot luck – it could be sausages or bacon but
nobody ever went hungry. Then for the children it would be
wash and bed and I had to get on with the housework and
think about food for the next day.

The hop-picking money (in our case) was usually spent on the
first Saturday after we got it. We would go to Hastings by
train to get most of the new school clothes ready for the
children to go back in at the end of September/early October
return.

It was, as I said, tiring work, but on a nice day in September

there was nothing I liked better than being in the hop garden.
I enjoyed picking hops although some people thought it dirty
and smelly.
The potato harvesting followed that, when we picked up the
potatoes that had been planted in the spring and put them in
trugs. They were all emptied into a big pile in the barn, called
a potato clamp, and covered with thick straw to protect them
from the frost. When the farmer had an order for potatoes
we would be asked to go into the barn and sort the best
potatoes into large paper sacks ready for sale. The full sacks
would be half a hundredweight and were weighed in the
barn.

We lived at Hammerden for many years. Heather, Maureen

and Joan were all married at Stonegate Church and I have
lots of happy memories.
10 Family Photo’s
11 A Shared Memento
The following was written by one of my granddaughters,
Sarah, after visiting us when she was eleven years old in
1982. I have kept it all these years and thought it would be
lovely to share here.

What I did at half term

On the first Sunday of the holidays my family and I went to

visit my Nan and Grandad. They live in Stonegate, Sussex,
which is about 2½ hours away.

They live on a farm and they have an old farm cottage to live
in. My Grandad is a milker and he always gets up early.

When we got there my Nan was chopping up some wood on

a big wood pile outside the house. Then she went inside with
us and filled about 5 margarine tubs with milk and bread.
Then she went outside and put them on the ground.

About 10 seconds later some cats came up (farm cats) and

started to eat the food. There are seven cats there: Sandy,
Little One, Black Boy, Panther, Mum and the Tom cat and
Marmalade.

Mum puss did have another kitten called Lucky, but the other
cats did not let it have any food, so Nan had to have it inside
and it is black with a few markings on it. It is very small and is
about 6 inches long.

In the afternoon Joan, Michael, Paul and Rachael came; they

are my aunt, uncle and cousins. Later on Christine and
Johnny and Ian, some more of my relations, came. Then
Heather and John came, who I was going to stay with for the
rest of the week.

Joanna, my cousin, was doing a sponsored walk that day so

she was not there. We had tea and then Heather and John
took me to their house; on the way we picked up Joanna.

When we got to their house we watched Starwars.

On Monday I unpacked and then Jo and I played with our

Sindys.

On Tuesday Heather took Jo and me to Tunbridge Wells, the

nearest big town. While Heather went in Sainsbury’s, Joanna
took me to Wight’s Bazaar, a toy shop near to Sainsbury’s.

In the afternoon we went to visit Joan, Paul and Rachael.

On Wednesday it was Joanna’s birthday and I gave her a

present, a picture of some cats and a bookmark.

On Thursday we went to see Nan; we went on a walk round

the farm. Marmalade came with us. When Jo and I were
looking at the cows I heard a small meowing noise. We
stopped talking to Marmalade and we looked around to
where the noise was coming from.
It came from in the barn full of hay bales. I saw a tiny kitten’s
face. There was a ladder leading up to the bales. We called to
Nan and she went up the ladder and got it down.

She gave it to me to hold and it was very thin. Nan debated

whether to run back and get some bread and milk for it. She
did, and she’s a very fast runner. When she came back the
kitten wolfed all the bread and milk in one go. Then we put
her back on the hay bales.

On Saturday they took me back home, and

Nan and Grandad came as well. It was a big squash!

Sarah Broomfield

1st November 1982

12 My Life Now
I lived on farms all my life until moving down to a housing
association bungalow on a big estate at Bexhill-on-Sea, on
4th August, 1984. Our farm cottage was being sold and we
had to leave.

It took some getting used to and to start with I didn’t like the
look of the bungalow. My words on first seeing it were, “Oh,
what a poor little rabbit hutch!” But it was our new home
and we gradually settled in.

My husband sadly died the following year, so he only lived

there for five months.

There are twelve bungalows in our Close. Eleven of them

have had lots of different occupants. In fact none have the
same people as when we moved in.

So I have now lived here longer than anyone else. I am also

the next to oldest here, being about seven months younger
than my next door neighbour and close friend.

I often think back over my life and remember those no longer

here. In 1996 I lost my first- born daughter, Heather, who
passed away on my birthday that year following two months
in hospital; I often think about her and the happy times we
all had together. I also remember my last-born baby son,
James, who only lived a few hours, as well as the loss of a
grandson, Ian, just a week before his 17th birthday. They are
all part of my precious family memories.
Family has always been important to me. Besides my three
remaining children – Maureen, Johnny and Joan – and their
other halves, I am proud to have seven grandchildren and ten
great-grandchildren.

One granddaughter has emigrated to New Zealand but still

keeps in contact.

In 2010 I reached my 90th birthday. My children arranged a

special celebration tea party for 120 people at Barnsgate
Manor near Ashdown Forest and I had two matching
birthday cakes.

It was a wonderful and happy day and gave me the chance to

catch up with people – some I hadn’t seen for 40 years – and
spend time with my extended family. It was certainly
something to add to my special memories.

Now I have made lots of new friends and have some new
interests. Writing this book and becoming an author is
not something I imagined would ever happen, but my
daughters have been very supportive and encouraging in
helping me reach this goal.

Although things are very different now, I will always have

fond and happy memories of the farms we lived on, our
simple pleasures and country life.
Additional information for your interest.
Thinking Back by Mary Pattenden
The youngest of 11 children, Mary Jane Paige was born in
1920 and grew up in a farm cottage in Ticehurst, surrounded
by the Sussex countryside.

Mary shares how life was for her family with no electricity or
running water, or any of the modern conveniences we take
for granted today. It was a time when, although people had
less and things were harder, they were happier and more
content and the world was a safer place.

She remembers going to school in a starched white lacy

pinafore, collecting mushrooms and her favourite primroses,
enjoying simple pleasures, learning about country crafts and
picking hops on the farm.

Now Mary Pattenden, and a great-grandmother in her

nineties, this remarkable lady gives a fascinating first- hand
account of how things used to be.

A slice of social history!

Author Mary with
her daughters:
Maureen Broomfield
and Joan Gadd