Growing Up in Horncastle

It’s been a long time since I made Horncastle my ‘permanent residence’, but I will always think of it as my Home.

I grew up in this quiet Market town in the ‘40’s and 50’s.  Being a war baby, I did not really have any connection with my father until he ‘came home’ in 1947.  At that time, we moved into a brand new ‘state of the art’ prefab on the Wong.  Until then, I had lived with my Mother, Aunt, Granny and Granddad in my Grandparents house.   A happy place, and now we were going to be living as our own independent family in our new home.  For the period of time (1947) the prefab was ultra modern with built in closets, water heater, all electric kitchen and a built in fridge.   .   However, even though the amenities were ‘state of the art’ for 1947, we still lacked some present day essentials -   notably Central Heating.  Our home had one coal burning fireplace in the living room.  Every night during the cold months, my Dad would bank the fire to try to keep it going ‘till the morning.  Usually it went out during the night and the first sounds of the day were of my Dad starting the fire.  We also had a large paraffin stove for the kitchen.  That meant the bedrooms were very cold and in the coldest months we had ice on the inside of the windows.  Getting out of a warm bed in the mornings to go to my paper round was very hard to do.

We were surrounded by open countryside.  At the bottom of our road, there was a five bar gate that led on to ‘Gills Field’.  Mr. Gill was a local Butcher in the town and during cattle market days, we would have cattle and sheep driven down the road and into the field.   Gills Field was multi-purpose.  It did not take us kids long to realize that we had our very own cricket pitch and football field to play in and we took full advantage of it.  The ground was very rough and this certainly added to the excitement of facing a fast bowler!!   We also had to make sure that none of the bovine inhabitants were around while we played and pick our places to play very carefully.  ‘Cow pies’ were in abundance.  Looking back, I suppose we were pioneers in determining the future of Gills field as it was later bought by the playing fields committee and nowadays is better known for being the home of the Horncastle Cricket club, tennis courts and indoor lawn bowling facilities.  In addition to Gills field, the swimming pool was a much frequented summer place to go and situated in the same place it is today.  However, there was no heating and the pool was filled directly from water pumped in from the river.  A lot of chlorine added and we were set to swim.  The water was not crystal clear either.  It was still the murky brown colour of river water.  We had no idea if someone was swimming under water as they could not be seen.   But everyone had a great time there.  Every year the Town held a swimming gala and the best swimmers in Horncastle competed for trophies.

There were several young families in our neighbourhood and plenty of playmates, but we roamed freely all over the town, sometimes playing until dark and not causing any concern for our personal safety by our parents.  A much different situation than parents face today unfortunately.  None of the parents in our street owned a car and we had one or two bikes that everyone learned to ride on.  They were very big for us and our parents built wooden ‘blocks’ on the pedals to enable us to reach them.  This was with the seat at its lowest level.  We had many spills and grazes to arms and legs, but no serious injuries and everyone learned how to ride very quickly.  I mentioned earlier the fun we had at the swimming pool.  We also made good use of the River Bain.  Every year, the kids built rafts and floated up and down the river.  The rafts were built with ‘flotation chambers’ of empty oil drums from local garages and then we begged planks of wood to put on top.  These we nailed to the oil drums and then launched our creations into the river.  Miraculously no one got hurt, or drowned and we had a lot of fun.  During the long summer evenings and School holidays, I don’t think there was any part of the town or the countryside we did not use as our playground.

School was quite an experience for us.  Kindergarten was in the school-room in Church Lane and the long suffering teacher was Miss Cobb.  I remember the first playtime at school.   The kids from the first form were brought in to use our large playground.  They had great fun at playing rough house with those of us in Kindergarten and I can say that in the beginning the experience for us was overwhelming.   As the year wore on, of course, we looked forward to the time when we would be in the first form and passing on the same experience to next years Kindergarten class.   During out first 3 years at school, we attended 3 different locations.  Kindergarten in Church Lane, first form in the school buildings in Manor House Street and then second form at a building in Queen Street.   By the time we reached the third form, the new school in Bowl Alley Lane (Green Lane) had been completed and we became the first kids to attend.  This school had everything  - 2 playgrounds, Playing Field, Assembly room, Dining room  - it had it all.  It even had central heating as opposed to the stoves that were in the old school rooms.  I had to be on my best behaviour though as my Dad was hired as the school caretaker, a position he held until he retired many years later.