A War Time Childhood And This is the Way I Saw It by Avril Easton

Author:Avril Easton [Easton, Avril]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Historical
ISBN: 9781398424319
Google: 4zMXzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers Limited
Published: 2021-01-15T03:09:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Oak Lodge was a great natural playground, but as my brother and I grew older, we explored more and more of the surrounding countryside. All the woods and fields, in every direction, gradually became as familiar to us as our own property, and we were never told off for trespassing. On the other side of the road, opposite Oak Lodge, was a five bar gate leading into a field with a large pond in a small wood. We children spent many happy hours playing on this gate, swinging on it, vaulting over it, or just sitting on it. We never left the gate open, because this field led to other fields that had cows or sheep in them. All the time I lived at Oak Lodge, an old black horse called Bess lived in these fields, and often came to the gate for us to give her bread. Sometime during the war, pylons (thick ropes slung between tall metal poles) were put across some large fields, to stop gliders landing. After the war, we collected some of this rope to make swings, and in our wood, we made our own assault course between two oak trees. About the same time, all through the woods and fields, we found strips of silver foil, dropped by planes, which we collected to make Christmas decorations.

Across the field, in front of the house was ‘The Forest’, as we called it. Years later, I found out that it really was a forest. Originally it had been deciduous woodland, but at some time before the war, part of it was felled to make charcoal. We found the remains of the iron rings of the charcoal burners, rusting in the undergrowth. The occasional oak tree had been left and the rest of the area was planted with small fir trees. During the war, because the trees were so small, the area was very open, but, by the end of the war, these trees had grown to the height of about two meters. In the summer, it was very hot walking down the heather lined lanes (fire breaks), compared with the cool of the woods, and always in the summer, the hum of insects; grasshoppers; bees; lots of butterflies; moths; mosquitoes and lizards. John and I tried to catch these lizards, but very often we were left with a wriggling tail between our fingers as they ran away. Sometimes, John caught a slow worm to take home and let go in our wood, but I did not like the feel of them, so did not touch them. Sometimes we would see a snake, but we never tried to catch one. In the years after the war, my father collected all the grass cuttings in a heap and covered them with corrugated iron sheets. When he lifted a sheet up, there was nearly always a snake or two underneath, much to the delight of the grandchildren. In the part of the forest that had been left as natural woodland, was a pond; we would visit in the spring, to look for Moorhens’ eggs.

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