CHAPTER 8 

WINTER WEATHER

Going to school in the winter for five year olds in 1914 was a real endurance test. It was before wellington boots were about. I well remember the lace up boots we wore with nails in the soles so that they lasted longer, and when the snow came we went to school wit grease on the boots with stocking over the hob nail boots and when we went in school we slipped off the socks which by then had big holes. But our feet and shoes were dry. I remember the snow plough that cleared the roads. Although I was a nervous child, I wasn't alarmed by the snow or ice. Coming home from school we would jump in the middle of the deep drifts on the banks, and stop and watch the big children slide on the frozen ponds, in the farm yards. By then we were half way home but mustn’t stop long or it would be dark before we were in sight of our home. I am certain we must have found pleasure in braving the weather because we didn’t seem to have any unhappy memories about the whole affair, but when there e wasn’t snow we used to got through the church yard and through another farmers’ meadow. But when there was snow about we kept on the roadway, because we couldn’t see the paths. We didn’t like going through this other farmers meadow because we didn't know his cows like we did our own, and I used to take my red woolly hat off and put it in my pocket. As we heard red made cows fierce, and sometimes there was a bull in that meadow.

That winter Hylda didn't come to school, she wasn't old enough to leave school, but she was exempt. I didn't know at the time, but providing 350 days attendance had been done as my mother has told me since, the parents could take their children from school to help with the labour. That made five of us attending school. Three left school, and two still too young to attend. So after Hylda had left Grace the next oldest was in charge of the wicker dinner basket full of sandwiches made of delicious home made plum jam, which sustained us until we had a hot meal at tea time. I often wonder since I have been an adult, how wonderful those parents were and however did they cope?

I can still visualize that first Christmas tree very tall, how beautiful it looked to me. The fairy on the top, candles all the way down.

The big rain tub it was planted in surrounded with presents for every pupil at our school in different colour papers, and our infant teacher with (the gentle manner), and a pretty dress on this afternoon, the day we started our Christmas holiday, to give each child their present. By now we knew her as Miss Isabel. I was delighted with my gift, a box of dainty hankies and a round tin of sweets. Alice had the same, and there was a gift for Fred who hadn't even started school yet. A woollen knitted ball, and a rag book for John the baby, which we helped them to unwrap when we got home. We went home early that afternoon.