Tower and Town, March 2018

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More 'Memories Of A Misspent Youth'

Several households, ours among them, kept chickens for their eggs and meat and my mum, a country girl, always kept a couple of pigs in a corner of Mr Halliwell’s field in Stonebridge Lane. Mr Halliwell was a bookmaker who ran his business from a timber-built office opposite the old Mayfield College in London Road. Mum was interested in horse racing and was very knowledgeable on the subject. Marlborough was, and is, in the centre of horse racing country and the industry employed large numbers of stable lads locally. The presence of the army at Ogbourne and Chiseldon, together with the stable lads and local youths, made for a good deal of competition to attract the attention of the young women who attended the weekly dances in the Town Hall, and many were the fist fights that broke out on these occasions. The Town Hall was also the venue for the annual stable lads’ boxing tournament which my dad always attended, taking me when I was a little older so that I might learn something about the noble art. I fear he was disappointed!

Highlights of the year for us children were, of course, the mop fairs. Teachers at St Peter’s Boys’ School, in what is now the Library, found that on the Fridays before the fairs their attempts to teach us were wasted as our attention was firmly fixed on the showmens’ wagons passing the windows. Miss Shelton was the 1st form teacher, followed by Mr Anfuso in the 2nd form, Mr Lovett (Headmaster) in the 3rd and Mr Bristow in the 4th. Mr Bristow had taught my father and I recall that he was very accomplished with the cane. PE lessons were taken in the College gymnasium with the College’s PE master, and games with our teachers on the College Meadow – a real privilege, though we didn’t realise it, to have access to such luxurious facilities; a good deal better than anything to be found in Marlborough Grammar School which I attended after leaving St Peter’s.

While at St Peter’s, a number of us, including the Frayling twins, Ian Reeves, Tim Williams and Keith Waite, were invited to join the St Mary’s Church choir as trebles, and we were privileged to be there during the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. Again, the choirmaster, Trevor Gartside, was supplied by the College! Not many have had the chance to sing Zadok the Priest, The Hallelujah Chorus and Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring in one service, even if it was in St Mary’s and not Westminster Abbey. Choirboys at St Mary’s were paid about five shillings per quarter depending on 100% attendance. It always came as a pleasant surprise when the choirmaster put the money into our hands, because a quarter seems like a year to a nine year old.

James Milsom