The School Star Goalkeeper.

A star school goalkeeper.

**********************

This young man in the 1940’s was our school star goalkeeper. He earned a special nick- name, because he could kick a football the whole length of the field. Our school star center forward at that time and don’t have a photo of him, was Charlie ‘Waggle’ Coles. I wonder if anyone remembers him as well.

Do you Remember this young man?

Do you remember

this young man?

****************

Who is this young man in this picture? I believe that it was taken on Lower Road in and around 1953-54. I  know he is still in the area, which includes Bourne End, and wife is a local girl. He is now a grand father by all accounts. When he first got married he and his bride emigrated for quite awhile. Then they returned to set up business in the village together. So come on now! Who is he?



Fred Turk.

Fred Turk.

*************

The photograph above was taken at start of the 1948 Swan Upping season. The traditional swans flight feather being inserted in the Royal Swan Masters hat by his daughter.

I first met Fred Turk, when on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon my parents use to love to walk “The Three Ferries.” Stopping off at the Cookham Lock, for afternoon tea in the Lock Tea Garden. Then when Mr. Brooks, who ran the third ferry dropped us off by the Toll Bridge, my father always loved to stop and have a chat with Fred, while I would go off to have a chat with their white Cockatoo, who was always to be found sitting on his perch in their garden during the summer months.

The next time I remember I had direct contact with Fred was when during the flood of 1947. When we rented a punt from Fred to enable us to get in and out of Widbrook Cottage.

On the last occasion that I had any contact with the Turk family, was when the city of Ottawa wanted to have swans on the Rideau Canal, which runs though the city. This time I wrote to John Turk, who in consultation with Her Majesty who agreed that twelve swans should be presented to the city.

As the Rideau Canal, freezes in the wintertime, to become the world’s longest skating rink. The swans are taken up and housed in a purpose built heated swanery. Here they also breed in comfort before being released back on the canal in the spring.



The Medieval Tithe Barn.

The Medieval Tithe Barn.

***********************

The one thing the peasant had to do in Medieval England was to pay out money in taxes or rent. He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had to pay a tax to the church called a tithe. This was a tax on all of the farm produce he had produced in that year. A tithe was 10% of the value of what he had farmed. This may not seem a lot but it could make or break a peasant’s family. A peasant could pay in cash or in kind – seeds, equipment etc. Either ways, tithes were a deeply unpopular tax. The church collected so much produce from this tax, that it had to be stored in huge tithe barns. Some of these barns can still be seen today. Some have been converted into luxury houses. It is just a little over 200 years ago in 1798 that Wiliam Pitt the Younger in his budget introduced the first income tax to pays for the arms required for the Napoleonic War.

The priest was usually a commoner by birth, though serfs were tied to the land and were not allowed to become priests. The priest officiated at church services, weddings, baptisms, funerals, and visited the ill. He earned his living from the income from parish lands, fees for services, and tithe money. The tithe income was divided up evenly between the parish priest, the church maintenance fund, the poor, and the bishop.

Pews in the church were not introduced into the church until the middle 15th centuary. The parishioners would stand in front of the pulpit to listen to the sermon. The Chancel or Sanctum Sanctorum (where the altar is) belonged to God. The nave and the tower belonged to the people of the parish. Manor courts were often held in the nave, and tenants came there to pay their rent, or scot. A free meal was given to those who paid their scot, hence our term, "scot free".

There was another chruch tradition which has faded into the past. Gifts of barley to the church were common. The church Verger or Sexton would hare the barley brewed into ale and sold to raise money for the upkeep of the church. The term "church ale" is still used today to describe fund-raising for the church.

Church Services and Plays. Originally, people stood in the nave to hear the church service. Because few could read, Biblical stories were often acted out for the congregation in the form of miracle plays. These plays evolved into cycles or collections, today in some parts of England by "The Mummers."

I may have drifted away from the subject of Tithes and Tithe Barns but, I think you will see how the church and the Royal Manor were very much the center of village life in Medieval Cookham.

Sutton Allotments.

Sutton Allotments.

*****************

Having been going back into village history recently, I came across what to some people will be difficult for them to comprehend, especially if they were not born in this country, or are very young in school, where these measurements are no longer taught.

The land measurement called the "Rod, Pole or Perch." is 5½ yards square. So a typical allotment plot of 10 Poles is 5½ yards wide by 55 yards in length. Also you will hear or read of a chain measure as well. Of which, I will discuss in a later blog.

The history of allotments can be said to go back over a thousand years to when the Saxons would clear a field from woodland, which would be held in common. Following the Norman Conquest, land ownership became more concentrated in the hands of the manorial lords, monasteries and church. The reformation in the 1540s confiscated much of the church lands but they were transferred via the crown to the lords.

In the late 1500s under Elizabeth I common lands used by the poor for growing food and keeping animals began to be enclosed dispossessing the poor. In compensation allotments of land were attached to tenant cottages. This is the first mention of allotments.

In the UK, allotments are small parcels of land rented to individuals usually for the purpose of growing food crops. There is no set standard size but the most common plot size is 10 poles, an ancient measurement equivalent to 302 square yards.

Allotments and Cottage Gardens Compensation for Crops Act 1887 obliged local authorities to provide allotments if there was a demand for them. The local authorities resisted complying with the act and revision was required to strengthen the act.

Once again Britain was blockaded and food shortages the norm. The pressure was greater than that of the First World War and even public parks were pressed into use for food production. The famous 'Dig for Victory' campaign exhorted and educated the public to produce their own food and save shipping needed for war materials. Food rationing kept the demand for allotments and homegrown foods high until the end of the war although rationing continued until 1954.

Allotment and home food production is highly productive in terms of land use and during the war allotments were estimated to contribute some 1.3 million tons from 1.4 million plots. Agricultural production generally is more efficient in terms of labour but not in terms of land usage.

The result of demands for more and more building land saw the re-establishment of the Allotments Advisory Body, which in 1949 recommended a scale of provision of 4 acres per 1,000 head of population. This resulted in the Allotment Act of 1950.

Carbide & Acetylene Gas.

Carbide & Acetylene Gas.

**********************

Acetylene was discovered in 1836, when Edmund Davy, the inventor of the miners “Davey Lamp”, was experimenting with potassium carbide. One of his chemical reactions produced a flammable gas, which is now known as acetylene. In 1859, Marcel Morren successfully generated acetylene when he used carbon electrodes to strike an electric arc in an atmosphere of hydrogen. The electric arc tore carbon atoms away from the electrodes and bonded them with hydrogen atoms to form acetylene molecules. He called this gas, carbonized hydrogen.

By the late 1800s, a method had been developed for making acetylene by reacting calcium carbide with water. This generated a controlled flow of acetylene that could be combusted in air to produce a brilliant white light. Miners used carbide lanterns and carbide lamps were used for street illumination before the general availability of electric lights. In 1897, Georges Claude and A. Hess noted that acetylene gas could be safely stored by dissolving it in acetone. Nils Dalen used this new method in 1905 to develop long-burning, automated marine and railroad signal lights. In 1906, Dalen went on to develop an acetylene torch for welding and metal cutting.

The picture above is similar to the carton that we use to be able to buy from Mr. Greenslades, bicycle shop. I remember when a schoolmate at the Cookham Rise Secondary Modern School dropped a small grain of carbide in a schoolgirls inkwell. You should have heard the squeaks that came from that young lady when it started to foam like Mount Vesuvius. Mind you the teacher Miss Drew, was not amused.



The School Pen Nib.

The school pen nib brings back a lot of memories of writing in ink at Holy Trinity School under the very watchful eye of Mrs. Snapes. Who was bound and determined that every student came up to her standard of Penmanship! Penmanship; now there is a word that has fast slipped out of the English language. It meant that our script writing had to flow in a constant well-formed and readable shape. No broad tip, or “J” nibs were allowed in school at all.

Now the ink was something else. It came in powder form from the Stephens Blue-Black Ink factory in London. It was also available in bottles from stationers like W.H. Smith with a cork stopper. The powder ink was something else as Mrs. Snapes use to mix it with water in an old blue enamel teapot, from which she would pour it into our inkwells that were fitted in our school desks. Having used cold water instead of hot, not all the ink would dissolve and would settle in the bottom of the ink well. In turn it would stick to the tip of our nibs and would make an inky mess of our workbooks, which in turn it was always our fault.

At least by the time I reached the Cookham Rise Secondary Modern School the fountain pen was on the market and so was everyone’s favourite ink called “Quink.”

Then right after the war the Miles-Martin aircraft company switched from building aircraft to producing the ballpoint pen. Which the Hungarian, László Bíró back in 1938, had invented. From what I can remember there was a patent dispute around that time.