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Hyde Family at Everley Road, Boxfields Richard Hyde June 2023 My time at Boxfields began when I was born during the notoriously bad winter of 1947 when temperatures fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius and it ended when we moved in 1952 shortly after the death of King George VI. My first home was at 18 Everley Road, Hawthorn, Box. This was one of the flat-roofed, prefabricated bungalows and was also my parents’ first home together. My dad, John (Jack) Hyde married my mum, Gladys Parker, on 13 April 1946 in Wembley, where she lived with her mother. Exactly a year before their wedding dad had been liberated from a German prisoner of war camp. They both had connections with Queen Camel, near Yeovil, Somerset, and they chanced to meet there during the VE Day celebrations. Dad’s closest relative was his sister Lillian (Lily), nee Hyde, who lived at 42 Southlands. After the death of her first husband Leonard Ford, Lily had met and married William (Billy) Hyde in 1930. At the start of the war, Billy and Lillian lived at 15 Albert Close, Yeovil, with their two children, another John and Kenneth. Lily’s daughter from her first marriage, Marie Ford, was staying elsewhere at the time. Graham, their youngest was born in 1941. Billy worked as an aircraft fitter-erector and came to Boxfields to work in one of the underground factories. |
Dad and mum outside 18 Everley Road (courtesy Richard Hyde)
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When that work came to an end, Billy set up a shoe repair business on White Innox Lane not far from Box Highlands School.
Jack and Billy ran the business together for a while. Dad got to know Box and the surrounding area very well as he would cycle to collect shoes for repair and return them afterwards. When I was older, I used to go and watch uncle Billy working. Whenever
I smell leather, I am reminded of this and of later trips to Walcot, Bath to buy leather and other cobbling supplies. As there was not enough trade to support both of them, dad went to work at RAF Rudloe Manor (No. 1 Site), first of all for the Royal Observer Corp and later for the Ministry of Works. My later collection of aircraft photos came from this period as did old copies of Flight magazine.
Infancy at Everley Road
Our back garden, where my dad grew vegetables, bordered Boxfields Road, on the other side of which was a large field. I remember watching a steam traction engine driving a threshing machine in the years before motor tractors became common. Going towards Hawthorn Fiveways was Stan and Betty Webb’s shop and the playing field where I took my first steps. David Webb and I worked together in the 1960s cutting grass on the various sites associated with RAF Rudloe Manor, including those playing fields. I also played rugby there until Corsham RUFC gained their own grounds in Lacock Road, Corsham. Our changing rooms were in Rudloe Park Hotel (now the Rudloe Arms). Almost opposite Webb’s shop was a tump with an old rectangular shaft fenced with barbed wire and partly hidden by trees. The feet of many children had worn a track along the grassy slope parallel to the pavement and walking on this I felt almost as tall as my mum and dad.
Jack and Billy ran the business together for a while. Dad got to know Box and the surrounding area very well as he would cycle to collect shoes for repair and return them afterwards. When I was older, I used to go and watch uncle Billy working. Whenever
I smell leather, I am reminded of this and of later trips to Walcot, Bath to buy leather and other cobbling supplies. As there was not enough trade to support both of them, dad went to work at RAF Rudloe Manor (No. 1 Site), first of all for the Royal Observer Corp and later for the Ministry of Works. My later collection of aircraft photos came from this period as did old copies of Flight magazine.
Infancy at Everley Road
Our back garden, where my dad grew vegetables, bordered Boxfields Road, on the other side of which was a large field. I remember watching a steam traction engine driving a threshing machine in the years before motor tractors became common. Going towards Hawthorn Fiveways was Stan and Betty Webb’s shop and the playing field where I took my first steps. David Webb and I worked together in the 1960s cutting grass on the various sites associated with RAF Rudloe Manor, including those playing fields. I also played rugby there until Corsham RUFC gained their own grounds in Lacock Road, Corsham. Our changing rooms were in Rudloe Park Hotel (now the Rudloe Arms). Almost opposite Webb’s shop was a tump with an old rectangular shaft fenced with barbed wire and partly hidden by trees. The feet of many children had worn a track along the grassy slope parallel to the pavement and walking on this I felt almost as tall as my mum and dad.
Cup Winner – My mum and me (courtesy Wiltshire Times, September 1947)
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In the years after the war, there was very little money and people made their own amusement. My mum entered me in the Bonny Baby contest at the Box & District Amateur Boxing Carnival on 13 September 1947. To our amazement, I won first prize and a cup.
Walks feature in many of my memories, often my mother pushing my baby brother in his pram. We would walk along the length of Leafy Lane and back. This was very narrow (this was well before the RAF married quarters were built). Sometimes we would cross the A4 and exchange pleasantries with Mr Sylvester at Rudloe Cottage and then go down towards No Notion or Lower Rudloe Farm. We might also go down the A4 taking in the splendid views and then along Beech Road and up White Innox Lane. I remember riding on the back of one of the St Bernard dogs that we sometimes saw being walked by the woman who bred them and also being upset on a later occasion when Michael (my little brother, born in July 1949) was given a ride but I was told I was too big. We also went along Bradford Road to 14 Site (later known as Rudloe Estate) where there was a shop and an egg packing station. I was always terrified of the siren on its roof. |
Another sound I hated was that of the wind through the telegraph wires (or was it overhead electric cables?) alongside the upper part of Quarry Road before we got to the woods. There was a certain thrill about walking in the woods as the quarries seemed so deep to a small boy. When I was about four years old, my dad took me walking there in the snow and pointed out the tracks of various birds and of a fox. Afterwards, near the tumps where the snow was deeper, we made a giant snowball.
Our Bungalow
The bungalows were semi-detached. Our neighbours in the other half had a son (probably a teenager) who sometimes climbed onto the roof and stomped around above our heads. My parents recounted with amusement memories of the neighbour sowing seeds but then disturbing the ground again if there we no signs of germination within a week. I remember once being invited into their house and was very impressed by their radiogram which look more like a sideboard to me. Our wireless was not nearly so grand, in fact, the first one we had was battery powered (a lead-acid accumulator). A man cycled out from Corsham once a week to leave a freshly charged battery and take the other away, organised by K G Honeychurch, Ironmonger, Radio & Cycles,
29 Pickwick Road. I remember asking why it was called a wireless as there was a long wire aerial attached which ran the width of the room. My parents listened to Dick Barton - Special Agent which was on the BBC Light Programme at quarter to seven until replaced by The Archers. They also listened to Radio Luxembourg and I vaguely remember hearing some episodes of Dan Dare in the early fifties.
The bungalow had a door at the front and one at the side. There was a small garden front and back. The side door opened straight into the kitchen where there was a small range which I think was heated only when the fire in the living room was used. Mum did a lot of cooking on a gas ring. The wireless was on a shelf between the kitchen door and the fire, further along the same wall was the door to the “hall” (a corridor). We had a dining table with four chairs and a sideboard but I cannot remember any other furniture other than a small table where there was a stack of newspapers. On one occasion, the papers showed a dreadful hotel fire where many had died, I was scared to pass it to get into the hall. On one side of the hall was the bathroom and a separate WC. On the other side were the doors to the two bedrooms. Michael and I slept in the front bedroom, our parents at the back.
Austerity Years
Dad made wooden toys often based on designs from Hobbies Weekly. He had a fretsaw and in September 1950 he bought a Hobby Gem treadle fret machine from Honeychurch’s. It cost £3.19s.6d. I used these Hobbies patterns to make toys for my own children. As well as making toys for us he made a lot for the mother and toddler group at the community centre which was next to the clinic and shops on the other half of the estate where the bungalows had pitched roofs. I think my mother used the local shops for meat and fruit and vegetables but walked down to Mr Maynard at Magna, Box Hill, for biscuits, tea, sugar, cheese and butter - all of which came loose and was wrapped in the shop. War-time rationing continued throughout this period.
I do not remember much about playing with other children. I know on one occasion I let another boy ride my tricycle and when
I was four years old playing with Tina Pinnock whose side door was opposite ours. My favourite toy was a red clockwork tin-plate railway engine and I let her play with it. Unfortunately, she did not want to let me have it back and, when I tried to pull it away,
it cut her hand quite badly, her mother blamed me and then my mum got involved and my toy train ended up in the dustbin.
Dustbins were collected from the back door each week. The dustman hoisted it onto his back, carried it out to the street and emptied it into the side of the dustcart. The dustcart was side loading, the body was rounded with curved sliding doors that could be pulled up and down. I think it had three of these on each side. On one occasion a dustcart ended up in a sinkhole that opened under it in Aldhelm Crescent.
Our Bungalow
The bungalows were semi-detached. Our neighbours in the other half had a son (probably a teenager) who sometimes climbed onto the roof and stomped around above our heads. My parents recounted with amusement memories of the neighbour sowing seeds but then disturbing the ground again if there we no signs of germination within a week. I remember once being invited into their house and was very impressed by their radiogram which look more like a sideboard to me. Our wireless was not nearly so grand, in fact, the first one we had was battery powered (a lead-acid accumulator). A man cycled out from Corsham once a week to leave a freshly charged battery and take the other away, organised by K G Honeychurch, Ironmonger, Radio & Cycles,
29 Pickwick Road. I remember asking why it was called a wireless as there was a long wire aerial attached which ran the width of the room. My parents listened to Dick Barton - Special Agent which was on the BBC Light Programme at quarter to seven until replaced by The Archers. They also listened to Radio Luxembourg and I vaguely remember hearing some episodes of Dan Dare in the early fifties.
The bungalow had a door at the front and one at the side. There was a small garden front and back. The side door opened straight into the kitchen where there was a small range which I think was heated only when the fire in the living room was used. Mum did a lot of cooking on a gas ring. The wireless was on a shelf between the kitchen door and the fire, further along the same wall was the door to the “hall” (a corridor). We had a dining table with four chairs and a sideboard but I cannot remember any other furniture other than a small table where there was a stack of newspapers. On one occasion, the papers showed a dreadful hotel fire where many had died, I was scared to pass it to get into the hall. On one side of the hall was the bathroom and a separate WC. On the other side were the doors to the two bedrooms. Michael and I slept in the front bedroom, our parents at the back.
Austerity Years
Dad made wooden toys often based on designs from Hobbies Weekly. He had a fretsaw and in September 1950 he bought a Hobby Gem treadle fret machine from Honeychurch’s. It cost £3.19s.6d. I used these Hobbies patterns to make toys for my own children. As well as making toys for us he made a lot for the mother and toddler group at the community centre which was next to the clinic and shops on the other half of the estate where the bungalows had pitched roofs. I think my mother used the local shops for meat and fruit and vegetables but walked down to Mr Maynard at Magna, Box Hill, for biscuits, tea, sugar, cheese and butter - all of which came loose and was wrapped in the shop. War-time rationing continued throughout this period.
I do not remember much about playing with other children. I know on one occasion I let another boy ride my tricycle and when
I was four years old playing with Tina Pinnock whose side door was opposite ours. My favourite toy was a red clockwork tin-plate railway engine and I let her play with it. Unfortunately, she did not want to let me have it back and, when I tried to pull it away,
it cut her hand quite badly, her mother blamed me and then my mum got involved and my toy train ended up in the dustbin.
Dustbins were collected from the back door each week. The dustman hoisted it onto his back, carried it out to the street and emptied it into the side of the dustcart. The dustcart was side loading, the body was rounded with curved sliding doors that could be pulled up and down. I think it had three of these on each side. On one occasion a dustcart ended up in a sinkhole that opened under it in Aldhelm Crescent.
Mum and dad, baby Michael in pram and me as a toddler on a trip to Weymouth by coach in 1951 (courtesy Richard Hyde)
From Aldhelm Crescent there was a path through to the playing fields used by the Boxfields Football teams, the cricket club and for greyhound racing. Dad played cricket for Box Hill and I do remember sitting to watch with my mum. I remember a coach outing to Weymouth, in 1951, along with the cricket team who had a game arranged, while their families and others from the community enjoyed the seaside. I wandered off down to the beach to fetch water, saw people swimming and thought I would give it a try and got my clothes soaking wet. I had lost sight of my mother on the crowded beach. A woman asked me if I was lost and I indignantly told her, “No but my mummy is.” I burst into tears when she took hold of my hand and dragged me off to a hut in which there were several other “lost” children waiting for their parents.
Dad never took a driving test as he had learnt to drive in the Army. He had an Austin 7 for part of the time we lived at Boxfields and my uncle Billy had a motorcycle and sidecar. We often caught the bus at Hawthorn Fiveways. When we visited my grandma in Wembley we travelled by train. Railway carriages then had compartments and a corridor. At Paddington Station my mother left me in a compartment while she said goodbye to her mother and a woman offered me chocolate. I had been told never to take sweets from strangers but I did not know why. When the woman insisted that I take some, I sat fearfully holding it while it melted in my hand and messed up my clothing. Being told off by my mother for obeying her injunction felt very unfair.
On the 5 February 1952 my father went to Chippenham to sign the Tenancy Register for 9 Bargates and collect the keys. He also had to pay 19 shillings rent in advance (13s.1d rent and 5s.11d rates and water charges). I always thought we moved the next day 6 February (the day the King died) but the letter offering the tenancy said the house would be ready for occupation on Saturday 9 February. Whichever day it was I was full of excitement as mum and I walked down Quarry Hill with Michael in a pushchair. This new house had stairs and, to a small boy's delight, a railway at the bottom of the garden with a fence I could climb to see trains as they entered or left Box Tunnel. Adventures on the other side of the fence would come much later.
Dad never took a driving test as he had learnt to drive in the Army. He had an Austin 7 for part of the time we lived at Boxfields and my uncle Billy had a motorcycle and sidecar. We often caught the bus at Hawthorn Fiveways. When we visited my grandma in Wembley we travelled by train. Railway carriages then had compartments and a corridor. At Paddington Station my mother left me in a compartment while she said goodbye to her mother and a woman offered me chocolate. I had been told never to take sweets from strangers but I did not know why. When the woman insisted that I take some, I sat fearfully holding it while it melted in my hand and messed up my clothing. Being told off by my mother for obeying her injunction felt very unfair.
On the 5 February 1952 my father went to Chippenham to sign the Tenancy Register for 9 Bargates and collect the keys. He also had to pay 19 shillings rent in advance (13s.1d rent and 5s.11d rates and water charges). I always thought we moved the next day 6 February (the day the King died) but the letter offering the tenancy said the house would be ready for occupation on Saturday 9 February. Whichever day it was I was full of excitement as mum and I walked down Quarry Hill with Michael in a pushchair. This new house had stairs and, to a small boy's delight, a railway at the bottom of the garden with a fence I could climb to see trains as they entered or left Box Tunnel. Adventures on the other side of the fence would come much later.
The story of the Hyde family at Boxfields epitomises life in England after the Second World War with demob suits, lack of employment and still a “make and mend” culture during the austerity years after war ended. Richard is going to write more about his family and their time when they moved to Bargates in 1952 and life began to get easier.