Memories of Growing up in Rural South West England in the Early Twentieth Century

‘We Didn’t Think it was Monotonous in Those Days, but…’: Memories of Growing up in Rural South West England in the Early Twentieth Century Laura Harrison CHILDREN IN A COUNTRY LANE IN 1904. Image credit: LostEngland/REX/Shutterstock. tan was born in 1911 in in rural areas was sparse, except unpublished autobiographical material, a small village near the self-created jokes and fun’.2 and existing collections of oral history Snorth Somerset coast, and Herbert, born in 1890, grew up testimony. The Bristol People’s Oral grew up in what he described in a village on the Somerset History Project includes around 175 as a ‘typical country cottage’. levels, and noted how ‘life in the recollections of childhood and youth He felt that ‘there wasn’t all village was really quiet, there was from men and women in the south west that much to do … at least not nothing much happening’.3 born between 1890 and 1925, a number here’.1 Harry, who grew up in of whom spent their early years in the Uley, Gloucestershire, spent his Accounts of growing up in rural countryside. The Somerset Voices Oral childhood exploring the fields communities in the south west History Archive comprises over 600 oral and lanes of the village and of England can be traced through recordings of Somerset people, and surrounding countryside, but also references in a rage of personal features interviewees discussing their remembered that ‘entertainment recollections, both published and lives in agriculture, rural industries and ‘We Didn’t Think it was Monotonous in Those Days, but…’: Memories of Growing up in Rural South West England in the Early Twentieth Century 69 crafts, as well as childhood memories These materials are of course collected interest of the old man’s and accounts of youthful life.4 and produced with the intention of “Now, when I was a lad…”. reflecting back on the past, and are As part of the project ‘The Edwardians: Of course the young people will almost exclusively adult narrators Family Life and Work Experience Before listen patiently – perhaps, but recounting their experiences of 1918’, Paul Thompson collected over not very interestedly. Their word growing up at a much later date. 450 interviews from men and women contains so much which is more This raises many questions about thrilling and exciting.8 born before 1918, with a selection of the ways that memory, nostalgia interviewees recalling their childhood and popular representations of Interviewees regularly compare their or teenage years in rural communities the past shape an individuals’ experiences of growing up with the lives in the south west.5 This range of oral testimony, questions that are of key of children and young people later in sources allows for a close examination importance when discussing village the twentieth century. Mr Wilcox, who of narratives of childhood and youth life and landscape in the past. Many was born in 1897 and interviewed in in the countryside, and we can explore respondents are talking about some 1972, was particularly keen to stress how adult narrators construct their of their earliest recollections, and how behaviour among young men had own understandings of growing up in such accounts must contend with the changed: ‘I don’t think in those days rural communities. Oral testimony can hazy world of early memories, and are there was so much amongst the boys also be supplemented by published informed by the experiences of a later you know – the swearing, I don’t think 9 memoirs of life in the south west. twentieth century where much has so … It was different in those days’. Herbert, interviewed as part of the Many of these writers spend a great changed. In his memoir of growing up Somerset voices collection, similarly deal of time discussing their childhood in rural Gloucestershire, Arthur Stanley Bullock joked the working title for his concluded: ‘it’s different today with in the countryside, though have a recollections was Before I Forget!7 things that’s carried on by the present tendency to gloss over discussion of Arthur Frederick Goffin, whose memoir day generation. I really can’t understand youthful experiences. Unpublished is part of the Burnett collection of it’.10 When she was interviewed in 1972 autobiographical materials also provide unpublished autobiographies, also about her experiences of growing up a wealth of detail about growing up in touches upon the changing world of the near Torpoint, Cornwall, in the early rural communities, and those referred twentieth century: years of the twentieth century, to here have been sourced from the Mrs Deacon recalled: ‘well – I suppose Burnett Archive of Working Class It is the peculiar privilege of – we didn’t think it was monotonous in Autobiographies, which includes over the older folk to talk of bygone those days, but – anybody today would 230 texts.6 days. Who has not heard with wonder how you survived really’.11 HORSE & TRAP ON ULEY GREEN, Uley, Gloucestershire, the home of Harry Alfred West. Image credit: Cam & Dursley Camera Club. 70 ‘We Didn’t Think it was Monotonous in Those Days, but…’: Memories of Growing up in Rural South West England in the Early Twentieth Century These accounts can give a rich insight into how young people lived their lives in the countryside, but they are also contradictory and confusing. Memory is not just a passive depository of facts, but an active process in the creation of meanings, a process of making sense of the past – one that becomes particularly important when discussing growing up in the countryside.12 Nostalgia particularly overlays memories of the time and place in which a person grows up, yet, it is the subjective nature of these materials that make them so important when trying to understand the role of the countryside in the lives of its young residents. What were the remembered experiences of those who grew up in rural areas in the south west of England? While there is no one, singular experience of growing up, common themes certainly emerge in the oral history testimony and written recollections of rural life in the south west. When discussing their experiences of growing up in the countryside, adult narrators offer a rather romanticized account of their childhood as characterized by freedom and adventure, emphasizing self-created fun, and the ability to entertain themselves without the need for expensive games or toys. Rural childhoods are remembered as the ideal combination of innocence, play, adventure, nature and freedom, and often the most persistent recollections FLORA THOMPSON’S LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD, of childhood relate to outdoor places. a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels first published together in 1945. As Caitlin Adams has argued: ‘childhood, (1945) present powerful evocations of Gloucestershire, noted how her village but especially country childhood, is recollected childhoods that celebrate ‘was remote and self-contained. typically recalled in nostalgic terms and the countryside as a rural idyll, and We were cut off from the world … contact with the natural environment perpetuate the idea that rural areas are as children we didn’t think about 13 is a mark of special favour’. These 14 good places in which to grow up. whether we were isolated, of course’.15 recollections often mirror the way that rural childhoods have been depicted Childhood is recollected as part For younger children, this local by adults in literature and in wider of a comfortable, knowable rural world was a place of excitement and popular culture. As Owain Jones has environment, and for many adventure, and emotional attachments identified, key books like Laurie Lee’s respondents, as children the world were made to the rural environment, Cider with Rosie (1959) and Flora was a profoundly local place. Winifred, attachments that were recalled even Thompson’s Larkrise to Candleford who grew up in the Forest of Dean, a number of years later. Ethel, ‘We Didn’t Think it was Monotonous in Those Days, but…’: Memories of Growing up in Rural South West England in the Early Twentieth Century 71 who grew up in Woolaston, a small ownership through naming features ‘it was not all that easy to get about, village in Gloucestershire, described of their local environment. However, and we mostly stayed at home’.22 the particular geography developed oral history narrators commented on Mr Wilcox recalled that as young men by the children in the village, recalling increased feelings of dissatisfaction he and his friends were fairly confined the specific fields that were a favourite with rural life as they grew older. to the village: ‘there was no buses, place to gather and play; ‘Mary Anne’s The local world could become stifling. couldn’t get out very much, we were Meadow, Junie’s Piece, Rocky Leaze, The rural environment itself may have confined to this area practically all us Smokey, Foxholes, Fair Oaks and changed very little, but young people’s life’. 23 Lily spent her teenage years in Piccadilly.’16 relationship to these spaces developed a small south Gloucestershire village, as they grew older, often centred around and also reflected on the challenges These memories of childhood clearly the idea of having ‘nothing much to she faced when trying to socialise. She draw upon the power of places past. do’. 20 What was once seen as a space recalled one particular incident of going Reg Beeston, who grew up in Uley, of freedom and adventure became to visit friends in the nearby town during Gloucestershire, had similar memories increasingly associated with feelings the war, and missing the bus home: of his village, writing as an adult about of restriction and dissatisfaction; “You won’t get a bus tonight! the names given by him and his fellow reflected in Winifred’s ‘as children we It’s gone.

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