My fondest memories of the countryside are of 1950 when I was 11. I went to live with my Aunt Joyce, Uncle Ted and cousins Marion and Betty at Becclesgate in East Dereham. Not long after moving in with them, my aunt got a job as the gatekeeper on the level crossing at Scarning Dale, and as there was a house attached, we moved there.
My previous years were spent between East Dereham, Plymouth and 18 months living abroad, going somewhere like that was quite an experience but a lovely one. At the time I did not think a lot about it, but as you get older, you tend to cast your mind back. I had a lot of good times there, and also lovely memories. I think perhaps I spent a year with my relations or perhaps just a bit longer. So I was there when they harvested the field next to our house, seeing the combines cutting the corn. Nothing like that today of course, far more exciting then. I had never seen anything like it, all the rabbits which appeared and the men bailing up the corn eaves and stacking them.
On the other side of the railway line was a farm, so of course, there were plenty of animals and lots of chickens etc. I remember the cows each day, coming down the lane to be milked. I think also my uncle kept lots of chickens and he also had a really big garden, which thinking back, he always kept immaculate and there were always lots of vegetables to be had.
Some Sundays we used to walk beside the railway line to the chapel in Scarning village, the fields we used to pass always smelt so nice, the wild roses, honeysuckle, then of course seeing all the wild flowers, which in those days, grew in abundance.
Heading in the other direction towards Swaffham, there was a rookery. What a noise all those birds used to make.
I always used to walk to school in Wendling each day. That would have been on the old A47. To get to the main road, you had to go to the top of the lane, past a Big House (To me, it was big at the time). I think they had an orchard or certainly lots of apple trees, they also grew everlasting flowers, which they used to tie in bunches and hang them from the sheds, that’s one more thing I remember. especially whenever I see those certain flowers.
Each Saturday I used to walk to the main road to catch the bus to east Dereham Where I used to spend the day with my mum and my sisters. It was lovely to see them each week. I enjoyed my time with my Aunt and her family at Scarning Dale but the day came when my mum got a house in Beeston. So one more time I walked up the lane but that was to wait for the lorry with my family to move to our new house.
While living in Beeston I made friends with some of the girls in the village. I remember Pamela Howe, Carol Betts and also Janice Mitchell.
My sister Julie, who was two years older than me, also met and stayed friends with Joan Cross for many years, Joan, like us, came from a large family, they were friends with Pauline and Joy Hammond who lived not far from us.
Although we lived in a house, which the Americans had occupied during the war years, to us it was wonderful - running water, flush toilet and also a nice bathroom. (Two houses we lived in after moving from Beeston never even had a flush toilet)
Whilst we were at school we used to cycle to many of the villages in that area, fruit picking, many a time we should have been at school but found fruit picking more exciting - plus you got paid, which to us was far better than going to school.
Another thing we did to earn some money was to go to the local refuse site, which was in Beeston, collect jam jars, make sure they were all clean and washed, put them in a sack, then walk the two miles to Cranes' Comer to get a bus into East Dereham where we sold then a penny a jar to the owners of the fish & chip shop. We never found out what he did with them, the people on the bus must have wondered what we had in our sacks. When I saw "The Road Show" on TV of what treasures had been found at a refuse site, I wandered what we would have found if we had really looked.
When I left school my first job was working in Woolworths at East Dereham, but found it quite a distance to cycle in bad weather. In those days there were plenty of jobs about.
I then worked in Corbatch's, which was a canning factory in Beeston. The first day I started I had to work on a conveyor belt to pick over and check the cherries, which had come in from Sittingbourne in Kent. Every time I hear of Sittingbourne I think of those cherries, 1 have never seen fruit like that. As you can imagine a few of those went in my mouth and also a few of the pears they canned went home to Mum and family.
In a small village like it was in those days, we found quite a bit to do socially. The coach used to go to Norwich on a Saturday evening to speedway, 1 enjoyed going there. Then they had a coach, which went to Dereham on a Sunday evening to the cinema. Occasionally the village held a dance, which was in one of the nisson huts. I didn't enjoy them much, to be truthful I wasn't a very good dancer, and I'm still no better.
Sometimes my husband Fred and I take a ride through Beeston, especially if we are out that way. Last year when we where near Litcham we drove past the school and then into Beeston. We missed the lane we used to use, the one where the pond was, where we used to get the water hen's eggs from. That day we went into the village past the council houses and that was where Pamela and Carol used to live. We then made our way to the church where my sister Julie got married. The church is quite a way from the village, I do believe there is a story why it is so far out.
But it don't make no difference what way we drive into Beeston, each road holds so many memories for me, most of them really happy ones. It definitely don't seem fifty years, it only seems like yesterday.
Josie Cooper (nee Spaull)
