Advent Calendar Day 6

 

Salehurst School

The school was in Northbridge Strret, at the bottom of the long High Street in Robertsbridge and my parents both attended there as children until they were 14 years old.

In 1924, when my Dad would certainly be attending the school, the schools was closed for a fortnight because of an outbreak of scarlet fever.  In the February the following year the school was again closed because an outbreak of flu meant several of the teachers and many of the children wetre absent.

In 1927 there were 164 children taught in 4 rooms which were described as depressing and inconvenient.  My mother might have started school this year as she would have been 5.

Mum received a prize in the annual prize giving at Salehurst School.  She was in the Infants.  Dad is mentioned in the same article and is in Standard 3. She remembers playing stool ball in the playground.  It was a mile and a half walk to school for her. It was only ¾ mile from where he lived in Salehurst.  

In this newspaper report my uncle, Alfred Booth, was listed in the infants and my Dad, Robert White, is in Standard III.

1927 prize giving

Mum left the little village school aged 14 so this would have been 1936/37.   

Advent Calendar Day 5

 

Robertsbridge Station in the mid 1950s

My grandparents, Frank and Rose Weston, lived 2 doors up from the station.  There were wooden level crossing gates to stop the traffic on Brightling Road and I would stand on the gates to watch the trains go by.  The gates are out of site in this photo as they were beyond the station buildings in the background on the left hand platform.

There was a little village stores in a small bunglaow building between my grandparent's house and the station.  We were often sent round to get things my Nan needed to finish making the meal!!

As the train left, heading north (towards us in this photo) it passed along an embankment through the farmers fields next door to my grandparents house.  We would see the steam trains as we were busy picking blackberries in the hedgerows.  The farmer kept a milking herd so we had to be careful we didn't go in the fields the bull was in.  The advantage of living next to a dairy farm was that we could hang the brown billy can on the fence at the bottom of the garden and the farmer would take it away and fill with lovely fresh creamy milk.  

Advent Calendar Day 4

Frank and Rose Weston
(my Nan and Grandad)

This photo was taken in about 1945 outside their home, Norelle, Brightling Road in Robertsbridge, East Sussex.  They had the house built for them in the 1920s.  There was one bedroom each side of the centre staircase and one downstairs on the right.  On the left was the front room which was not used every day and it was this room that had the phone I remember in the previous post.  Behind the front room was the kitchen living room off which was the lavatory.  The bath was in the kitchen underneath a wooden worktop.  The bath had drains connected but I think it was filled front the sink taps next to it and not connected to the mains water.  This room made the house L shaped round a square back courtyard.  I used to play  ball games in the yard and would get told off for bouncing it against the big brick windowless walls of the bedrooms!!

The yard led to the flower gardens where Grandad loved to grow a variety of dahlias and also to the vegetable garden and into his wood workshed where he would chop wood for the fire and mend the shoes on an old fashioned shoe last.

The yard was great for playing ball games but I would get told off if I used the back wall of the bedrooms to bounce the ball off....good job there were no windows on that wall.  The ball game I remember most was bouncing two tennis balls against the wall, or sometimes even three.  The balls would be caught and passed to the other hand to be thrown back against the wall so there was always one bouncing off the wall whilst passing the other one between the hands and then throwing that at the wall. My sister and I would also play our childhood games of Jacks, Hop Scotch, What's the Time Mr Wolf but I wasn't much good and doing handstands against that lovely big wall.  The paved yard was also good for playing whip and top, marbles, hoola hoop, diablo and skipping.

Norelle in 2021

Here is the same house in 2021 with an extension to the side and a front door obviously no longer in use.

Advent Calendar Day 3

 

Salehurst Parish Church

The last family event that I attended at this church was the funeral of my grandmother, Rose Ellen Weston, nee Clark, in August 1991.  She was 99 years old.  Her ashes are in the churchyard.

The church features quite a lot in my family as my great grandfather, Alfred Weston, moved there from Etchingham, between 1888 and 1891.  In the 1891 census the family were living at Redlands Farm, Salehurst and there are still family living in Robertsbridge today.  Robertsbridge is included within the parish of Salehurst.  His ashes are also in the churchyard.

My great uncles, Henry and Percy and my grandfather, Frank, were choristers here and Percy was also the church organist.  My father, Robert White and mother, Jessie Weston, were also in the church choir, as was my mothers sister.  My parents got married here as did her sister and brother in law.

My Dad lived very close to here, in a row of cottages called Church Terrace, see the image below where the cottages are the row on the left, set up from the road by steep steps.  The outside toilet was across the backyard and the path along the back to all the cottages.  Salehurst Church is in the background.

Salehurst in abt 1905

Advent Calendar Day 2

1950 telephone

My grandfather, Frank Horace Weston, had his own coal merchant and hauliers business and the telephone was a very important part of his life.  His various telephone numbers at the same property, recorded in old telephone directories were :

•  1932:  Robertsbridge 8
•  1956-59:  Robertsbridge 0165
•  1960-61:  Robertsbridge 517

I was fascinated by the phone when we visited them when I was a young child in the 50's.  The silver Call Exchange button on top could be pressed impatiently if you wanted to get the attention of the Operator at the Exchange!!!  It also had a little drawer at the bottom where you could record those useful phone numbers you needed....the original version of our mobile phone's contact list!

Advent Calendar Day 1

 

Posted with permission of Brian

I never had one with chocolates inside the windows, just these lovely pictures with doors showing images that are associated with the Christmas Story.