Today in Highworth there are not many old characters like there was when I was a child; one in particular was Ernest Wheeler, who lived in The Elms, and was quite an old man when I knew him. Everyone called him ‘Slink’ and the kids used to shout names after him, sometimes shouting “Hang him on a rusty nail”. Why this I never knew. One day when my brother and I were going to the Rec to play football my brother called him some names; we both ran away laughing, with him shouting “I’ll get you, you young varmits”. Well, you might have guessed, he was waiting for us on our way home, “Yes, and he smacked my brother across the back of his bare legs”, which really stung. We ran like mad for home frightened that he would tell dad about us, because every time he went past our house in Sheep Street, he used to shout “Good night Jack Archer”. I remember he used to wear a frock tailed coat, corduroy trousers, hob nailed boots, a greasy black bowler hat, and a red and white spotted neckerchief. What a character in today’s world.

Another one was “Fodge” Ackling who always stood on the Fox or Wise’s corner with his friend George Warren. One of his favourite sayings was ‘Only fools work’. Of course we mustn’t miss out Ted Boots, who as far as I know never did any work. If the wind was coming from the south west Ted was always on Wise’s corner, if it was from the north or east he was on the Fox corner. These we called the Highworth watchmen. Not far from where we lived in Sheep Street was a row of old stone cottages in Vicarage Lane. Tiny Gorton lived in the first one, and was an old man when we knew him. He always wore hob nailed boots and walked to work every day to Stanton House where he worked on the estate. Next door lived Mrs Ackling who cleaned the church tower stairs in her younger days; she was a kind homely person. Living with her was her son Frank ‘Cherry’ Ackling who had a large powerful motorbike with a fish tailed exhaust pipe. His bike was black and silver chrome, and when he was cleaning his bike he let us watch him. I think he used to enjoy showing it off to us youngsters. In the next cottage down was Mrs Ackling’s daughter Rose, and her husband Joe Woodward. The next house down was called ‘Prospect Villa’ where Mr and Mrs Tommy Routledge lived; next door was Mr and Mrs Charlie Ely who had a small farm and a milk round in the town. Next to them was Mr and Mrs Frank Higgs; Frank Higgs served on H.M.S. Warrior at the Battle of Jutland, and then as a submariner in the First World War. He was something of a hero to us youngsters in those days. The two remaining houses in Vicarage Lane was the Vicarage, where the Rev. and Mrs Webb lived, and the small stone built cottage which joined on to the church room; this had a very small garden in front with the entrance just opposite Tiny Gorton’s gateway. This is where Mr and Mrs Newman lived with their son Jack who worked at the Mat Factory. Jack was a very kind and gentle person and well liked by everyone.

When we were in our later years at school we were old enough to go to the Young Mens Institute, (where the Town Council Offices are now) to play billiards or snooker. Jack Silk was in charge of the ‘Stute’ at that time, and when the lights went out over the tables due to our money running out, he used to relight them with no payment. I think he liked our company because he always said he would otherwise have been on his own all evening. Jack Silk was a good friend to the youngsters of Highworth at that time. In the late 1940’s early 50’s Highworth Wolves cycle speedway team was formed, and had their track in the Welcome Home Field. My brother Roy rode for them and won several trophies during that time. I always travelled to away meetings with him. For the home meetings crowds of several thousand people; young and old alike; turned out to watch, with the Wolves nearly always winning. Everyone eagerly waited for each meeting to come round, and I must say that this period of my childhood was very enjoyable.

In 1952 my childhood ended in Sheep Street when the Archer family moved to a new house on the Market Gardens, Station Road, Highworth.

Just opposite the top end of our market garden in Station Road was Frank Bassett’s blacksmith shop. We were allowed to watch him shoe the large Shire horses which were brought in from the local farms. Some of the largest horses came from Eastrop Farm and were brought to the smithy by Reg Alexander who worked for Mr Dibble. One day when I was coming out from watching the horses being shod, I ran into the front of Gardiners bakers van, which was being driven by Harry Jefferies. My right knee was cut and bleeding badly, so my father carried me to the doctors surgery in the High Street for treatment. Afterwards to our home in Sheep Street where I was put to bed to rest my leg. Luckily no bones were broken.

At the end of the war Mrs Hollas at Parsonage Farm started to make ice cream and sold them from the dairy and from a shed in the tythe barn field opposite the farm entrance. These were much sought after, because there had been no ice cream during the war years. Frank Turner in the High Street also sold Wall’s ice cream in small blocks; one to each person, sometimes the queue would stretch back to Willis’s grocery shop. Sometimes when we were hungry we would buy a small crusty loaf from Bill Gardiners bake house at the back of the High Street. We would then lie on top of the high wall near ‘The Blind’, and eat it while it was still hot. Sadly this wall is now gone to make way for the town library.

At the end of the war we had a Victory party on the front lawn of Herbie and Middie Haines house in Cherry Orchard, with jelly, blancmange and fancy cakes, and a bonfire in the Welcome Home Field during the evening. All the children of the town queued at Mr Hicks’s butchers shop; where the Jesmond House is now; to receive a bar of Fry’s chocolate cream each. Mr Hicks kept telling everyone not to get back on the end of the queue, because there was only enough for one bar to each child. I remember getting on the end of the queue just past the Home Farm gateway, wondering whether there would be any left by the time I got to the front. As far as I know everyone received one each.

One of my best friends; Tommy Dilley; lived in the Market Square in the house just opposite the ‘Red Lion’ pub; where the podium is now; one Saturday evening the house caught fire and was gutted out. Luckily, Tommy, his mother, and brother Ron were spending the evening with their aunty in Cherry Orchard. Tommy’s dad was still away with the army in Germany at the time. Sadly their pet cat died in the fire. People living in Sheep Street at that time, and who we saw quite a lot of were; Harry and Mrs Peapell who kept the ‘Globe Inn’; next door was Eric Woodbridge at the ‘Red Lion Inn’, then Freddy and Connie Barrett with their Draper and Haberdashery shop; next to them was Mr Jack Dunn’s Chemist shop. In the big house next door lived Mr Percy Chick and his wife, with their large building business in the yard at the back. Mr John Pitman lived at Camrose House. Opposite lived Mrs Wallis, with next door Mrs Baker and her two sons, Jim and Charlie. Then there was Jim and Betty Haggit’s house where Mrs Haggit was the agent for Sunday newspapers. Mr Haggit had a coal business. Across the Market Square lived Mrs Dilley with sons Ron and Tommy. Next to them in Sheep Street was Wilf and Mrs Akers with their two sons, John and Jimmy. After the war Stan and Nora Peapell and their children came to live at the Globe Inn with his parents.

After Mr Head died, (who was my grandfathers next door neighbour) Mrs Head asked my brother and me if we would dig her garden for her, which was on the site of the present Methodist Church. This we agreed to do for her each year. The soil was very black and easy to dig, and in the middle was an orange tree which Mrs Head had grown from an orange pip. Every year it was full of sweet scented blossom, but there was never any oranges on the tree, no doubt due to the weather conditions. Mrs Head always planted the vegetable seed herself, and always had good crops. Under Mrs Head’s house was a large cellar which each year seemed to get flooded quite deep, so the Swindon fire brigade had to come to pump the water out. This was exciting for the children of Sheep Street, because we had great fun floating small pieces of wood on the water which gushed down the street. My grandfather Archer’s house also had two large cellars underneath. From one of them there was a tunnel leading out under the road towards Church House. One day Jim (Brumm) Haggit was driving his small coal lorry past my grandfathers house when it started to sink into the road down to its axle. The road had caved in due to the weight of the lorry load of coal. Eventually a breakdown lorry came to lift the lorry out, and the council came to repair the road. Another incident like this happened in the High Street near the Saracens Head Hotel; this time it was a Churchill Tank. It was said at the time that it had gone down into a secret tunnel which led from the Saracens to St Michael’s church. I remember seeing a gang of council workers filling the hole in with Johnny Dunbar in charge of them. Another thing I can just remember during the early part of the war was the men cutting all the iron railings from the front gardens of houses. They started to cut the railings from the churchyard by the “Winding Hatch” but Vicar Webb stopped them. If you look carefully at the railings on the left hand side of the church gate you can see the marks where they were welded back on. Not all consecrated ground was protected, because the railings along the front of the cemetery in Cricklade Road were cut and taken away.

Another thing that I did quite regularly for my Grandfather Archer was run errands for him to Eric Frankis’s rope making business in Lechlade Hill. I enjoyed going there because Eric would let me watch him make ropes in his long rope walk, which was a long covered building in his garden which ran along the side of Lechlade Hill. He was a master craftsman in anything to do with rope, and was very good making bell ropes. He also specialised in halters, calf slips, hey nets, ropes of all sizes and rick sheets. He lived in a small thatched cottage about halfway down on the right hand side of the hill. I also had to fetch cans of paraffin for the chicken brooders from Albert Williams garage at the end of Station Road. Bartrop’s Ironmongers shop was another place where I had to fetch such things as nails, and staples, for gramp to use on the chicken pens. Jim Hacker who worked in the front shop always told me to tell my grandfather when there was bargains to be had. I also ran errands for my mother to Tim Bolton’s grocery shop, and to the Co-op grocery shop where her Co-op number was 19342. Horace Clack was the manager in those days. I remember he was good at slicing bacon on the bacon machine, and also cutting cheese with a wire. Sugar was loose in large sacks and was weighed out into 1Ib bags, something which is missing from our shops today. I also had to take and fetch the wireless accumulator to and from Arthur Gerring’s shop in the High Street for recharging. I also bought a red racing cycle from Mr Gerring; paying him one shilling a month to pay it off, which he marked on a red card. I also bought Dinky toys from Bartrop’s shop which were displayed in a small window just to the left of the doorway. I still have a Hornby train set to this day which was bought at Bartrop’s shop, and needless to say I also had a large collection of army vehicles which was all the rage in those days. I think the shop window was looked into by more children than any other window in the town.

On dark winter evenings my brother Roy and myself used to go next door to keep gramp company, and also listen to him talk about years ago. He was born 22nd February 1868, so he could go back a long way with his stories. He told us that his father; our great grandfather; was a chimney sweep and specialised in sweeping the chimneys in large country houses and churches. He told us that his father was a bare-fist boxer, (Prizefighter) and said that he had won a lot of fights, and when he and his brothers were old enough he had taught them to box. He told us his brother, Ardrest who was drowned in the River Thames at Hannington Wick Bridge in July 1886, age 19, was a fine boxer. Gramp said he never took up boxing but went more for long distance running, cycle racing and football. I later found out that he was a works cycle rider for Rudge Whitworth and Halford cycle factories, and played football for Reading F.C. in the English Football League. He must have been a great sportsman in his time. I really only knew him in his twilight years, because he died in 1958, aged 90 years old. Gramp always had a plentiful supply of barley sugar sweets, and made some good buttered toast on an open coal fire, which was swilled down with a hot cup of co-co. Very happy memories.

My grandfathers house had a warm living room heated by an open coal fire, with wooden shutters in the windows to close at night for extra warmth and safety. In his later years he spent many hours sitting in an armchair with his feet on a window seat looking down Sheep Street, and smoking his pipe of tobacco. Sometimes the smoke was so thick it made you cough, and gramp would say, “have you got a cold, have one of my cough sweets”. Upstairs there were two bedrooms; the one looking down Sheep Street was never used because that had been Uncle Reggies, who was killed in action while serving with the 1st Wilts at Passchendaele during the First World War. I remember on one occasion being allowed in to see a large wooden fort made out of hazel twigs that he had made when he was in the 1st St Michael’s scout troop. I also remember seeing his scout hat. Gramp never ever talked about Uncle Reggie to my brother and me.

My grandfather liked reading cowboy books and ones by Geoffrey Farnham, and it was my job to go to the private library at Mr Saunders stationery and book shop in the High Street to find these books for him; anything marked A1 which was on a piece of paper stuck inside the front cover of each book, I knew he had already read. Sometimes I had a job to find one for him. Another job I had was to fetch his tobacco, (Black Beauty or Ansties) from Mr Watts’s shop in the High Street. I had strict instructions to go nowhere else but to Mr Watts. Sometimes during the evenings while in with gramp he would ask me to fetch an ounce of tobacco from one of the steps inside the cellar door for him. I dreaded this because it was pitch black in the cellar and it was always about six steps down, and being so young you thought there was all kinds of things in the dark. He later told me that his tobacco kept nice and moist on the cellar steps.

When you write your childhood memories there are many things that you cannot remember at the time of writing, but additional memories come to you at the most unexpected times of the day or night; mostly when you are unable to record them. Therefore, I have tried to remember the following the best I can.

During the Second World War a spitfire fighter plane crashed in my grandmothers, (Nanny Taylor) garden at number 3 Church Street, Stratton St Margaret, Swindon. She had just finished putting some washing on the clothes line in the garden that ran parallel to Ermin Street, when the spitfire crashed; luckily she had just returned to the kitchen, so was not hurt in any way. Sadly the Canadian pilot was killed instantly. His spitfire had developed engine problems and he had tried to crash land along the straight part of Ermin Street with the result that the plane crashed into the top of a tree at the junction of Ermin Street and Church Street, with most of the wreckage in Nanny Taylors back garden. The spitfire had taken off on a test flight from the nearby Vickers Armstrong works airfield, which had then ended in disaster. I remember my mother had been very worried at the time and had caught a Bristol bus to Stratton to see that my grandmother was alright. During our childhood, mother took my brother and me to see Nanny Taylor quite regularly, either on the bus or the train. When we went by train we were allowed to buy some Nestle’s chocolate from the machine on Highworth railway station. Very often my friends and I used to wait for the freight trains to come into Highworth railway station, from Swindon, to watch the shunting. On one occasion we were allowed to stand in the cab of the engine while it went down the loop line from the front to the back of the line of trucks. The driver and fireman stood in the doorways of the engine so that we wouldn’t fall out; passengers in the cab were not allowed, so we were very lucky to have a ride.

After the war my brother Roy and I went with the Highworth 1st St Michael’s scout troop for the summer camp at Corfe Castle in Dorset. We were taken in one of Teddy Drew’s utility buses driven by Bill Whittaker. We camped in the corner of a field near a wood for shelter, because I remember the wood was full of tall bracken. Mr Tanner was scoutmaster with Mrs Tanner doing the cooking. I was in Woodpigeon patrol with Pete Webb as patrol leader; on one occasion we were invited by the 1st Wimborne Troop to their camp in the next field to ours, and afterwards they were invited over to our camp. We had a singsong round the camp fires with their Assistant Scoutmaster (who was an ex German POW) playing the mouth organ; it was just like a mini Jamboree. During the last week of camp, Graham Tanner and John Brook; who were senior scouts; joined us for the rest of the camp. During the middle Sunday of the fortnights camp we were invited by the vicar to a church service at Corfe village church; afterwards we were all invited into the vicarage for a glass of lemonade and a currant bun each.

On the last day of the camp Bill Whittaker came with Teddy Dew’s bus to pick us up. During that last Saturday it poured with rain all day, and it was very wet taking the tents down. When we had them packed in the coach, Bill Whittaker closed the back door, but unfortunately someone had left a tent pole sticking out the back of the bus which resulted in the back window of the door being smashed. I remember Bill saying, “what will Teddy Drew say about this, I shall be in trouble now”. When we got to Corfe village Bill had to go into a grocers shop to get some cardboard to block the back window up. We never found out how he got on with Teddy Drew afterwards.

During the war years my brother and I attended Sunday school at St Michael’s Church, later when we were old enough moving up into the choir. We also joined the Highworth 1st St Michael’s Scout Troop under Scoutmaster Mr E. Tanner. At our scout meetings in the hall at the bottom of Eastrop Hill Mr Tanner taught us first aid, and how to tie knots. He was quite religious and each Sunday attended church at St Michael’s. He was always telling us to be good Christians and to help people as much as we could. We always finished our meetings with a hot cup of coco and prayers. As I got older I became more interested in cricket and football, and in those days you were able to play these games in the street. We had chalk marks on the wall by the front door for cricket stumps. One of us used to bowl from the Vicarage Lane end with the result that the batsman sometimes hit the ball against Miss Huckson’s side windows. Luckily the ball always glanced off without doing any damage, and I can honestly say that I never once broke a window. Although our cottage had no garden we did have the churchyard nearby which had lots of wild birds in. There always seemed to be an owl in the tall trees at night, and it was on the church wall that I saw my first red squirrel. From my bedroom window at the back of the house I could see part of the churchyard. On one occasion while looking out after dark I saw a silent ghostly figure in white which looked as though it was floating along; I thought it was a ghost, but there was a simple explanation to this, for I later found out that it was Clocky Davis taking his nightly exercise. He lived in the High Street by the “Winding Hatch” and after working late mending clocks and watches he walked around the churchyard for some fresh air. He always wore his long white apron which ended about six inches from the ground, he always had carpet slippers on, hence no sound. Quite scary at the time.

While we were in the church choir each choirboy had to take their turn in pumping the organ bellows. There was usually two of us if we were small which made light work of it. Mr Bob Harris from Lechlade Hill was choir master, and the vicar was the Rev Webb. Each Christmas the choir boys had a party in the Vicarage with lemonade, jelly, blancmange and fancy cakes. We must of had these parties in the large vicarage kitchen because I can remember the long row of servants bells on the wall. Each year we looked forward to the fun fair coming to the market square because we always had a steam engine parked by the standpipe near our front door. From the front bedroom we were able to look down on it and listen to the sound of its engine chugging away; to the present day I have always liked the sound of steam. This is probably due to the fact that we were brought up in the age of steam trains and were able to travel by train to Swindon quite regularly.

When I was eleven years old I moved from Highworth Primary School to Kingsdown Secondary Modern School at Upper Stratton. During my last two years at school I played cricket for the school 1st eleven. After school I had to go down to the family market garden and poultry farm in Station Road to help my grandfather to either feed, collect eggs, or clean the chicken houses out. When we had day old chicks I had to get them out from under the brooder and feed them. After they were fed I had to put them back under the brooder before they were cold.

During the winter of 1947 there was heavy falls of snow and sharp frosts. The snow drifts were deep and over the top of the hedgerows, and when they were frozen you could walk along the top of them. The snowdrifts had nearly covered the Black Bridge over the railway lines near Bydemill brook so we were able to jump off the top of the bridge on to the railway lines without hurting ourselves. This was great fun but hard work digging yourself out of the snowdrifts. Most winters we seemed to have snow, and one of the main places for sledging was on ‘The Butts’ at Hampton. Another favourite pastime of ours was Hoop racing; we had a track on some waste ground at the bottom of Quarry Crescent, and had race meetings against Park Avenue, and Cherry Orchard. We also had a marble pit near the track and spent many hours playing marbles during the summer holidays. In between times we did quite a lot of pole vaulting across the Bydemill brook, from the railway lines right down as far as Pentylands. We also fished the stream with jam jars for minnows and sticklebacks. We also had two bathing pools in the brook near the one-man bridge just off Pentylands Lane; one was called “The Big Boys” and the other “The Little Boys”. Not far away was two large ponds called “Whites Ponds” with a legend saying that years ago a horse and waggon had driven into the pond never to be seen again. This may have been a story to keep us away, because they were dangerous.

On Saturday evenings Ivor Hawkins played hymn tunes on the chiming bells in St Michael’s church tower. The chimes were dismantled when the two clocks were fitted on the north and west sides of the tower, in memory of the men of the town who lost their lives in the Second World War.

Our nearest neighbours in Sheep Street were Miss Mabel Huckson, and her sister Miss Evelyn Huckson at Church House; Miss Bessie Smith, and her sister Miss Clara Smith lived at number 8, with Mrs Elsie Head at number 12 whose husband had fought with the Wiltshire Regiment at the Battle of Mons during the First World War. At number 11 Vicarage Lane was Mrs Clara Avery and her daughter Dorothy and her husband George Durling, who was one of Orde Wingates Chindits in Burma in WW2. Next to them lived George and Jesse Midwinter and their daughter Rose, and sons Alec, Bill and Chris. Mrs Midwinter was my mothers best friend. At the back of Church House lived Mr and Mrs Ivor Hawkins, and in the big house which was number 1 Vicarage Lane, lived Mr Walter Avery and his wife Kath. He was a Painter & Decorator by trade and I remember him painting St Michael’s church clocks while hanging over the side of the tower in a basket. Living with them at the time was their son Len who built a caravan in the garage at the back of Church House. He used to let me watch him while he worked on the caravan. Len served in the R.A.F. during the war. I also ran errands for Mrs Avery and was always given a few pennies afterwards; she always seemed to me to be a very kind person, and a good friend of my mothers.

From when I was born in September 1936 my childhood and my early teens was spent living at number 10 Sheep Street, Highworth, Wiltshire. The small stone built cottage which was situated near the gate leading to St Michael’s churchyard had a living room, a small kitchen and a toilet downstairs, with two bedrooms, and an attic room above. It was warm in the winter with an open coal fire in the living room as the main form of heating. To the side of the fire grate was an oven which mother used for cooking such things as milk puddings, jacket potatoes and baked apples. In the kitchen was a gas cooker and a copper for boiling washing in. Water was fetched for domestic use from a standpipe just outside the front door near the church gate, which was also used by several other houses in Sheep Street and Vicarage Lane. 

My older brother Roy and I slept in the back bedroom where from the small window could be seen the churchyard. Mum and Dad slept in the front bedroom looking down towards Mr and Mrs Avery’s large house in Vicarage Lane. Living next door at number 11 Sheep Street was my grandparents, Phineas and Kate Archer, (Dads mother and father). Granny Archer died when I was still a baby so I can’t really remember her at all.

When I became of school age I attended the infants school at Highworth Primary School. One memory I have of those early days is having to lie down during the afternoon on some oval shaped mats on the floor of the classroom with the other children for a sleep. Another memory is having to queue up with the other children for a round boiled sweet about the size of a marble which the teacher took from a sweet jar with a long handled spoon. I have never known the reason why we had these sweets given to us; perhaps it was because it was the early days of the Second World War, and of course many things were rationed in those days. I soon moved up to the big school and went into Miss Bessie Smith’s class. Miss Smith lived just opposite us in Sheep Street so I had to be careful what I did, otherwise she would have told my parents if I had done something wrong. As I got older I found that Miss Smith was a nice person and I used to run errands for her to the shops, and was always rewarded with a few pennies.

During the early part of the war we always had to take our gas masks to school because of air raids. The air raid siren was on a telegraph pole by the mat factory in Brewery Street. When there was an air raid warning we had to either get under our desks or stand by our cloths peg in the cloakroom with our coats over our heads. Perhaps this was to help stop flying glass hitting us. We were always glad when the all clear was sounded. Miss Smith always stayed with us on these occasions telling us not to worry. Looking back now I think we were very fortunate to have her as our teacher. Luckily no enemy bombs fell on the school during that time.

During my time at the junior school I played football for the school against the Upper and Lower Stratton schools, and on one occasion I scored a hat trick. Next day at assembly our headmaster Mr Burke Jones made me stand on the stage while he told the school about it. He said I was another Dixie Dean who was a prolific goal scorer in the English football league at that time. I remember feeling quite nervous and wishing he hadn’t called me up on the stage. Apart from that the only other thing I can lay claim to while at junior school was playing the back end of a cow in a school play; a non speaking part which pleased me down to the ground. 

As the war progressed things became very exciting for the youngsters of Highworth. More and more convoys of army lorries and tanks could be seen, and of course aircraft could always be seen flying around. During that time the Rescue Services and the Aux Fire Service held exercises incase of the real thing. They had set up a casualty station for the injured in the old Infants School in Shrivenham Road. On one occasion my brother and I were just going indoors in Sheep Street when the canvas covered ambulance driven by John Roberts pulled up outside our house. This frightened us both because we thought they were going to take us to the casualty station. We ran indoors and looked out of the window. Thankfully they went to Miss Huckson’s house just opposite and brought her out on a stretcher then took her away. My brother Roy said “That was a near squeak” because as youngsters we all dreaded having to go in an ambulance.

My brothers joy was very short lived because a couple of weeks later he was walking up the High Street when the ambulance pulled up; “Yes and with John Roberts”; someone jumped out, put his arm in a sling, and bundled him into the ambulance and took him off to the casualty station. Roy reckoned John Roberts knew we were frightened and thats why he did it.

When the German bombers of the Luftwaffe were going over to bomb the Midlands, Mother used to put the gaslight out in the living room and allow my brother and me to stand by the door to watch the searchlights pick up the outline of the aircraft, but of course they were very high up in the sky. Some evenings we would listen to Lord Haw Haw with his propaganda broadcasts, but I was too young to understand what he was on about.

On one occasion near the end of a school day an aircraft hit the top of some trees in the park not far from Eastrop Grange, and crashed killing all the aircrew. It happened just before we came out of school; when the bell went we all rushed to see the wrecked plane. I remember we were told off by a man at the scene of the crash; who told us in no uncertain terms that it was no place for young children to be. I remember seeing that the man had covered the bodies of the aircrew with their parachutes, but at that early age we didn’t really understand too much about it. I later learnt that the pilot was a Canadian.

One day my friends and I saw a Horsa Glider hit a telegraph pole at the side of the railway line just past the railway station at the bottom of the Butts. The Glider carried on and crash landed in the hedgerow of one of Mr Painters fields on the north side of the railway line. No one seemed to be hurt at the time. Later a large American army lorry arrived with some American soldiers. One of them asked us to help find the tow rope. After searching for a while we found the rope by the side of the line near Pennie Lane. We ran back to tell them and we were rewarded with some packets of chewing gum each. We found the American soldiers were always generous with chewing gum and plasticine from when we used to wait for their convoys of lorries passing through Highworth. The best place to wait was at a crossroads because their lorries always seemed to slow down there. In later years I found out it was an American glider practising for the Normandy Landings.

Most of the local lads lives revolved round something to do with the forces; lots of aircraft, soldiers, convoys of army lorries pulling Ack-Ack guns, and tanks. As the war progressed more and more military personnel seemed to be in and around Highworth. The Market Square and the surrounding streets were filled with army lorries. Some of the children who lived in Sheep Street were allowed to play in the back of one of the army lorries parked at the top of the Market Square. This was great fun for us kids because not one of the soldiers told us off, and of course when it was raining we could play in the dry.

Along Swindon Street there was a long convoy of Canadian tanks parked, which I have since found out were on their way to the docks for the Normandy Landings. Like all small children we stopped to look at the tanks, and saw a soldier pumping up a primus stove when it suddenly exploded and one of his trouser legs caught fire. Another soldier quickly wrapped a blanket round him and put the fire out. I didn’t know if he was badly burnt because we had to go to school.

One Sunday tea time we were queuing at Mrs Haggits sweet shop in the High Street when someone shouted, “Parachutes falling over Coleshill” we all rushed out, some getting jammed in the doorway in the mad rush. The sky was full of parachutes dropping from American Dakota aircraft. We all ran round to Cherry Orchard to see them falling in the fields, woods and the river at Coleshill. I later found out that this was a practice jump for the Normandy Landings. Next morning there was a burnt out Tank and Army lorry in the Market Square and soldiers walking about with their arms in slings and bandages on their heads. A very exciting time for the youngsters of Highworth.

When the American forces were camped in their Bell Tents in the grounds of Hannington Hall many of them used to come to Highworth to the local pubs for a drink. Grandfather Archer became very friendly with one of the American sergeants who he used to go drinking with at the Globe Inn in Sheep Street. When this sergeant had one or two drinks too many he always slept it off on gramps bed before travelling back to camp. On several occasions he borrowed gramps bicycle and sometimes it was in the middle of the night when he left for camp. I must say he always brought the bike back safely next day. He was also very generous to my grandfather with gifts of cigars and whiskey.

During the school summer holidays in 1944 I spent a fortnight with my Aunt Lil and Uncle Dick at The Brow, Hyde Road, Kingsdown. This must have been after the Normandy Landings because I can remember convoys of army ambulances going through; I later learnt that they were from R.A.F. Down Ampney where some of the badly wounded from the Normandy battlefields were flown into by Dakota aircraft. I used to wave to the wounded soldiers who were in the cab next to the driver, and they used to wave back. Many of them had bandages on their heads and arms in slings. At that time I was much too young to really understand what terrible injuries some of them had.

On Christmas day; which must have been near the end of the war; I can remember my grandfather seeing two German POW’s standing by the lamppost near the Chemist shop in Sheep Street. He sent my Aunt Lil down to see if they would like a Christmas dinner and some bottles of beer. The next thing we knew they were drinking beer with Gramp, then we all sat down to a good Christmas dinner. That Christmas my brother and I were given a model battleship each; when a large marble was bowled and hit a target on the side, the ship exploded as if a torpedo had hit it. The two German POW’s who were from the prison camp at Eastrop played with us during the afternoon. A few days later they brought my grandfather a present of some weather vanes which they had made out of old jerry cans, and coco tins. With the end of the war in Europe came the Victory celebrations in the Market Square, with dancing and singing and a large bonfire. My brother and I were allowed out to join in the fun, and I remember the Market Square was packed solid with people having a good time. Mrs Baker who lived at the end of Sheep Street, made a dummy of Hitler and Mussolini and hung them on a lamppost in the Square and charged people to see if they could pull their heads off; I can’t remember anyone achieving this. Afterwards she threw them on the bonfire along with some bags of chicken feathers which smelt terrible.