Childhood in Cinderford in the 60s & 70s (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, March 14, 2013, 03:27 (4275 days ago) @ Jefff

I'm delighted this site has posted my scan of a letter published in a Forest newspaper last year, thankfully my mum clipped it for me. It was written by a lad full of fun & popular with all, I consider it a great privilege to have been a close schoolfriend to Richard "Harry" Harris. We first met on starting in the same class at Bilson School c1967, our mothers knew each other thro St Stephens Church. His letter absolutely summed-up my recollections of endless warm summer holidays where every day we packed our lunches, stockedup on sweets, and rode our bikes past Latimer Lodge into the forest at Collafield for the day. We'd climb the conifers and try and sway them to catch and climb into the next tree, one day Harry was slowest to come down for "home time"; he asked if he should come down the "slow or quick way" - before he'd finished speaking there was a loud crack, a woosh, and he hit the ground very hard, for a few shocked seconds we thought he was dead. He'd lost his handgrip, dropped like a stone with his legs still around the trunk, as he fell the branches broke under him so slowing his fall as did the usual summer cushion of shed pine needles, thankfully nowt broken except pride. Another time we invented the new sport of riding our bikes thro' the rocky streambeds around Blackpool Brook, in about 6" of water. Great fun until "our leader", Harry of course, hit a particularly hard rock and his handlebars stopped steering the forks - most of our bikes were old, heavy and strong but he had a beautiful new "lightweight" Coventry Eagle (very posh!) and was distraught taking the long walk home to his parents who were NOT pleased with his shattered steering !. Fishing at Lightmoor ponds, did anyone ever catch anything there ?.
Longer trips to Speech House & deer "stalking" at Cannop, then upto Coleford for fish & chips & err drinks... It's all coming back to me and it was idyllic. In those days if we told our parents we were going "mucking about" in the woods, they trusted us and believed we'd be safe, even when cycling the main roads as 13 year olds - a different age, sadly. But then again IF we transgressed, despite their excellent coaching of "common sense" & "life skills", boy did we know about it, no ifs no buts !.
The war we had in Adrian Close's orchard pretending rotten windfall apples were grenades, they exploded on impact, not good for the laundry we later learnt ! Also browncoated (but deliberately & neatly) was Arthur (Mr! to us) Edwards behind the counter of his oldfashioned but superbly stocked hardware store, just up from our house, he was also the Cinderford Fire Chief. When he told us to handle knives with care, we did !, they were only ever tools, yet now...ug.. He scraped me off the road and walked me home when a motorbike wiped me off my pushbike, a lovely caring community chap (it hurt but I got a brand new bike off the speeding biker, yay!).

Thursday nights Cub Scouts c/o kindly Kim Dawson at the hut near St John's and paperchases on "the rocks" above The Bridge. We were "2nd Cinderford" - but where were the 1st ?. That long route march on our first weekend camp at Holly Barn, heavy rain, all our oldfashioned caps shrank ! (still got my uniform, we both became sixers, even did a "gang show" at the Wesley Hall once).

Such simple homemade pleasures but great days, if it did rain we stayed indoors and built Meccano & Airfix kits, thank heaven for no computer games or kids tv ! We all kept pets, Harry had a large greedy guinea pig that sounded like a farmyard sow when "singing" for his morning feed, it was so big it had a chicken wire run on the lawn, it would angrily square up to Olly Hill's Jack Russell. Our pet's bedding was woodshavings collected free from Giles joiners down the road; nowadays we buy specially selected, refined chemically treated stuff at considerable expense.. are modern pets softer too ??.
I did his paper round when he was on holiday, from James' in the Triangle ALL the way across Church Road to St Johns, took 3 hours on a Sunday morning with over 100 big heavy papers & supplements and no trolley, up and downs lots of awkward little side lanes, and return to the shop to promptly spend the £2 or so earnings on comics and a drink, would kids work like that now !?.

Mind it wasn't all good. The day he taught me the route we were collared for riding two-up on a bike, we were both petrified the policeman would tell our parents (he didnt but we wouldnt know that, we'd only ridden 50yards across the Triangle at 8am on a quiet Sunday morn). Our first brush with the Law, and boy did we remember it.
Back to the summer hols, when at Harry's house he insisted on listening to the Radio One Summer Holiday Roadshow, he liked his reggae & soul music, whereas I (oddly perhaps) disliked 70s pop intensely but unusually loved 50s rock n roll (still do). Worse still, we were sent to separate secondary schools, very upsetting for me as most of my daily schoolmates weren't from Cinderford, so we slowly drifted apart. He wanted to become a ship's Radio Officer and studied accordingly in Bristol, whereas I was in Cardiff doing engineering, so by time we qualified jobs were in decline & we both had to leave our beloved Forest. I'm ashamed to say the last times I saw him was during my apprenticeship at Ranks, Ranks Social Club Friday nite disco(ugh) my workmate Nicky Hill (Olly the coalman's son and Harry's neighbour) occasionally took Harry there when he was off from College.

Harry's doing well and still lives in the county so I believe, if you ever read this PLEASE get in touch mate, if I've not found you first, we've got some catching up to do over a beer or three. But don't ask me to go to Cinderford rugby club on disco night ;-)
Rich, as you know your parents were truly lovely people and I sincerely regret being unable to attend either of their funerals even tho my parents were there.

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If all this hasn't bored you enough, please read Harry's letter, it may even bring tears to your eyes as it did mine...
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/downloads/Stories_Articles/Cinderford%20Childhood%20Memor...

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Sincere thanks for letting me air just a few of so many very happy childhood memories.
Thanks Harry for writing to the paper - I never knew you were such a softee under that tough shell !.
How lucky we were to be born n bred young Vurristers in the good old days.