Roary Revisited
A Rural Childhood
by
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CHAPTER TWENTY FILLING THE DAYS 20 FILLING THE DAYS Summers seemed endless, the sky always blue, the sun always hot. Well maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but one thing is certain, we had a wonderful childhood and I would not want to change any of it. How did we fill those long happy days? In various ways, deriving pleasure from all Nature had to offer. For one thing, the river running through the meadow provided many hours of fun. In summer Michael would organise all his siblings to help him create a swimming pool, by damming up the river with clods of turf, sticks, stones and reeds, until the depth of the water above the dam was deep enough to pretend to swim in. Michael and Gerry were the only ones who could swim properly, the rest of us paddled along keeping our hands on the river bed, but it was such bliss. I used to dream that I was swimming across a large pond, not at all scared, but alas it was only a dream. I have learned to stay afloat, but when I start thinking about the depth of water beneath me, I panic! We would stay in the water until we were really cold, almost blue. Sometimes Mother would shout down to us to get out when our teeth started chattering. Reluctantly we would get out and flop on the grass to let the sun warm our young bodies for a while, then in we’d go again. It made no difference to us that several yards up stream in another field cows were standing in the river in the shade, leaving large deposits of dung as they swished their tails at the clouds of flies which hovered around them. That sort of thing never entered our heads, and it if had we would have carried on playing in the river! We loved the river and grew up with the sound of it through all our childhood. As Summer drew to a close and the days became cooler, we would bust open the dam and let the water gush away, following its natural course. With Autumn rain the river became deeper and a different sort of challenge. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE FURTHER REFLECTIONS 25 FURTHER REFLECTIONS When sitting trying to recall little incidents that happened at Roary it amazes me the way my grasshopper mind leaps from one snippet straight on to another. Not startling in themselves, but each a part of the overall picture, so may I be excused if I ramble a little. POTENTIAL ORPHANS It was a hot Summer evening and for some reason we had all been sent to bed early. The stair door was shut with a resounding bang and no amount of calling "Mam, I want a drink of water", caused it to open again. We had pushed our luck too far, Mam was fed up with the lot of us! Goodness knows now exactly what we’d done. The latch was firmly in place so we had better try to settle down for the night. If our Mother was annoyed, she meant it, we were all ‘in the dog house’. We lay there talking in subdued tones, not wanting to bring more wrath upon ourselves. The evening was hot and muggy and sleep did not want to descend on either of us. It was a comical scene which ensued. After a seemingly long time, somebody spoke, I can’t remember which of us, but they only voiced that which had already occurred to all our childish minds. They said with a forlorn little gasp, "Mam said she’d run away and leave us if we didn’t behave, do you think she has?" There was no sound downstairs. No wireless, no chair scraping on the stone floor, no smell from cigarette smoke, no clatter of the teapot lid, in fact no anything, just an eerie silence. The thought of Mam running away, when actually put into spoken words, filled us with alarm. Yes of course Mam had left us, that was it, what could we do? Panic set in. All at once we were out of bed and frantically struggling into whatever garments came to hand.
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About the Book
This is an account of a rural childhood in
Though the family was poor by today’s standards, they were rich in humour and the pleasures of a truly rural, simplistic way of life. An overcrowded thatched cottage (that nearly caught fire one Guy Fawkes night) didn’t deter the
You will get to know each family member, they were all so different.
This is a delightfully perceptive view of the period, the countryside and the country characters who lived in and around the vicinity of Roary and Molland village.
You will not be alone in wanting to go and get a feel of the place, even though there is nothing to be seen of the house now, although the well is visible still.
This is a book you will want to read and re-read from time to time, everybody can relate to it in some form or other.
About the Author
Jean Smith has lived for the last thirty-six years in the picturesque Exmoor village of Winsford. “As the crow flies,” she says, “it’s only a few miles from Roary”, where she lived and grew up.
Mother of three, grandmother of two and great grandmother of one, she now lives alone except for a Burmese cat, a St John’s Water Dog, a little rescued mongrel, three pet drakes and various bantams. “Animals are my closest family now, I know what they are thinking and they can anticipate my every move, they are all wonderful and so amusing.”
Amateur Dramatics, The Poetry Circle and the Church Choir keep her fully occupied, not to mention gardening, painting and writing! “There is something to do or attend to almost every day of the year in Winsford, we are a very busy, close little community.”
Jean says, “I’m pretty lucky really, because I am doing all the things I enjoy and living in a beautiful part of the country. Exmoor is very special to me, I am homesick whenever I go away from it.”