IT TAKES A VILLAGE…….

We have heard it often, “it takes a village to raise a child”. This seemed to be very true in our village..

The small town where I grew up was a close community, everyone knew almost every person in town and there was very little privacy. Everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business.

One of our neighbour ladies appeared with a black eye and her husband was given a matching eye by another neighbour. It was that sort of town.

In one way it was wonderful, nobody was afraid to help a child who seemed to be hurt or lost. Any person felt free to pick up a fallen child, make soothing noises over the scraped knee and give a hug to make things better. People would give you a candy or a cookie without having suspicious eyes on them.

Of course there were some “odd” characters about, every town has a weirdo or two, but everyone knew who they were and kept an eye out for misdeeds. We didn’t need Block Parents, everyone just assumed that role. Any child felt able to knock on a door and ask for help or information.

This also worked against you at times. Quite often I would go home from school or other place and find grandma on the warpath. She would be waiting for me, hand on hip and with lips in a thin line. Usually I would know what I had been seen doing and confess to the crime immediately. Sometimes I would try to lie my way out of a situation or cast myself as the innocent party, but grandma was crafty. She always seemed to have the knack of reducing me to tears and a confession.

Gran was a great believer in good and evil, right and wrong. There were no grey areas. She also had a good imagination and would manage to bring God and the devil into all misdeeds and assured me that I would be spending my after life with one of them, it was up to me to chose which one I preferred. She was also very good at laying on guilt trips. One of my favourite pastimes was ringing door bells and running round the nearest corner to hide. I would then hear how Mrs. Jones had to leave her deathbed to answer the door. Mrs Jones might just have had a sore knee or a cold but I was given the graphic idea of this poor, sick old lady, dragging her pain-wracked body to the door, to find no-one there. I was sure bound for hell, if this behaviour continued.

If I had been cheeky to someone, they would probably be described as having a weak heart and had palpitations after my heinous behaviour.

My punishments for these sort of crimes was usually to do something helpful for the victims. Do their grocery shopping, shovel coal into buckets, ready to be taken inside the house or
some other household chore.

A couple of times some of us would try to get into the pictures (movies) to see a PG rated film. This was the fifties when two people kissing was a thrill, anything racier was just hinted at, but, our little minds had to be kept on the straight and narrow, so we were unable to go without a parent. I never knew of any of my friends parents who went to the movies , so that was out of the question. Hanging around the door, trying to look like you were with the couple who were in front of you was not fooling anyone. The ticket seller was always the same person and of course she knew us all, so no luck there.

Going to the next town was the only answer but, by the time it was decided I was old enough to take the bus with friends, I was old enough to get into the PG movies. Smut just had to be found in books, but I was also known in the local library, so no luck there, unless I wanted the evil eye of the librarian.. One of my friends had an older brother, who usually had smut aplenty, hidden away under the mattresses.

Janet’s brother was about five years older than us , he had a paper delivery round so had money to buy his own smut, which he thought was well hidden under his mattress, however Janet had discovered his little treasure trove and was happy to share them with us. The very well endowed women in the photographs were something we hoped to copy to as we grew, however at eleven, a pair of well placed socks had do the trick. when Janet’s brother found out we were looking at his magazines, he was furious but decided if we wanted to know what it was all about, he would show us.

Our local park had some enormous rhododendron bushes and this is where I was first shown the male anatomy. I found it quite astonishing. Janet wasn’t thrilled at all as she had two older brothers and had grown up accustomed to seeing them . However, she and I were always looking for spending money so I was quite happy to put my hand on the strange appendage, for sixpence. The result of this was terrifying as the thing seemed to wither and die before my eyes. However, no matter how scary this was, I still took the sixpence!

Of course, we had been seen going into the bushes by one of the local Gestapo and the suspected incident was reported to both Janet’s mother and my grandma. They were close neighbours so I guess it was a very embarrassing incident for both of them. Luckily, I was the youngest so it was assumed I had been an innocent partner to the episode. However, Janet’s dad had a very poor opinion of his son’s actions and the belt was brought out. My sixpence was confiscated and put in the poor box at church and Janet and I were not allowed to play together out of grandma’s sight.

I was always on the lookout for money, some of which I earned by baby sitting younger cousins but, in an emergency, enough money could be found for a movie by returning soda pop bottles, for a refund. The cheap seats in our local cinema were threepence, which was the deposit price on a bottle. Bottles were not to be found at grandma’s house as she bought her soda pop from a man who brought a van full of it round every week. She bought a big stone jar which lasted all week. However, for the crafty and rather light fingered child, a supply of empty bottles was always stored against an inside wall of the corner shop.

Janet and I would hang around the front window of the store until the shopkeeper went into the back of the store. We would then go in and, very quickly, each take a bottle from the stack. We would then return them to the poor man and take our refund money with a smile.

Of course, this source of good fortune was ended very abruptly when grandma asked me where the money had come from. I was marched over to the shop and had to confess my sins. I was genuinely upset and cried, so the man was very forgiving and kind. I am not sure if the tears were from guilt or the fact that I had lost my movie money but, as I was promptly put to bed, I had all evening to reflect on my sins. Janet’s parents used the more “hands on” approach and father’s belt was once more brought into action on my partner in crime..

I am not sure if anyone in the village actually knew my name as I was referred to as Mrs Bartley’s girl. When I was older and went back to living with my mother, at the other side of the village, I was referred to as Rene’s girl. My brother’s friends called me Gordon’s kid sister. As I got older I became Dave’s wife, then Susan or Carol’s mom. In Oliver, another small village, I am now Mathew and Emma’s gran. So goes the circle of life.