Parish Memories

"Memories of Upton Warren" by Jean Moore (nee Serrell)

Puddle Wharf Cottage.

My mum and dad, Selwyn and Nora, bought me from Cakebole, Chaddesley Corbett, to live at Puddle Wharf Cottage which nestled in the high bank on the corner of Stoke Heath roundabout on the A38.  Dad was a farm labourer at Bowling Green Farm (in Stoke); the cottage was built in the mid 1800's to be used by a farm labourer on land that belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury of Grafton Manor and known either (formally) as Spring Cottage or commonly as Puddle Wharf Cottage and was in the Parish of Upton Warren, confirmed by our postal address.  In the last thirty years the cottage has been greatly enlarged and has reverted back to its original name of Spring Cottage.

The Evans Family Outside Puddle Wharf Cottage c1909

This photo was given to me by Doris Evans who answered an advert of mine in the Advertiser.  The people in the photo are Doris's parents Thomas and Florence; they ran a roadside teashop (the advert on the board is for Knight's Mineral Waters ed.) and Thomas was a waggoner at Grafton Manor.  The couple standing slightly in front of Thomas and Florence are Doris's Uncle Sam and Auntie May.

School Days and Friends

In June 1944 aged five and a half I had my first day at Upton Warren School, I was very nervous on that first morning  - I was starting towards the end of the first term so all the children knew each other.  However, I soon made a friend of Janice Beaumont who lived at Moors Farm; she was six months younger than me and we became inseparable.  Janice had an older brother and sister, Vincent and Carole, and a younger brother, Adrian, younger sister Jacqueline, and later another brother Stephen.  There were lots of friends, Michael (Drew), Martin and Stuart (Griffin), Deanna (Harris), Angela (Brown) and Mary (Forty).Occasionally we would have one or two children from foreign lands.  We never knew exactly where from, perhaps like nowadays, they were children of displaced families resulting from war.  I particularly remember two little brothers who couldn't speak our language and stood moitionless in the playground, afraid to move let alone play.

The Headmistress, Mrs Dudley, always seemed very strict and I knew I wasn't one of her favourite pupils.  On the other hand the infant teacher, Mrs Meadows, although strict quite liked me and so I enjoyed my lessons with her.  There were two classrooms and lessons were taken at desks which had obviously been seats of learning for many years if the deep cut initials and dates of long ago were anything to go by.  In hot weather we would have lessons out of doors and occasionally we would be allowed to munch on apples or plums which had been handed in by some kind farmer.

I loved reading and writing and listened to every word of Mrs Meadow's story time.  I loved to hear of distant lands and was intrigued by the huge world map on Mrs Dudley's classroom wall.  I loved poetry readings, singing hymns and listening to stories from the Bible and in prayers I would peep at Janice through my praying hands to try and make her giggle. Janice was my little soul mate and although she was the exact opposite of me in that she was quiet and well  behaved whereas I was noisy and mischievious we were like siamese twins.

My favourite past time was skipping or playing with a ball or bean bag.  In the playground we would chew leaves off the overhanging hawthornes - known as bread and cheese - it never did us any harm!  We would gather bunches of goosegrass which we called 'sweetheart', and would chase a boy we particularly liked to stick 'sweethearts' on his back.  The boys would be more of a nuisance by pressing handfuls of the sticky leaves in our hair.

Milk was supplied to boost our calcium; in hot summers it would be luke warm and in the winter (despite having been placed in front of the classroom fire) there would be icey crystals to suck up through our straws

'Dinners', as we knew them, were delivered in huge containers; tall ones for gravy, custard and milk puddings; flat ones for meats, vegetables and tarts. I loved school dinners.  With the lids finally lifted, aromas of thick stews emanating towards us I tried to be first to be served: I was a happy child.  If you cleared your plate completely, and only if it was just so, you were allowed jelly or apple pie with custard, maybe jam roly poly or frogs spawn pudding (tapioca).  I could never understand the fuss some children made about school dinners, I loved them, but strangely I was a sickly, skinny and mousey little child despite my good appetite.

We had to suffer the humiliation of the nit nurse who was non too gentle as she searched your scalp for the little visitors.  I only had nits once - that one time was more than enough for both mum and myself: so mortified was she that she resorted to cutting off my long hair high above my ears.  The effect was such that no one knew me at first the next day because I had taken on the appearance of a little boy overnight.

Sometimes Mrs Dudley or Mrs Meadows would take us to visit the church; I was so facinated by the balcony and the little stairs leading to it.  I realized in my tender years the reverence of that spiritual place. The best time to visit was when we each took our own offering of fruit or vegetables for the Harvest Festival.  I always took fruit for we had an abundance of soft fruits and apples at Puddle Wharf.

My mother had a friend who was housekeeper to Erskine Prior (the Rector), she had a little girl called Sally who was a bit younger than me.  Occasionally after mum had collected me from school we would walk up Rectory Lane to have tea.  Sally and I had the freedom of the extensive grounds or we would enjoy the rope swing which hung from a huge beam in one of the many upper storey rooms.

School days at Upton Warren for me was at a time when our parents were still living on meagre rations: yet it was a world of pleanty to me.  I remember snowball fights, sliding on icey patches on the playground, scratchy woollen pixie hoods, grazed knees and the dreaded school dentist who my father jokingly called "The Butcher".

Today

These are memories of sixty years ago yet still vividly clear.  Dear Upton Warren with its little church standing between the M5 and A38 yet remaing a place of old fashioned 'villageness' and tranquility. I am so happy to have played a small role in its social history and, after having lived far away in other counties, I have returned to play another tiny part in caring for St Michael's Church.

Fate saw to it that I should, in my mature years, meet and marry a lovely man connected with Janice's family.  In 1999 I met Janice's older sister Carole through a school reunion.  A year or so later Carole introduced me to Stan who had married Jaqueline, the youngest of the Beaumont daughters, who had sadly died aged only 52 years.  On that first visit to meet Carole and Janice it gave me a feeling of 'going home' as I travelled down the drive to The Moors, now known as Lakeside, the one time farm buildings now beautiful individual homes. I regret that Janice and I only had a short time to rekindle our childhood memories for she died in 2001 aged 59 years; however, between us Carole and I jog each others memories of those innocent days of childhood.

It was wonderful to marry Stan in the church that played such a big part in my infant years on 15th September 2001.  Despite us living in Bromsgrove I feel that I have travelled full circle to become part of Upton Warren again and have come to realize through my own life's experiences it sometimes takes a life time to find where we should be.

Joan Moore
5th June 2004