Childhood memories of a local

I was invited to meet a proper “Rye local” last week, someone who is proud of his association with Rye, his working class background and keen to share his good and happy childhood memories. Having lived in Rye his whole life, he is a mine of information, which we both agreed our Rye News readers would love to hear about.

51 Kings Avenue was Vic’s birthplace in the Autumn of 1947, moving along the road to No 56 in the very early 1950s. New estates were being built after the war to replace the many Nissen Huts where people lived until the newly built houses in Kings Avenue were able to be occupied.

Families often moved locally, it’s how it was, and today, in the Welsh valleys, you can often find generations of the same family in the same street, it’s how closely knit communities used to be. Vic came from a family of 10 and  “We never had a pot to pee in” but they never went hungry. No food banks in those days, just good neighbours, many with large families too, who looked after each other and they “all got by”.

His childhood was fun with no computers to distract them in those days and life was simpler. Making bikes and go karts from bits and pieces collected from the dump, was a regular occurrence; playing marbles along the kerbside, too. Tin-can Tommy was a game played in the middle of Kings Avenue – a lot safer then with far less traffic around. Vic was no angel: tying cotton to door knockers, hiding behind a hedge, then pulling the cotton attached to them, usually got a reaction.

His first TV was black and white, a Murphy, rented to the family by a Mr Jim Hollands for about 2 shillings and sixpence. Viewing was generally restricted to evenings, as during the day there was so much more to do, like jumping from the railway bridge into the river Rother below or sliding down the muddy banks into the incoming tide. Another favourite was covering himself and his mates in thick black mud from the muddy river banks with only their white teeth and eyes being visible, washed off as they swam for hours at high tide.

Cooks Field was a favourite meeting place, at the back of Kings Avenue where the boys made camps and a camp fire and eggs, pinched from neighbouring Cooks Farm. To get into the large camp over the railway line, a secret password was the only way. The boys built a 5 hole golf course in Cooks Field where they played regularly. Along the railway line grew wild strawberries, a welcome reward for successful visitors.

Armed with empty jam jars, the boys were always hunting for grass snakes and frogs in the ditches alongside Cooks Field where often sticklebacks and tiny fishes called red throats were to be found. The ditches always seemed full of rainwater and with the help of old corrugated baths (acquired from the tip) and mysterious large discarded oil drums cut in half lengthways, these rock and roll boats, as they called them, provided hours of endless and harmless fun.

The huge branches from local willow trees were dragged to the middle of the field for bonfire night whilst smaller branches made great bows and arrows. Other pursuits would be rightly outlawed now, but then they included collecting all types of birds eggs, or placing items on the rail tracks to see how they looked after being flattened by a train (please don’t try this at home).

Boys being boys, mischief was never far away and declaring “war” on the Military Road boys didn’t help! The primary school in Ferry Road was Vic’s daily destination; en route he had to pass the piles of sugar beet, piled high in the goods yard (now Jempson’s), eating some on the way and then again on the way back, but at times being spotted by neighbours, one shouting: “Go on, bugger off back down your own end. I know who you are. I’ll tell your dad when he gets home. Come back and I’ll box you around the ears you little sods.”

Where North Salts is, were previously allotments, perfect for apple scrumping, to raise a bit of pocket money. You could earn 12 shillings and sixpence if you caddied all day down at Rye Golf Club. The going rate was 5 shillings a round if you were lucky, but you had to survive the initiation test, being thrown down a large deep sand pit. Vic gave half his earnings to his mum.

Music at that time (1950s) was always played at home with Vic’s sister and 3 older brothers. The record player loaded several records at a time, with artists including Elvis, Dean Martin, the Platters and the Everly Brothers. This provided years of entertainment and as a special “treat” Vic’s dad used to serenade them all on his trumpet, especially at weekends.

Mr & Mrs Mushett owned a house which the boys swam to from across the river Rother. There they filled their trunks with “acquired” apples, pears and plums which made the return swim a little more challenging. Just down the road lived Vic’s mum’s step brother, Freddy Pierce. He lived at 68, Kings Avenue and had 3 children, Ricky, Tony and Kate. Jumping into Fred’s van, he took them lambing and sheep dipping and to do some general farm work. Not all was roses however, Fred shot Vic’s pet dog Tinker as he had escaped from the kennel and was chasing and attacking new born lambs and Fred came to the house to tell them.

Fred and his mates used to gather around the coconut shy at Henry Bottom’s fun fair, where Del Shannon’s classic hit Runaway was blasting out from the dodgems. Three balls for sixpence or 7 balls for a shilling was the going rate then. Vic recalls Fred knocking off 4 coconuts in 7 balls for a shilling, then smashing them to bits. The owner of the shy was never amused by Freddy turning up, often relieving him of a bag containing several of his precious coconuts.

A green army lorry would collect locals from Kings Avenue destined for Playden hop picking fields. Once a bin was filled with hops, Vic’s mum would allow them to go and play. Tea was made in a kettle over a fire and the money Vic’s mum earned at the end of the picking season paid for school uniforms and coal, which Vic used to collect with his brother Ernie from the coal yard at the other side of town, before wheeling the coal back home to Kings Avenue. The coal yard was also the place where you were able to take old clothing to the rag and bone woman for a few extra pennies.

Boxing Day 1962 was a day to remember. The equivalent of our Beast from the East, brought very cold weather from Scandinavia creating snowy blizzard-like conditions, whipping up snow from the fields, which then dumped against the back doors of houses along Kings Avenue, making the front doors the only means of access, and ice on the inside of the windows. This cold period continued until early March when the snow finally disappeared and in January of that year the river Rother froze over.

A break in the ice on the water identified a hole, about 6” x 6”, beneath which two swans were trapped, but as the tide began to rise the swans freed themselves and were at last airborne again but where they went to remained a mystery, as all the ponds and lakes were frozen.

The Bedford Arms pub (at the bottom of Landgate) was a family favourite on Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes in the early 1960s, where landlords, Frank and Alma Webb would be serving many local characters, including Jack James, Jerry Dover, Caesar Bourne, Roy and Tom Bourne, Jim Cader, Reg Cooper and Dixie Fannon. If it wasn’t for the Vicary clan and the locals from New Road and Kings Avenue, the Bedford might have been empty. Being a big man, Jim Carder was the bouncer, tasked with keeping out trouble makers on bonfire night.

The Regent cinema also holds many happy memories for Vic. Watching films such as Davey Crockett and Tarzan inspired them to have mock battles in nearby woods, using a dustbin lid to help fight off the baddies. However, boys will be boys and one of Vic’s mates would pay to get in to the Regent, then open the fire exit door to let the rest of the gang in for free! You could see three different films in one week, but the fun didn’t last, as letting off fireworks in the ashtrays earned the boys a 6 month ban from the cinema.

Tragedy hit the residents of Kings Avenue in September 1965. Word arrived at the Bedford one Sunday lunchtime that there had been an accident along New Road. An ice cream van had parked on New Road and as 5 year old Christopher Wilson crossed the road from Kings Avenue, he was struck down and killed by a motorist. The little boy was Vic’s nephew and had two brothers, Colin and Paul, sons to Vic’s sister Beryl and brother-in-law Dennis. Colin and Paul lived initially at 49 Kings Avenue then 80 Kings Avenue, where Colin still lives today.

Vic lived in Kings Avenue for 21 years from 1947 to 1968 and “Wouldn’t have changed it for the world” but in October 1968 left his mum and dad at home in No 56, with his three sisters. Three of his brothers and a sister had already left home by then. Vic married his lovely wife Pauline, a Tenterden girl, then moved to Winchelsea with brother Ernie for a short while, before moving to Pottingfield Road where he and his wife still live today.

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Vic recalls that when he was the local milkman for 2 years in the 70s, selling not only milk but bread and potatoes on his round, he would see people come and go, whereas in the 50s and 60s nobody seemed to move away. His three children also lived in New Road and Kings Avenue, his eldest son still lives there. Life became lonely for his parents as the children left home one by one – Beryl, Irene, Pamela, Patsy, David, Ernie and Ken.

I enjoyed my interview with Vic Vicarey and his wife Pauline. They have so many more stories to tell of so many happy childhood memories and before I left, he told me about when he was a paper boy for Mrs Horner, whose shop was in Landgate, delivering newspapers and magazines. In the town the mayor was throwing out hot pennies to the waiting children who promptly spent them on Wagon Wheel biscuits which, Vic recalls were much larger then.

I hope that you enjoyed this article. I feel that it is important to record these moments in local peoples lives. The are part of our local history and these very happy memories many may identify with. Vic still has many friends including Derek Baldock who was very sporty, a keen golfer and played football and cricket for Rye and Vic’s neighbour is close friend Trevor James,“ We went everywhere together”.

Vic had “not a care in the world” as a child growing up in Rye, with no computers, just old fashioned fun, a close family and lifelong friendships to get him though life.

Thank you, Vic Vicarey, for sharing your childhood memories with our Rye News readers. I’m sure there are many more recollections to tell, but if this article has sparked some memories for you, perhaps you too could share them with us?

Image Credits: Vic Vicary , Nick Forman , Vic Vicarey .