The Story Pt 2
Smiths and Bradfords were bit names in the village then."Grandmother Smith had 10 children spread over 30 years, 3 years between each. She was 50 years old when "Tip" Smith was born, he fed at his mothers breast for so long that when they went gleaning for corn, he carried a stool for his mother to sit on while she fed him." they needed to glean a bag of corn for each month(12 bags) to feed their family for a year, they used to take the bags to Whittlesey to get it milled into flour.
Mr Bradford kept the butchers shop which stood on the corner of Marriotts Drove, he used to kill and dress the pigs for people in the village and also sell in the shops. He owned a cottage opposite which sold in 1925 for £11 complete with orchard.
Another family in the village was the Owens. Nearly all of them were sportsmen of some sort. Acky Owen was a fighter who became quite good, he fought men like Freddie Mills and Jack Turpin in his time. "I remember he came to the Plough when we all sat outside having our beer, he couldn't have been above 17 years old, he said " Do you know I'm the best man here?, well we couldn't have know that could we. So we though we would show hum, do you know when he had finished" he was, the best man"! His brother George was a very good runner and hurdler "The finest in the Fens" and won many a purse in Marathons of the day. Their father was a character too. When the midwife at that time, a Mrs Rowlis was delivering one of his babies, she said to his wife "How on earth do you always manage to have such lovely children". Mr Owen senior who had been celebrating the birth rather early said. "Gel if you got a minute come up to the bedroom and I'll soon show you".
After the 1914-18 war the village acquired a Memorial Hall. This was bought 
from Grantham on two trailers pulled by traction engines, a considerable journey for those days. They got as far as East View and rested overnight before continuing on to the site the next day. It was erected by the men of the village and lasted until it was destroyed by fire in the late 1960's. In the early days concert parties used to come to the Hall to entertain the village. Next door to the Hall was a little Mission Church which was built by the Dean Family. No weddings or funerals were held there but some christenings were. they also held regular church services and Con Bradford remembered singing in the choir. It eventually fell into disrepair and was pulled down. Next door to the Church was a Reading Room. These were popular in most villages at the time and the daily papers were kept there so that people could go along and read in peace, or sometimes play a game of dominoes or cards.
During the war if potatoes went for cattle feed they had to be dyed blue, and it was the very devil to get off anything. "I remember T... H..... he used to go round doing this for the framers. He had a very big moustache, and while he was using the dye his snout kept itching, so he kept rubbing it and at the end of the day he had this beautiful blue moustache, it was blue for months until it eventually wore out."
With the Memorial Hall being used for functions the Reading Room was no longer a necessity, so it was turned into living accommodation and a lady called Mrs Henshaw lived in it until it was demolished.
It was not unusual to see six shire horses on a threshing drum pulling it thorugh the mud down Marriotts Drove. The landlord of the red Cow had to haul his barrels down by horse and cart as the dray could not get down to his in the winter.
The village only had 4 street lamps, they were paraffin and Billy Richardson used to look after them. He used to go out in the afternoons with his pair of steps and trim the wicks and fill them up with paraffin ready for the night. When it got dark Billy used to go out and light the lamps, we used to wait until he moved on to the next one and then we used to open the door with a stick and of course if it was windy out if would blow. Billy used to turn round and see it out and come back muttering about the bloody wind.
Rivers used to be frozen over then in the winters, and there was no work for the men, so they used to go skating. This sometimes gave them chance to win a joint of meat for a meal in one of the races. A man used to sit on a box at the side of the ice and fix your skates on for 2d.
A certain well known farmer in the village had a son who was a bit wayward and he had gone off one day on his fathers new bike. Much later that day his father came by and said " Have you seen anything of V.....", "he went by early this morning" we said, "why? " well" he said he's only gone and sold my sty of pigs to a butcher in Ramsey and he's done a runner with the money and my new bike" (his fate when his father caught him is not recorded).
When the Second world war broke out some of the men from the village left to serve in the forces but in most cases agriculture was an exempt occupation. so some of the remainder volunteered for the home guard or "Dads army". "One night I remember we set off to attack Ramsey Drill Hall, they formed us up at Forty Foot and we made or way up the back of Hollow Lane and by the Lion Yard to the Drill Hall. By this time we were all a bit hungry so when we got to the bottom of the Lion Yard and there were these lovely apples on these trees, we succumbed to temptation and we all climbed up and filled our pockets. Well, you get 40 men and you make a bit of a mess of the crop. Well there was a captain who had retired from the army wounded that kept the Lion then, and the next morning he had us all parade in front of him and we had to pay for all the apples.