PIG, PUBS, and PEOPLE : CHAPTER 8
This chapter concludes with a poem written by Paul Capell - click here to open the page.
SPORT AND LEISURE
East Haddon War Memorial Playing Field
The Playing Field was created in 1950 on land bought by the village to commemorate those who died in the Second World War. Situated on what used to be known as Mill Close and West Beacon Close, it consisted of a football pitch, crocket pitch, tennis court, pavilion and children’s swings. Over £1,400 was collected in the village by numerous fund-raising efforts and this money, together with grants from the National Playing Fields Association, paid for the field and its equipment.
A trust was formed to administer the playing field – the East Haddon War Memorial Playing Field Trust – with the Parish Council as custodian trustees. On 5 February 1963 it was registered as a charity, and it is managed by the charity trustees (the Management Committee) with representatives from the parish council and sports organisations.
In 1992, the East Haddon Playing Field Association was formed, with the express aim of raising more money for better facilities. These have included a new tennis court in 1993 to replace the old one and new play equipment in 1994. In 1995, the Cricket Club was revived. (Picture) Activities remained limited by the lack of electricity provided to the field, meaning that there was no lighting or heating in the pavilion, and other facilities were in need of improvement, so in 1996 an application was made for funding from the National Lottery Sports Fund and other grant-aided bodies.
The bid was successful, and in June 1998 a new pavilion was opened, together with a shed for storing equipment, fenced-off car parking, and a range of practice equipment for the Cricket Club. As an indication of how times had changed, these improvements cost a total of £116,000, whereas the total cost for the original facilities in 1950 had been £2,000.
The Playing Field is now host to a variety of sports activities, and the pavilion is hired out for private events. A bar licence has been granted to the pavilion, and it has become the focus of social gatherings at the weekends.
In June 2000, the Playing Field devoted a weekend to celebrating its 50th anniversary, with a children’s sports day and a hog roast and disco on the Saturday, and a cricket match and tennis tournament on the Sunday.
Miscellaneous Sporting Memories
Maurice Fletcher was heavily involved in sporting activities before the inauguration of the Playing Field in 1950:
I was secretary of the Cricket Club (Picture) and the Football Club (Picture) at different times. Ken Craddock kept the Tennis Club going throughout the war and then I more or less took it over afterwards. In those days there were two grass courts at the end of the village where Carpenter’s bungalow is now, next to the track down to Ryehill Farm. I learned to play with the Underwoods and Bill Knight, though he was younger than me. I was a determined player – my main aim was always to get the ball back over the net. I wasn’t so interested in the style but I wasn’t a bad player, and I enjoyed it. I won the Grendon Tournament and that’s what finished me off for tennis. One of the international coaches just dismissed me by saying, “No, you’ve got a swing like a grandfather clock – you’ll go no further”. I was only 15 then and it was very discouraging, so I didn’t really compete any more.
We had a badminton court in the Institute and both boys and girls played up there and I thought I was pretty good at that. It was just after the war and I was about 16 and at work and Ken Craddock came up and said in his usual quiet way, “Can I have a go?” He was so good he took me straight off the court. He was county standard tennis at least. He would have been a brilliant player if he had been a bit more pushy. He used to pair with Kath Barford as a doubles partner. They were very good... Neville Craddock played everything. Ken was a gifted player and Nev was more like me. We charged about the court! He was our bowler for the cricket team for years and years. Harry Smith was a very fast bowler. I’ve played football and cricket for the village teams up the playing field.
Maurice’s wife, Edie, was also involved in sports, if in a less glamorous role – making cricket teas and washing the football kit in a twin-tub washing machine! Marion Allen recalls that her brothers, Brian and Colin, both used to play cricket on the Playing Field and that Brian used to play football as well.
“We always had to go up to the Playing Field to watch the cricket and my Mum helped with the teas and I used to score sometimes. The reason I went up there when I was a teenager was to see the lads in the opposing team!” David Muddiman was in the cricket team and in the football team from the age of 15. “I was always 12th man in the cricket team and if the opposition was short I used to make up their team. Nev [Craddock] used to bowl at me as fast as he could when I played for the other team”. Jack Halliwell remembers a “phenomenal catch” by Neville Craddock: “He ran about 70 yards around the edge of the boundary, dived full length and caught this ball which was going for 6! He’d be in his 50s or 60s then. He got 60-odd not out. He was a total natural.” According to Jack, who played cricket for the village for 21 years, East Haddon had the best non-league side in the county in the 1970s. Apart from the Craddocks, Jack also mentioned Charlie Fraser as being a very good player in the 1960s. Jack’s son, Andrew, was responsible with Mervyn Davies for reviving the football team in the 1970s:
Mike Engle was also involved. They formed this young football club and applied to join the Northampton Town League Junior Division, but they cancelled the Junior Division because there weren’t enough young people and put them in the 4th division where they were playing against men! One of their team scored 33 goals in the first season!
East Haddon Squash Club
The Squash Club (Picture) in the village was opened in 1969, and remained a thriving club until the late 70s. At the end of the first year, the membership numbered between 150 and 180, and this grew to over 600 at the height of its popularity. It was one of the biggest such clubs in the county, with as many as six teams. There were two courts originally, and later two more were built.
According to Brian Barber, who joined the club in 1970 and was a member until it closed, the impetus for the creation of the club by Guy Wrathall came from Gavin Bell, “who was a very good player. Gavin was very enthusiastic and persuaded Guy to start a club.” Jan Pike remembers Guy giving champagne cocktails to everyone present at the opening of the club “and it went to everyone’s head”. She thinks the male members of the club took the game more seriously than the women. “We played so badly that we could even discuss recipes during the game!”
With the opening of rival clubs in the county, numbers dwindled during the 1980s, and it eventually closed. Brian took part in the very last game:
It was late at night and the party was going on, and we decided to have one last game of squash. We got to two games all and we shook hands and walked off and no-one was going to win – an appropriate end... The social side of the club was very strong and we didn’t want this to end with the Club, so we decided to take up golf and formed the East Haddon Golf Society. It’s probably the largest golf society in the county.
East Haddon Bridge Club
The Bridge Club was founded in September 1999, and now has around 45 active members. It aims to be a friendly club, filling the gap between “kitchen table bridge” and the more organised, formal clubs like those in Northampton and Kingsley. Some members of the latter have joined East Haddon’s for a more relaxed atmosphere in which to play. The club has raised money to contribute to Village Hall funds through bridge drives.
The Village Institute/Hall
The Village Institute (Picture) was given to the people of East Haddon by Lady Horne, who lived at Priestwell House, in memory of her son Eric Blacklock, lieutenant in the 8th King’s Royal Hussars, who had died while pigsticking in India. The site for the building was presented by Captain Sawbridge. It was opened by Lord Annaly in March 1914.
Over the years, the Institute has provided cookery classes, gym classes and other educational opportunities as well as a library, baths and meeting rooms for the villagers. The charge for a hot bath was 2d, and for a cold one, 1d. It was men only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, women on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In the First World War, the Institute was used as a convalescent home for soldiers, many of whom were Canadians. There were 20 beds in all. In the Second World War, it became a day centre for the expectant and new mothers from the maternity hospital in The Hall. When The Hall became a girls’ boarding school, the Institute was used by pupils as a gymnasium.
Jim Hobson remembers some of the social events that used to be held in the Village Institute:
I remember when I was about 17 or 18 years’ old we used to have dances in the Village Hall. There used to be a large grating out the front of the Plough down to the cellar. I recall a few of us lads gathering there – Alex used to put his hand through the grating to unhook it and we would hold up the grating whilst he slipped down below and handed up free bottles! There used to be an old field gun standing outside the village hall with the barrel tilted up at an angle. So we used to hide these bottles inside the barrel of the gun and slide them out whenever we wanted one. I don’t think we ever got caught.
There used to be a Rialto band come to the village hall, a four-piece from Long Buckby. There was Harry Clifton on the piano, fiddler Jack Smith from West Haddon, Pip Gammage from Guilsborough and Rio Letts on the drums. Mabel Cave used to play the piano for other social events that we used to have at the Village Hall.
Ernest and Gwen Poole’s wedding reception was held in the Institute in 1963. Daphne Walding remembers a big concert staged there also in the early 1960s, which she took part in and for which her husband, Fred, was stage manager. It was presented by the “East Haddonians” in the form of an old-time music hall, with skits involving “characters” from the village, including one with a boy dressed as Mrs Dickens. Daphne says the event went like clockwork and was a sell-out.
In 1985, it was renamed the Village Hall, and in 1998 was completely renovated with the help of grants from the Millennium Fund, Daventry District Council and Northampton County Council. Today it remains an important focus for village events and activities.
The Women’s Institute (Picture)
Hylda Craddock was a member of the Women’s Institute in East Haddon for more than 50 years and president for many of them. The WI at one time played a big part in the community and regularly arranged outings (Picture) for its members, but as Hylda says, “nowadays there are many more things going on and it is easier to leave the village to attend other things”. There were also a number of competitions, with prizes of a silver spoon engraved with the initials WI. Hylda says it was slightly bigger than a teaspoon, and when used as a measure it was known as a “WI spoon”. She won several prizes including some for needlework.
The Women’s Institute Choir won a number of awards before the Second World War. During the war, the WI continued to fulfil its traditional role, making good use of fruit to produce jam and other preserves to help feed the nation. For this purpose, they hired a big boiler from the central Association of Women’s Institutes.
The Red Lion
The first records of the Red Lion Inn are found in 1765, but the present building became occupied as the inn only in 1908. During the First World War, alcohol could be served from 6.00am to 11.00pm.
There have been many landlords and landladies of the inn over the years, but perhaps the ones most people remember well are Bill and Connie Tenniswood, who arrived to take over the business in 1965 and stayed until they retired in 1977. Connie comes from a family who have been in the licensed trade for generations: “We’ve got beer instead of blood in our veins!”
Connie has pleasant memories of the welcome they received from East Haddon residents: “When we first moved here I remember everyone being very friendly and coming into the bar and chatting. There wasn’t much going on in the village in those days and the pub was the mainstay of the village.” Connie remembers the royal events hosted by the inn (see below), and also visits from Althorp House by members of the Spencer family, including the present Earl’s grandmother: “She used to come in a little Austin car with some brochures and she used to knock on the counter and say, ‘would you mind distributing these’ – she was so gentle and nice and there was no fuss with her at all.” Other celebrities have also visited the Red Lion, including actor David Hemmings when he was making a film in the area. “They came here for their meals at lunchtime. One Sunday, when we were very busy, they hadn’t arrived for their lunch by 4pm, and the chef couldn’t wait any longer. When they eventually arrived they were very angry because the kitchen was closed.” Lynne Threadgold remembers the artist David Tindall’s visits to the Red Lion. A Royal Academy artist, he used to live in the house converted from the chapel and spent a lot of time in the pub. According to Lynne, he used to arrive about 6pm, order a Guinness and sit around for about two hours.
The pub would fill up around him but he didn’t move and after a couple of hours he’d say “good night”, leave his Guinness sitting there and go home and continue his painting. He wasn’t particularly aware of life around him – though he had numerous children – he was just submerged in his painting.
The Tenniswoods developed the restaurant at the inn – “when we came here the dining room was like a school room with formica-topped tables” – with Connie doing the cooking at first, and then later they employed a chef. They also enlarged the lounge bar and laid the patio. Connie was a keen gardener, and one year she enlisted some help from villagers to tidy up the garden and so that they could enter the Brewers’ gardening competition – and they won! Connie remembers the garden as being somewhat different from how it is today, and they actually kept hens. There was also an antique shop called Bygones in the cottage, adjacent to the inn itself.
Jean Jardine, Connie’s sister, worked with the Tenniswoods from 1972, and recalls the restaurant business as being quite arduous: “Connie used to clean the ovens on a Sunday afternoon and I used to do all the washing so that everything was ready for Monday. It was a seven-day-a-week job including evenings. You would never go to bed on the same day as you got up”. Connie had invited Jean to come to the Red Lion when her husband died and she decided not to return to teaching, her former profession. “When I came, I more or less took over management of the bar. I moved into the little cottage then.” Jean stayed at the Red Lion for five years after the Tenniswoods’ successors, the Kennedys took over.
There were many regular customers both from the village and from outside. Connie and Jean remember well the Beasleys and Rosemary Smith and her mother, Tom Farmer and Charlie Fraser, the butcher from Harlestone, and the vicar from “Jimmy’s End” in Northampton. Connie says that Mrs Smith “always used to drink Guinness – she had a pretty dainty little face, with bleached hair and red lipstick”. Connie also recalls Sid Allen spending time sitting in the corner of the bar, and engaging people with his wartime reminiscences. Among other regulars at the inn were Northampton Town footballers.
One of Sallie Jones’s earliest memories of East Haddon is of a visit to the Red Lion before she and her family had moved to the village. They had been to look at a house, which was still only partially built, and to assess the village and see if they would like living there. They were impressed with the school, and then went to the pub for lunch. Bill and Connie allowed their children, Sarah and Nick, to go into the pub, as long as they “sat very quietly in the window seat”. While the family were sitting eating their sandwiches, the vicar came in for a drink and they decided that if the vicar drank at the local pub it must be a good village! It turned out that it was not the local vicar (see above), but nevertheless it left them with a good impression and they felt that East Haddon was the place for them.
The present proprietor of the Red Lion is Ian Kennedy, who took over from the Tenniswoods in 1978. The inn still specialises in food today, and provides bar meals in the two bars with á la carte lunches and dinners in the two dining rooms. There are five bedrooms, all en suite, for guests. Ian employs 30 people in total, not all of them full-time. His chef, Pat Sharp, comes from East Haddon and has been employed at the Red Lion all her working life.
Ian thinks that village life has changed because “people are so much more nomadic and one doesn’t get to know so many characters”. Like Connie Tenniswood, Ian also appreciated the company of Tom Farmer, who was a customer of the Red Lion for 60 years, and his friend Charlie Fraser. Both died in the same week in 2000. Ian says: “They always had a story to tell and they were always perfect gentlemen and they are a great loss”. He still has regular customers, but feels that because the pace of life is so much faster “the business isn’t quite as much fun as it used to be”.
Ernest Poole feels that the Red Lion has changed too much.
He used to have to hurry to get up there to get a go on the dartboard or even to get a seat. The place was full of characters likeTerry Freeman, Ted Threadgold, the cricketer, Jack Flavell from Spratton, Nick Butcher, Frank Pidcock, Mr Winnington, Rosemary and Mrs Smith and George Cooper. They all had their own places.
Lynne Threadgold also regrets the loss of the “village pub”. Some of her earliest memories of East Haddon are of the Red Lion, when it was a “real” pub with skittles, darts and dominoes and a totally separate bar, lounge and dining room. George Page was in the darts team at the inn, as was Dick Craddock. Jill Teasdale remembers the Red Lion being “a big feature in our lives from the age of 18 onwards, and in fact we had our wedding reception there, as did Mum and Dad [George and Joan Page] before me”. Jack and Diana Halliwell miss the Red Lion as it used to be: Jack remembers going into the pub after a cricket match and Bill Tenniswood being behind the bar and having a “super evening”.
The Plough
(information provided by Bill Messinger)
The Plough is often looked back on as the village pub. According to Maurice Fletcher, it was “quite a meeting place”; Daphne Walding says it was “basic” but with a “nice atmosphere”; Jim Hobson remembers the darts matches there. Ernest Poole was taken to The Plough as a child by his parents and told to sit behind the door and be quiet. Years later, he did the same with his own children. Many East Haddon residents recall the welcome extended by Madeline Jones, the landlady from 1927. She was married to Billy Jones, the “motorbike farmer” (see the Farming chapter), and he was technically the licensee, but Madeline always managed the pub.
Paradoxically, The Plough apparently came into being because Capt. Sawbridge, the Lord of the Manor, in the nineteenth century and the village’s major employer, didn’t like drunkenness amongst his workers. He blamed much of this on a pub thought to have been sited on the opposite corner of the Ravensthorpe Road junction from The Plough. He managed to have the pub closed down, but he was outwitted by the tenant, who, pleading the need for a place to live, took the plot opposite as part compensation, and, much to Capt. Sawbridge’s annoyance, built another pub there! The Plough is thought to have opened its doors for the first time in 1874.
In 1903, The Plough was bought by Phipps Brewery for £1,800, and on 25 September that year Bill Messinger’s great-grandparents, George and Harriet Howes became the new tenants. At that time the value of fixtures was £21.4.6d and included: 8 quart, 27 pint and 11 half-pint tankards; 17 pint mugs; 13 iron spittoons; 80 gallons of beer; 2 quarts of brandy; 1 gallon of gin; 3 pints of rum; 11 pints of Irish whiskey; and 26 packets of Woodbines. Harriet Howes came from The Old Kings Head at Long Buckby, a pub which her family had owned for many years and where Harriet and her three children, Kate, Madeline (later Jones, Bill Messinger’s grandmother) and Kathleen, were all born. George and Harriet had previously kept The Plume of Feathers, a Northampton pub near the Fish Market, where George had promoted boxing matches using the title “Professor George Howes”. George hadn’t been at The Plough long before he died, in 1905. During his brief residence in East Haddon he had become scorer for the village cricket team, many of whom were pallbearers at his funeral. Harriet continued to manage the pub until she died in 1927, at which time Billy and Madeline Jones took on the tenancy. They ran the pub for fifty years until they retired in 1977. They had bought the property from the brewery in 1970, and so were able to live at The Plough throughout their retirement until Billy died in 1984, aged 91. Madeline moved into residential care then, and died three years later, at 94.
Billy was born in Wales, but moved with his family to East Haddon in about 1896. After attending the Town and County Grammar School he joined the family farm. He was conscripted into the army in 1916 and, although he was something of a horse expert, he was sent to the trenches. He married Madeline in 1917, and they went to live at The Plough with Madeline’s mother. After the war Billy resumed farming whilst Madeline helped her mother run The Plough, which at that time also provided accommodation. When Harriet died in 1927, The Plough passed to Billy and Madeline; the name on the licence, and over the door, was William Jones but he never had any interest in the pub other than to entertain his farming friends – and he would claim that he was the only landlord never to have pulled a pint in his life! Madeline was an acclaimed cook, well known for her home-made pork pies and other types of country fare. She was also a fine singer for both the Church Choir and for the Women’s Institute, with which she won many awards.
The Plough provided a range of pub entertainments, such as cribbage, dominoes, darts, skittles, and ring board and, ahead of its time for the 1920s, a “polyphon” – which could be described as an early form of juke box! During the Second World War it became the headquarters for the Home Guard who used to adjourn to the cellar while the Coventry bombing raids took place, and no doubt helped to consume the contents to while away the time! Billy Jones was third in command of the Home Guard; another member was Tom Messinger (Bill Messinger’s father), a farmer from Holdenby. It was probably at the Home Guard meetings in The Plough that Tom met Billy and Madeline’s daughter Daphne, whom he married in 1947 at East Haddon Church.
Bill and Kim Messinger bought The Plough in 1985 from Madeline Jones when she moved into residential care. The house had become dilapidated after it closed as a pub and was suffering from, amongst other things, rising damp, wet rot, dry rot and woodworm. In addition, the wiring hadn’t been updated since the 1920s and it was not unknown to get an electric shock when turning the lights on and off! On the day they moved in, the pipes burst due to a severe frost. They have carried out the necessary repairs and improvements to make the former pub into a family home, although many of the original fixtures and fittings have been preserved to maintain the character of the old building. These now include a pewter-topped bar and the old pub sign, both of which are now in the dining, formerly “tap” room. The renovations were all a labour of love to keep the house in the family, because Bill’s grandparents had predicted that one day it would belong to him.
The Why Not/The Buckby Lion
The Why Not was the third licensed premises in East Haddon, but it was situated away from the village proper, on the main Northampton to Rugby Road. Its most recent incarnation, renamed the Buckby Lion, failed as a business and the building stood empty for many years, growing more and more dilapidated, until it burned down in late 2003. This was not the first time fire had destroyed the premises – in fact the pub had been burned to the ground on three previous occasions.
The Why Not had also sold petrol, from a pump installed in 1930; Daphne Walding remembers using the pub when it still had the petrol pump outside it. Jill Teasdale met her husband Maurice at one of the Friday night discos that used to be held there in the 1970s. When the Buckby Lion opened, it was much larger than the previous buildings and had accommodation. It was hoped that it would thrive with the M1 motorway being relatively close by, but this never happened and it closed in the 1990s
The Sports Pavilion
The Sports Pavilion at the Playing Field was granted a licence to sell alcohol in its bar in 1998, and now is an important venue for socialising on Friday and Saturday nights. It essentially functions as a community pub, now that the other pubs have closed and the Red Lion is primarily a place to eat.
The Wightman Players
Marjorie Wightman (Picture) developed the idea for a theatre group in East Haddon after a Women’s Institute trip to Duston to see the pantomime presented by the W.I. there. Someone suggested “putting on a play” for the Christmas party of the village W.I. and Marjorie was given the job of organising it, despite her protests that she had never done anything like this before – apart from at school. The play was an outstanding success, and a pantomime was planned for the next venture; thus Wightman Players was born.
Marjorie remembers Ernest Poole’s great contribution to the Players in the early days – he proved to be quite a talented playwright. As Ernest remembers, his wife Gwen was also involved with the Players, making costumes. Ernest also recalls a rather bizarre incident that occurred when he and Les Dixey were working on the scenery for the evening performance on a Saturday. “We were nearly finished, so I collected my pipe, tobacco and two boxes of matches, put them in my trouser packet, climbed the step to fix the last screw, when BANG! and I fell on the floor. I was concussed. Les could smell burning so he thought I had damaged an electrical cable and he phoned for an ambulance. I had fractured one wrist and sprained the other. I arrived home early at 10pm. Gwen helped me to get undressed, and from my trouser pocket she took out my pipe, tobacco – and two burnt-out boxes of matches. They had rubbed together when I climbed the steps! It was then that I realised that I had a low pain threshold. So after this I finished with the Wightman Players. Marion Allen was also involved with the Players – “it was great fun”.
Although the Wightman Players no longer exist in name, the theatrical tradition has recently been revived in the form of the East Haddon Players. Two original works concerning village life have been presented in 2000 and 2001, and the performances were very well attended.
Bonfire Night
Every year, Lynne and Dick Threadgold hold a Bonfire Night party in the field opposite their house. The event started about 20 years ago as a family affair, but more and more villagers became involved over the years and it has now grown into an East Haddon tradition. Dick builds a spectacular bonfire over the weeks before 5 November, and Lynne organises the food. People at the village contribute food and fireworks and the Guy is made by children at the school. It is a very popular social event, with both children and adults! Paul Capell remembers Len Tarry the postman building a village bonfire in the 1930s in the school playground – “which was dirt and gravel in those days, which was bad for the knees”.
The Harvest Supper
Another regular event in East Haddon is the harvest supper, held in the Village Hall every October. According to Peter Wilkinson, it was Bruce Jongman who started the tradition of men doing all the cooking and serving. June Wilkinson thinks this gives it a unique atmosphere and makes it a very relaxing and enjoyable event for everyone. She says that the ladies certainly appreciate it!
The Thursday Club
The Thursday Club is an informal group for villagers, meeting on Thursdays usually at the Sports Pavilion, but, especially during the summer, at people’s houses. It was inaugurated by Dorothy Beynon and Jo Rhodes and there are at present around 22 members. Marjorie Ennever says the club is very successful and that they are hoping to get more guest speakers and entertainment for future meetings.
Royal Celebrations and the Millennium
Paul Capell remembers bonfires being lit all over the country for George V’s Silver Jubilee. East Haddon had its own near the spinney. “I think in those days all we did was bake potatoes in the fire.” Two years later, when it was George VI’s Coronation, the village celebrated with a garden competition. “Mother did a load of flowers with wire and we decorated the garden and won a prize.” Canon Keysell judged the competition and the prize was half a crown. Phyllis Hobson also remembers the coronation and Mrs Scott-Robson organising a village gathering at the Hall. There were sports and races and Phyllis’s sister Dorothy (Davies) won the slow bicycle race. Coronation year in 1953 was celebrated in style. Sheila Pennefather (née Blacklee) remembers the party in the Village Hall when Coronation mugs were given out. Marion Allen (née Smith) also remembers Coronation gifts: “We were all presented with a book of the Royal Family and a little gift coach and horses.” Debbie remembers the fancy dress competition for which her mother took “great trouble to dress me up as Britannia”. It was a cold, wet day and she spent most of the afternoon wrapped in an old shawl, having disposed of her helmet. She says the judges probably couldn’t tell what she was supposed to be.
Connie Tenniswood remembers a number of royal occasions.
If there were any royal events they were all celebrated at the Red Lion. We used to have great do’s with awnings over the patio. There was the Queen’s Silver Wedding and the Silver Jubilee. On that day it rained and we had to roast the sheep in big chunks in the kitchen. It did clear up a little towards the end of the night. On Princess Diana’s wedding day Judy Kennedy opened up the garden to the village children and Freddie Laker sent us a load of little airline trays and we served food for the children on them.
Althorp House, Princess Diana’s former home, is nearby and there have been many royal visitors to the area over the years. Elsa Talbot remembers going to Althorp station to see George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) boarding a train after a visit to Althorp. Joan Page also remembers royal visitors at the station, including Princess Mary when she was the Princess Royal. Neville Craddock remembers the then Lady Diana Spencer visiting the bakehouse during the holidays. On the day of Diana’s funeral, the royal mourners travelled by East Haddon on their way to Althorp for the burial, and many villagers lined the main road as they drove past.
The history of East Haddon school shows how many royal events were marked in the village during the twentieth century. On 8 August 1902, it is recorded that Mrs Guthrie gave a party to celebrate the Coronation of Edward VII. In June 1911, there was a week’s holiday for the children because of George V’s Coronation. On 23September 1913, the king visited Althorp House, and the school had a day’s holiday. In the following years, Lady Althorp’s wedding, Princess Mary’s wedding, the Duke of York’s wedding, the wedding of Prince George and Princess Marina, the wedding of the Duke of Gloucester, the Coronation of George VI, the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, and the Silver Wedding of the King and Queen in 1948 were all observed by the school. In 1953, there was a three-day holiday for the Coronation of the present Queen.
June and Peter Wilkinson remember the Jubilee of 1977 as a major event in the village. A tea was held in the village hall followed by a tree-planting ceremony at the Playing Field. The two oldest people in the village at the time – Alice Cadd and her sister Sarah Benfield – were chosen to “plant” trees. It was “quite difficult” getting the two old ladies over the stile, but this was achieved and the two chestnut trees were planted on either side of the pavilion. Sadly, the trees were vandalised within a week and they never grew properly. Another tree was planted at the same time by the tennis court and that one has survived.
The Millennium was celebrated in style in East Haddon, and there was a spectacular fire work display for the whole village at midnight. Marjorie Ennever and her neighbours had “a wonderful time” in Orchard Close.
We had fairy lights on every house and we went round to each other’s houses for various dinner courses. Miss Cross [the former headmistress of the school] dressed up for the occasion and we had a big blanket to put round her while she sat and watched the fireworks. She was thrilled to bits with everything that night. She loved to watch the disco dancing and Graham managed to get her up for a bit of a dance herself. I think that was probably one of the most enjoyable moments of her life. She told me that she had never, ever been to a dance in her youth.
Village Fetes (Picture)
Fetes have been part of village life for as long as anybody can remember. The Hall was often the location of the fetes when it was a girls’ boarding school. Mrs Barnett was often in charge of the bottle stall at the fete, but one year she had a hat stall for which she collected “hundreds of wonderful hats”. She had expected that the children would love to buy them but it was not as successful as she had hoped because mothers thought their offspring might catch head lice! Marjorie Ennever remembers fetes in the garden at Priestwell House. She always seemed to be in charge of a bric-a-brac stall, situated under a large thorn tree. She says that the owner of the house at the time used to visit every stall, donating money to each one, but not actually daring to buy anything because he thought most of the things for sale had been turned out of his own cupboards!
Other Entertainment
Jean Holt recalls that there used to be a factory at the bottom of Butcher’s Lane (now St Andrew’s Road) and that in front of it there was an old “wooden room”, known as the Reading Room, used for dancing. Jean used to travel to nearby Long Buckby by bus for other forms of entertainment – a cinema or the “Buckby Feast”. Marion Allen also remembers going to the Buckby Feast twice a year:
There was the May fair and the one in September. We’d go to the pictures first and then to the fair afterwards. We either caught the last bus back at 11.15 or we walked home, but there were so many of us it was safe. In those days the fair took up both sides of the square and was much bigger and it was always absolutely packed.
Paul Capell remembers Frederick Smith Junior’s home-made entertainment on his family’s farm:
At the beginning of the [Second World] war Freddie Smith and his brother Philip used to give film shows in the granary and fitted it out with a projection box and car seating. It was somewhere to entertain the evacuees. They hired the film from the old Emporium Arcade in Northampton. However, after some time some kind soul informed the authorities and it was stopped. Later on, Freddie built his own version of an electronic organ in the loft with the cymbals and drums on the beams. We would go round for carols and his mother would bring out mince pies and his father beer for the men.
When Joan Page left school at 14, she went into service in Northampton, but often used to return to East Haddon on her days off and can remember going to the Red Lion for a drink. She also used to go to dances in Long Buckby with her future husband George:
There used to be dances at Long Buckby every Saturday night. We used to call in at the pub for a drink first, then we would catch a bus into Long Buckby. The dances used to finish at midnight, then a whole gang of us used to walk back to East Haddon. George would have left his bike at Mr Blackett’s place, which he would then collect on the way home and cycle back to Holdenby [where he lived].
June Wilkinson’s artistic activities have prompted her to arrange a number of events over the years. She has always loved painting and is an associate member of the Northampton Town and County Art Society and on the committee of Network Arts. For ten years she organised art exhibitions at the Haddonstone weekends in May, which were always successful. She has also organised flower-arranging classes and a sewing group; six former members of the latter jointly created the Millennium Wall-hanging in the church. Marjorie Ennever says that the flower-arranging classes were “very enjoyable” and that they helped her to meet people when she first moved to the village.