Category: My Stories

The house where I grew up wasn’t far from the edge of the market town of Beverley. We lived at what was known as the push end called  Molescroft. I’m not sure about it being posh, it was certainly the newer end of that ancient place. There’s been lots of development since those times and the house is no longer as close to the edge of town.

Beverley is surrounded by many villages mostly picturesque and distinctly rural. These are the type of villages that feature on British drama programmes that they hope to sell to an American audience. They have a wonderful set of names too Bishop Burton, Cherry Burton, North Cave, South Cake, Walkington, Tickton as well as the gloriously named Wetwang.

The nearest village to where we lived was probably a quaint rural village at one time but it had mostly been subsumed by a large RAF base built not long before the Second World War.

During the Second World War it had been part of Fighter Command and hosted Spitfires during the Battle of Britain. While we were kids, though, there wasn’t that much flying going on. My understanding, after doing a little research, is that by then it was a maintenance unit with planes flown in for work and flown out when completed. If you stood at the end of our road, which  finished near the top of a small hill, not far from the top allotment, you got a good view of the runway and an even better view of the hangers.

The planes I remember the most were the English Electric Lightening and the Avro Vulcan.

From our view of the runway it was fascinating to watch the Lightening screaming down the runway until a parachute was fired out of the back slowing it down significantly. I often wondered what would happen of the parachute was to break.

I’m not sure how often the Vulcan visited; the one a remember was showing its prowess at a splendid local Air Show and Open Day. I’ve found some pictures from 1974 which are just how I remember it, I’m not sure whether this is the same day as the one a remember, but it’s about the right time. At six, if that’s when it was, this arrow shaped giant was fascinating as it flew over our house and rattled the single paned windows, amazingly agile for such a large aircraft.

I had no idea of the purpose of these aircraft during those days of the Cold War, for me they were entrancing roaring giant birds. I’d never known real war, I’m not even sure that I even knew about the cold war at that age.

Being close to the North Sea the airfield at Leconfield was also home to RAF Rescue Helicopters; first it was the Westland Wessex followed later by the Westland Sea King which looked so much more prepared for the job it was being called to do. They would fly in and out low over our house sometimes hovering in their splendid high-visibility yellow paintwork. We would regularly stand in the back garden and wave to them, sometimes we could see them waving back as they leaned out of the open side.  I would imagine what it would be like if they lowered the rope down and took us for a ride, sadly, they never did.

A few years after the glorious Vulcan acrobatics the airfield changed its use and became the home to the Army School of Mechanical Transport. The Lightening and Vulcan were replaced by Trucks, Tanks and Land Rovers. The flat land around the runway was turned into hills and gullies providing off-road experiences. The roaring noise in the skies became extra vehicles on the local roads. In the army you could learn to drive at 16; seeing these boys who didn’t look much older than myself drive such large vehicles was amazing. The locals soon became adept at knowing how to avoid the delays caused.

On one particular day in 1982 the vehicles streamed out of the base on their way to a ship, the Southern Ocean and war. It was the talk of the school the next day, I missed it completely, in the coming weeks I would learn what war was as the images were shown on our televisions.

Mr Smith was a short wiry man.

He had jet black wire-wool hair and dark olive skin.

I have in my mind that he mostly wore a flat cap, but that bit of my memory is a little fuzzy. He regularly had a cigarette in his hand, not a smart long white cigarette, but a short crumpled roll-up.

The jacket that he wore looked like it was once part of a suit but the trousers never matched. The shirt was always accompanied by a tie but more from tradition than a need for formality. He often wore a jumper under his jacket. The boots were black, but not polished, functional rather than cosmetic.

I knew Mrs Smith and the children by sight, but I don’t remember ever talking to them.

They were occasional visitors to the wide grass verge just along from the top allotment where they dwelt in a bow topped caravan that was painted in faded traditional patterns. The pony that pulled the caravan from location to location was attached to a large weight and a long string. Long enough for it to roam for grass but short enough to keep it from straying onto the road. There were chickens too but only a couple.

The allotment was on top of a small hill at the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds with views over the flat plains towards the coast and the North Sea. On clear evenings you could see the lighthouse at Flamborough Head spinning and flashing it’s unique signal.

While Mr Smith and his family were around treasured produce would very occasionally go missing from the short single row of allotments. I wasn’t aware of anyone complaining though; while the Smiths were around there weren’t any rabbits. The rabbits did far more damage and I assume people saw it as a bit of bartering.

I assume that Mr Smith had a trade but I couldn’t tell you what it was, it would have been something agricultural, but probably not skilled. Mr Smith was a simple man with simple traditional ways.

While we were working on the allotment Mr Smith would sometimes come for a chat and a smoke, our allotment was near to the end were the caravan was stationed. My Dad would chat, I wouldn’t, I was a child and thought Mr Smith was odd with a strange smell and a peculiar accent. I would busy myself putting some more weeds on the fire, or cut another spade full.

One day my Dad was stood talking over the fence to Mr Smith when he looked down at the plants growing their and said:

“Your bananas are growing well”

My Dad turned to look in the direction Mr Smith was facing, somewhat puzzled. We might have lived on the drier side of England, but it certainly wasn’t warm enough to grow bananas.

Having looked my Dad knew what Mr Smith meant, this year he had decided to grow something a bit new, yellow courgettes. They were, at least, the right size and the right colour for bananas, but they tasted very differently.

My Dad chuckled about the bananas for days afterwards.

No, I don’t know whether is name was really Mr Smith, I suspect not, but it’s the name we knew him by.