A Chiddingly history by William Chives

Often when on the verge of givng up all hope, I could state facts no end about our own Church, but a whole lot of them may mean next to nothing to you, but they stand out in my mind, as stars of the morning. I would give a very great deal, that more people should have a part of the inward happiness which I myself have experienced while being in the Church, and Choir, also when ringing those lovely old bells. Maybe my friend you have never joined in a Church service at all. Well all I can say is that you have missed much. There are usually vacancies too in choirs, also ringing lofts, so join.

My Mother Starts a Sunday School
Now when we first came to Sussex, my mother was greatly concerned, even grieved, to see the children with no Sunday School to attend. That being so, she approached the old Rector, asking his permission to start one in the weekday school. He being quite agreeable to her request, my mother and father made it known that there was to be a Sunday School, and you may be sure that she was delighted when on the first Sunday there were over thirty came. At the end of the first six months that number was doubled, while at the end of twelve months, there were seventy on the books, three teachers and one who could play the harmonium. We used Sacred Songs and Solos (Sankey and Moodey's) and what singing.

I for one soon knew the majority of the hymns, and I often find myself singing them even today(nearly fifty years after. Many a time those hymns have proved a very great comfort and a blessing to me. I seem to see the tiny tots marching with my dear old mother like a little army on their way from the Sunday School over to the hurch, where they would all follow her up to the chancel and sit along on the kneelers, in front of the communion rail when the service was at three o'clock (about thirty tiny tots in all) while the older ones sat in the nave.

But the Rector could not bear to see a fidgety child nor must any cry or speak while the sermon was being delivered. I seem to see that popular figure now as then, while on his rounds to visit the parishoners. I well remember now the very first time of meeting him:

It still is in my memory clear,
How he did fill my heart with fear,
While on his rounds, to visit sick,
Would flourish high his walking stick
As though to strike me.

Needless to say, I very soon took myself off in a state of fear, but very soon after, I met him (minus stick) and he asked me why I was frightened of him, and we got on remarkably well together after that. There was one instance of which I will make mention, that he was always much welcomed by the school children in the day school. Now let me explain. In the Rectory garden their grew a very tall pear tree (aye, and it still stands today, overhanging the pathway in the garden, at the junction of he paths, i.e. to the church porch and the other continuing to the back door). The name of the pears (Sugarloaf) is, as had the fruit, a very attractive character.

Every year when that tree bore a fair amount of small, sweet, juicy pears, the Rector would call over at the school nearby and ask for two of the oldest boys. He would then proceed back to the Rectory with them. Very soon they would all three return to the school, the two boys carrying an old-fashioned clothes basket (like which you may see in use even today when mothers of a family have completed their weekly washing, and may be hanging it on the clothes line to dry), or a bath. One year I remember there were two large baths full of those rosy pears. The Rector would then proceed to hand them round to the infants first, continuing in the upper standards.

And after the fruit had been equally divided out we all had to say, "Thankyou, Sir," at which the dear old gentleman's face would be a picture of delight. Hence that pear tree was nick-named "The School Pear". Ah, happy days those were, to recall them even now is as a tonic to me. I have often wondered whether other boys ever look back and get so much pleasure out of it, as I do. I think some do, for not long since I met an old school friend of mine, whose face lit up as I mentioned several notes of interest on our schooldays, although he confessed that he had forgotten some of them until I mentioned them.

He remembered one thing, which though forbidden was often practised, that being the practice of trying to put a stone over the top of the Church spire by the means of three things, i.e. catapults, slings and skalers (as some boys spelt). I remember, when having to write out 500 lines in two days, after schooltime, only to have another 500 given to them to write making a 1000 in a week, in addition to having received three strokes on each hand with the so-called cane first. Of course the correct way to spell that word is scaler, meaning to scale or climb. It was a stick about half an inch, or one inch thick, slightly split at one end, far enough down to hold a nice round pebble firmly in the jaws, or split, when the owner would hold it down partly behind him, as though sticking it in the ground behind, without looking at it. And then with a mighty twist of the wrist he would bring it up, gripping on to it, and out would go that stone, skimming into the air.

I was considered a very good hand with a sling. I still remember now that I often could pick a tin canister off from a gate post in the field at the back of the Old Forge at Muddles Green, but I was always rather scared at throwing stones, since one of my pals had a serious accident happen to him while going home from school. It was like this, a number of big boys were on the way home to the Holdens and the Stream when they had an idea strike them, that they would throw a large Sussex flint into the air, the others throwing their flints to hit it while in mid-air. Now in case you do not know what a good old Sussex flint is like, let me tell you that they were very sharp and jagged, often as sharp as any knife and sometimes had a point like a needle.

Now this game had been in swing hardly two minutes, when one of the flints hit the one in the air, which broke a splinter off from it, and that splinter cut my pal's eye clean out and laid it on his cheek, as his brother told me, there was only a fragment of skin holding it. I remember I dropped my chopper and ran to see what had happened when they brought him home before taking him to the Tunbridge Wells Hospital. Ever after that to this day he has had only one eye to see with, the other being of glass.

Talking of Sussex flints, many a time I have stood and watched the roadman on my way up to the village, and Whitesmith, breaking the flints by the roadside. Hours on end they would sit cracking the flints with wire goggles on, before putting them on the roads. That was before the grey granite was used for roadmaking. "Kent Rag" was the name by which that was known. One sees it rolled in today as a top dressing for the under surface, before putting tar on when after that sand was used on the sprayed tarred surface, but chip granite or fine shingle is used now, 1940/41. I remember the main Dicker road having large Sussex flints laying about on it, but today it is concrete nearly a foot thick, with kerb stones at the side also well furnished with gratings leading into drains to take the surface water.

I go a-cycling on the old-fashioned Penny Farthing
I have also one other instance concerning a Sussex flint when of the age of 12 or thereabout, Mr Dadswell of the Chiswells Farm (whose son, Mr Benjamin Dadswell carries the farm on still today) had a good old- fashioned cycle (or bike), the notable Penny Farthing. Now it was like this, Mr Dadswell gave his boys the privilege of trying to learn how to ride it (he himself having ridden it to London and back on two occasions).

As was ever the way with boys, there are always plenty of admirers of anything fresh in the way of amusements and in those days, one had to make all one's own amusement. No motors, very few cycles, only the rich could afford them, and no buses and no cinemas. And to cap the lot, as we say, there was very little money that ever found its way into a boy's or girl's pocket. Well, I am off the rails again, so many memories crowd in when one lets one's mind go back, but now I will return to the good old Penny Farthing. I for one itched to try riding that bike, so I was given the chance. I could only just reach the handlebars when standing beside it, so someone helped me to mount on to the saddle. Now I could just reach pedals (which by the way were fixed to the ends of the spindle of the Penny) with my toes.

Someone challenged me to ride down Sandbank Hill to the top of Stream Holler (Hollow), so I received a mighty push off from behind which sent me hurtling down the hill. All went well except for wobbles, until halfway down I spied a large Sussex flint. Now that bike seemed to head straight for that flint, no matter how hard I tried to steer clear. What happened? you ask. Ah, I see you are laughing. Well, the Penny semed to make a mighty jump right at the flint and of course I went through the air with the greatest of ease (like the man on the flying trapeze), while the Farthing came springing up behind as though in search of the Penny.

Now I always felt thankful for only having barked knees and lacerated hands, for on collecting myself and bike up and looking round, I beheld the Holdens' mill van with the horse trotting round the corner at the bottom of the hill. Thanks to providence I had been spared a much worse mishap. Did I learn to ride the Penny Farthing? - rather. And soon after that when working at Mr Ashdown's on the Dicker, I rode another old-fashioned steed, a three-wheeled tricycle, one wheel being on one side and another on the opposite side, while the third was placed directly in front of the right hand one, in straight line with the one behind it, not in the centre of the back ones, as one sees today. The quaint form of steering was this-wise: two handles were placed at the side of the rider, one for steering (which was connected by a rod of iron to the top of the foremost wheel) and the other handle at the side was connected with a brake, which when turned (or twisted) with the hand would cause two metal shoes, shaped to the tyres, to rub the tyres. The handles themselves resembled a stable fork (or spud).

The tyres on all cycles in those days were of rubber, solid, about half an inch to one inch thick (then called solid tyres). Later the cushion tyres came into use, those being approximately 1 to 1½ inches thick which did not cut into the soft roads so much, thus allowing more speed to be gained, being stuck on with pitch, or wired on to the rims. Then came pneumatic tyres with beaded edges which had to be kept blown up tight or they would leave the rims of the wheels, but they were soon replaced by the present type of tyre with wire edge, the wire being made inside the edge of the tyre.

Do you remember the different patents which were used to prevent the inner tubes (as they were then named) from being punctured, i.e. the steel band inside the tyre, the hide band also placed inside the centre where the tread is (or trade as the old folks called it)? Do you remember the Fill-a-buster powder which was blown into the tube before fixing of the tyre was completed, how it hardened up and caused the whole thing to run dead, or heavy, supposed to do away with the mending of punctures, and how that they were quickly discried and soon vanished out of the market? Do you remember the oil lamps for cycles, how on very windy nights they would blow out? Also how with the idea of saving buying the proper oil one would sometimes try burning paraffin oil in them and what delightful odour came belching forth with volumes of smoke? Also carbide gas lamps, which gave a very good clear light?

I remember going to Alfriston one winter's night, and having run out of water in my lamp, I called in a cottage below the old Market Cross, and asked the old lady of the house for a little water for my lamp, when she asked me to step inside, if my lamp was safe, and did I want water to put it out with. "Law, massey me, Tom. Da ye hear what he says," (that to her husband). Both of them looked scared, when I said "No, not to put it out with but to get a light". "Pon my sold, I dunt know what new fangled thing foakes will git up to nex, I be sure. Well, I be blest, fancy wanting water to make a fire wud in is lamp".

Whereupon I informed them how that the water caused a gas on coming in contact with the carbide of calcium, but they wished me not to light in inside the house as they did not want to die yet. Today we are using electric torches owing to the War restrictions in too much light showing for the enemy (Germans) to see overhead in their raiding aircraft. All lamps having to be blackened, only to show a third of the front light, and that to be pitching down on to the road. But I still think I shall have another acetylene lamp, after the War is over.

The First Motor Cars
Where did you see the first motor car on the road? I remember quite well where I saw the first one. I was about seventeen years of age. The late Doctor Thomas Holman of East Hoathly owned it, and what a motor car. It was a steam Osmogo car. The Doctor had only had it a few days when the late Thomas Sheppard Richardson or his wife was taken ill at night, and Dr Holman was sent for by the coachman, but he said he had a motor car and so would not need to be driven to and fro in the conveyance sent. I remember standing in the stable yard at Hilders Court at midnight and hearing the Doctor's car leaving his house in East Hoathly. The coachman having returned, we stood and listened together.

It took half an hour for it to reach Hilders Court and we could hear it all the way on its journey. The Greywood Lane was anything but clear of Sussex flints and the car being driven by steam, and having solid tyres, also a very thick chain each side running on two cog-wheels, one might well imagine what a clatter it made. I remember my father said they thought it was a traction engine coming in the north entrance to the Hilders Court drive (where we lived at that time).

The second motor car I saw about a month later when Mr Campbell Johnson of Wylye, East Hoathly, called on a visit to Mrs Richardson of Hilders Court. That car was a much smarter affair. I remember the name of it so well (being so much like its owner's name) i.e. Arrol Johnson. It was well and neatly made, the sides and seats were coachbuilt, polished light oak wood. The occupants sat back to back, two in front and two behind. The cold winds and rains could be kept off by means of a cape cart hood, which could be put down in fine weather. The height of the seats from the ground was approximately five feet. Again as was the case with the first car, the tyres were of solid rubber.

Another sight I have not forgotten, which I saw when I was about 12 years of age, I was sent by my mother to the chimney sweep's house on the Lower Dicker. On turning on to the Dicker road at Nash Street corner, I said to my mate, Alfred Leaney, "I wonder why they left such a wide piece of grass by the sides of the road there." His answer was, "I specs it was for when they moaty cars comes about". Little did I think then that I should see such a great variety of they moaty cars pass along the Dicker, as one sees today. Now for the sight we saw. Having turned the corner, we were just saying what we expected the motor cars would be like as time went on, when on lifting our eyes to the top of the hill, by the Croft Cottages, a huge looking monster appeared silhouetted against the horizon.

At first it looked like two thick posts, or boards, rising up but as it moved into view at the top of the hill, it kept us two boys guessing as to what it could be. As it got nearer and nearer to us we could see a lot of men pedalling in the centre betwen the two tall wheels, as it proved they were. Those wheels were ten to twelve feet, or even more high. (I tried to find out, but there were so many rumours about the whole thing, as to where it came from, also to where it went, I failed to gain the truth of its height). I did get enlightened a few years after as to where it came from and where it went to. It was an advertisement for pneumatic tyres. A French firm built it, I was told. The width of the tyes were 18 inches or more and the number of men pedalling it along was eight. It appears that it was shipped over the Channel to one of our ports, and pedalled all over England, on special roads, and routes as some of the arches over the roads were too low for it to pass under. I mentioned it to an old inhabitant of Hellingly (Mr Harry Martin of the old "Engine House", now called the "Petrol Pumps") recently. His face lightened up directly. "Yes," he said, "I remember everybody wondered what on earth it could be in the distance."