The Blacksmith's Shop.
One very popular place to visit in our early years, particularly on wet days, was the Blacksmith's Shop. What a place to behold! This had consisted of a brick built house with the Blacksmith's stone built shop attached. The actual shop was comprised of two separate rooms, one for shoeing, with large wooden doors and a side window of wooden shutters to admit some light while actually being used. Then inside was the place of real interest, the forge itself. This part had a very low roof, four very tiny barred windows, and round the walls were pictures of "The Pilgrim's Progress". Tools also hung round the walls, held by webbing straps, these in turn being nailed to wooden racks. The anvil being the centre of operations and certainly of greatest interest to us, this of course could take a seemingly endless supply of tools, from chisels for cutting the iron off to length to formers for shaping and forming, all fitting neatly into square holes in its massive body.
The Blacksmith, a comparatively small man (not the large village blacksmith usually portrayed in books), would take the piece out of the furnace and work up a rhythm with the hammer before striking the horse-shoe or what ever job was in hand - pure joy to watch, and hear then the hiss as he dipped it in the water bath.
He could well entertain us with coloured sparks made by throwing iron filings into the blazing hearth. He might allow us to pump the bellows, or we might just watch him making horseshoes or some other job on the anvil. Horseshoes were, as with most other things, made as required. People would take their pots and pans, kettles, etc. t o be mended. He would solder them - "Sodder" it was always pronounced - another process we liked to watch.
I truly would still like to be a village blacksmith, if there is such a person left.
Water for everyone had to be fetched from the pump, of which there were two, made of cast iron in Ashendon itself. You might have to prime them by pouring a small quantity down through the cap at the top of the pump before any water would emerge, and I doubt that this was very hygienic, but no one appeared to have any ill effects as a result. Many and varied were the containers used for this water fetching, most people having a favourite system. This could well be two buckets on a yoke, with crosses of wood floating on top (this device was to prevent spillage), or perhaps no yoke, much depended on the distance you had to carry the load. It is surprising how far you can stretch a bucket of water when you have had to carry it a quarter of a mile or so. This water for internal use was kept in large earthenware pans covered with a cloth, and it remained remarkably cool even during the hot weather. These pans would have a second use at the time of wine making when they would be filled with parsnips or whatever was to be turned into a splendid brew.
Sometimes during the summer the pump would fail to draw any water up, so then a trip to the spring was called for, this not only meant further to go, but also you then had to join the queue and wait for the slow trickle of the spring to fill the bucket. I seem to remember that Pollicot had the same problems but I have no idea where their spring was.
The main spring incidentally rose from a point in the churchyard, I understand that this is a feature of many villages, as was the yew tree. Pollicot pump I seem to remember had a wooden- casing end a lead spout, but it could have been anything under the casing.
A time when much water was required was at planting time. It usually meant that plants such as cabbages would only be watered once. This I believe is still the case for most gardeners, even though water is more easily obtained nowadays. There were many different ways of planting, some people would leave their plants laid on the ground for several days to go yellow before the actual planting, others would literally screw the tops off leaving the poor plants looking like a bundle of sticks.
Of course there were many wells around the area, and dire warnings were given regarding the dangers of playing close to them. Some had only wooden lids which could be easily opened, but I think we all had a healthy respect for them. Water was drawn from them with a bucket hung on "bull pole", presumably the name comes from the pole that is used to handle unfriendly bulls, these, the poles that is, having a spring clip that attaches to the ring in the nose of said animal.
The bulls in actual fact were mostly controlled by the simple act of putting a "rickpeg" through the ring, and lifting its head parallel to the ground thereby making it difficult for it to see where it was going. Simple means first getting your bull to co-operate by allowing you to do the necessary with the peg. A "rickpeg", is a stick two feet or so long, usually made from willow and used to peg down the thatch on ricks, and sometimes used by us as wickets to ease that shortage of cricket gear.
That previously mentioned school "lobby" was now our assembly point for air raids, and in the event of the siren sounding some ten miles away in Aylesbury we would take up our positions in great haste, and sitting on the floor would practice singing "Waltzing Matilda" and "Run Rabbit Run" - always these two songs, easy to learn, and sing possibly, also they were the "in" tunes of the time.
We had a "vantage point" on the opposite side of the road to the blacksmith's shop, from where we could see for miles to the East and South. This consisted of a low stone wall under a large elm tree - we would sit there for hours, particularly when we had measles or some other good reason for not attending school, just talking or more accurately arguing, and generally "messing" about, while keeping a wary eye open for military vehicles to come into view or something to take our attention.
On one occasion from here after school we watched two large high explosive and two oil bombs explode on the outskirts of the village about a mile away at "Chearsley Furze". The oil bombs were fitted with organ pipes or "screamers" of some kind which made a considerable noise, and after due consideration we decided to head for the "shelter", it was of course locked. The weather was very overcast, and so we didn't actually see the aircraft, but judging by the running time of the "screamers", I would think he was very low at the time - it wasn't until the bombs actually exploded that we realised what all the noise was really about. This was probably in November nineteen forty. No damage was done, only two very large craters, and two small burnt areas to show as proof that we had actually been bombed. Children being children, many visits to the site were made but no conclusions as to why Hitler had a particular grudge against us were ever reached.
Quite early on in the war a large parachute mine was dropped in a nearby village, (Winchendon), I was always led to believe that it landed in the proverbial "dung heap" - it failed to go off and was later brought to Pollicot Ford, which is on the outskirts of Ashendon, until it was collected by its new owners, most probably the Royal Navy. It was transported to this site on the local Council lorry, dumped in a field, and guarded night and day.
During this time I managed to persuade my Uncle (the local special constable) to take me in to see it.
If I remember correctly there really wasn't much to see, just a long grey cylinder domed at one end with "handles" sticking out of the sides, but I suppose it satisfied my curiosity. It was finally removed by the Royal Navy, and was reputed to have blown up when being dismantled, but like with most happenings of the time there was never a shortage of rumours.
In November nineteen-forty some bombs were dropped on the outskirts of Ashendon at Watbridge Farm, to Wotton area, this was at about eight thirty in the evening, then about midnight that same area was again saturated with hundreds more bombs.
Most of these were incendiaries, with a few small high explosive ones. The total sum of the damage done was one horse hit by shrapnel (not serious), and a barn set on fire, also not serious. Rumours were that the incendiaries came from the so called "breadbaskets", but they could clearly be seen passing over Ashendon, having been released on the West side, and landing to the East. We didn't find any carcasses or frames to support this theory, but someone always had a new theory or rumour on the go. The high explosive ones were much smaller than the two mentioned previously, and scattered in a line covering about half a mile distance, mostly being close together in pairs. The incendiaries were scattered over the same basic area, although from two separate attacks on that same day, or rather night. A further odd thing that came out was that, although they landed on both sides of the road we only found one that actually landed on it, again not doing any damage, but just burning the tarred surface.
The great thing about it for us was that we could go round searching for the fins and heads of the incendiaries, and if one had fallen in a boggy area then it would nearly be intact - in fact one was in mint condition. It was kept hidden for some days before the Police found out, and came to collect it.
The "new owner" was told to produce it, and so he reluctantly fetched it from its hiding place, but instead of handing it over, slammed it down on to the blue bricks with which the girls' playground was paved. This was probably one time when no one wanted to be in the wrong playground, but in the event nothing untoward happened. Several rumours went round as to why this area was hit twice in the same night, one being that the site was being surveyed for an airfield that day - strange - one actually opened for business just under two years later!
The area bombed was on the outskirts of where the airfield would be built, but if it had happened two years later then certainly the R.A.F. dispersed living quarters would have been totally wiped out. A second story was that "Lord Haw-Haw" had hunted with the local foxhounds and therefore knew the area well. You takes your choice!
At some time we also had a leaflet raid. This was mostly in the Pollicot area, but there certainly was a lot of them. As they were printed in German, and the photographs showed dead German soldiers on the Russian front we could only assume that some allied aircraft had dropped them somewhat wide of the intended target. Oh why didn't I keep some?!