Now we come to my Father's brother - Uncle Elijah⁸ who was the Village Blacksmith. He was a very clean living man, although his job was very dirty, a thorough good Wesleyan - a pillar of the Church, always there twice Sundays acting as Sidesman. He did all he could for the Church and the Ministers.

He had two small ponies and traps, those little tub traps where you sit two each side and drive sideways. This was before the motor car arrived in popularity. He generously let the Ministers have them free on Sundays to travel to the outlying Churches around Fakenham where they were planned to preach.

In the week my Uncle worked at the Forge with his son Herbert⁹ who used the 14 lb hammer while Uncle tapped his small hammer on the anvil to keep time as in turn they hit the white hot iron into various shapes required. I spent many a day with him as a little boy and as I look back I can see what a nuisance I must have been. I jointed the short pieces of chain hanging on the walls and dragged them round the lanes as a train. I was always at the pump, the only means of obtaining water and I can hear them now telling me I would pump the well dry. The times I was told not to bankup the forge fire so much with slack and use the bellows to make a bigger fire than was required! Baking crab apples in my Aunt's kitchen stove thinking I was a baker! I used sometimes to go for a ride with the Baker in his cart on his daily rounds to Sculthorpe and other Villages.

My aunt's maiden name was Holman¹⁰ and she had a sister living with her who was deaf and dumb but most kind and always happy. As my elder brother Frank said to me a few years ago, there never was a more patient loveable man than Uncle Elijah. We boys turned his forge into a playground but he took it all in good part. Aunt Harriet was just the same - always a smile, we were always welcome. I used to stay with Aunt Elizabeth, my father's sister, but in the day time was always down in the forge watching my uncle. He used to go to the neighbouring farms around Fakenham with his son Herbert in the horse and trap, taking his tools and shoes he had made. It was great fun catching the horses and seeing him shoe them out in the fields. Now, of course, the farmer uses mechanical means and there isn't the use for horses. The days of the blacksmith have gone.

Opposite my uncle's cottage a man named Kerrison lived, a cattle dealer. I used to go with one of his cattle drivers to the cattle markets. His name was Hocky Doo. He was a little simple but managed to drive sheep, pigs, cows, etc, home to Fakenham that Mr Kerrison had bought at the market. I can see myself now coming down the hill into the town behind a drove of pigs with a long stick.

There was also a monumental Mason named Blythe who was very clever at his work and seemed to do his best work when he was half-tight. I often watched him at work, being almost opposite my uncle's forge.

My uncle had two further sons. The eldest named Arthur has a grocer's shop at Wisbech in Norfolk. Herbert still lives at Fakenham and lives at Mill House and is about my own age. He is a retired draper and still has a single daughter in the business at Sheringham, the other daughter being married.

On one occasion coming home I walked to the station at Fakenham with a lovely black rabbit my uncle had given me in a wooden box to bring to London, but on reaching the station the porter said it would cost 2/6d which seemed in those days to be an awful lot of money. Thinking my father would be annoyed at me spending such a lot of money I shed a tear and left it in my uncle's care. There was no such thing as pocket money in those days.

Round by the old Mill we used to bathe. It was known as Ye Olde Boat Hole. In the fields by the banks of the river there were small holes in the ground varying in sizes, some ten feet in diameter, and the water from the river seeped through and made the earth which was black very soft and muddy to a depth of about two feet. We boys in the clothes we were born in used to jump into these holes and make ourselves like niggers and then dive into the river and come up white again. I used to go fishing. I could see the fish quite clearly and no doubt they could see me too, for I never caught anything, but once I remembered taking a bloater home, which I bought at the fish shop in the town on my way to Aunt Elizabeth.

Last updated 24 September 1999