Cultureshock

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Video transcript

We get on a red bus all the way to Wallington, over the humped back bridge, getting off at the Clock Tower.

It was beautiful.

I was eleven. It was very hard leaving home. Some of the children were upset and crying.

When I was at home you could hear the bombs dropping, but at Wallington you couldn’t hear anything.

We were off the red bus and taken into the Hall to look around, and Lady Trevelyan spoke to us and asked us if we were happy. Then I went up to see my room called Plantagenet, which I shared with some of the other children.

It was on the north side of the house approached by a staircase and overlooking the Clock Tower. It was a lovely little room all done out in nice wallpaper. It had a fireplace with little ornaments on, like a little mouse. Children liked to look at the ornaments, but never touch – we were told to behave! I never saw any real mice, but there were bats up there and I used to be frightened of them.

We all wore wooden clogs to go through the woods, proper wooden clogs like you would get in Holland. We just slipped them on. We must have had them supplied, because we never had anything like that when we were in Newcastle.

I remember we used to pick potatoes in the field on the way to Cambo to help out the local farmers. The gardens were one big allotment. We used to pick strawberries to take to the cook, though we used to eat some! There was a lovely wishing well there with the lovely stones – I used to make a wish.

We used to swim in the River Wansbeck. I couldn’t swim at first but Lady Trevelyan took each child and taught them to swim. I used to have little rubber wings. It was just the breadth – just the narrow part of the river - and we had to sit there and wait until she took somebody else and brought them back.

We used to go swimming in one of the lakes and Lady Trevelyan used to say: “Go in between the water lilies they won’t hurt you – but go in between them”.

She used to enjoy playing the piano and getting all the children around. We used to do marches and folk dancing. We had a May pole in the courtyard outside.

There was Pauline Trevelyan, Katherine Trevelyan, and of course Pat. I remember Pat coming through the courtyard and saying: “Would any of you children like a ride in my lovely sports car? I’ve just got this new red sports car”. I was one of the children chosen and we all went in the back.

The parents used to visit once a month. My mother rarely came, she had a lot to do at home. She was still there with the two children, there were six of us altogether, two boys and four girls. Even though she rarely came to visit me I never seemed lonely because I always seemed to tag along with somebody.

I remember the cook one day let us help her shell some peas and they went all over the floor and we were all singing “how green you are, how green you are!” picking peas off the kitchen floor.

At Easter we used to get a paste egg and roll it down the hill. In the winter we used to sledge down the hill in the park on cardboard just before you got to the hump backed bridge. Miss Carr, one of the teachers, used to join in with us.

We used to play skipping games and played ball on the Clock Tower. We used to play on the archway and throw three balls. We used to sing traditional songs like “I vow to thee my country”.

We used to have lovely brown bread and butter, a piece of cheese and a dish of jam or honey. We used to be hungry – children are always hungry. They used to cut the edges off the toast and we used to go and ask the cook if we could have the pieces with butter on because when you are growing you are hungry all the time.

When I was first married I decided to return to Wallington with my husband. We met Lady Trevelyan again as we sat and had our picnic. She was pleased to see me; she really gave a nice welcome. As a child I had carved my name on a tree near the walled garden. It wasn’t done maliciously; all the children had put their initials on before they left. And my husband put his name beside mine.

We saw the gardener some years later and learned that the tree had been cut down.

I also carved my name on Shaftoe Craggs. All the children put their name on. I put on “K. Davis” – I think it will still be there …