Entertainment

In the days before television and computer games dominated entertainment, people had to rely on creating their own means of enjoyment. The cinema had been around for many years and enjoyed enormous popularity during the war years. The films they showed obviously provided people a temporary means of escaping the reality of the war raging around them. At the same time, the regular, if somewhat propagandist, newsreels kept the public up to date with the progress of the war.

Children were very resourceful and entertained themselves in simple ways and, when they arrived, the more worldly evacuees from London added a real spice to the lives of the Wrington youngsters. Gladys Brough recalls the early war years, when she was about eight or nine:

“ During the summer we used to go up Old Hill and have a fire and fry sausages and the banks were absolutely full of violets and primroses. We used to go paddling – so called swimming over at Tumbling Weir or Iwood. The boys used to jump in from the top and ride their bikes across the stones. They also used to ride their bikes down the slide over the rec, when the slide was a much steeper one than it is today. It opened our eyes because we were so naïve and “squeaky clean.

We also used to get a ride on the railway trolley down to Congresbury or up to Burrington. If we saw Mr. Brooks, one of the railway labourers, coming along we used to say, “Hang on, Mr. Brooks, we’ll be there,” and sometimes we’d have to walk back. As kids we had a grand old time. All those kind of things which we used to do, the evacuees got to learn. Of course, we used to raid the orchards and take Morgan Sweet apples. Clifford Marshall used to come out and chase us away but we’d go back as soon as he’d gone. This was where Roy Clements now has his bungalow, and up on past the bowling green. If we did have a penny we would go to Yeates’s, the undertakers. There used to be all orchards, right down the road where Wiltons and Brooklyn now are. Yeates’s used to sell the apples a penny for so many.”

There were also thriving youth clubs. Ken Schroeder attended one in the top room of the John Locke Hall and another at the Old Rectory in Broad Street. Olive Mellett and her friends started what they called a “Get Together” club, because a lot of things had closed down and so many people had been called up to join the forces:

“ There were two Land Girls that were sent to Barley Wood to help Captain Wills. They were London dance instructors with Victor Silvester and Ken Schroeder got to know them. He came to me one day and he said that the girls had said that if we wanted to start dancing classes, they would come down and teach dancing. Ken booked the hall for Monday nights and we had our classes – quite a lot used to go up there. There were loads of boys who were between school and being called up. We had our own little gang.

Then Mrs. Dade, who was a schoolteacher, had started some keep-fit classes and from that we developed a Thursday night club for girls, at the hall again. Then the boys used to ask us where we were going and asked whether we could do something that they could do. So Sylvia Millard and I and a couple of others decided to start our own club. This was on Saturday nights in the John Locke upper room (no snooker during the war). We used to have twenty or more youngsters attending quite a thriving little club. We didn’t do anything in particular but I remember once when we wanted music. One Sunday morning Sylvia got the horse and cart from the Collinses and went up to Langford somewhere and got an old gramophone. We played games and quizzes and all sorts of things. One Christmas we even had a Christmas party with a tree and took our Primus stoves over and cooked a rabbit dinner!”

For the older inhabitants, as well as the three village pubs, the Memorial Hall provided the principal venue for public entertainment and, in addition to its skittle alley, doubled as premises for a cinema, as Ken Schroeder explained:

“I used to help Mr. Cattermole from Bridgwater operate the projector when they had the pictures. I used to carry all the heavy equipment in. The projectors weighed 108 pounds. The screen was the opposite end to the stage, with the projector on the stage, with a fireproof screen round it. He got all modern films and used to go to other villages as well.”

Villages unfortunate enough not to have their own hall were encouraged by government to get themselves a discarded railway carriage, available at a price of £30 – delivered to the nearest station!

One of the main uses of village halls was of course for regular dances and Gladys Brough remembers some of the wonderful ones she went to towards the end of the war:

“ There were no lights about to help you when you were on your bicycle and of course then we didn’t have the houses so it was very lonely. We used to go miles out to dances on our bikes and we used to walk back from Churchill, when we got to thirteen or fourteen. There were American soldiers at Brockley Coombe, black and white – a very, very big camp, with an Italian P.O.W. camp at Yatton. There was this big camp, the army with their searchlight down Iwood Lane. Then there was a camp at Langford opposite Cullens and also there was a Pioneer Corps one on the corner at Langford, near the A38. So we were surrounded, plus the Air Force at Locking and Lulsgate – men, men, men. As we got older we had the time of our lives. Next door was always full of Americans. They got to know people then they’d come to your house.

Pam’s sister worked as a nurse at Yatton Hall. She used to play the piano so she used to come in for evenings, often bringing her nurse friends. She had an Irish friend who had a lovely voice and they used to sing and the curtains were always open. Soldiers coming down from the pub used to look in so it was “Come on in,” and tea was on. It was a very nice atmosphere. Pam went to dances when she was twelve and got away with more than her sisters did – only local ones in the hall, which the Americans came to.

The biggest laugh we ever had was, the soldiers used to come up from Langford, especially on Thursdays, which was pay night. We all used to go to the Plough and the landlady up there always cut us a plate of sandwiches. These soldiers used to come up and this one particular night, one of them brought a duck out from under his tunic. He was waddling along the piano and we thought it was marvellous but we think we know where the duck ended up! All of the pubs were very popular. On Thursdays they used to bring us their sweet ration and we used to get chewing gum from the Americans.”

Olive Mellett recalls some of the Wrington events:

“Two local ladies, Mrs. Bullivant and Mrs. Harris, got up fortnightly dances to raise money for the troops. There were all the airmen from the airport, ack-ack posts up on Wrington Hill and a camp up at Langford, so all the soldiers used to come in for the dances. There was no trouble to get all the girls to go! When we went off to other villages all the boys used to ask who was taking us home and warned us not to go off with any American boys. The dances were supposed to be finished at eleven and as soon as it struck, the caretaker, Mr. Shapley, would be out with his big brush. He had to get that hall ready for the school by 9 o’clock the next morning and he was the postman and he had his ARP duties. We thought he was a right old misery so we weren’t very considerate.”

Trixie Kirk reminded me that there were other places of public entertainment in the village: the Golden Lion was one of them:

“The Lion had a big club room – a lovely place. Every November they used to have a big British Legion dinner there. I used to go and help May Millard who worked there. When you looked in the window there was all the tables laid, with glasses, serviettes and white linen tablecloths. Mrs. Axford ran the place and used to have lovely dos there. On the first floor they had a great big club-room. There was an old man who lived down at Wrington Mill who used to hold boxing matches up in the club-room every so often, during the early years of the war. They used to have parties and little dances up there. It was lovely.”