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Chesham Stories

Richard Prior - a Chesham childhood, 1930s

To this generation, the town in the 1930s would have had a remarkably old-fashioned air. Milk arrived every day in a smart pony cart. A big churn with polished brass bands held the bulk and the milkman had a matching pail to bring supplies to each house. Two measures - pint and half-pint, hung from the rim. You took a jug and asked for what you wanted. Later on we got what I thought of as 'Grey Day' in bottles. I suppose that must really have been Grade A.

We even had a Muffin Man, who paraded the streets ringing a bell, with his wares on a board on his head covered in a cloth. Sadly I never had any; they were said to be too rich for children.

There often seemed to be trouble with the water mains. Cuts were announced by the Town Crier, a scruffy rather than ceremonial figure. His bell and cries sounded something like: "Ther wa'er /ding/ will be turned orf /ding/ at Har Par Blah!" One could never get the message.

A fairy cycle was my passport to the town by way of The Backs (called The Baulks then). To a juvenile eye the back streets were sprinkled with tiny, interesting shops selling Barrett's Fountains (sherbet with a liquorice tube), boiled sweets in big glass jars and chocolate bars. A Milky Way cost a penny halfpenny each, Mars twopence (old money). My spending limit was a weekly pocket-money allowance of one hexagonal threepenny bit, so a Mars bar was usually out of reach.

Kingham's were our Grocers. You took in a list and things were fetched for you at the counter, or were delivered by bike. Occasionally my Mother told me to get "A pound of Best Fresh butter" from the Home and Colonial Stores which was further up the High Street. My order was made up from bulk by an assistant using wooden scotch hands so it had a corrugated pattern. Then a ticket was sent by a fascinating overhead railway to the Cashier, and the change came swinging back the same way. I was pleased to see near there that Darvell's still survives. I was occasionally allowed to go in there and order a penny bun and butter as a treat.

Mrs Lewis ran a combined fishmongers and green grocery opposite the vanished Town Hall. Fish came in smelly boxes by rail. There was a big marble slab (no chiller of course) running to an open window on the street. If you wanted plaice fillets, you chose the fish and it was quickly filleted, wrapped in greaseproof then in newspaper. You got the bones, too. All through the war there were wooden display bananas hanging round the shop, which was the nearest we got to a banana for more than five years.

Timber was a major industry round about. The logs arrived by wagons drawn by teams of Shire horses. Coming down the hill from Chesham Bois the carters fitted steel skids under the wheels which squealed as they slid along. What would the Highway Authority think of that now! There was a saw mill at the bottom of the hill and another where the Water Meadows car park is now. The horses must have been glad to cool their legs in the 100 yards of the River Chess leading up to the mill. That long ford is still there, though the mill has disappeared and the river flow is much less nowadays. This mill had a steam lorry, and it, too, went through the ford with its loads.

I learned to swim in the Town pool, which was then fed directly from a spring - and was deathly cold! It was just a corrugated iron enclosure with a few cubicles, more or less in the same place as the present pool. There were trout in the Bury lake, but that was for grown-ups! In the main river I fished for sticklebacks and minnows and have been keen on fishing ever since. It's a funny feeling, getting old!

By Richard Prior, January 2010

Richard's father, Charles Christopher Prior, bought The Forelands (later The Manse for Hinton Baptist church and still lived in by the Minister of Trinity church) in 1930 and Richard was born there that year. The family lived there until 1945.

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