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2011 Diaries I am pleased to announce that we have another new Cambridgeshire Community Archive Group (CCAN). The beautiful village of Elton in the very far north west of Cambs has joined our brilliant community archives network. They have a very good village society and have a wonderful heritage project on the go, with exciting events such as their very own ‘Big Dig’ and the involvement of the whole community and village school is something to be admired, I had a lovely visit to see them and was made very welcome. I am really looking forward to seeing the Elton CCAN group additions to the CCAN website. CCAN is Cambridgeshire’s online community archive, a place to see old pictures, photos, written and recorded memories, pod-casts and video clips along with living history, as groups record their activities from today for the history of tomorrow.  Elton Society
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My granny (Connie Toller - nee Broom) talking about her first school in Russell Street, Cambridge c.1918 onwards - recorded in 2010
As written by my aunt Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) March 2005.
School When I was 4 years old I started at Richmond Road school [Cambridge]. The building was partly a school- partly a church, St Augustines. Sliding doors concealed the church part and the stacks of chairs. Miss Chandler was the dearly loved and respected Headmistress; Miss North was the Infant teacher. They ran the school between them, helped by a monitress, young teen-age girls and the lady cleaner, care-taker and general assistant Mrs Mansfield. When we arrived in the morning, Mrs Mansfield would help you hang up your coat; she always seemed to be avalible to wash hands or knees, to deal with grazes, fasten shoes and cheer you on with her cheerful smile or grin. She wore a cross-over apron and I think had a few missing teeth that was obvious when she grinned at you. I remember her holding up the school pet rabbit, by its ears, unfortunately, as climax of a poem we recited at the concert, " There once was a rabbit, developed the habit of twitching its nose". At Christmas one year each child was asked to take a toy to contribute to a collection that was set out on the 'stage' a small platform at one end of the infant room. Then one, by one, Miss Chandler sent us to go and choose a different toy to keep for ourselves. I was too shy to search for one I really fancied, I grabbed the nearest item, a worn tennis ball and took it home. I remember my mother saying " You've got balls already, why didn't you choose something nice?" On May Day, we would celebrate in Mrs Golding's garden which was at the corner of West Road on Huntingdon Road. A cripple girl in my class was the May Queen. We all wore pretty clothes and bonnets and danced around the Maypole, sang songs like " Oh dear little buttercup, sweet little buttercup, bloom round the throne of our queen." We carried flowers and decorated the throne. Sometimes we would go to play in the hay in Miss Salters land at the corner bend in Storey's Way. Miss Chandler would lead us all in a crocodile down to Mrs Salters. I remember our parents taking us home after an event at Mrs Salters and, one boy messed his trousers on the walk back. a soldier dad in uniform helped him out by wiping his legs with long grass plucked from the road-side! Val Burroughs As written by my aunt Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) March 2005.
Toys, Games and Occupations. As my mother was into toys herself, she would be on the look out for any toy that she could obtain second-hand. She was delighted with a pedal-car she found in a second-hand shop in Bridge Street [Cambridge] and we would visit Shrives the toy shop near Christ's Lane and Eaden Lilly's basement toy shop. I remember going with my mother to an art shop in Trinity Street and buying watercolours in the four primary colours. Coloured pencils were restricted to those four colours. After the war I remember being just thrilled to have a wider range of colours. A girl in my class at Cambridge High School for Girls arrived at school with a packet of about a dozen coloured pencils and we all clamored around her asking where she'd obtained them. She told us a shop in Newmarket ( Woolworths I think ). Then Derwent pencils came out in Heffers and my friends and I used to go there each Saturday to choose another colour to add to our collection at 9 pence per pencil, which was quite expensive. My mother used to take us to a shop at the corner of Bermuda Terrace to buy colouring books or magic painting books. My uncles used to make me toys like dolls houses, monkeys or clown acrobats that swung between two sticks you had to squeeze; a balancing parrot. We used to spend our time on the allotments- so many of my memories are of playing there and on the local Rec. in Richmond Road, where there were swings, a long rocking horse with a row of seats behind the horse's head and a really long swing with handles all along for several seated children- an older child would stand each end to keep the swing momentum going. Miss. Chandler used to take us onto the rec' sometimes towards the end of the school day. Then we would gather by a tree for the final afternoon prayer before being collected by our parents. Mum went to Belfast for three weeks holiday to spend time with dad who was a Sergeant in the Army. When she came home she brought a baby doll for my sister and a white fur dog with lead weighted feet. My auntie used to knit dolls clothes for us.We decorated twigs with sealing wax-"blossom". When my dad was due to come home on leave I remember drawing a picture of him in his uniform using the 'khaki' chalk. When I'd been to the dentist in Newnham, mum took me to the toy shop there and brought me an orange pop-gun. The same shop sold us a toy sewing machine on another occasion. It did chain-stitch. I remember tracing outline pictures from the newspaper using toilet paper as tracing paper as it was smooth, shiny and transparent. Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) As written by my aunt Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) March 2005.
Food and Clothing My uncle Bill had allotments where he kept pigs and poultry ( chickens and turkeys ). We therefore had veg and eggs. Chickens was a treat. Sometimes Uncle Bill would kill a hen that had stopped laying and it was cooked in a saucepan as a "broiler". We brought rationed fish from the MacFisheries and rationed meat from Roses the butcher in Petty Cury [Cambridge]. At Richmond Road School, I was one of the children who was selected to recive cod liver oil of malt, administered daily by the spoonful to each child as we queued. A crateful of small bottles of milk stood warming in the hearth in Miss Chandlers classroom. At the end of the war we relished the idea of fruits we hadn't had before, like bananas. At our Victory party in Richmond Road we were given ice-cream for the first time, although a neighbour who worked in a hotel did used to bring home small bars of yellow 'ice cream'. A neighbour, Mrs Kidman, used to spend some of her sweet coupons on me and would give me turkish delight. At the end of the war, the first influx of sweets included 'wrapped soft-centered fruit sweets from Poland-an inch and a half long with pictures of fruits on the paper wrappers. At Easter my mother would make me an Easter egg. She would melt chocolate and pour it into two bakelite egg cups. I remember sitting by the radio, watching these set, placed in front of the radio. They would be stuck together when set. We would go to the clinic at the Methodist Church on Castle Street where we recived concentrated orange juice that you would mix with water. Clothing rationing, combined with low income meant that families were glad of second hand and refashioned garments and bedding. We were thrilled when the Red Cross gave my sister and me a cardigan each because our father was a solider, ( my mother recived a bedspread ). Our wardrobes were never full like they are now. Our blankets had to do for several years and would be passed from one generation to the next. Some of them were thin with no fluff left and often bore the utility mark. Overcoats would be piled on top of bedding to add extra warmth. Coal was rationed. We would awake to frosty fern patterns on the inside of the bedroom windows. When I was confined to the front bedroom for weeks with Scarlet Fever, I remember Miss Chandler bringing some of my class-mates to wave to me from the other side of the road. Mrs Fletcher, the milkmans wife, gave me some jelly- an unobtainable treat! All scraps of food like vegtable peelings were collected in the pigswill bins that were found at intervals along the kerb-side, ours was next to the telegraph pole outside 112 Oxford Road. As Uncle Bill kept his own pigs and chickens, scraps also went to them. I remember the smell of potato peelings boiling on the gas cooker and then they would be mashed into chicken food that looked and smelled like bran. My auntie would carry it to the allotments each afternoon in buckets. A well provided water and I warned to stay away from it. Horses and carts delivered milk, vegtables etc. The milk came in bottles with cardboard tops. If you pressed out the centre you had a ring on which to wind wool to make a pom-pom to decorate clothes or to play with. I remember watching the greengrocers horse eating from its nose-bag outside our house and then tossing its head to reach the remains at the bottom of the bag. Val Burroughs ( nee Toller ) Written by my aunt Joan Punter ( nee Toller )whilst attending Miss Winnie Chandler's infant school, Richmond Road Cambridge. c.1940's
Do you remember a red roofed school A handful of shell for your sums? They gave you a Mickey Mouse gas mask And a pack of American gum. Do you recall when your dad was on leave, Dancing around like Astair? They dressed you up like Shirly Temple With a big ribbon bow in your hair. At night sleeping under the table While bombers droned over your heads, And granny said "Won't it be lovely, when we can sleep safe in our beds", One day they said " The War's over!" Grannie sang of the Alley and 'Sal'. When Vera sang 'White Cliffs of Dover' And the bells rang 'for me and my gal'. Joan Toller This is the school that my grandmother (Connie Toller - nee Broom) went to as a child, with her older brother Russ Broom. It has now been converted into flats but there is a small modern school next door.  National School, Russell Street, Cambridge  National School, Russell Street, Cambridge. Girls Entrance  National School, Russell Street, Cambridge. Girls Entrance  National School, Russell Street, Cambridge. Boys Entrance  National School, Russell Street, Cambridge. Boys Entrance |