Miscellany of Merriott Memories

by David Gibbs

MM_01 Introduction
About these documents

MM_02 My Place in the Country
A look around the village as it then was

MM_03 Country Living
What was it like to live in one of those quaint thatched cottages?

MM_04 Village Shops and Services
MM_04 An overview of the village retail and other services

MM_05 Suffer Little Children
Sunday School at the Methodist chapel in Lower Street

MM_06 At War With The Evacuees
The wartime evacuees and their impact on the lives of village children.

MM_07 Sunshine Corner
Children’s services held at the Elim Four Square chapel

MM_08 War Memorial Memories
Thoughts about the village men whose names feature on the a war memorial, plus memories of armistice parades

MM_09 Fin Fur Feather
The sort of things country boys used to get up to

MM_10 Mr Chedzoy's Oilboy
Saturday work as an ‘oil boy’ that provided pocket money

MM_11 Red Dominoes
A child’s view of the arrival and departure of the American GI’s

MM_12 Fathers Shed
Potatoes, coal, bicycles and the odd rat

MM_13 Grammar School
School days: fit-togethers, knitting and the divisive 11+ examination

MM_14 Ging Gang Goolee
Memories of burnt bread twists, smoky cocoa and the freedom of camping

MM_15 Salad Server Days
Post 11+ education for children denied secondary education. We made wooden salad servers and grew parsnips instead

MM_17 The Merriott Marathon
Long before the London Marathon there was the Merriott Marathon, twice around the village

MM_19 Smelly Toilets
Recalling my first job working at Merriott Mouldings in the 1950s

MM_20 Gwen or Sis
A brief memory of Gwen and Sis, conductresses on the Safeway buses

MM_21 Step Or Two In The Right Direction
Learning to dance, stepping out in more ways than one

MM_22 Moving On
New horizons, new experiences