Further recorded memories of Bill Nottage, taken from a 2006 interview
As a boy I lived with my parents at number 97 High Street, right opposite Ash Grove. I remember going to the well with my Dad, which was next door in the little alleyway by the National Trust house. The well is covered over now. We had a tap after the war when they brought water through.
During the war there was always a lot of traffic coming through day and night. Lorries were continuous, with army traffic taking bombs up to the aerodrome, and stuff coming back.
My father wasn’t called up as he worked on the Piggs Turnpike Farm. They farmed the land on the right-hand side of the Nuthampstead Road, on what is now the golf course.
I attended Barkway School during the war, with headmaster Mr Williams and infant teacher Miss Parker. We used to walk up to the village hall to have our dinner.
Our food was brilliant. Dad used to keep pigs up the back garden. He would walk them up to George Burr’s the butcher. We would hang hams up in the inglenook, one each side of the chimney, so they were smoked all the while. We also had about 10 or 12 chickens.
Us boys would go ferreting for rabbits and give them to the Americans. They would bring us tins of everything. Anything you wanted, you got.
For milk, I would walk down with Mum to Mrs Pigg at Rushingwells with a tin. They had their own milking parlour there, with Doug Coxall back there after he came back from the war.
Dad grew his own vegetables – he had 40 rod of allotment down Church Lane opposite the oak tree. These were moved by Mr Kier to Gas Lane about the 1970s, but most people gave them up once they had moved; it wasn’t so good down there.
For game there were rabbits, hare, pheasant and partridge. The woods up there had Will Muncey, gamekeeper all round Rokey Wood and that area.
A bit later into our teens we went dancing. Mrs Corrigan, the Dimsdales’ cook, used to run a lot of dances, especially during the war.
We spent quite a bit of time up at the airfield. They used to invite us to the cinema there. They used to come over with a bus to pick us up.