People
Among the recollections gathered for the village archive is that of Dave, who was 81 years old when he shared his memories. He preferred to keep his surname to himself, but his story gives a vivid picture of Leigh and the surrounding district in the 1940s.
Dave had been born in South Devon, and as a wartime youngster he was evacuated to a farm in North Devon. Once the War was over, he was sent to a boarding school in Kent, and it was during the school holidays that he came to stay with his older brother, Arthur.
Arthur worked as a cattle man at Paul's Farm and lived in one half of Budgens Cottage, which stood on Station Approach. In those days the spot we now know as Lower Green was generally referred to by that name. Dave recalled the pleasure of fresh bread from the Old Willow Bakery, which traded in Lower Green, where a loaf could be bought for 4½d.
What drew Dave to Leigh above all else was fishing. He would go round the local farmers asking leave to cast a line in their streams. The most tempting water was a large pond above Egg Pie Lane, which belonged to Lord Massereene, a politician from Northern Ireland. The pond, Dave remembered, held trout as long as a foot.
Cricket on The Green was another pleasure he recalled from those years.
When he left school, Dave took a job as a telegraph boy in Tunbridge Wells, where the telegraph office stood on Vale Road. He made the journey by bicycle from Leigh each day. There were seven or eight telegraph boys working at the office, and the tips they earned were rewarded with Capstan cigarettes and Cadburys chocolate.
Conditions were changing in those post-war years. The maximum working week first came down from 48 hours to 46, and later fell again to 42½. Agricultural labourers, though, were left out of these limits altogether. Arthur's own week reflected older rhythms: he worked only a half day on Saturdays, and used his free time to shop at the International Stores in Tonbridge, travelling there by motor-cycle and side car.
Dave's memories, told in his own words decades later, capture both the hardship and the small pleasures of village life in the 1940s — the price of a loaf, the kindness of farmers, and a boy with a fishing rod by a pond full of trout.
This article first appeared in the Parish Magazine in September 2015.