Memories of a Corsham Lad : Snippets of Binder Twine

I have noticed that whenever I post a blog entry under the heading 'Memory Lane', and write about some of the instances of my childhood, growing up in Corsham in the late 1940's and through the 1950's, then my readership increases noticeably. I guess that means that you like sharing other people's memories as much as I do. I have now started to collect all of these memories, together with some new, as yet unpublished, ones, to grace the pages of a slim volume under the heading Snippets of Binder Twine. I hope to be able to release the volume later this year, probably about September, under the Voice Publications imprint. Watch this space!

In the meantime here's a few thoughts to be going on with:

Can you remember:

• Looking over the wall at the start of the road to Biddestone, to see the ducks on the farm pond.


• Feeding the horses after climbing onto the five-bar gate at the entrance to the field at the top of Priory street, now and for many years a large housing estate.


• Scrumping apples from Sawbridge's orchard, entered by climbing the high wall down the lane which ran down to the woods from the High Street (I've forgotten the name of it, but it was almost opposite the road which led up towards Alexander Terrace, past the public toilets).


• Walking down to Squitter's Lane to go 'nutting'.


• Being amazed by the bluebells that grew in such abundance in the copse on the right-hand side of the road leading to Biddestone.


• Drinking frothy coffee in Corsham's very own Coffee Bar in the late 1950's, named 'The Beanstalk', which led your parents and those of a certain age to forecast that the whole thing would destroy the very structures of Society as it then was, with teenagers getting too much freedom.


• Jumble Sales in the Town Hall, climbing up the stone steps to buy someone else's rubbish!


• Spending evenings at the Youth Club in Priory Street, under the watchful eye of Miss Reynolds.


• Wednesday evening Rock 'n Roll dances in the half-light of the Community Centre.

If you can remember all or most of these then I guess you must be in my age-group; but if you might have once remembered them, but have now long-forgotten, then I guess that you must be a couple of decades older! Either way, I hope that I've triggered the grey matter into a moment of excitement today.