Teenage years - 1926 to 1933
I am writing this to show that my teenage years were enjoyable and fun in spite of the lack of TV and computer games, and certainly better for health.
My school life was quite enjoyable. We did not have homework in those days, but we had exams and I usually did well in them, coming in the top three most times without much trouble. I was in the school choir and we would take part in competitions against other school choirs in the district. Another break from paperwork was PT and sports. We had a very good netball team and a less popular stall ball team.
When I was about 12 years old I joined a gymnasium group and enjoyed the next 3 or 4 years of attendance with them. We had a varied programme and were in great demand to put on displays at fetes in the district. We did the marching patterns while swinging clubs, and the same with dumbbells and barbells. Then there was the vaulting horse and the pyramids. I was usually about half way up the pyramid and it was a light weight girl who took the pinnacle place. This was always great fun.
At 14 years old I left school and started work, and later on I bought a cycle. I started working at Chesham. When I worked at Harrow on the Hill it meant that I had to get the train from Chesham each day.
I joined the Cestriam Cycle and Athletic Club and so met other cycling enthusiasts. We would meet every Sunday for a ride out and stop for tea at a regular cyclists’ tea room – somewhere that could cope with cyclist’s appetites! There were very few cars on the road so we had the roads to ourselves. Cyclists these days would be horrified to ride the cycles we had in the club! They were fixed wheel, which were good for group riding as you could ride very close to the one in front without relying on the brakes – but it was not so good going down hill as you had to twiddle so fast. Another thing – they were single gear – none of this 20 gears of nowadays. Even Sturmey Archer 3 speed gears were frowned upon. Some of the tough guys entered racing events on grass at various fetes in the area and also road races of 25 miles and 50 miles, where we lesser mortals had the honour of directing racers and rare traffic and handing out water bottles.
I lived on the outskirts of a small town and when I worked at Harrow I walked from home to the railway station with my little attaché case for my sandwiches. One day one of the cycling club members (Melvin Thomas Henry Avis, known as “Basher” Avis) stopped beside me and offered me a lift to the station. He worked at a butcher’s shop and used the butcher’s cycle to get home. It was a gent’s frame with a huge basket in front for delivering the meat. I looked bewildered but he indicated the cross bar so I perched on it and he had to put his arms around me to steer and stop me falling off. I was laughing too much to worry and I reached the station with time to spare. I appreciated the lift every day from then on.
Another thing very different was the courting ritual. When a couple took a shine to each other, they met in a group and went for a walk, and eventually just the two of them. They would walk along the roads and lanes with a space between them for weeks and weeks until – Oh Joy! – He held her hand. They must have advanced afterwards because there were many “shot gun weddings” and worried young people. One couple I used to see regularly walking past our house and into the fields, and she was always knitting. Later events caused the local gossips to say, “Well, she wasn’t always knitting!” But I think they married in time.
I think children and young people were happier and more contented then than they are now.
