Life a
Linda Graham
Living in a
I was born in Epsom Surrey in 1951 and lived in
My late Father (Arthur Roffe) had family in Little Compton and stayed there often and went to school there during the time when children got sent to the countryside during the war.
It was always his dream that he would one day take his own family and plant his own roots in the Warwickshire countryside.
Through sheer hard work and determination he raised enough money for a deposit and got a mortgage to buy a tiny cottage in Brewery Row.
The cottage was very basic but my Father worked all his spare hours and soon it was the very picture of an idyllic country cottage that often appears on chocolate boxes!
We had absolutely no money in those early days, we dined on rabbit and pigeon and vegetables from neighbouring farms. I recall seeing the dead bodies hanging up in our outhouse and having bad dreams, perhaps that’s why I have been a vegetarian for 35 years!
Nevertheless, life was so good.
One of my earliest memories is walking round the furlong as it was then called, (a footpath round a field that was a furlong in total) with my little second
hand dolls pram.
We may have been as poor as church mice but those were halcyon days.
I attended Little Compton School as my Father had done before me and remember how happy I was when finally my Mother allowed me to ride my bike along the furlong to and from school.
The summers seemed hot and long, the children were always outside, and we provided our own entertainment as most of us didn’t have TVs.
We would build camps and play cricket in the fields and all the usual chasing games.
Our social life was Sunday school at the Baptist Chapel school room and every Wednesday night we would have a games night usually at the school room but sometimes Mary Coleman (who ran the Sunday school) would ferry us up to Chastleton Hill for outside games which we all loved.
I attended that Sunday school from the age of four until I was seventeen!
In 1967 My Grandparents bought a small cottage up Chapel Row and my life seemed complete, I had all my much loved family by me. Sadly my Grandfather passed away not long after moving and didn’t have long to enjoy his retirement.
My Father was somewhat of a local character, everyone new Roffey and throughout my own life he was my rock. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when I got engaged to be married that he did some swift wheeling and dealing and found us a cottage to rent right next door in Brewery Row!
A year later my new husband and I moved down the village to a new little estate of bungalows where we brought home our new born son Danny.
The bungalow was lovely but not big enough for a family so we waited with baited breath for the council to find us a bigger home and every finger was crossed that it would be nearby.
In December 1975 the long awaited news came through that a house in Barton on the Heath was ours if we would like it. We DID like it!
Just a short distance over the hill from my childhood home and in an equally beautiful village.
The house in Camden Close seemed like a mansion to us, with three bedrooms a sitting room dining room and massive garden we felt that at any minute we would wake from a dream.
It had recently been modernised, central heating and brand new kitchen with a garden that looked like a builders site. My husband spent hours digging it all over and eventually we had a garden that was not only pleasing on the eye but was functional as it was producing vegetables.
We went on to have three more children Sammy, Rebekah and Abbie.
Sadly Sammy passed away and didn’t ever come home but he is buried in Barton church yard, so I do feel he is close by.
All the children attended
Despite them all now flying the nest, they all take any opportunity they can to come home to Barton, each and every one of them has wonderful memories of growing up in the Barton countryside. The fetes, the Christmas church services, Mr. Charles’s nativity, the gnome up Mrs.Westbury’s tree. Playing scarper in the close, being told off by Mr. Hughes-Hallet for going to close to the lake (RIGHTLY SO!)
The harvest festivals and suppers, Mrs.Hicks giving them milk fresh from the cows, often shared with the farm cats …the list is endless.
Now here I am all these years later, with my wonderful second husband who adores the place as much as I do. He does his bit for the Village clean up and like me, can’t bear to see litter or the village not being respected for the perfect place it is.
These days I spend a lot of time at my computer (that’s what happens when you get arthritis, no more running in fields) but the up side of this, is I get to run the village web site, which I hope visitors find pleasing on the eye and informative.
I am so glad my late Father followed his dream and made sure I was raised a country girl (his hill billy daughter as he used to call me)
So now I wait for Grandchildren and even if they are not lucky enough to be brought up in the country they WILL get to benefit from Barton and all it has to offer when they visit me and hopefully that will be often!