The Village
Life at the Club
Emily Cook arived in Englefield on 5th November 1930 on the small bus-cum-carrier’s cart of which her Uncle Dick was driver. It went to Reading each morning putting up for the day in Cork Street and returned to Watlington at 4pm. On this day however there was aboard several bits of furniture for the family and so it travelled on the additional seven miles to Englefield. Later that day when they were looking round the large garden they now possessed, a few houses down some lads were building a large bonfire. Little did she know then that one of the lads had taken a shine to a skinny, shy school girl at first sight, and that 12 years later he would become her husband after a courtship lasting 8 years.
Her first impressions of Englefield were of a large imposing mansion set in lovely parkland with deer roaming. A large lake with mysterious islands and water fowl of every description including beautiful swans and many Canada geese. This was all new and seemed like paradise. However, as she wrote in a memoir...
Not so the cottage and the amenities, very primitive to say the least. Oil lamps by the dozen, eight above the billiard table to start with. All had to be filled, wicks trimmed and the lamp glasses washed and polished each day. I should say about twenty in all. It was goodbye to creature comforts like a water closet and sink with taps. The lavatory was a wooden seat with large bucket beneath situated in a boarded-off corner of one of the sheds. Of course this was the norm out in the country at that time and I suppose a slight improvement on the two seater thunderbox at Watlington [her grandparent’s home]. Should one be unwise enough to want to pay a visit after dark it meant putting on your overcoat, lighting the hurricane lamp and setting forth like Scott into the Antarctic. The real nightmare began when once enthroned there would be all sorts of scuffles and squeaks. Should the lamp shine into the corners there would be horrible red eyes of rats causing shrieks of terror and a very hasty end to operations followed by a withdrawal to safety.
Another hardship was the lack of water indoors and sink, the water had to be fetched from an outside pump and washing-up done in a bowl on the table. Looking back on those early days I wonder how we coped.
There would be whist drives and dances in the large clubroom, games tournaments and darts matches, all of which we were required to provide the refreshments for. Imagine the New Year’s Eve Squire’s dance: being free food and one free drink per person it attracted gate-crashers from miles around and the room would be packed solid. Therefore, it meant keeping a steady flow of clean glasses and crockery. We had a kitchen range which would be covered with pots and kettles and each bowl of dirty water had to be taken outside and emptied on the garden. If it was cold and frosty the pump would freeze up and each venture out to refill buckets would mean taking a kettle of boiling water to throw on the pump first. Then the next time you needed refills the darn thing would be solid again in spite of copious lagging and wrapping up.
The late 30s saw the advent of the Elsan chemical closet, luxury indeed! Ours was installed in a small shed nearer to the house, which seemed to have been an outside larder at some time. It had a concrete floor, a small window and not so much as a mouse hole. So we set about making it clean, a fresh coat of white wash on the walls, then came a wash stand fitted with a bowl, towel rails at each end and a drawer at the bottom for bits and bobs. A large mirror was hung above and a mat on the floor. Another plus was a lock and key to ensure privacy, sadly lacking before.
Of course it wasn't big enough to take the bath, a 6-foot long galvanised one which when not in use hung on the wall outside. Having a bath meant filling the copper in the wash house and lighting the fire underneath and waiting for the water to heat. In the winter the bath would be carried in and placed in front of the kitchen range and in the summer you bathed in the wash-house. This was a less arduous task as it saved countless trips back and forth with a bucket. Then one would enjoy a lovely bath, ever mindful of the fact that once dried and dressed, the bailing out operation would begin, thus putting paid to the soothing effect of the bath. Some when around this time a small annexe to the club had been built to provide a ladies cloakroom with flush toilet and hand basin with cold tap. Thus relieving us of the imposition of having females who attended the dances using our bedrooms as cloakrooms. The men's toilet facilities were also upgraded half a notch.
Somewhere along the way oil lamps had been scrapped in favour of gas, acetylene gas to be precise. This was made in an outhouse, a very large contraption was installed and into this troughs of carbide would be inserted. Each morning the troughs would be full of a great white sludge which had to be emptied out and the troughs were filled with fresh lumps of Carbide. Of course, this gave off an extremely nasty smell. This improvement didn't extend to the living quarters I hasten to point out, but somewhere along the line we had acquired a sink and an indoor pump. The sink was about 3 inches deep and placed onto brick piers. Owing to the shallow nature of the sink the water was continually slopping over, but on the plus side there was a waste pipe and drain outside. We still never did rate a water closet but over the years became very adept at making use of the club ones when it was closed.
The next step forward was electricity and the allowance was three lights and a power plug. As there were three rooms downstairs this meant we still needed candles upstairs, so father paid an electrician to put a plug in each bedroom to have bedside lamps. He also bought a Baby Belling cooker for use in the summer but the range was used in the winter for warmth.
At the end of the war using Italian POWs to dig the trenches, piped water was supplied to all the cottages in the village. Flush toilets were also installed, and sinks and taps in the kitchen. Some cottages, number 10 included had until now relied on a well for their water. One very large improvement was to exchange the wall pump in the kitchen for a tap. The plumber was new on the estate and when he saw our ridiculous little thing asked the Clerk of Works for permission to change it for a decent one; this request was refused. At this the plumber was very upset and set about plating the bottom of the sink with a large hammer. Then he went back to the Clerk of Works and said he was sorry but he dropped the hammer into the sink so it was now useless and back he came with a lovely new deep sink.