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Mr Robert Walden. (Articles published April 2021-February 2023)
Growing Up In Feltwell in the 1950s & 60s – Part – 6. Diversions
On the 2nd October 1959 there was a partial eclipse of the sun. Mr Feltwell had explained all about it the day before and how to look at the sun safely. So on the day, I took to school a rather jagged piece of old picture frame glass which I had edged for safety’s sake with a bead of plasticine (mine – not the school’s – and also my own idea) plus half a candle. Mr Feltwell was a steady smoker (not averse to asking one of us to pop out to Wright’s shop for 10 Senior Service) and always carried a lighter. He soon blacked up the glass with candle soot by briskly moving the glass over the hot flame and we followed the progress of the eclipse through the lunch hour and afternoon play break and by early afternoon the sun was about a third covered. RAF boy Michael did approach me at one point and asked what I had put on the glass to make it black and he smeared his hand across it to ascertain for himself before I could tell him not to touch but the damage was not sufficient to stop us looking. Mr Feltwell even broke off from refereeing a football game at one point to check on progress one last time. And there were no cut fingers.
When the Thor rockets came to Feltwell in September 1958 the news made the front page of the national tabloids. RAF boy Richard insisted it was his father who featured in a much used shot although unfortunately he did not have his face to camera. The rockets were painted white, were 65ft tall and 8ft in diameter and apparently were designed to reach Moscow from UK launch sites at speeds of 10,000 mph. Feltwell had 3 although I think only one was ever standing vertically on display (ie in readiness) at any one time. There had been no warning they were on their way that I can recall and it just so happened that the convoy escorting the first one appeared on Lodge Road as we stood in a group one evening at Cross Hill around Lister’s shop; a popular place for us 8 and 9 year-olds to hang out. As it was passing by towards Oak Street and the Wilton Rd, Jim recalls PC Gotts was on duty and gruffly tried to send us home with “Alright off you go home now – there’s nothing to see here, nothing to see here...”!! The low-loader carrying it had steering front and back and escorted by police motor cyclists, moved at little more than walking pace. It was probably draped in tarpaulins, perhaps with an RAF roundel, but the lasting memory it seems is of the lone “driver” of the rear wheels. Fascinating! Street lights then were single tungsten bulbs with shallow lampshades which hung and swung from single wires strung over the road and these had to be raised for the convoy’s passage. The sight from the top of Wilton Rd of a tall, white rocket standing upright soon barely raised a second glance. Sometimes at night muffled warnings or instructions broadcast over loud speakers from the well lit base could be heard even at Munson’s Place.
In April 1961 Russia’s Yuri Gargarin became the first man to enter outer space and a year later the USA’s John Glenn orbited Earth 3 times. The “space race” was on. Telstar enabled US TV pictures to be seen live in Europe. President Khrushchev led the Soviet Union and the so called Cold War was at its height, as was the “Ban the Bomb” campaign. I think many adults who had only recently endured the horror and uncertainty of war, were quite relaxed and perhaps even reassured by the rockets’ presence whereas a younger generation possibly felt the worry of a potential nuclear war to a far greater extent. Of the many protest songs spawned at this time, Tim Rose’s Come Away Melinda probably best sums up for me, peoples’ fears. If you are interested, search “Tim Rose Gareth Owen” on YouTube.
In early summer 1961 there was a major military exercise over two days and nights on the old Methwold aerodrome. I don’t think it won much attention from the adult population but that aerodrome was quite a frequent haunt for us boys and word got round after the events of the first night. Our usual point of access to race along the old runways (or merely to cycle a shorter route into Methwold) was from the access road from Lodge Rd but that was blocked and guarded for this event and so on the second evening we assembled with our bikes at the far end of the Old Methwold Road where there was a decent gap in the hedge for us to cycle through and for much of the evening we stayed close to it. Parachutists were dropped by (I think) Hercules & Dakotas in what was easily the biggest live display of such an event I have ever seen. I am fairly sure that besides many hundreds of personnel, there were Landrovers and Field Guns tumbling out of the planes too. (Perhaps somewhere records still exist?). As the men landed on the open, flat terrain they set off smoke flares in red, blue, yellow and green to which small groups congregated. We chatted briefly with some men who were lying close by with faces blackened and talking rapidly to each other while sparing a few words and smiles for us. One pulled out a giant, unstarted 2/6d (12.5p) bar of Cadbury’s chocolate from his tunic and presented it to me. It was the sort of thing I only saw on birthdays but had become almost liquid from his body heat. I was overjoyed, not least because it was almost impossible to share!
When the soldiers vacated our area I retrieved a flare canister which had been thrown but had not gone off and after stowing it carefully in my saddle bag, half a dozen of us departed to the Old Beck Canal at the bottom of the garden at Cambridge House and which was quite dry then. Even after resorting to several hard, if ill-advised wallops with my father’s hammer, we failed miserably to set the thing off, before dad appeared to find out what on earth was going on. He had been in the army and immediately recognised it and with not a little concern exclaimed: “But this is already primed and ready to go off!” I was ordered indoors and my friends went home to bed.
In next morning’s assembly the headmaster ordered me to go to his office and to fetch “the object” that was on his desk. I carried the smoke bomb in one hand: “Be careful with that thing” he bellowed and holding it up before the entire school, said: “This is a live bomb and just one little knock could fill this entire hall with a thick, suffocating cloud of gas!” The school produced in unison, a long, stretched “ummmmmmm!” as I returned to my place and sat down cross-legged. William tapped my shoulder from behind and whispered: “that don’t say much for your dad’s hammer Robert.”
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