A Somerset Lad

Driving through the village of Aller this afternoon, a sign at the roadside announced that the Christmas bingo at Middlezoy would be on 7th December. I wondered if they still held the Christmas bingo in Burrowbridge.

I remember going to such a Christmas bingo. Our journey down to Burrowbridge was slow. The headlights lit up the steep banks on either side of Turn Hill  There were coloured lights on the dashboard of our old Austin Cambridge; the only light that was easy to understand was the blue light that told you whether your headlights were on full beam.  The hill has a hairpin bend, we probably drove down at no more than 20 mph.

It was 4.40 and we were going out for our tea before going to the Christmas bingo at Burrowbridge village hall. No memories of the tea remain, but the bingo night remains vivid. There were lines of wooden folding chairs with an aisle up the middle and on the stage one of those machines that blew ping pong balls around in a rectangular glass box. There was an opening in the top through which the caller would push his hand to take out the numbered balls.

The men running the bingo (they were all men) were big countrymen. Solemn as undertakers, they all dressed in suits and conducted the whole evening with a great deal of gravitas, as though levity might in some way call into account their integrity. A book to play the ten bingo games cost twelve and a half pence. Everyone would have bought tickets for the raffle as well. Each game came in two parts – there was a prize for the first person who completed whatever line they might call out – top middle or bottom – and then a bigger prize for the first person to complete the card.

The prizes were brilliant, there were turkeys and hampers and bottles of sherry and boxes of chocolates. It was no wonder that the hall was filled to capacity and the overflow sat in the kitchen where the serving hatch was open so that people could hear the numbers.

The air was electric as each game approached its conclusion. To be able to shout “house” seemed to generate as much delight for a winner as they would have felt if they were lifting the FA Cup. There would have been a huge wave of conversation as the winner’s card was taken to the front to be checked. Once a person had made a false call, a number had been misheard; beetroot would not have described her colour.

We were rustic and unsophisticated and easily pleased, but no night in the West End, no dinner at the Ritz, no dancing to an orchestra, could have matched the excitement of bingo in Burrowbridge village hall. Passing through Othery, on the chill November air, there seemed the voice of the caller, “Downing Street Number Ten.”

The nephews’ rugby club ties lay ready for the Sunday morning match. Now playing at junior level, they must change into collar and tie after the match and conduct themselves in a mannerly way.

Fifty years ago, there would have been no opportunity for most local boys to have played rugby, nor would there have been any accessible facilities at which to play. Instead, many hours were passed playing football with a heavy leather ball in a field along our road. Some of us had boots, but none of us had kit, no shirts or shorts, certainly nothing with the logo of an expensive sports equipment company. Games were played in old clothes, jeans and shirts. Jumpers were removed, for at least four were needed to provide goalposts.

Fine evenings were times for games that frequently generated disagreement and sometimes raised voices, but rarely a result. It was a simple matter for the losing side to plead that ninety minutes had not been played and the match would be abandoned rather than concluded.

Cricket was played less frequently, usually only in the summer holidays: only one family had the necessary equipment. It was not a full cricket set, that would have demanded two bats, six stumps and four bails, instead it was a set with a single bat and four stumps. There may have originally been bails, but these were easily enough fabricated with twigs from the hedge. There was one wicket at which to bowl and one bat with which to play. The fourth stump provided the point to which the batsman should run and the approximate point from which balls should be bowled. There were never enough players to have two teams, (unlike football where four players allowed for a match), instead turns were taken at batting, people trying for the highest individual score. Mercifully, no-one could have afforded a leather cricket ball, otherwise the lack of pads and gloves, combined with the uneven bounce from the surface of a field grazed by dairy cattle, might have led to painful injuries. The game was played with a tennis ball which possessed none of the qualities of a cricket ball and which allowed a good batsman to remain at the wicket all evening, swiping the ball in all directions.

Female company was rare on those distant evenings. Entirely absent from the games of football, they might occasionally have joined a game of cricket. Of course, the day came when they became a greater attraction and evenings were no longer spent in sporting effort.

Looking at the kit bags ready to be taken to the match, kicking a football in a dairy pasture seemed something from Victorian times.

The cartoon in The Times depicts John McDonnell, the Labour shadow chancellor, asking for a penny for the guy; the guy in the cartoon is his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. It is a cartoon that would presumably have resonance among older readers for guys have become a rare sight.

Even when I was a child, fifty years ago, guys were not common. I can remember only one year when when assembled a figure from sticks, newspaper and old clothes, in order to set fire to it. The last time I saw anyone asking for a penny for the guy was at the entrance to Kew Gardens Underground station in 1982.

Firework Night now has become a movable occasion. Displays take place between 31st October and 5th November, according to local preference – and whether or not it is a weekend evening.

Firework Night was never a big deal when I was young; the fire was built from the dead cuttings from trimmed hedges and the pyrotechnics came one item at a time; one Roman candle, one Catherine wheel, one rocket, each of them was savoured.  However ordinary in retrospect, the occasion was special at the time.  Perhaps we were easily pleased.

Special moments in the year weren’t too frequent – Christmas; the annual village outing to Weymouth; going camping in Devon, the next county; but every one of them was remembered and pondered for long afterwards.

Perhaps the inflationary principles that apply to money, apply also to experiences.  The more the money supply is increased, the less worth each banknote has.  In a similar way, perhaps the more the supply of experiences is increased, the less memorable each of those experiences has become.

On the other hand, perhaps the passing of the years has magnified memories, perhaps they did not occupy then the place they now occupy in the landscape of reminiscence.  Maybe the memories remain clearly, but the moments themselves – with the exception of Christmas – were approached without a great sense of anticipation and were marked without a significant awareness they might be of the stuff that would be recalled decades later.

As there are moments in those distant decades that remain as vivid as a rocket bursting in the night sky, so there will be moments as significant and intense for children today as were the special moments of the past. Perhaps the landscapes of their memories are dotted with many more moments than enjoyed by schoolboys fifty years ago, but in fifty years’ time, there will be someone remembering vividly Firework Night this year (whichever night it falls on).