Recollections
Main MainStreet,Kirby Muxloe. The Bryan Clarke Collection
Memories of Kirby Muxloe
Over the last 16 years representatives of our History Group have spoken to, interviewed or recorded the memories of many residents of the village. Some of the interviewees are no longer with us, but with the kind permission of their families we will reproduce their stories here on the next few pages.
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We also include memories written in person, again, sadly many of the people are no longer with us today
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This section will be added to as time goes on, to make sure that we always have older and newer memories represented. We are very interested in memories from people who lived in the village from the 1960's until the millenium.
Fred Hancey 1916-2006
My grandfather was Edward Madder, the village baker, he also ran a small-holding with fields off Station Road. Along with the horses he had some eight milking cows, pigs and poultry. He was also a sporting gun fanatic and prankster, he was presented with a silver plaque in 1902 for being the best shot within four miles of Ratby. Around this time (1927) I would be about eleven or twelve, my day began by delivering a small milk round. I would catch Mr Forman's small eight seater "Durant" bus around 7:10am to the station loaded with two large buckets of milk standing on the rear step. I would then commence my delivering and work my way back into Main Street, this had to be completed before school time at 9:00am. At this period in time I could safely boast I knew the name of every family in the village up as far as the Red Cow, Owing to illness in the family the bread round had to be split up for convenience and every Tuesday and Thursday I was met at the school gates at 12 o'clock with a horse and cart full of bread (real bread with a real crust, unlike some of the rubbish we accept today), then during the school dinner break we delivered along Gullet Lane to Chilprufe Farm (now called Elms Farm). There were only five dwellings from over the bridge to the farm and we delivered to four of them.
E Madder, Baker & Confectioner - standing Tom and Freddie Hancey Photograph The Joe Moore Collection
Colin Percy 1929-2016
Colin will always be remembered as a lovely, kind man. He always enjoyed recounting his memories from his childhood and beyond. Colin was the youngest of four children and as his father had passed away in 1938, his mother (who he described as a "little woman"), worked very hard to keep their family fed. His wife Maureen, died in 2006, it was quite obvious that he missed her so much. Colin's sitting room was full of beautiful pictures of the two of them together. Colin attended Kirby Muxloe Primary School, and had very fond memories of that time. His links with the school go back to 1910, when Barwell Road school first opened. His father, Ernest Cecil had been a pupil at the school at that time. His first teacher was Mrs Cooper and he could still remember sitting in a little chair and looking at pictures on the wall with words like "the cat sat on the mat". He said that was how reading was taught to the class. Moving on to Miss Hubbard's class was quite different, that was when the learning really began! They were required to recite their times tables up to twelve, in front of the whole class. They were also taught poetry. Miss Hubbard was very strict and punishment very swift if you misbehaved. At seven years old he moved into Miss McKenny's class. When he was nine years old his father died, at the young age of forty-two. That made a very big difference in his life and into his mother's life too, especially with five children to care and provide for. At ten years old, he joined Mr Jarvis's class and remembered that he was a brilliant teacher and also Headmaster at the same time. After taking the eleven plus he won a place at Grammar School, but unfortunately, was not able to take this up due cost. He then went on to attend South Wigston Intermediate School, leaving at the age of fourteen and finding work in an engineering company. After two years of National Service in the army, where he said had quite an easy time, he met and married his wife Maureen. They were married in 1956 and produced two boys, Michael and Duncan, who also attended Kirby School. Michael and Duncan's children attended Kirby School also, and so that made four generations of the same family at the school. He was very proud of that fact! He worked at T.I. Tubes, Desford, for thirty-seven years and said it was the best job he ever had. He retired at the age of sixty-one.
Colin with his son Michael on the green outside the prefabs on Lime Grove
Talking with Jan Timson and Joan Bloomfield
On a wintery afternoon in December 2022, after collecting Jan Timson from her bungalow we arrived in Carey Gardens on Main Street, to visit Joan Bloomfield. (Joan has now moved on to live at Kirby House). After we had negotiated the stair lift, it was easy to strap Jan into the chair, but how did it work? Eventually, we managed it and up the stairs went Jan, followed by me in hot pursuit. We arrived at Joan's flat and were warmly invited in. We had decided to talk about washing, a subject many would find unlikely, but it was very interesting indeed. Jan began, telling us about her grandmother's house in the Highfields area of Leicester. Her grandparents kept a greengrocery shop in a three storey house. The only power was gas light and the only running water was a cold tap in the scullery, over the stone sink. The toilet was in a shed across the brick-paved yard and next to the toilet was a covered area, where her grandfather stored his hand-cart, on which he collected vegetables and fruit from the wholesale market in Halford Street, Leicester. The heavy mangle was also stored in the area. Jan thinks the space may once have been stables, as at the time many of the houses in Highfields had them. Toilet paper was newspaper cut into squares and threaded on to a loop of string and hung next to the toilet. Jan and family were very lucky as most of the fruit purchased by her grandfather was wrapped individually in tissue paper. After displaying the fruit in his shop, her grandfather then threaded the tissue onto a string and this gave the ladies of the house some "luxury" toilet paper! Jan remembers that in the scullery there was a round brick-built structure with a copper lining and a wooden lid-this was the "copper". She remembers that it had a small metal door in the base and thinks that was the access to the fire that heated the copper. Jan couldn't recall how the fire was lit, but Joan was on hand to describe the process. She said that the fire was usually lit with sticks and paper to get it going and then was stoked with coal in the early days, to be followed later by using coke. Although Joan couldn't recall seeing her mother using the copper to wash clothes, she does remember when the Christmas pudding, in a white basin, which was then covered in a white cloth and tied up with string, was put into the copper to boil. Jan had very similar memories. The copper was then emptied by ladling the water back into the sink. Following the coal driven boiler came the "gas" boiler. This was an enamel cylinder with a lid that was filled with cold water by using a hose pipe connected to the kitchen tap. There was a tap at the base, which made emptying so much easier. The water was boiled up using the gas light at the bottom and then the washing was emersed, before being pummelled by the "dolly". The dolly was a colander-shaped metal article with a wooden handle attached. Joan's mother had a "posser" and a "puncher", both similar to a dolly. There was also a stick, wider at the bottom than the top, which was used for lifting the wet clothes out of the boiler into the sink, where they were rinsed. Last of all came the mangle- a large, heavy instrument into which the clothing was fed at one end and all the water was squeezed out, leaving some very flat items to be shaken out before pegging them on the clothes line. Clothes lines were made of rope not plastic, and had to be taken in every day as otherwise they would soon rot. There were so many memories from Jan and Joan relating to washing day. Joan tells us that when she was at school, she remembers coming home at the end of the school day and seeng her mum still washing clothes. There were memories of the washing line breaking and all the washing ending up on the muddy ground, with the process then starting all over again. Memories of walking into the line prop- Joan still has the scar on her eyebrow. Jan recalls that when living on Main Street if the washing was not on the line by 10am, the neighbours on Desford Road would think something was wrong and come to inquire if all was o.k. (at that time the gardens of many of the houses on Main Street backed up to the gardens on Desford Road). They both spoke of the pleasure in seeing a line full of pristine white nappies, blowing in the wind. If nappies were stained, they were dried in a secluded area where they were not visible to the neighbours. Many houses had a wooden drying rack hanging from the kitchen ceiling and let down by a pully for access. This was used for drying "smalls" and airing other clothing. Everyone had a clothes horse, usually made of wood and if turned onto one side and covered with a sheet made a wonderful tent. We briefly discussed the hand-operated washing machine and then went on to talk about the advent of the spin dryer and how it used to "walk" across the floor. It has been said that sitting on the top of the spin dryer to stop it moving was almost like going for a workout at the gymn. Next, the "twin tub", which was followed by the more modern washing machine of today. We talked about "Rekkit's Blue", the little blue tablet enclosed in a white bag, twisted around at the top. These were added to rinsing water and swished around to make the water blue. They made white clothes appear to be whiter than white. They can still be purchased today. Soap powder for the washing machine was remembered as Omo, Persil, Surf, Daz, Rinso and Tide. Some of these are still around today but with improved formulae and often in liquid or sachet form. Pegs- both Jan and Joan remember the dolly pegs. Although they were invented in the Victorian times, they became more prominent during WWI. As many of us will remember, dolly pegs were made of wood with a split at one end and a round knob on top. During wartime when money was very short, most toys were made at home. Thr dolly peg was the ideal base for a doll. The round knob was painted with a doll's face and clothes were made out of scraps of material- a very well received gift in wartime England. The pegs were originally made by gypsies and sold door to door. Later they were sold in shops. Dolly pegs were followed by the wooden sprung peg -these often fell apart when the spring became weak. Plastic sprung pegs followed and now plastic "cushion" pegs.
Jan Timson at home in her garden.
Talking with Jan Timson and Joan Bloomfield
On a wintery afternoon in December 2022, after collecting Jan Timson from her bungalow we arrived in Carey Gardens on Main Street, to visit Joan Bloomfield. (Joan has now moved on to live at Kirby House). After we had negotiated the stair lift, it was easy to strap Jan into the chair, but how did it work? Eventually, we managed it and up the stairs went Jan, followed by me in hot pursuit. We arrived at Joan's flat and were warmly invited in. We had decided to talk about washing, a subject many would find unlikely, but it was very interesting indeed. Jan began, telling us about her grandmother's house in the Highfields area of Leicester. Her grandparents kept a greengrocery shop in a three storey house. The only power was gas light and the only running water was a cold tap in the scullery, over the stone sink. The toilet was in a shed across the brick-paved yard and next to the toilet was a covered area, where her grandfather stored his hand-cart, on which he collected vegetables and fruit from the wholesale market in Halford Street, Leicester. The heavy mangle was also stored in the area. Jan thinks the space may once have been stables, as at the time many of the houses in Highfields had them. Toilet paper was newspaper cut into squares and threaded on to a loop of string and hung next to the toilet. Jan and family were very lucky as most of the fruit purchased by her grandfather was wrapped individually in tissue paper. After displaying the fruit in his shop, her grandfather then threaded the tissue onto a string and this gave the ladies of the house some "luxury" toilet paper.
Jan Timson
An old fashioned mangle
More talk of the Household from Jan and Joan
On our second meeting we then turned our attention to the household. The first subject was the "hoover" In the early days the vacumn cleaner would have been a luxury item and not so widely used, it became more popular after WWII. For many years preceeding the vacumn cleaner, carpet sweepers were more commonly used. Floors were often covered with Lino, many of us remember the shiny, slidy floor covering, often partially covered with rugs, Peg rugs were usually made of scraps of fabric, pegged into a hessian backing. Jan remembers the peg mats in her parents' bungalow, which were put outside each door and sat on the shiny Lino or wooden floor. She recalled that as a child, they were very good for sliding! Rag rugs also come to mind and also rugs made out of ready cut lengths of wool. Jan's parents had a beautiful one that was shaped like a pansy and made of different coloured wools. On cleaning day. the rugs were taken outside, slung over the washing line and beaten with a carpet beater. When Joan had a new carpet fitted in her house, her grandmother was not at all impressed and said "you can't beat getting them out on the line and beating all the dust out".
Joan Bloomfield
Vintage vacumn cleaner