Deirdre Armstrong's Memories from Harston House

My childhood was in the 50s and 60s so these memories are from some time in that period. My parents were Terence and Iris Armstrong and we lived at Harston House, on the Green.

Postman – Henry Oak
Our postman was called Henry Oak and was wonderful. Both my sister Damaris and I worked with him over a series of Christmases when we were older. He let us off all the worst jobs but we knew what he had to do – get up the tracks to Austins farm on the Foxton Road, and Segraves on the Haslingfield Road as well as up Newton Hill to the houses on the top. He braved dogs (including our dog which bit him once to our horror), awkward gates and letter boxes and weather. Once he wrote a message to our dad on a brown label “Dr Armstrong – Down Your
Way – good” after dad was on a radio programme about local areas called ‘Down Your Way’.

Bonfire
We had a bonfire in the field at the bottom of the Harston House garden every 5 November. We built it up for ages so it was impressive when it burned! We could bake potatoes in the embers overnight.   Lots of people came. Dad lit the fireworks on the other side of the field…I stayed in the house with the dogs, too terrified of the bangs and saw a few rockets above the trees..

Easter Egg Hunt
This again was for everyone. Eggs were hid all over the garden with areas for the different age groups. Children had little baskets. They were all small bird egg type choc eggs, so hard to find – tiny and pastel colours – sometimes months later we would discover them.

The Ditch
There was a ditch between the pavement and the trees at the road side of the bottom of Harston House garden. It was on the approach to the corner with a smallgreen. Cars travelling towards Cambridge regularly fell in it due to taking the corner too fast– equally they broke the wall in front of the Edwards house opposite if they were coming the other way. Usually the accidents were not too serious and the occupants of the cars would find themselves at a kitchen table recovering in one of the houses on either side of the road depending on where the car went off the road.
At one time one of the pop group ‘The Shadows’ went in the ditch and ended up in the Harston House kitchen late at night. I never saw him (fast asleep upstairs) but I longed for one of the Beatles to fall in our ditch!

Secret ballot and tied housing
We heard from Mrs Rivers who lived in The Footpath in one of the first Council houses in the village that while she lived before that in Hurrell’s Row which was tied housing owned by Colonel Hurrell at the time she never dared vote anything other than Tory. She was unconvinced by the secrecy of the ballot and thought the Squire would know and throw her out of his property. When she got a council house she felt
free to vote for whoever she wanted.