Audio Transcript

I was born in 1932, in a place so small and so dear to me that it will be with me forever: Goadby Marwood. Not in the village proper, mind you, but out at The Lodge—the old farm buildings right on the edge of the village. My first lullabies were lowing cows, snorting pigs, clucking hens, and the working horses chomping on mangle roots! I heard those sounds long before I ever heard a school bell!

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My parents, John and Hilda Holmes, worked harder than anyone I know. My little brother, Michael, and I were left to roam the farmyard, building dens from hay bales and chasing hens. I taught myself to ride in a way that would give modern-day parents palpitations: by clambering onto the back of one of our huge, patient old sows. She was warm and broad and completely unbothered by the tiny child perched on her spine. When my father caught me, he didn’t shout—he just turned to my mother and said “Hilda, it’s time to buy this child a pony” and that’s how I met Josie. Sweet, little Josie. I thought she was the finest thing in the world.

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I don’t remember my first day at school, but I do remember the walk. From The Lodge across the fields behind Goadby Hall, the grass brushing my legs, the air biting my cheeks in winter. The school itself was a single, cosy room with a pot-bellied stove that took ages to warm but, once it did, wrapped us all in a gentle heat. Light streamed through the beautiful church-like, west window, catching dust motes that danced in the air like tiny fairies. We sat at wooden desks with lift-up lids and inkwells, though mostly we wrote on slates with the scratch of chalk.

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The loos were something no one who went to Goadby School could ever forget. They sat outside in a little stone outbuilding—two cubicles, one for boys and one for girls. No flushing, no pipes, just the cold slap of country practicality. Each cubicle held a pan that had to be emptied by the night soil man. In winter the seats felt like blocks of ice, and in summer the flies claimed the space first. Still, they were part of school life, as ordinary to us as chalk and slates.

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Playtime took place on the small patch of grass at the front of the building—a modest bit of green that felt, to us children, like an entire playing field. We skipped with fraying ropes, shouting out rhymes in time with our jumping feet, and knelt in the grass for marbles and tiddlywinks, squabbling over whose turn it was. The summer days smelled of warm earth and fresh-cut grass, and in winter our breath came out in little clouds as we hopped and ran to keep warm.

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But my early school days weren’t all cosy stoves and golden sunlight. There was an older girl—bigger, louder, and very sure of her place in the world—and for reasons I still don’t quite understand, she decided I was her target. I was terrified of her. So, I did what any frightened, stubborn farm girl might: I hid. For three whole days, I played truant, creeping down to the lakes and hiding among the bushes, waiting until the other children started home before slipping home myself as though nothing were amiss. I thought I was clever. I was not. After three days, I was caught, and soon after, we moved into Manor Farmhouse in the centre of the village—much too close to the school for any more mischief like that.

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The bullying didn’t end until she one day pushed my head hard against a stone buttress. I still have the scar! That was the moment everything came out and the situation was dealt with swiftly. The girl moved on not long after, and with her departure the whole world seemed to brighten. I discovered, suddenly and wholly, that I loved school!

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Our teacher, Mrs Allen—Kathleen Allen, though we never dared use her first name—was strict but kind, with an uncanny ability to teach a handful of children of wildly different ages without any of us feeling left behind. We read aloud to her and recited our times tables until they stuck (though numbers were never my favourite). But reading—oh, reading! That stole my heart early and keeps it still.

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Our little gang was small but tight-knit: Hazel Hungerford, Margaret and Ron Julien, Gordon Spence, Eileen Rear, and a few others who drifted through those years. We shared chalk, slates, secrets, homemade cheese sandwiches and the occasional telling-off from Mrs Allen. In winter the room was freezing until the stove gathered its strength. In summer the door stood wide open, letting in the smell of cut grass and the hum of bees.

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Life in a farming village meant school and work often tangled together. Some children disappeared for a day to help bring in hay or potatoes, and no one thought much of it. But my mother had been a teacher herself and believed—wholeheartedly—in education, so unless I was truly, spectacularly ill, off to school I went, treasured satchel on my shoulder. That satchel was made by my mother’s hands, crafted in leather and stitched with more love than any child could understand. I carried it very proudly.

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I wasn’t always well-behaved, mind you. Once, at home, we had a batch of ducklings in a pen. I had been told not to climb in but they were so cute, I couldn't resist. I accidentally stepped on one and squashed it. The horror of it! My mum scolded me severely and sent me upstairs to bed—I was so distraught I climbed out of my bedroom window. That was the day I realised I had something of a temper, though it burned hot and faded fast.

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As the 1940s crept in, the war changed things. Families moved; some of the evacuees who had swelled our ranks returned home. And then, in 1942, the news came: Goadby Marwood School would close. We village children were sent to Waltham on the Wolds or Scalford, and though life went on, something precious ended.

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On that last day, the stove was allowed to cool, the slates were stacked neatly away, the stone walls feeling as if they were holding their breath for something new. The lovely old building later became the village hall, and I still return often for events or community gatherings. Every time, I feel a tug—like the building is reminding me of who I was and who I became.

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Goadby Marwood shaped me. Even now, living in Melton, that little Leicestershire village is stitched into my heart. I can still hear Josie’s hooves, smell the stove, see the dust dancing in the sunlight of the west window. It was my beginning, and in many ways, it’s still where I belong.