Welcome to part 3 of the Davey story - a journey of truly epic proportions and hopefully a historical journal that will be read for decades about the most important family to live on Moss Vale Road since the bloke that built the pub.
For this entry, there was so much input from Gareth and Chris, I decided to split this post into part 3a and part 3b. I'll complete 3b soon and post it in the next week or two, probably after the next real-time Rick and Family update....
We left you in this position... (Squaddie joke there - eh Gareth!) -
Us 3 boys had been born and were growing up in Skeggy - then, we moved 'darn sarf'.......
Around 1973 our little family upped stick and departed Skegness moving to live in a small village called 'Newport', in Essex, around 40 miles north of London. As with all the family moves it was based around dad's work. He had been selected to map the area around the new M11 motorway which was completed in the late 1970s.
From Gareth... his office was in the swanky new town of Harlow. i remember lots of brand new roads and islands with no exits because there were no buildings.
Newport was and still is a small village, nestled in the Essex countryside and although it's reasonably remote for the UK, it is also a reasonably modern style housing estate. I was only 3 years old when we moved there so my memories are quite vague - although we do have quite a few old photos of us as kids with mum and dad and even a few of the house we lived in - 91 Cherry Garden Lane, which when you actually read it out loud, sounds like something out of a kids book. You can imagine the Cherry trees, with blossoms falling into a lovely meadow, photos of sunsets and wildlife making a picture postcard of the quaint English countryside.
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| Newport Essex - not really near anything! |
To be honest, the village itself wasn't like that, but if you took a short walk into the country, just a few minutes from our house and it's not too far from the truth. We spent time walking around the area with mum and dad as kids, and being the '70s, we spent so much time playing outside without fear of murder, abduction or any of the other mostly fictional worries that plague today's parents (Kids mostly don't give a shit!) As I remember it, life down in Newport was pretty calm mellow and sweet. I remember learning to ride my bike, playing in and out of the gardens and hanging out with Joanne, the girl who lived next door and who was roughly the same age as me. From Gareth - they lived Next-door-but-one, Alan and Dagmar lived next door… he was a suave slimy businessman and she was a self-important German stuck up cow…. They were like an unfunny version of the posh neighbours (Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington) in the good Life tv show. Completely up themselves.
Another story of the time we were at the bottom of the hill having fun and throwing stones…. Chris threw a rock at the driver's window of this lovely old car … of course, it broke, but as usual, I (Gareth)
got battered for being the ‘big brother who didn’t stop it happening and had to apologise to the owner.
We also had go-carts we used to make to race down the hill from ours… not on the road but on the walking path… it was all good fun until one of our mates went straight on at a bend and through the bottom window of one of the houses (The houses had two windows, a frosted one from floor to waist high and the normal window above. In our house, our bottom windows all had a plastic inner liner (the days before double glazing) which was like clingfilm but a lot thicker. If you hit it, it sounded like a loose bass drum or ‘thunder’… I remember this because during thunderstorms we used to jump into mum and dad's bed. If they thought the storm was over they’d send us back to our own beds… until a rumble of ‘thunder’ meant we could go back in with them… guess what the rumble of thunder was… I’m not sure they ever ‘rumbled’ that it was me bashing on the thick cling film…
We also used to go to an old quarry called ‘The pit’ by locals.. that was a favourite walking place. It seemed miles away but was only about ¾ mile!!
The school we attended was the Newport County Primary School, just a short walk from home. I'll give mum and dad some well earned praise here - They always made it easy to get to school. Newport School was just a few minutes' walk away, and the schools later in Manchester were even closer. Gareth had already started school when we arrived in Newport having attended Skegness Infant School (Now called Skegness Infant academy - why does everything need to be an academy nowadays?) So Gareth would have gone straight to school, with Chris following on a year or so later. I only started in 1975, after we had been here two years and the only thing I can remember is doing, 'Jack, be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the candlestick' for some sort of school play. I hope Gareth and Chris might be able to fill in a bit more about the school.
Gareth again... I did and my teacher was my best mate Paul Scofield’s Mum Janet. When she used to call the register he used to answer “Yes Mum” and I’d say “Yes Aunty Janet” lol she used to hate, but also love this (as a teacher and a mum lol ) but it always got a laugh. A few years later I went back to Newport and drove passed their house in Meadowford (the big posh houses) and there was a mature lady mowing the grass. I said hello and Aunty Janet recognised me instantly. We had a big hug and a quick chat about old times .. lovely.
Looking back at the photos from Newport is interesting. Mum and dad picked a lovely place to live. The house wasn't big and was mid-terrace, but the layout of the estate was great. A hill to ride bikes and run down, fields to play in. (Now they have more houses built on them) and the front of the house was just a pathway - so no cars to dodge - We could happily play out the front of the house as much as we liked and the worst that could happen was getting rained on!)
Gareth - At the bottom of the road there was a barrier and on the other side (before they built the rest of the estate) was Narnia. A huge cornfield to play in explore and play hide and seek… it was also a great refuge to sit in the middle and not be seen amongst the high crops I loved that place and was gutted when I went back and it had been built on. There was also an old path we used to cross the field on as a shortcut to school.
Here is a photo of mum and me enjoying the sunshine - Our house was from the open front door going to the right and includes the two big windows.
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| Gareth, in United Kit - Kicking a football around the paths |
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| Looking into the sliding patio doors at the back of the house |
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| Looking outside to the back garden and garage |
I wish I had more photos of the inside of the house. I have a recollection of a big front bedroom and a small kitchen at the back, but that's it.
Gareth - I had the small box room over the front door, You two the larger room at the front, Mum and Dad in the room at the back behind that and the bathroom was at the top of the stairs (stairs immediately as you walked in the front door) It was here that Chris started the famous ‘Turn the light on ‘ Chant lol. This meant that after a while he had a room on his own so he could keep the light on and we had to share a room. This stayed the same until a few years into our Manchester stay. (Sneaky bastard Chris lol )
I do remember the back garden a bit more. There were a few steps down to where the garage was and some rose bushes. I know at one point while we live there I had either measles or chickenpox. Anyway, I was very itchy and sitting around the house in my pants (I was only 4 or 5) At some point I went into the back garden and fell over on the steps, falling into the rose bushes. Now, I always tell the tale that I managed to somehow cut open my eyelids, but I genuinely do not know if that ever happened at all. (Maybe it was a Rickanory) However, it was a story that followed me throughout my life and maybe I will never know the truth. I know I definitely had one of the illnesses and I know I fell in the rose bush. But maybe the eyelid massacre was just fiction - But I am sure if you look carefully you can still see the scars on my eyelids!
As kids in Essex, we did seem to get around quite a bit though - There are many photos of us down on the south coast and around Southampton, where the main office of the Ordnance Survey was as well as holidays in Poole and visits to nearby Swanage. There are some cool old black and white photos of us on some cliffs somewhere and on a big slide in Southampton docks, I think! I seem to recall the one of me on a football being from a holiday somewhere when I borrowed a sailor's hat from some little girl!
One of our Holidays, when we were in Essex, was to Poole, a place I ended up living near for 6 years when I was in the army in the late 90s. It is the first real holiday I can remember something about and one that we have photos of.
I know we would go to the beach in Swanage, which was quieter than the one in Poole and we definitely visited what is now Monkeyworld, because we have a photo of a small ape called 'Marmalade', one of those things that I remember, but don't know why I remember it. It looked like a great holiday though. I think this was the holiday when mum was in the sea with one or more of us kids and one of us had a yellow bucket, which started to float away - Mum decided to swim after it and ended up about a mile out at sea! I think it was pretty dramatic at the time, but she managed to get back to the beach ok.
More from Gareth..he says in a reply to my comments above,,,,
That's slightly overdramatic- We were on Chesil Beach which dad loved because of its geographical significance and chance of finding fossils amongst the rocks when the bucket and spade we had (laying on the rocky beach) got washed out. Mum went to chase it but then stopped as the waves were quite large… she never got wet and the bucket washed gently away into the distance.(The story was Dad -a-nory-ed- to death after the 10,000th time of telling it lol )
This was a holiday that Nan and Aunty Catherine joined us on too - They are in a lot of the photos - from walking in the New forest to climbing hills and swimming in the sea. A proper good family holiday.
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| Chris on Swanage beach - with the family and famous yellow buckets behind! |
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| Up a hill somewhere in Dorset - with Aunty Cath- Gareth says - I believe this was somewhere on Salisbury Plain/South Downs maybe near Danbury Hillfort or a white chalk horse Prob somewhere near Amesbury or Warminster |
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| 3 little monkeys, an ape called Marmalade and a cool photo of dad - probably at the most prime part of his life. He looks so well. |
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| Swanage in 2019 |
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| Swanage 1974/75 with Gareth, mum and me Look at the same cliffs behind! |
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