My Village Memories by Bruce Frost
Bruce Frost, a Village Society member, has kindly written some wonderful memories of his time in Histon, where he lived for over 23 years.
“I am Bruce Frost, born at 51 Saffron Road Histon in 1941, with my direct Ancestry in the village going back for 12 generations to two of my nine times great grandparents Willyam CHARLES and Agnes or Anne HART who were married at Histon Parish Church on the 17th April 1610. I lived in the village until the 24th October 1964 when I married Margaret Hilda CHAPMAN in the Histon Methodist Church. We have lived in Littleport since 1969.
From 1946 until 1954 I lived at 37a Cottenham Road Histon, known as the Stead House at the very end of Guns Lane. The house was originally one dwelling I believe but it had been converted into 2 dwellings. We rented the 4 rooms on the part furthest away from Cottenham Road. It did not have a front door; just the back door leading straight into the kitchen which had a door leading into the living room and a latched door to the stairs. Upstairs there was a door leading into the front bedroom but no door or wall for the back bedroom only a rail to prevent a fall down the stairs. Dad constructed a ‘wall’ and a door from a wooden frame and sackcloth or similar. There was no water connection in the house; just a cold water tap in the shed across the yard from the back door. This was known as the Wash-House and it had a brick copper which was wood fired to heat the water. Washing was done using a bowl on the kitchen table, with water heated in an electric kettle. Bathing was in a tin bath brought in from where it hung in the shed for ‘bath night’ in the kitchen; using water heated in the copper and brought to the bath by the bucketful. There were two buckets under the kitchen table; one filled with fresh water from the tap in the shed and the other was for foul water, which had to be emptied into the ditch that ran along the other side of Guns Lane.
The owners of the house were Douglas and Dorothy Stead whose cold water tap was on the side of one of their outbuildings. I presume that their foul water also ended up in the same ditch as ours. However not long after we moved there, Doug and my Dad laid pipes from new drains under the respective taps to discharge into the ditch. Our toilet was brick-built alongside a barn used as a garage; it had a wooden seat with a hole above a large bucket. Dad said that the worst thing about emptying the bucket before it overflowed, was trying to remember where he had dug the hole in the garden the previous week! However this was resolved when a chap with a small lorry that had a very large tank on the back came to empty the bucket for a fee that had to be left on the wooden seat before he came each week; and if it was not left there he would not empty the bucket! It was a Business arrangement and his vehicle was known as the ‘Honey Cart’!
By the way, both of my sisters, Ann and Joan were born in that house and that was how Dad and Mum were able to get a Council House at 20 Orchard Road in 1954.
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Guns Lane runs alongside what was originally The Meadow, where we used to play until it was ploughed up in the early 1950’s. Houses have subsequently been built on the part nearest to Cottenham Road; and the short roads are called Barrowcrofts and Croft Close. The remainder is the Croft Close Nature Reserve, but it will always be The Meadow for me and for many other folk too I am sure! That is another story still to be told!”
Contributed by Bruce Frost