Home to FeltwellTour Feltwell Today Tour Old Feltwell See Feltwell's History Read Feltwell's History RAF Feltwell Memorial Pages Special Photo Sets
Feltwell's Timeline
Historical InfoLoops Photo of the Month Feltwellians Worldwide Feltwell Links

Mr Basil Vincent - Part 2 (February 1993)

The YMCA stood opposite the Oak public house on the bend where the grass is by the Oakfields estate. It was a large building originally used for the Canadian forces in the 1914-18 war. Most of the forces were housed in a very big barn behind Herbert and Edith Cocks's house in Oak Street.

It was really the hub of the village for young people. How blest we were to have facilities like that when we were young! The village seems to have gone backwards in that way, as young people now have very few facilities. You became a member by paying 1 shilling admission for the whole year, and the 2d a week to go. It was as near as you would get to a community centre nowadays. There were two full size billiard tables and a three quarter size; there was a stage, a tortoise stove, no electricity, just "Evening Star" gaslights. They charged 6d for play on the billiards, they were hardly used in the week, but booked right up at the weekend when people had some money! We had matches with Methwold, Hockwold and other villages. There was a little room which was used as a canteen, but we met there also to pick the village football team; that was very important, as the team had a great public following. Tramps would sometimes call in at the canteen on the way from the workhouse at Thetford to the workhouse at Downham Market.

On Sundays, after both church and chapel, we'd all gather for yet another service in the afternoon at the YMCA! It was mainly singing to the piano, and there was a 'silver collection only'! That meant threepenny pieces to us. It's interesting that the church had as much difficulty in paying its diocesan quota then as it does now. There was no playing at anything on a Sunday. You had your best clothes on and it was a religious day. Sometimes we were asked up to the Rectory on Lodge road by the Rector and we had lovely teas with strawberries; I took my violin and others took their instruments, and we played and were accompanied on one of the two big grand pianos he had.

In evenings the Rector, the Reverend Hilton Moldsworth, would drop into the YMCA and have a game of dominoes or snooker. There were books to read there, or to be borrowed, and also the newspapers as not every family had a paper in those days by any means. We had wonderful concerts which were so successful that Mr Browne Spencer, the leader, had to hire Barley Porter's Coronation Hall to pack them all in. Mr Spencer was a pianist, and he always went to all the pantomimes and shows in Kings Lynn and bought the song sheets and then made it happen in Feltwell. The shows were beautifully dressed, Misses Frost from the school worked very hard and also Miss Spinks, who returned to Feltwell recently as Mrs Playford. It's marvellous the talent you find when you start something like that.

Nearly every Saturday night there was a 'hop', 6d admission, and occasionally Mr Spencer would hire a quartet from Kings Lynn to play. They travelled there and back and played all evening for 2 guineas for the four of them. There was a retired policeman called Tink who stood at the door to make sure everyone paid; he was a huge man, 21 stone, and despite it only being 6d to get in people still tried not to pay as they had so little money. After the fair on the 20th and 21st November there was always a grand dance and for the last hour all the young bloods from the fairground would come. It was lively!

I was enrolled as the first wolf cub probably because my brother was a scout. I was 8 years old. We soon made the pack up as we had large families in those days! First we would go camping in the woods around the Rectory, which was such an excitement to us. Then we went further afield as scouts to Hopton Camp. Mr Spencer would go down with the first batch of boys and then the next would follow on. He was often there for a month. We had to put our gear into a horse wagonette to get to Lakenheath, and then change trains three times before we got to Hopton. We would walk along the beach to Yarmouth to get the fish and chips and light a fire of driftwood. It seemed out of this world to us. Now people travel 1000s of miles and think nothing of it.

Part 3 March 1993

Back to Times Remembered