Age Concern Dorchester - Dorset's Living Memories

Hazy summer days and Sunday school winning ways

Jo Musk writes...

My friends and I used to go to Wood Farm in Charmouth.  It’s a holiday camp now.  I learnt to milk a cow there.  We roamed the fields, we were free, nobody worried. 

 We spent a lot of time at Wood Farm.  They had a donkey there that didn’t like being ridden.  My brother made me bet my pocked money as to which of us could stay on longest.  He always won.  There was a cart and we were allowed to harness the donkey to the cart and ride around the fields.  We always had a keg of scrumpy in the cart and me and my friends would drink it all.  It was made on the farm.  When you’re brought up on it you don’t notice it.

I was a good swimmer, probably because my brother threw me in to the river on the beach when I was four.  Otherwise I was no good at sport.  I was always reading books and I was not keen on parties.  I’d hide in a corner and read.

I used to sing in the choir at the church in Charmouth.  The organ had to be pumped by hand and I used to do it.  I got 6d if I did it for a wedding.  I won a cup for the best attender at Sunday School.  I won it for three years in succession.  The Sunday School was in Lower Sea Lane.  It was run by the Whittingtons who were said to be descended from Dick Whittington.  They also ran the tennis courts.  They lived in the big house on the corner of Bars Lane.  It was said there was a ghost there and later a body was found under the floorboards.  The four Whittington sisters ran a little private school next to the big house.  They were guide leaders and Sunday School teachers too.