You entered the Terrace where these houses were situated, by going up a steep side entrance adjacent to Adye's Garage. Along the fronts of the houses was a long wide path.
There were parking spaces behind the houses but in my young days not many people had cars and this space was used as a large drying area for clothes on washdays, or for all of us children to play in.
I can remember each Thursday a big open sided lorry coming round the back of our houses, and he was known at the Pop Man and supplied us with our fizzy bottled drinks. The company that owned this lorry was called Corona, and all the bottle tops had a small golden crown on them. If you collected a certain amount of tops you were given a Golden Corona Broach or Badge in the shape of a crown.
At the far end of the houses and just set back to the side was another part of the workhouse, this had again been turned into four houses, and this separate property used to be the hospital section of the workhouse.
My mother was very friendly with one of the residents called Mrs Westmacott, and she spent a lot of time at Mrs Westmacott's.
My brother Chris and I played with Mrs Westmacott's children as well as a lot of other children from the other houses.
Overlooking the main road at the front of the Terrace was again two separate houses or bungalows, these used to be the superintendent's house when it was the workhouse. I was very friendly with a girl who lived in one of these houses and we spent many happy hours playing with our dolls etc.
At the very far end of the houses and going right down to the main road was the allotment garden area in which each tenant had a length allotted to them.
I can remember my father being very proud of the vegetables he grew on his patch, he had a double size piece of ground, although I can remember at one time he planted onion seeds and lovely multi coloured flower's called Petunia's came up instead. My mother was not best pleased about this as we couldn't eat Petunias, but we all saw the funny side of it. It was about this time there was a very popular song that we used to sing "I am a lonely little Petunia in an onion patch".
My father at this time worked next door to our houses for Adye's garage as an engine mechanic and this firm also did some taxi work for which my father was a driver.
In view of this whenever we needed a car to go out in, the owner would always let my father borrow one of the cars so we always felt we were one up on the other residents, although it was never pushed in anyone's face like it would be today.
I can remember us all going on holiday to Brixham in Devon, in one of these cars because my parents had hired a caravan for two weeks holiday.
I must have been about 10 or 11 or even a little bit older, although by not much, because it was at the time when the songs from the stage show musical 'My Fair Lady', not the film that was much later, was very popular. One of my favourites was "On the Street where you Live" sung by David Whitfield.
It was also around this time that Bill Maynard, now of Heartbeat fame, was a pop idol and very famous for his baggy sweaters and psychedelic coloured socks and other accessories. I thought I was the bee's knees in my pink psychedelic socks.
My father was an extremely good driver because in those days you didn't have synchronised gears, if you needed to get back down into first gear you had to double de-clutch.
On our trip to Devon you had to negotiate a steep hill called Telegraph Hill and you were always nervous as to whether the car would make it or not.
I believe it was for either my 12th or 13th birthday that my parents took me to Swindon to a theatre to see a ballet as I was very much into ballet at this time with my friend Claire. When we came out of the theatre the weather had turned extremely bad, into what is known as a pea-soup fog.
You couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you and we had to drive the 16 miles from Swindon to Malmesbury. I can remember my father having to lean out of the driver's open window; and it was extremely cold with this open inside the car, to be able to see where he was driving and hopefully kept to the road. A drive of 15 miles should have taken at that time around 30 to 45 minutes, but in that weather took us over 3 hours, we were all very cold and tired by the time we got home. I can't remember the ballet now but I do remember the journey home.
I can also remember being taken up to London to visit family on my father's side although I have lost touch completely since my parents death and have no idea of their names or where they live now. All I can remember is that an Uncle Bill, as he was called, worked as a porter at Paddington Railway station, and when we were at Paddington we always looked out to see if we could see Uncle Bill.
On bonfire night all the residents used to put their money into a kitty to purchase fire works for us children. For weeks and weeks before hand all of us children would collect pieces of wood and rubbish for the large bonfire that was built by the father's. After all the father's had got home from work and had their tea's it would be time to go outside and wait for the bonfire to be lit and for the fireworks to be let off.
The preceding weeks before bonfire night all of us children would see who could outdo his friends by building a guy, that we put into an old pram or pushchair, with a sign around it's neck asking for a 'Penny for the Guy'. I haven't seen children do this now for a long time.
The residents with children at Bremilham would also each May Day arrange to have a May Day parade. A Queen of the May would be chosen with 4 handmaidens and 2 pages. Of course, the boys hated to be chosen as a page and having to dress up. We would have a big party to celebrate May Day and everybody would enjoy themselves.
Unfortunately a lot of these traditions have been lost.
