Anecdotes from a Victorian Childhood

Think of a boring book. Thought of one? Good. Now, was it more or less boring than the 1929 reminiscences of a ninety year old man about his childhood in rural England? It was probably less boring. If so don't click away just yet, because "The Chequers Inn: Memoirs of A Nonagenarian" is more interesting than you might think...



But not because W.W. Martin, the book's author, was famous in any way. I've googled and any fame he ever had hasn't survived into the internet age. Nor because the place he lived as a boy, the village of High Halden, in the English Weald is famous either. But that's what makes the book so interesting - and such a great find.

Firstly because the book is rare. It had a very small print run in 1929 and it hasn't been republished since. It's just forty pages long and I found it three shelves deep in a local charity bookshop. Amusingly the only listing on Amazon is both "Out of stock" and under the wrong author.

This rarity, and the book's target audience, Martin's grandchildren, makes for a genuine and personal tale about a young boy in 1840s England, at the very start of Victoria's reign. Martin was forced by poverty to live in his grandparents' pub, The Chequers Inn, after a spark destroyed his fathers harvest. This story alone seems crazy to us today, but Martin goes on to paint a picture of a world more alien still.

In Particular with regard to Dyer,

"a wizard of some repute. He could cure sick cattle, foretell the future a bit, and hobnobbed with the Devil; at least, so it was said."

Martin tells how a farmer, having lost a calf, decided to visit the wizard's hut in the woods one night with fellow villagers for company. They returned claiming the wizard had shown them first a group of shadowy huntsmen and hounds in the darkness and then the man who had stolen the calf. Of course, like me, Martin would love to know what really went on.

Whilst wizards and gullible villagers are all good fun, the book does a good job describing the social make-up and institutions of rural England. "School", "Leisure Time" and "Church" are all chapters which, through amusing anecdotes, brighten up the standard content of today's histories of the period.

Martin was schooled in a single room bungalow, separated from the schoolmasters' sick wife by a curtain. The sight of her

"haggard distorted face, surrounded by a nightcap withered cheeks, toothless mouth, and sunken eyes"

are a reminder that Martin's idyllic childhood was spent at a time of extreme poverty. The only clock in the village was in the Chequers itself, and the school set its times by the passing of the "carriers van", which I assume delivered and collected goods from the village.

More good fun though is to be found in the story of a nearby village's wind-up organ. Purchased as no-one in the congregation could play the organ, it promptly broke during its first service by refusing to stop. It was carried outside and was still audible over the remainder of the service. Outside of church we are told of the Village band and of "Goal Running". This sport, also called "Stroke Bounce", resembles a kind of "tag" and finally died out due to more spectator-friendly games such as football. A video of men playing the game, with commentary, in 1951 makes for interesting viewing.

The book then is a fascinating account of rural life in Kent over 150 years ago. And all told by a man whose own grandchildren are probably still alive. It shows us an England of superstition and poverty, of boot makers, blacksmiths and potters. A England brilliantly reflected in much more historical detail by Pamela Horn's "Labouring life in the Victorian countryside", which I read alongside "The Chequers Inn". She shows us villagers without fresh water or adequate educations and whose children laboured in the fields.

Yet Martin's little book brings alive the same England through humorous stories and characters. It's a very English little book, leaving us with the rural idyll at the front of our minds. There's no poverty and all superstition is quaint. Yet without the colour it brings to the period I wouldn't have had the patience to keep reading Horn. And I wouldn't have remembered that despite their poverty - people still laughed.

Anyway, with old people and children famously on the same side, I'm not sure what more I could have expected a ninety year old man to say.