Memories of Little Stretton

This page details just one person's memories, but if you have any memories or pictures of Little Stretton, Toni Smith, who has contributed to the history pages, would be delighted to hear from you via admin@leicestershirevillages.com who will put you in touch.

Recollections of Days at Little Stretton 1940-41

By Sheila Leslie-Miller

I was born in Regent Road Hospital on 25th May 1933. I spent most of my childhood at No 5 Barrington Road, Stoneygate, Leicester. My mother was formerly one of only three women company secretaries in Leicester, working with Moore Eady and Murcott Goode Ltd., of Granby Street / Calais Hill. My father, an old Wiggestonian, worked in his fathers shoe factory of Messrs Foss and Wilson of Lancaster Street, Leicester. We were very comfortably off.

During the war my parents bought a cottage at Little Stretton which has now been demolished, but recorded to a limited degree in the photographs taken by an unknown photographer. I remember the cottage to this day, it had a damp smell. It must have been a safe haven from the threat of bombing. My grandparents lived at Bosworth House, 30 Knighton Road - the house opposite was hit by an incendiary bomb ? my grandmother's walnut framed mirror fell from the wall and I still have it, complete with dent but miraculosely the glass did not break.

Regarding the cottage in Little Stretton, we fetched drinking water from a pump near the village centre situated against a wall to the right hand side going to Great Glen. We used jugs and pails which were heavy and slopping and the water had its own particular pumpwater smell and taste.

The toilet was an earth closet.

I remember sitting on the cottage steps eating thick 'Marmite doorsteps', big thick sandwiches of white bread, and losing my wellies - sucked off in a bog across the road in a field corner. We played at Top Farm where I broke my arm sliding on ice on the farmyard. Paddy the cowman tried to teach me to milk the cows as he crouched on a wooden tripod stool. I think he lived in the 'modern' house at the top of the lane.

In the farmhouse on the right, lived the Hamer family. We knew the son, Russell who had dark curly hair. We played with the Ette boys who lived at The Manor House. We played in the farmyard and old friendly farm buildings. They had new loosebox stables in a field as you turn into Stretton from Glen and at the top of their garden. I rode on a racehorse they owned. I think it was a bay and quite young. I believe the stables are still there.

I attended Sunday School in the Village Church. I can recall a pond nearby with beautiful dragonflies. I think the path went through a field. I caught ringworm from cattle in the field, or one nearby. At Sunday school we were each given a blue stamp book to collect a stamp for each attendance. The oblong stamps were of biblical scenes. Unfortunately, we were often taken back to Leicester and so had an irregular attendance. I remember the disappointment when there were gaps in my book.

There was a small shop in the row of houses that backed towards the church. It sold small boiled fruit drops - what a treat they were! I was very friendly with a girl who lived in this row called Pauline Needham. We played horses and 'galloped' round the lanes upon imaginary rides. We were free to roam without fear of traffic or child-predators. We picked elderberry twigs to keep the flies away.

We owned a pony called Dainty. It was kept at Garfields of Great Glen. Their daughter, Jean, kept a small riding school. Dainty was the star of the stables, but a bit too much for me. The Garfields bought her back on our father's death in August 1942, and our enforced move, eventually, to No 10 De Montfort Street, Leicester.

I remember Jean's other horses - Goldie, a 17 h.h. steeplechaser, bright chestnut and really named Golden Horn and his saddle had a Western style high pommel. There was also Black Ann - a kicker, and Blackie who was my favourite ride. Rosie, a young strawberry roan was Jean's special horse, and I remember one day seeing Jean leading her home in tears. Rosie's knees were cut. She had 'gone down' in the road and had broken her knees.

I remember Jean's father, Colin Garfield, with his motorbike and sidecar, sheepdog in a kennel and his hen house in the middle of a field where my sister picked up lice! We collected the eggs from it. Mr Garfield kept some Chinese geese for my father.

On the right hand side as you enter Stretton from Glen, there was a farmhouse and cows were milked in the adjacent cowsheds. Whilst I was attempting to milk I was kicked into the manure trough. I got a real rollicking from 'nanny' on my return when she saw me covered in cow manure. My love of the countryside was born in this village.

In a recent conversation with an aunt - my father's sister, now aged 88 years, - she told me that after the war the Manor House was very run down and in a poor state. She went to it with Frank Turnbull, a friend of hers, who is a builder, (I believe he lived at The Yews, Great Glen) to look it over for a possible purchaser. She said McAlpine.

By coincidence, a cousin now lives at Top Farm Barn, Main Street, almost opposite 'The Cottage' site. I seem to remember raised ground there holding a Dutch barn which was painted black. It could be that his house is on that site.

Sheila, outside 'The Cottage', on one of Garfield's horses called Blackie