Resume

In the first part of this article, Aspects of Cottingham: Part 1: The village and those that made it my stepfather described memories of his boyhood environment and took us on a tour of some local landmarks, most of which have now disappeared. He then went on to describe the natural world that he loved and enjoyed so much. In this second section, he covers some darker aspects of his personal history but always his wit and humour shine through - JB

Militaria and war

WORLD WAR II

Cottingham had a close call one night during the war. A German bomber dropped a string of bombs, eight in all, through Cottingham to Rockingham Park. The first one landed near the barn in Wood Lane just missing a pylon carrying power to the steel works and the last one landed about twenty yards from the park railings. Although they were not big bombs they gave the village a good shaking. Apart from craters (which had to be filled in) no other damage was done. Had the plane been flying a bit lower down the valley by a few hundred yards the bombs would have landed in the middle of the village.

The worst shaking the village had was when a Flying Fortress crashed between Stoke Albany and Ashley. It was fully loaded with bombs and the explosion was terrific rattling windows and doors in the villages for miles around. We never found out the cause of the crash. Little was said about military plane crashes in the papers in case information reached the enemy. All the crew of the Fortress were killed - it seems they never had time to bail out.

A daylight sneak raider must have come into the country unobserved. He dropped bombs at Welham, and then flew across the Welland Valley as he made his way to the east coast. At Drayton on the road to Medbourne he attempted to machine-gun an old farm worker with a horse and cart, but he missed fortunately and the poor old man was just shaken up with fright. There was an AA gun situated at Harringworth near the viaduct and although the plane was well within range they never opened fire. Perhaps they were under orders not too because further on the plane was brought down by our fighters near the Wash. He could have made a mess at the viaduct with a bomb or two, but perhaps had none left. The news that the plane had been shot down was very hush, hush but it eventually filtered out through the Home Guard.

HOME GUARDS

There were many funny stories told about the Home Guards but not all of them true. One was about the Ashley Home Guard. It happened that they had been given instructions that in the case of an emergency they would be given the order "Action Stations." They would then report to the HQ, get armed and man their different posts. One dark wet night there was an exercise on and the order was tried out to see how quickly they could get to their posts. The order was sent round the village, but not one Home Guard turned up. They all disappeared. The black-out was on, but when it got light in the morning the Officer Commanding found them all at Ashley Station about a mile from the village. The OC asked them what they were doing there (not politely). They replied that they thought he had said "Ashley Station".

Another story is about a Sargeant who thought his squad were such bad shots he would give them a bit of practice. At the time a fair was visiting the village with a rifle range (this was early on in the war). It was an old-fashioned range with five celluloid balls floating on fountains and a man, at the side of the stall, working the pump to keep the fountains going. The sargeant arrived with his squad and after a lot of rounds no-one had hit a ball. Then all the balls went down together. The sargeant thought this was good and that the men were improving. Then he took a closer look and found that they had accidently shot the man working the pump.

Somewhere near the old school house (no longer in use) there was buried by the Home Guard cases of Molatov Cocktails. The school then was the HQ of the Home Guard, and had the Germans invaded the cocktails would have been dug up and used to throw against the tanks. That is assuming the Germans managed to get this far inland.

The bombs are still buried there as far as I know. I was in the Home Guard but we were only told that these cocktails were buried somewhere near the school. Only a few Officers and NCOs knew the exact spot and they have since died. The cocktails were in glass bottles and when broken the contents would burst into flame once exposed to the air. If some unsuspecting person digs them up in the future and happens to break one, he stands a good chance of being roasted.

Another anti tank bomb fired from the old school playgound in practice should have exploded intact, but it didn't and landed somewhere near Bringhurst Road. Despite a search in the long grass and bushes it was never found.

On manoeuvres the regular army had to capture Corby steelworks and we, with Corby Home Guard, had to try to prevent or delay them. Cottingham was supposed to be in the way of the attacker's advance. I was in charge of a scout patrol sent out to give warning if they attached from Carlton Park side. We were well hidden just over the wall at the Harborough turn on Middleton Hill watching the road and keeping an eye on the park. We hadn't been there long when we saw an army motor cyclist coming from the direction of Harborough. He pulled up just opposite where we were hidden and began to look at his map. We promptly bombarded him with paper bags full of cement dust (pretend hand grenades) which burst all over him and his beautifully clean bike. He wasn't a dispatch rider, as we thought, but an army umpire and an officer at that, but we noticed the red band round his arm (denoting who he was) too late. You should have heard what he called the Home Guard, but we just kept hidden.

Shortly after armed cars came down the road from Harborough and we spotted the infantry coming across the park advancing from tree to tree. We broke cover and made a dash across the road to an old stone quarry and from there to the Dale. Despite the Umpire incident our CO was complimented later on the way our defences had been set out. They did point out, however, that some of the HGs were firing at them from the wrong side of the trees. It must have been our Corby colleagues.

ZEPPELINS AND BOMBS

I can remember a lot of talk about the Zeppelins coming over in the first world war and the bombs that they dropped. One was supposed to have dropped in Rockingham Park which didn't explode and I think this one is still kept in Rockingham Castle. One that did go off dropped in a pond in a field not far from Rockingham on the Gretton side. The farmer who farmed the field was quite pleased about this as it had cleaned his pond out for him saving him a lot of hard work. I did have apiece of shrapnel from this bomb obtained for me by one of the older boys. I was going to Rockingham school at that time.

In the 1960's I had a strange find. We were living at 12 Ripley Road and at the back of the house was a wooden garden shed. This shed had to be moved because the council wanted to build a brick coal shed on that spot. We moved the shed and the next day I was tidying up with a spade when I struck a metal object. Curious as to what it was I dug it out. It was a small bomb with fins, I think from the first world war. I asked the daughter to go down and tell the policeman about it. He was in the front garden of the police house when she approached him, and I don't think he believed her, because he told her to bring it down to him. She did as she was told, and he began peeling the rusty casing away as he confirmed it was definitely a bomb. He thought better of what he was doing and decided he shouldn't tamper with it just in case it could still explode but said he would take it and dispose of it. We didn't hear any more about it. When the first world war was on Ripley Road was open fields so it might have been dropped by a Zeppelin.

(Cyril found the bomb in 1957 - I was 12 at the time - and I think it more likely it was an incendiary from the 2nd world war. - JB)

Miscellany for a dark night?

NO NAMES - NO PACKDRILL

We were sitting in the Spread Eagle bar one night in the old thatched pub that was knocked down for the new one to be built in its place. The window looked out on to the pavement outside and old Freddy Dainty, the village painter and decorator, was standing at the window looking out when an elderly man walked past. This man had made a lot of money one way or another and didn't mean parting with any of it - he was quarrelsome and disliked by everybody. They would say he'd skin a louse for a halfpenny. Anyway old Freddy turned round to the company and said "There goes the man they can't bury". One or two got up to have a look and someone said "What do you mean 'can't bury'?". "Well", Freddy said, "he ain't dead yet."

BAD WINTERS

Whenever we get a deep fall of snow and the Cottingham/Corby Road up to the Market Harborough turn gets blocked with drifts, you can hear people say it is the worst they have ever seen. I can remember a blizzard lasting about 24 hours in April 1916. This storm completely filled up the sunken part of the road from hedge to hedge in places. Branches were broken off trees with the weight of the snow and along the Kettering/Oakham Road dozens of telegraph poles were brought down and some lay across the road. During the early part of the blizzard a Corby baker had delivered bread at Cottingham and was making his way home to Corby in his pony and trap. He had got nearly to the roundabout (at that time, it was a crossroads) and realised he could get no further. It was getting dark, but he could just see a faint glow of light at Forest Lodge. He took the pony out of the trap and struggled with it over the hedge that had nearly vanished, across the field, over another hedge and finally arrived at the window where he tapped loudly to attract the attention of my parents. They went outside and found the man and his pony both exhausted; my father put the pony in the stable and gave it a good feed and the baker dried out near the fire. He told of the struggle he'd had to get to the lodge and at times had lost sight of the light, but when this happened the pony took over as if it knew where to go for safety. He managed to get home to Corby the next day but there were many ironstone workers digging their way through the drifts. The snow went as quickly as it had come. Once the blizzard had blown itself out the sun came out and caused a quick thaw. The Kettering/Oakham road was a picture after the snow had gone - poles were leaning at all angles and wires were all over the place. It must have been some time around Easter when the baker compensated us with a free bag of hot cross buns.

Continued in column 2...

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MURDERS

There have been two murders in Cottingham that I've heard of. One was committed in a house just above the corner shop at the Cross and happened in the 1800s. A man (I don't know his name) called a little boy to run an errand. The boy was playing outside the man's house. He gave him a penny and asked him to fetch a pennyworth of sweets from the shop in Church Street. When the lad returned with the sweets the man cut the boy's throat with a razor. There was a trial for murder and the man was found guilty but insane. (The full story can be found elsewhere in the RED pages at "Death for threeha'p'orth of suckers" - Ed.)

The other murder was of a man named Medlicote who was shot by a revolver and killed in the Bury House during a quarrel. If anyone stood trial for murder I don't know - old newspapers could tell the story. I guess it was sometime in the mid 1800s. Medlicote's ghost is supposed to have haunted the place ever since. It is said that bloodstains where he fell on the wooden floor were impossible to remove. People who have worked there have repeatedly told of seeing Medlicote's ghost and of hearing strange noises from time to time. Tales of footsteps being heard in the house; doors opening and closing without apparent reason were told to me.

GHOSTS

The wife's brother, Eric, used to tell of how he had seen the ghost of a man crossing the Corby road near the Nook and vanishing into a cottage (now demolished) near the Barrack Yard entrance (also demolished). When he got home he told his father about this and described the man he had seen. His father said it would be the ghost of "old one-eyed Oliver and he wouldn't do him any harm. Several times later he saw the same ghost. Others who had seen it said that it vanished into a cottage. An old lady lived in this cottage and they said you could hear the old lady screaming after the ghost had entered the house. If it was a harmless ghost, it couldn't have done the old girl much good.

Bill Cooper used to tell of how he was returning home from the Woolpack one night and walking alongside the Bury House wall towards Cottingham when something in white walked alongside him for about twenty paces, hurried on and then turned right and went right through the stone wall. Bill said he had never been so frightened in his life and swore his hair stood on end.

Two rather unusual ghosts are supposed to haunt the Cottingham to Rockingham Road. The Sheep with the saucer eyes is what they called one of these; a sheep with eyes as big as saucers that lit up. It used to appear at night on the steep hill near the old brickyard. Also along this stretch of road is the Friendly Dog ghost that runs up to people with a friendly greeting but vanishes as soon as a hand is put out to pat it.

There is a cottage in The Nook that was haunted by a poltergeist so it was said by people who have lived there. Mrs Wilkinson who lived there in the 30's and 40's (1930 & 1940) told of how things were put down in one place at night and found in a different place the next morning; of how doors flew open, pictures fell off the walls, crocks crashed, footsteps on the stairs, knocks on doors and taps on the window. It was said that at times the house shook. I was also told of a man who had lived and died in The Nook. He had just been laid out on the bed and his widow was sitting in a chair at their bedside when suddenly the springs in the unoccupied part of the bed went down as if someone had sat or laid down beside the dead man. People who have lived there more recently have said they have never heard or seen anything unusual during the time they lived there.

One Cottingham man told me about a horse he owned which saw something in the Road that frightened it. It stopped dead, nearly throwing its passengers from the cart and refused to go any further. Eventually it was led on for a short distance and was all right. Every time thereafter that the horse reached this particular spot it refused to go any further and the driver would have to get out of the cart and lead it for a short distance. Although the driver could see nothing to alarm the animal he wondered if the horse could see something he couldn't.

CURES

Les Jackson was telling us one day about an old uncle who was "cured" by a gypsy remedy. When his uncle was a young boy he became very ill with pneumonia and the doctor's medicine didn't appear to be doing him any good. His mother thought he would die. Some gypsies were doing their rounds of the village selling pegs. They called on the boy's mother and seeing that she was upset asked her what the matter was. She told them how ill her boy was and they told her to follow their directions and her son would recover. She was told to get some sheep's lights and tie them to each of his feet and when they began to smell the fever would leave him. She did as directed and it worked, just as they said it would. The Uncle swore that was the only thing that saved his life. My mother-in-law used to tell how she had been cured of whooping cough as a child by eating fried mice. Another gypsy cure.

When I was a lad and living at Jackdaw Lodge I suffered badly with chilblains in the winter. Some relations from Canada staying with us once when I had a bout of chilblains said if I ran barefoot in the snow they would be cured. (The snow had to be soft and the chilblains unbroken).

Later the snow came and when it was about 3" deep I was "persuaded" (much against my will - I was almost shoved out in the snow by my parents) to try this cure.

The cold snow was a shock to my warm feet, but I did run about in it. Didn't my feet glow when I got back in the house. Next morning my chilblains had gone and it was quite a long time before they came back. I tried this several times later on and it always worked.

I remember our Canadian relations saying that people in Canada would have lost their noses with frostbite if they hadn't picked up a handful of snow and vigorously rubbed their nose with it.

COUSIN FRED

Olive's cousin, Fred Jackson, was a great man with the gun and kept his larder well supplied with rabbits and game. One of his sons told us how he was out with the dog and gun one day, during the 2nd World War, when meat was very scarce. Just opposite the East Carlton Park gates there was a small spinney where he sent the dog. A pheasant flew up into the air and he fired and brought the bird down - straight into the back of a lorry bound for Birmingham. He ran out into the road and waved his arms about and shouted to attract the driver’s attention but the driver didn't stop. You couldn't blame him.

An old lady once complained to Fred that her fire wouldn't draw very well and she thought her chimney needed sweeping. He offered to help and fired his 12 bore up the chimney. This did clear all the soot but it shattered her chimney pot, so he replaced it. A week or so later a pigeon settled on the new pot when Fred happened to be passing with his gun ... and the lady needed another new chimney pot.

Fred was a butcher by trade who killed pigs for people and at one time had a butcher's shop on Rockingham Road, a couple of doors up from The Crown Inn. - JB

Tailpiece

Ron (his brother-in-law) composed a rhyme to go with the book as follows:

Reference

1. A World War I Zeppelin: Wikipedia

Added September 19th 2011

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