“There goes the bucket”. Time to leave home for the Sunday morning service at 11 o’clock or the Sunday evening service at 6 pm!

Living 3 doors down from St Peters, it didn’t take long to get to church, & I have many memories of the church, not least being the one tone clang of the church bell that mum used to call “the bucket”. I think we were a bit jealous that we didn’t match the tuneful peals of campanology that St Mary’s enjoyed!

Sunday School was held in the church hall & I remember both Harry & Albert Dickens leading the singing of ‘Build on the Rock’ & ‘I will make you Fishers of Men’ accompanied with enthusiastic actions by the motley group of children. For part of the session, we would split into smaller groups to hear the Bible stories, often brought to life by models in a sand tray or cardboard figures on a flannel board that the Sunday School teacher moved, to illustrate the unfolding story. (When I became a Sunday School teacher there in the early 60‘s these teaching aids were still in use.)

Back row: Australia - Michael Neville; Spain - ?; Turkey/Egypt - Stuart Cutmore. Middle row: Narrator - Joy Hughes; Wales - ?; USA -? ; Sailor - Geoffrey? Neville; Scotland - Gwynneth Flawn; Africa - Margaret Bugby; Pacific Islands - Pat Hughes; Europe - Janet Cutmore. Front Row: India? - Phillip Valentine; England - Andrea Cutmore; ? - Lyndsay Hughes; Welcome Home - Susanne Cox; - ?; Ireland - Susan Flawn; China - Priscilla White; Carribean - ?

Special events through the year included Mothering Sunday, when Sunday School children & their Mums went to an afternoon service in the church. Bunches of violets were distributed to the children at the front of the church & we’d then walk up the aisle to present them to our Mums with the words “I love you“.

At Harvest Festival, the church was perfumed by chrysanthemums, dahlias and fruit & vegetables that filled the church. Children proudly carried their own decorated baskets of produce on a brief walk round the streets and into the service where the gifts were taken up to the altar to be distributed later to the sick & elderly or hospitals.

Sunday School Christmas parties were held in the Church Hall, & I especially remember one year, that was a fancy dress party when I won a box of paints for a prize - the first thing I’d ever won! Another ‘first’ for me was the date sandwiches that we had at the party. In my memories of Christmas, the nativity display always seemed inconspicuously tucked away in a side aisle at the rear of church & services always seem more dimly lit than others, but this may have been because it was just winter darkness.

Back row: Mrs Hughes (2nd from Left) Rev E T Hughes (in front of the tree). Lady 6th from left was Brownies Tawny Owl. 3rd row: Michael Neville, Maureen Hancock, Marion Norman, Gwyneth Flawn, Stella Bazeley, Diane Frost, Pat Hughes 2nd row: Celia Lovell, Margaret Bugby, Janice Lawman, Joy Hughes, Julia Inchley, Eileen Hornby, Barbara Bridges, Andrea Cutmore, Joy Valentine, Priscilla White, Angela Wills, Jennifer Wills Front row: John Curtis, Susanna Cox, Graham Cutmore, Geoff? Neville, Inchley twins, John Graves.

I can’t remember if Sunday School outings were an annual event, but I do remember an excursion to Wicksteed Park one year - such a big event for me as it was the first time I’d ‘been away’ without my parents. I spent a long time browsing in the souvenir shop, & finally bought a “Souvenir of Wicksteed” - Salt & Pepper shakers. My memory tells me they were a ghastly blue plastic set with a bit of silver painted decoration. Mum dutifully put on them on display for a while, much too nice to use!! But eventually they magically disappeared.

Margaret (left) & Celia Lovell

I was an Elf and I always felt the names of the other ‘sixes’ (Fairies, Pixies and Imps) seemed more ‘sprightly’ than mine. But under the leadership of Brown Owl, Margaret Shelton,Tawny Owl & Pack Leader Madge Flawn, we had fun learning the flags that made up the Union Jack, tying knots, sending messages with semaphore flags, and of course plenty of team games. Aiming to get another badge on your uniform ensured we also learned all sorts of useful things, like how to wrap a parcel & how to polish your shoes (including the instep!!! Who does that now?). I also remember successfully cooking egg & bacon for my Cooks Badge & laying & lighting a fire for my Firelighters badge at Brown Owl’s house. We didn’t have a phone at our place in the 50s, & I was really nervous having to use the public phone box just below the post office in College Street one evening to ring Margaret & get whatever badge that qualified me for.

The ‘Flying Up’ ceremony to the Guides was a very important event that involved circling around a giant mushroom - Not as hallucinogenic as it sounds!

My memories of guides, where I was a Primrose, are not as clear as those of the Brownies but I do remember a guide leader, from I think Higham Ferrers pack, assessing a story I had written for my Writers Badge, and deducting a mark because I had used the word ‘bus’ instead of omnibus! Oh the shame & embarrassment! But I still got my badge.

The weekly Tuesday meetings often ended with a camp fire where favourite songs included Ging Gang Gooly Gooly Gooly Gooly Washa, Ging Gang Goo, Ging Gang Goo! & Kookaburra Sits in an old Gum Tree. (Little did I realize then, that many years later, I would have kookaburras laughing from the trees in my garden in Australia.)

Another favourite song was about ‘Red Indians Down Among the Dead Men’ complete with actions. St Peters Guides had a few minor variations on the BBC words (reproduced at bbc.co.uk ) below.

“An old song, which used to be popular at Brownie and Cub meetings. More recently, this has fallen out of favour owing to concerns over its potentially politically incorrect lyrics - we've kept the song here as a historical record of a once-popular song. (bbc.co.uk)

Until I was about 10, I remember being very scared going through the churchyard on dark winter nights. The part between the church & church hall was especially dark but once round the corner, where steps led down to the heating system under the church, the street lamp at the Midland Road end was very welcome. Many nights were spent playing with friends in the street under this light but once past it, the holly & laurel bushes that grew in front of the church presented another looming terror that I would run past as fast as I could ‘til I reached home.

This lamp, right outside the front door of the church & just about in the centre of Midland Road was a favourite meeting place for children playing in the street. Skipping ropes were tied round it so only one person had to “twirl” and if there was a Saturday wedding we would wait for the bridal parties & photos to end so we could pick up all the confetti that had been thrown & save it for our own dress-up weddings.

As I grew up, I joined Pathfinders, and St Peters Church teenage group, where I played the piano to accompany the singing of hymns from a copy of ‘Golden Bells’. Every Sunday afternoon, at the end of Kenneth Horne’s Sunday lunchtime radio program “Round the Horn” I would walk through the church yard and up Station Road past a vacant plot (was it the old school playground?) to the old Moor Rd Infants school where we met.

Rev Muir was the vicar at this time & Joan Botterrill was the leader. I think Phillip Maddox also ran some of these afternoon sessions. When I left in April 1959, I was presented with my own copy of the music hymn book ‘Golden Bells’.

I think Albert Knight (see Rushden Heritage Group’s photo of St Mary’s Football Club 1948-49) was also connected with Pathfinders & with the youth group that used to meet at the vicarage after the Sunday evening church service. Twins Richard & Mick Spaull were regular members of the youth group, and organised the annual Easter Monday hikes into the countryside. They must have had special weather contacts, as I can only remember lovely sunny days for these.

At the time my father died, the group had a weekend at Grendon Hall organised, and as I could not stay overnight Rev Muir kindly drove me there for one day. My confirmation was also postponed and he & our previous vicar, Rev Hughes, arranged for it to take place a few weeks later, at Rev Hughes new parish of St Giles, Northampton.

We always received the church magazine at home. This small slim ‘volume’ of just a few pages had news of church members & special events, and the sidesmen’s roster along with ads for local businesses. I’m not sure if it was free, but I think we might have paid about 3d for it - another small contribution to the church along with the pennies we put in the brass collection plate in the 1950s.