BRIGG FAMILY ON HOLIDAY JUST DAYS BEFORE WAR BREAKS OUT

Cliff Turner - member of a well-known Brigg family - continues his memories of growing up in the town in the 1930s. Cliff is now 91 and lives in New Zealand. Today he recembers grammar school masters, Scawby Gull Ponds and swimming in the River Ancholme.


At about the time I started at Brigg Grammar School I started going to the public library which was housed in the town hall and run by a retired school mistress, Miss Fieldsend. It opened for only about two hours on Friday evenings. 
Having just started physics at school I thought a book called The Nature of the Physical World, written by famed astronomer and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington, would be just up my street. When I started reading it I soon realised I was a bit out of my depth and after that stuck to Richmal Crompton's William books.
French was the province of Chips Morris; his nickname came from the name of the fish and chip shop mentioned earlier in these memoirs. I believe he came from North West England. He was a good teacher but for some reason which I cannot explain I did not have the same warm regard for him as I had for Bert Bradley and Dickie Thumwood. In my second term I did well in French, getting 98% in the exam.
One good thing I remember about him was his arranging a trip to Scawby Gull Ponds, about four miles from Brigg. Although at least ten miles from salt water the Ponds were the breeding ground of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black-headed gulls, and in the breeding season they were quite a tourist attraction. On this visit I saw, in addition to nesting gulls, a dipper, a bird about the size of a thrush that is found near water; it was the only one I ever saw. During the war, many American or Canadian soldiers were encamped in the area and the gulls left, never to return.
Another teacher I remember with gratitude was Frank Henthorn, known as Toddy, who taught me history for four years and taught English literature in School Certificate year. He would report to the headmaster any boy he saw not wearing the school cap going to or from school. He would also report to the headmaster any boy who did not turn up for "prep". 
Brigg boys had the option of going to school in the evenings to do their homework with the boarders. This was one and a half hours Monday to Friday and one hour on Saturdays. Teachers were rostered to take charge and Toddy would report any day boy who did not turn up. It happened to me once on a Saturday and the headmaster stopped me from going to school to do my homework. After a while my mother went to see him and I was allowed back. 
With the outbreak of war the headmaster stopped day boys from going to prep - possibly because it would have meant being on the blacked-out streets in the winter.
At the grammar school I played football and cricket without much talent and enjoyed swimming in the summer term in the primitive school pool which lacked a filtration system. 
When the water was a deep shade of green and had algae floating in it, the pool was emptied and refilled. I learnt to swim in this pool in 1937 and after that my mother allowed me to swim in the river. Many boys spent a good deal of time swimming at Castlethorpe Bridge during the summer holidays.
Towards the end of August 1939 we had the only family holiday we ever had apart from short stays with my Hills grandparents and, for Ken and I, a few days with our Uncle Harry and Auntie Alice at Whaplode near Spalding. 
The holiday was on the Lincolnshire coast at Mablethorpe; we rented a caravan and a tent from a Brigg cobbler called Melton. 
Mum, Dad and John slept in the caravan and Ken and I had camp beds in the tent. Mr Melton took us all in his car on a Sunday and brought us back the following Sunday, which was almost the last peace time Sunday.
I think we had not seen a newspaper for the whole week and when we got home again we realised that war was a distinct possibility.