Before Christmas, most children went carol singing as a means of making money to buy presents for the family.   My mum used to come with us but stood back while we were singing.   One year we called at the Putticks, who lived in part of the Wattle House on the Green.   The Wakehams lived in the other part.   It was a very cold and frosty night and we were asked in and given a cup of tea.   I never remember another cup of tea warming me like that one did.

When the by-pass first opened, the buses stopped coming through the village for a while so one had to catch the bus at the School Hill roundabout.  Local people made a fuss about this and so the buses came back through the village again as they still do today.

Findon Sheep Fair has been part of village life for well over one hundred years.   It used to be held on 14th September.   Now it is held on the nearest Saturday to that date.   When I was a child there was also a lamb fair which I think was in July.   Mr. Short's shepherd was Mr. Long.   He had a beard that covered most of his face so he looked rather like a sheep himself.   Den and I always referred to him as Mr. Baa Lamb.  

A one time owner of the Manor Hotel was Colonel MacCloud he lived across the road in North House.   He could be seen each morning walking across the road to the hotel for his breakfast, wearing pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers.   He would be smoking a cigarette in a long holder, his Scottie dog was not obedient so he would shout —

"Dougal, come here.   Damn the dog".

About the age of eight I earned my first pennies, taking a neatly wrapped newspaper and string tied parcel to Miss Millen.   This contained her clean washing that had been laundered by my Grandmother.  After I had been taken across the road I could go to the village on my own.  Miss Millen lived in the cottage next to Wintons Grocers shop, it was once the village post office.   Leavesden was the cottage next door and that was owned by Blackwells the butchers next door to it.  

When Miss Millen died Wintons had the cottage demolished and had a new larger shop built on the site.   

My next venture in making money was while on holiday during the war while I was staying with the Gurd family at Round Robin at Wiston.   Soldiers were billeted in the big house and we would open the big white gate in to the park for them to pass through in their lorries.   They would throw us pennies, they did not know we shut the gate for that sole purpose.

At 13 Old Council cottages lived Mrs Randel and her son who was known as Shem Wiltshire.   I wonder if these eldest sons with different name to the mothers were born before they married.   As Mrs Clements son Nelson had the surname Armstrong, it may have been that the mothers had been widowed it was never spoken about to children in my era. 

Shem had also lost a limb he shot his own arm while climbing a fence with a loaded gun.   He rarely wore his artificial arm, he managed very well with the short stump.  When lighting a cigarette he would place the box of matches under the stump which held it while he struck the match.    It was really clever what he could do with just one arm. 

Shem kept ferrets to catch rabbits.   One day one of his ferrets got out and was killing his neighbours pet rabbit, she put her foot on it to make it let go of the rabbit.   Only the ferret never let go until it was dead, she then had to get rid of the body.  So after dark it was taken up to her grandparents Mr and Mrs Tullys at The Oval for burial.   Shem searched long and hard for his ferret but found no trace.   No one ever let on where Shems lost ferret had gone.

Mr Blackwell was well known for not always being in the best of moods with his customers.   He was a good butcher so he kept his customers in spite of that.   Before the war he did his own slaughtering in the yard at the back of the shop.   Lads used to stand outside his shop in The Square and to scatter them he would throw a cows or sheep eye among them I think that was his idea of a joke.