By Liz Stewart-Liberty
My husband and I went to watch Aunt Mary and Uncle Budgie play croquet at Rushmere between Church and sherry. The same four played every Sunday.
Coming home I said: “They moved the ball – that’s cheating!”. My husband replied: “I know, they all do it. No-one minds”. My reply: “That’s not cricket – it’s certainly not croquet”. He said: “Doesn’t matter: it’s how they play – they’ve been doing it for years”.
The Cummins lived at Pipers for years and when war was declared the beautiful garden was dug up and vegetables planted. The tennis court was sacrificed for potatoes. Uncle Budgie removed the hard surface, sprayed the earth beneath and invited every child in the village for a mud party. Unforgettable forbidden muddy heaven followed. There may be people alive today who remember the event. I think it was a brilliant concept to celebrate a necessary evil with such a ‘naughty’ idea.
Uncle Budgie, nicknamed ‘the fanatic in the attic’, gave Pipers’s big loft space over to a magnificent Hornby train layout. He was short so it was OK for him and the children. He bought a new car but could only see out through the spokes of the steering wheel. Aunt Mary watched his fifteenth go at reversing the car out of the garage and observed: “He’ll soon have the garage opening wide enough – he’s definitely getting the hang of it…!”
There was a private nine-hole golf course in The-Lee park until the war. You can still see where the greens and tees were. Uncle Budgie invented a new putter. He’d have a shilling bet on sinking his ball – hence the name of the club, THE BOB–SNATCHER, as he mostly won the bet and pocketed the shilling. When a huge beech tree fell this spring a perfect golf ball was found within the mature trunk: the tree had grown round it.
The Cummins entertained brilliantly – perfect English food: roast lamb, pork, beef, game and lovely pies followed, say, by apple fritters, floating island pud or trifle. Their vegetable and fruit garden was a masterpiece but they were secretive over the sea kale; a great delicacy scarcely seen today, grown under old chimney pots. Tailor was their gardener – a tyro with a temper full of lore. Spuds planted under a full moon, peas sown on a Thursday, sweet peas into trenches of wet newspaper and soot and so on. I once asked him how he dealt with moles. His response: “Wait ’till dark, disguise yourself as a mole and go and spit on ‘em’”.
We all played tennis relentlessly, starting on Boxing Day unless the weather was bad in which case we picnicked. The Pipers Tournament instigated by Barry Pree of Hunts Green raged throughout the summer, culminating in a one-day match played on six courts with the final played at Pipers followed by a gargantuan lunch and much drinking. The betting book, kept at the Cock and Rabbit, caused endless arguments and happy rows. The prizes were a hubcap, pair of Victorian shoe-trees, an old man/game trap and a very vulgar wooden statuette from Liberty’s – I’ve still got it.
Oh happy days!