1979 - 1983
Cherry Willingham
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| January 1979 - 4, St. Peter's Avenue |
As I have said, we moved into our new house in the snow, as shown in the photograph heading this chapter.
Over the next four years, we worked hard to sort out the garden and various parts of the house. When we moved in there was a coal fire in the lounge and a free standing Gas Boiler in the kitchen. We had the boiler removed and replaced by one sited in the old coal shed. The coal fire, in fact the whole fireplace, I took out one day without telling Maria that I was going to do it. It was replaced by an Electric Fire set on a home built plinth of paving stones.
There was one first for us in this house and that was a telephone. Actually, I believe that it was compulsory for me to have a phone so that I could be contacted in case of emergencies at work. It is difficult to believe that prior to 1979 all of our communications were carried out by letter or public telephone box. I thought that I would show how Maria celebrated having a phone!! |
| 1979 - Back Garden |
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| 1981 - Nick TURNER |
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| 1983 - Maria TURNER |
As can be seen, we fenced in the garden to give ourselves some degree of privacy. We also laid a small patio area. Around the corner behind Nick was a shed and small vegetable patch. Privacy was completed for the back by planting a hedge of the iniquitous Leylandii, about which I knew nothing at the time.
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| 1983 - 4, St. Peter's Avenue |
The photograph of the front of the house in 1983 gives an idea of what we did to the front garden, although it cannot be easily compared with the photo heading the chapter because of the snow.
School for the children was relatively easy with both Primary and Secondary Schools in the village. Annette had a little trouble at Secondary School when a group of girls fell out with her because she wouldn’t smoke. All I can say is well done Annette for refusing to bow to peer pressure. She was also a fairly good runner but didn’t used to train; this annoyed one particular girl who did a lot of training but couldn’t beat Annette in the cross country runs. She did go on to represent the school but I am not sure that she enjoyed that sort of competition. Nick started at Primary School but after a year he also went up to the Senior School. I don’t remember either boy having trouble with bullies. Andrew got in with a group of boys who formed a band at the school. We went to one parents’ evening to find out that Andrew had been skipping German lessons to go and practice with the band. I was more upset with the school than him because they hadn’t told me for the whole term that he was doing it. Just as an aside, the last time (so far) that this Band performed was at a class reunion in 2013!
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March 1981
Centre Front - Andrew TURNER
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All the children at one time or another got themselves paper rounds to earn some pocket money. They worked very hard for that money and never shirked the responsibility. The photograph shows the ‘Crofts’ 5-a-side football team. Andrew finally got the sack after becoming the spokesman for the group and asking for a pay rise.
Maria meanwhile felt the need to go out to work and found a job with Tanya Knitwear in Fiskerton. She was supposed to start at 08.00 but very soon negotiated an 09.00 start, which made it easier to organise the children for school. She thoroughly enjoyed her job and made some good friends there, two of whom we are still in touch with, albeit via Facebook in one case and Christmas Card the other.
One of those who she got to know was an 18 year old lad called Paul FISHER. We had got into the habit of having evenings out at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln, mostly to see comedies. One time we got tickets to see ‘Oh Calcutta’ and took Paul with us. Perhaps this was not the greatest idea seeing as the show contains a lot of swearing and very few clothes. Paul sat between us and I am not sure who was more embarrassed!
One day Andrew was reported to us by a neighbour because he came home from school and climbed a drainpipe and gained access to the house through a bedroom window. This sounds remarkably like my efforts in Leeds and later in Thornton when I used to climb into the house via the bathroom window. I could hardly complain could I?
The sport I played through most of this period was mostly Golf. I played for Scampton Station team and also joined Southcliffe and Canwick Golf Club in Lincoln where I played with our neighbour Ray HEWITT. I was persuaded to play hockey and even earned my Strike Command Colours in 1979, however I was now 38 and struggling to keep competitive and subsequently quit altogether before I left Scampton.
One little story about golf occurs to me. Southcliffe & Canwick had a friendly competition one day involving a member and non-golf playing guest. The idea was for the non-golfer to do all the putting. I asked Andrew to play and he readily agreed. I quickly figured out that if I played short of the green with my approach shot, I would be in a good position to either chip or putt the ball much closer to the hole making it much easier for Andrew to putt out. This idea seemed to work and we did quite well and Andrew remembers us winning; after he sunk one very long putt, he was also thought by our opponents to be a bit of a ‘ringer’.
It may be remembered that in Chapter 19 I mentioned about the treatment Annette was having for her teeth. By now, not only were we back in England but Sqn. Ldr. HOWELL had been posted back to the hospital at RAF Halton. Because of this we continued to go and see him a couple of times a year. One wintry day we set off from home whilst it was still dark and drove across as far as Waddington Village where we had to brake quite hard at the traffic lights. We set off and about a mile further on I saw Motor Cycle lights on my side of the road and a car coming in the opposite direction. As I thought that we would all reach the same place at the same time I decided to slow down and put my foot on the brake. Absolutely nothing happened. I then tried to steer slightly and, once again, nothing happened. We watched in horror as we caught up with the Motor Cycle and hit his back wheel with my nearside wing. This had the effect of tipping the Bike backwards with the rider still holding on to the handlebars. He then let go and bounced off my wing and landed in deep grass at the side of the road. When everything finally came to a halt, I got out and found out the reason why nothing was working. Black Ice. As luck would have it a police car came along in the opposite direction and stopped and asked if everyone was OK. I asked him to check the Motor Cyclist who said that although shaken, he wasn’t hurt. The Bike wasn’t rideable so we dragged it off the road and left it there. We took the chap to his work near Grantham and then carried on to Halton. There were quite a few accidents along that bit of road with a couple of cars upside down in fields. We drove very carefully for some way! It was after this event that I decided that driving 135 miles for these appointments was not necessary, especially considering that Annette’s treatment was really at an end. We were referred to a consultant in Lincoln but he didn’t have the same interest.
In 1981 I was posted to RAF Honington in Suffolk, which necessitated buying a second car. We bought, or were given, Pop’s old Vauxhall Viva with which I used to commute weekly to Honington. On one occasion it arrived home on the back of an RAC truck after breaking down; it required a repair to the cylinder head so I found one in a Lincoln scrapyard and fitted it to keep me going. My brother found me a Renault 12 in Bradford and I used that until about 1984, by which time we were living in Cornwall. My brother, Michael, loaned Maria his Fiat 132 whilst he took our Cortina away and resprayed it.
In 1983, I was getting fed up with commuting so Maria and I made the decision that I should leave the RAF and find a job that would give us some security and keep us in Lincoln so that the children could finish their schooling without being disturbed. Almost as soon as I made that decision, I was told that I had been promoted to Flight Sergeant and posted to RAF St. Mawgan in Cornwall. After some heart searching, we decided, after consultation with the children, that we should pack up our lovely home and try a couple of years at the seaside to see what life would bring. I should point out that, at that time, promotion to Flight Sergeant was a major step forward and a large pay rise.
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Andrew TURNER & Kim BARTLEY
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In September 1983, I moved to St. Mawgan where I lived in the Sergeant’s Mess whilst making arrangements to sell 4, St. Peter’s Avenue and acquire a Married Quarter. We finally completed selling the house just before Christmas for £28,000 and so our time in Lincolnshire came to an end, although not quite. Whilst the two younger children moved with us, Andrew, who was sixteen and had a girlfriend, Kim BARTLEY, wanted to stay in Lincoln and finish his sixth form studies. After some discussion with him and Kim’s parents, they agreed to look after him and we paid them for his keep for the foreseeable future.
Our Renault did sterling service for the three months that Maria and I lived apart covering the 300 miles in each direction with no real problems apart from the front brake sticking on one day. Because of my shift pattern at St. Mawgan, Maria never quite knew when I was due home and one day I got away early and drove to Cherry Willingham where I stopped at the telephone box and rang her to say that I was just leaving Cornwall. I then drove round the corner to surprise her!! I probably got told off for doing that to her.
Cornwall here we come!
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