After the First
World War a five-a-side football competition became a regular Easter Monday
attraction. Originally it was only for sons of discharged soldiers and sailors,
but as the years went by it was opened to all boys aged eight to fifteen from
Boveney and Eton Wick. A silver trophy was and still is presented to the
winning side. May Day was also known as Garland Day and doubly celebrated by
the girls of the village. The day before they collected bunches of wild flowers
and put them in water to keep fresh overnight. They were then used to decorate
their hoops and to fill posy baskets. If possible, each girl dressed in white
and before school, carrying their hoops and baskets, they would tour the village, knocking on doors and singing:
'
First
of May is Garland Day
Give
me a penny and I'll run away
I
won't come back no more today'
At school there
was dancing round the maypole set up on the playground and the choosing of the
May Queen. She and her attendants were dressed in all their finery with veil,
long dresses and daisy chains. Each year the queen received a silver
heart-shaped brooch as keepsake.
In summer both church
and chapel had their Sunday School treats to Burnham Beeches
- it seemed so
far away to the children, and indeed the journey took quite a while, for it was
made in coal carts scrubbed clean for the occasion. Trestle tables, a tea urn
and plenty of food were carried in one of the carts; school forms were screwed
to the floor of the cart to make seats. The older children preferred to
walk beside the carts exploring the
countryside as they went. It was a grand day, with opportunity to play in the
woods, organize races, a scrumptious tea and singing all the way home. There
were hay teas and cherry parties, Whitsun teas at the chapel and concerts most
years at the school. Autumn often
brought the pleasure of a shopping trip into Windsor when the Provident Club
paid out through one of the clothing shops.
November
brought Guy Fawkes and carol singing round the village at Christmas completed
the year's enjoyment. The village was
much smaller - everyone seemed to take part - lanterns made from swedes or
simply candles in jam-jars helped make the evening more memorable. Christmas
presents may have been simpler and fewer, but the excitements and pleasures of
Christmas were not.
Many of the
people living in the Wick were poor because of low wages, spells of
unemployment large families. Yet
memories of this period are not full of bitterness and dire poverty, as are
those of some parts of the country. The reasons are probably to be found in the
abundance of allotments and the close links with Eton College. Almost every
family had at least one member working at the College, and many a bowl of
dripping or bag of left-over food found its way to the village. There were
gifts too of unwanted treasures from the boys, some of these would be stored
away to help fill out Christmas stockings; and where else was the boys' cricket
team so well dressed, albeit with cast-off caps and bats and cut down trousers?
Memories of the connections between the
village and Eton abound, but others tell of the pride of the village in itself,
and neighbourliness. Families helped each other and at times of illness or
confinement it was taken for granted that one neighbour would do the washing,
and others the cleaning, cooking and minding the children. It was not at all unusual for a neighbour to sit up all night
at times of crisis and it is still remembered how Scotty Hood was willing to
take a half hundredweight of coal to a family on a Sunday so that they would
not be without a fire. Such memories as these do not make Eton Wick a special
village though its laundries, lammassing and proximity to Eton College gave it
some distinctive characteristics.
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