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Children came from Alderley, the Commons and Kilcott to our school and the boys, who continued to come until they were fourteen, seemed like men to me when I first attended there. An essential figure on the educational scene was that of the attendance officer. A hard and unthankful post was his. It was a Mr. Barker in my days. I suppose he had the authority of the law behind him but I do not think it helped him much when he faced angry parents who had kept their children at home to go 'tatering'. I have seen the little man nearly running away from a stalwart, irate mum.
We were often visited by Mr. Rhind and M.O.H. Scarlet fever, diphtheria and whooping cough were endemic and some of our school mates were taken away to the isolation hospital then on Sodbury Common. Altogether I remember the school as a happy place and although those of us who came of Dissenting parents occasionally felt that we were receiving our education as a favour from the Church, I do not remember that we were ever made to feel uncomfortable. We joined in reciting the Apostle's Creed, welcomed the visits of the Vicar Mr. Ponsonby Williams because he sometimes told us of his Australian experiences - of black trackers, boomerangs and kangaroos. Before I went to school the village had had a happy experience in the incumbency of a Mr. Johnson. He must have been an unusually warm-hearted man for he seems to have been loved equally by Church and Chapel folk.
Both institutions played a great part in people's lives then. A great proportion of village people held allegiance either to Church or Chapel and both were well attended.
A Mr. Buller was minister at the Baptist Chapel. We disliked his long sermons. If we dared to sleep his immensely strong voice brought us quickly back to attention. In spite of this we liked him and I remember some of his children's addresses even now.
He was well-educated and very well informed about the politics of the day. This did not endear him to some of his congregation, especially some of the older ones who had been brought up in the Strict Baptist tradition. One of these was Farmer John Stinchcombe of Oxleaze Farm. He walked to chapel every Sunday morning, a red handkerchief round his neck and sometimes wearing one of the old smocked frocks. When one day Mr. Butler waxed eloquent about the reforms Mr. Lloyd George was then introducing, Farmer John banged his stick on the floor in disgust and walked out. "Why don't you bring the newspaper into the pulpit!" he shouted. Mr. Butler had previously been a minister at Radstock, then the heart of the Somerset coal fields. The poverty and injustice he had witnessed there had made an indelible impression upon him. He was very conscious of the dignity of his position as minister and having a long and successful career behind him he maintained a confidence in himself which inspired respect not only among his own people but amongst the community as a whole. Wearing a long frock-coat, his grey hair cut in what is today a fashionable manner, he made an impressive figure as he walked down to the chapel from his house at the top of the village. Poor Mr. Butler, jaunty and cheerful as he appeared to the world outside, he bore a cross at home in the shape of second wife. His first wife was very much liked and it was said that after her death he advertised in a religious periodical for another Mrs. Butler. The postmaster said that he delivered the replies in a peck basket! "What a pity," the congregation afterwards said, "that he had to choose the one he did!" She made no effort to be pleasant to anybody, had a gay taste in hats and seemed uninterested in her husband's work. Since I have been living in the Radstock area I have been able to see the church book which tells of Mr. Butler's work in organising a soup kitchen for miners who were locked out for asking for an extra shilling a week.
The children of the Chapel Sunday School considered that they scored much higher in the matter of 'treats' than did those who went to Church. While the Church children had a Christmas party, at that time only a few got prizes, and they got no summer treat! I think they may have had a visit to the pantomime but this, in our view, in no way equalled our Christmas tea, at which every child got a prize, or the summer treat - a splendid affair.
This was generally held in the Chapel field by courtesy of Mr. John Hopkins of the Portcullis. Mr. Arthur Werrett was commissioned to erect some quite elaborate swings and there were laden tables under the trees for our tea. Was there ever cake so laden with sugar, so crammed with fruit and cherries, as that provided by our Sunday School teachers?
After this came well organised sports and cricket and, of course, the swings. In the later evening many old scholars joined us and thronged around them. Screams of simulated fear came from the girls as the young men tossed them over higher and higher. In those days of long skirts and frilly petticoats the elders of the church looked askance as the boys gazed at the tantalising, whirling draperies. Soon the tossing skirts had to be subdued by tying them round with neck-ties borrowed from the disappointed males.
The greatest event in all our Chapel year, at least to the youngsters, was the annual Band of Hope outing. I have a childish recollection of outings in a 'brake' to Framilode on the Severn; I have visited Framilode in recent years and wondered why, apart from getting a view of the Severn, our Band of Hope should have made the journey there. The explanation lies in the half-obscured quay walls, the rotting lock timbers still to be seen and the great iron rings still set in the stone blocks. They all tell the story of Framilode in the early 1900's when it was a hive of activity in transferring Forest coal via the canal to the Stroud Valley.
When our party in the two-horse 'brake' (which was really a large wagonette with a canvas cover) made the long journey from Hillesley they were drawn by horses supplied by the Swan Hotel at Wotton.

A long weary journey it must have been for them!
Sharpness Docks were then a thing to go and see and I think we travelled there by train. The Pleasure Gardens were open to parties and the ships in the newly opened docks must have opened our young eyes to the great world beyond our native village.
When we travelled by rail we were generally transported to Charfield Station in some kind farmer's wagon. This was slow and bumpy but very jolly, and at the end of the journey were all the wonders of Charfield Station. There was the hustle and bustle of farmers loading Bristol's milk on the platform, the crowd of people from Wotton who got out of the 'Swan' horse-bus, the slot machines and the thrill of watching an express roar through the station. Our elders watched us carefully, my father warned me that I would be 'cut into a thousand pieces' if I fell from the platform!
The station-master was a Mr. Goscombe, ancestor, I think, of the present generation of that name. He looked to us a very imposing figure in his gold laced hat. I have always heard that he was very popular in the district. An important man too, since everybody then travelled to Bristol and Gloucester via Charfield and the goods department handled food and merchandise for a wide area. Of course he knew many of our elders quite well and because we travelled as an organised party at concessionary fares we fancied that he took a special interest in us. We were marshalled in orderly lines as the signals heralded our train. We watched other odd travellers with a sense of great superiority; those people from Wotton, they might be travelling first class, but we - we were the Hillesley Band of Hope!
Few of our numbers thought of lunching at a restaurant - it was the custom for mothers to be laden with bottles of home-made lemonade and bundles of thick sandwiches. I think few of these goodies ever reached the sea-side. As soon as the novelty of being in a train had worn off, boys and girls who had been up with the lark became ravenous and mothers were kept busy dolling out food and drink. If nothing was left for lunch-time, what matter? There would be cockles and ice-cream by the sea!
Tea was always booked for the party, this also at a cut price per head. I could never understand why the quality of the tea was so important to the grown-ups. Bristol Zoo was 'out' for years as a place to go because of the poor cup of tea they provided. A catering firm called Brown served us at Weston-super-Mare but wherever we went the success of the meal depended on tea. Cake might be stale and dry, bread and butter could be thinly spread, but if the tea was hot and strong then all else could be forgiven. We watched anxiously as our mothers poured out the first cup. If it was good then there would be all smiles, if poor, a gloom would descend over all the gathering.
Most of those outings are dimly remembered, but one, I think it was the last before the war came, I can recall quite well.
My cousin Jesse Chappell, who was then a corn merchant, had, of course, a great deal to do with railways and station masters. Because of this he always seemed to be given the job of arranging our annual outing. Someone must have told him of the beauties of the Forest of Dean, so that in 1912 or 13 we broke new ground and went to Symonds Yat. This meant going 'up' the line to Berkeley Road and changing there for the journey to Lydney across the now vanished railway bridge.
On the morning of our departure for what was then unknown country to most of us, we met at the Baptist Schoolroom for instructions, the distribution of one shilling spending money for each scholar, and a prayer by our minister. I remember that he prayed that God would give us a happy day and a safe return, and then we sang a hymn. The one chosen that year had a refrain:-

The Hill of Zion yields,
A thousand sacred sweets,
Before we reach those heavenly fields,
Or walk those golden streets.

I remember thinking, was our outing to the Forest one of the 'thousand sacred sweets'?
Those were the days when the Dean Forest was crossed in all directions by branch lines which carried coal. The nearest point to Symonds Yat was Kerne Bridge or Drybrook. I fear that our organiser had been sadly misinformed about the distance to be walked in order to reach our journey's end. Up what seemed an endless hill we climbed, easy perhaps for the young and eager but to the parents laden with coats, umbrellas and bags of food and drink it must have been a weary disillusion. Our old minister had retired and his place taken by a Mr. Bailey, a much less vigorous personality. I think he ended the journey on a hurdle carried by some of our stalwart young men. Amid all the grumbling the hymn came back to me - was this the hill which was to 'yield the thousand sweets'? At last we reached the Rock and from it we gasped at such a view of hills and winding river as most of us had never before seen. When our elders recovered their breath they began to agree that after all the view was worth the effort they had made. No protecting wall around the terrible precipice then. Mothers kept their small children well away from the edge, but they screamed warnings in vain to the older ones who sat fearlessly waving their legs over the frightening drop below.
I had one look over and drew back. For months afterwards I woke up in terror after dreaming that I was falling from the Rock. When I visit Symonds Yat today I try to remember how we got down to the river below. I suppose we went in a body after we had got our wind during our stay on the Rock.
At the river's edge we younger children were bitterly disappointed that our parents, all landlubbers and not of the generation which loves to mess about in boats, would not allow us to join the intrepid spirits who went afloat on the river. Joe Davis was always at his best when people needed to be organised. Always able to master any sport or game, in no time he had chartered boats and arranged a trip down the river to Tintern Abbey. With admiration we watched our brave young men and girls pull out into midstream and disappear round the river bend.
Only two memories remain. The sun was setting as we assembled at the river side for the homeward journey and the slanting beams seemed to light the surface of the river. In the translucent upper water level I am sure that I saw three great salmon making their way slowly up stream. 'The sun on the river, the gleaming bodies moving in it, and I a ten year old boy, it was a moment of magic!
The other memory is of the growing consternation over the non-arrival of our boating parties. As we waited, rumour and speculation were rife above our heads as our elders muttered. "Never ought to have gone!" "Didn't know nothing about boats!" "That Joe Davis is too venturesome!" Visions of capsized boats and drowned wet bodies began to fill our minds, until there was a sudden cheer as Joe's boat hove into sight. Skilfully, smoothly, the two boats came triumphantly to land and the grown-up chatter changed amazingly. "Clever chap, young Joe," they said, "got something about 'im, 'ee 'ave!"
The wagon journeys to and from the station were a delight to nearly all the travellers. The older members perhaps deplored the jolting, iron shod wheels and the uneven limestone roads, but we children watched fascinated as 'Prince', 'Colonel' or 'Darling' pulled us up the hills and, the iron 'shoe' smoking on one wheel, held their great quarters against the breeching to bring us safely down. How the bigger girls screamed when the wheels dropped into a rut and they were thrown against the manly chests of those young men who had schemed for the privilege of sitting near them! How very quiet they were as we rode home in the dusk. The wheels jolted just as much then but our girls, I expect, had a strong arm around them to hold them tight in the friendly dark.