Peter Thomson shares Kevin Boardman’s talk from April’s Thetford Society meeting, talking about the change he’s seen in Norfolk over the last half a century.
For many years, life in the English countryside changed very little, but after the end of the Second World War the pace of change quickened until life as a child in the 1950s and 60s was different in many ways from today.
Our April speaker was Kevin Boardman, who described through both stories and illustrations just how life was for a country boy growing up in rural Norfolk. His father was a farm worker, and he was brought up in a home with few of the conveniences (including an indoor loo) we would expect today. It was hard work for both mother and father, without the labour-saving devices we now might take for granted.
However, as Kevin’s father became a farm manager, the family became more affluent and were able to afford more luxuries as life generally improved. The acquisition of a television and later a car opened the window to a wider world of goods and entertainment.
When Kevin started at his village school he was in a reception class of four, and there were never more than 22 pupils in the entire school. When he later won a scholarship to a grammar school, he was overwhelmed by being in a class of thirty!
Becoming a teacher of history and geography, Kevin found that he had a colourful way of teaching. His pupils learned by experiencing how people lived and worked in different times and places. He certainly transported his audience back through the ups and downs of a country boy’s life in Norfolk during the 1950s and 60s.
It was a very entertaining evening, and Kevin will donate his speaker’s fee to Prostate Cancer Research.
Our May meeting will be on Tuesday 6th May at 7.30pm when our speaker will be Chris Garrod, whose subject is Great Hockham. Remember that we now meet in the Small Court in the Guildhall.
Peter Thomson
