I had the great pleasure of spending a couple of hours one November afternoon talking and laughing with Toby and Bonzo Biggerstaff, brothers born and bred in Sarratt.
My question to them. What five things do you love about living in Sarratt? Young at heart, it only took a moment for them to tell me the answer…
- “Sarratt Green, as boys it was the place where all the children played. It was covered in kids from one end to the other.”
- “Playing football in the Dell with our homemade goal posts either side.”
- “Sledging in Bakers Dell… you could really pick up some speed on a sheet of tin! Fly down and crash into the hedge.”
- “Camping in the woods. Fridays after school all the village boys would grab their tents and we would set up camp gathering kindling to make our fires. We would find eggs from the bird’s nests and cook them. About 20 of us all having fun. We didn’t go home till Sunday afternoon.”
- “Summertime swimming in the river Chess, we’d go down to the river over ‘white bridge’ turn left and just a bit along the bank the water would get deep as it was held back by the water mill. We would dive in from the bank… Well Bonzo dived, Toby belly flopped and made a big splash!
There was no sitting indoors for us, we were out roaming and free. Toby shared that he can remember from that time that 32 boys were called Bill and there were 22 called George!
Fruit trees where everywhere and we loved scrumping!”
Thank you Toby and Bonzo for your time. We could have chatted all day as there is some much to say about ‘back in the day’.
Angela Coakley